by Earl
Alora Crodell gave her services as willingly as the others. Her air of skepticism, though still with her, had worn thin. She ventured no open opinion. Her eyes watched the operations with a dark wonder.
And a greater eye seemed to watch them, from outside—the brooding, menacing eye of the Beyond! It held mockery, contempt, for the futile little busybodies in the spaceship who hoped, in knowing the worst, to warn their fellow-beings. And if they succeeded, what then? How could the unsentient Beyond be cheated of its prey?
Angus Macluff’s ready morbidity found new inspiration. “The wheels of eternity,” he said sweepingly, “grind everything to extinction!”
THREE days later, the white-haired scientist addressed them all. His eyes glowed with triumph. But in their depths they were bleak. It was a bitter victory.
“My theory is proven!” he announced. “The cosmic-rays have fallen off to half their normal concentration. Secondly, the interferometer shows that two light-years out. at the true Edge of Space, the temperature is at the final Absolute Zero. In normal space-time, filled with the free energy of entropy, the temperature is three degrees above Absolute Zero.”
He counted off the third finger of one hand. “The photon-record shows that light here is being reflected back toward the universe, from the Edge of Space. Finally, the spectroscope shows unequivocally that the velocity of our sun, and its planets, is 18,000 miles a second—toward this ultimate rim of space-time!”
His voice became solemn.
“In less than a half century—annihilation! And before that, perhaps within a decade, the beginnings of chaos on Earth’s surface, as it passes deeper and deeper into thinning space-time!”
Rolan Fostar and Angus Macluff glanced at each other quietly. To them, it was simply corroboration for something they had believed in before.
But Alora Crodell’s sharp gasp was a sign of the shock she felt. Three days she had doubted, stubbornly and hopefully. Now the bare statement of fact was an overwhelming blow.
“Are you sure?” she demanded, in not much above a whisper. “Absolutely sure?” Then she answered herself. “But of course, you must be. You have four definite proofs.” Her amber eyes were wide as she added brokenly, “My father is wrong! We have all been wrong—all the world; ignoring the truth before our eyes, because we didn’t want to believe it. Doom!”
Suddenly she underwent a change. Fury sparkled from her eyes. “But now that we know, what good is it?” she raged at the scientist “If we go back to tell Earth, it will only make the end more miserable. We can’t escape our fate, just by knowing it! We—oh!”
She crumpled into Fostar’s arms, weeping hysterically. He comforted her, and when she had taken command of herself again, he spoke softly.
“We’re going to find a new home for the human race, somewhere! Other stars must have planets. We can migrate to one of them. The trans-space drive will make that possible. Earth can’t be saved, but the race might. And that’s all that counts!”
Dr. Bronzun, already back to his instruments, nodded. “Mass migration to another sun with planets is the only answer. My last set of measurements deal with certain of the stars and star groups within our own galaxy. We’ll gradually file away a series of spectrographic records of their relative motions toward the Edge of Space. Any not threatened by the same doom as Sol will be worth investigation, for planets.”
“When we get back to Earth,” said Fostar incisively, “we must convince them of the truth and start making plans for exploration and I migration!”
Alora was staring at him, eyes shining with hope. “We’ll convince father! He’ll tell it to all the world!”
“Marten Crodell?” Fostar’s lip unconsciously pursed. “I doubt that he’ll be any too easy to convince—particularly because of his great land-holdings on the planets. All that would be wiped away, in the coming emergency. It’s justice though—”
“Is it!” blazed the girl instantly. “You still think my father is a grasping, selfish soul—oh, I hate you, Rolan Fostar!”
She tore herself out of his arms.
The trigger of Fostar’s temper clicked simultaneously, as it always seemed to do with this inexplicable girl. “Yes, Marten Crodell is all I’ve said he is!” he snapped.
And the quarrel was on, with Dr. Bronzun and Angus Macluff staring at each other helplessly. But a moment later the engineer’s gruff voice rose above theirs. “I thought I would have the pleasure of being your best man, at a wedding back on Earth, lad. But I’m doubtful now. She doesn’t love you, lad!”
“What?” It was a startled gasp from the girl.
“And you don’t love her!” pursued the engineer.
“What!” This time from Fostar. A moment later the two were in each other’s arms, glaring at Angus Macluff.
He turned away with a pious eyed. “Well, perhaps I was wrong! However”—his tones went down a pitch—“I doubt we will ever see Earth again, anyway. We are living on borrowed time!”
But the gnarled engineer’s doleful prediction seemed again one to pass along with all his unfulfilled others. The trip back held no apparent hazard and the miraculous trans-space drive hurtled them back toward the universe, day by day.
There was a succession of queer phenomena, similar to those of the outward trip as they plowed through areas of ragged space-time. But nothing serious, it seemed . . .
Not even the one during which, for five minutes, an eerie fire burned inside the ship. It had been heartstopping, when it struck. Everything had suddenly begun to flame—the metal walls, the instruments, the food they were eating at the time, and even their skins. They ran frantically for the water supply, to put it out, till Dr. Bronzun quietly announced it wasn’t an actual fire.
They noticed then that they felt no heat, no burning or pain. It was like a St. Elmo’s Fire, electrical in nature, quite harmless. Little fluorescent flames danced about, and before it was over, they were enjoying it as a magnificent spectacle.
The scientist’s conjecture was that a temporary abeyance in the laws of electricity allowed all surface electrons to indulge in their electromagnetic dance without energy. Electrical pressure—voltage—was infinitesimal, and the quantity—amperage—was only enough to give them a slight tingling sensation.
The phenomenon passed, as all the others had, and their unwavering course led them closer and closer to Earth.
ROLAN FOSTAR and Alora Crodell, adhering to a mutual promise not to quarrel, found time to extract some of the sweetness of growing intimacy.
But across their new-found happiness lay a shadow—the shadow of the Beyond—of doom. They were in themselves the final symbol of what the doom meant to the human race. In saving mankind, they would be saving only themselves—and their future.
Alora sighed, a little bitterly, during one of their serious moods, as they stood arm in arm, looking out at the universe of stars. “Why was fate so cruel to us, and all others of our time?” she complained, “to place this terrible problem before us? Why couldn’t we have been born at some earlier time?”
“Or—on some other Earth!” murmured Fostar, nodding.
“You mean some other world away from the Edge of Space?” the girl asked, puzzled by his meaning.
“No, I mean some other Earth, itself!” Fostar went on, half dreamily. “Have you ever heard the late Wilzen’s amazing theory? It’s an extension of Flammarion’s idea, that in all eternity, any combination of atoms and events that once existed can, and must have existed before—many times!”
The girl drew in her breath, at the tremendous scope of the idea.
“It’s a metaphysical concept, but quite logical,” continued Fostar. “Eternity is a long time! By the law of chance alone, repetition must happen, even down to the last detail. Our universe, you know, is like a machine running down. Eventually all matter will be radiation, and the universe dies its heat-death. That’s entropy, and though it takes trillions of years, it’s inevitable. Then, another universe forms, from the sca
ttered energy. Nebulae are born—stars and galaxies. Planets cool. That universe dies. On and on it goes—forever!”
The girl clutched at him, reeling mentally.
He went on. “Then, after trillions of universes, repetition occurs because it has to. Therefore, there has been another Earth and sun and planets, just as we know them! Down to the last atom and event! But this other Earth and sun may well have existed in a galaxy away from the Edge of Space. The people of that other world wouldn’t know of this doom we face. Our histones, even, may have been essentially alike! In eternity, anything can repeat. But of course, from about this point on, history must diverge, in our Earth and any other similar Earth in time.”
Alora had caught up with him. “You mean then, that there may even have been such a world with all our past wars and movements and events?—neolithic life, the Roman Empire, the Dark Ages, the Science Age, Interplanetary Travel? And individuals—Caesar, Columbus, Napoleon, Einstein—”
She broke off, gasping—“Even a you and me?”
“Why not?” mused Fostar, whimsically smiling. “Haven’t I met you before, somewhere in the land of eternity?”
“Your face is familiar!” laughed Alora.
“Seriously, though,” Fostar went on, “part of the Wilzen-Flammarion theory is that the queer sensation we have at times, of having been some place, or done something before, may be an ephemeral sort of pre-memory of another life, in another universe! But, somewhere, the destinies of that other Earth and this universe of ours fork sharply. For they didn’t have this doom facing them that we have!”
“Happy other Earth!” sighed Alora.
Fostar looked at her, smiling strangely. “No, I take it all back. The theory is exploded, at one stroke. Because, dear one, nature could not, even in an eternity of eternities, have made two beings as wonderful as you!”
“Oh, Rolan—”
Angus Macluff looked up from the grease-spot he was cleaning from his sleeve. “What in the world are you two raving about?” he grumbled. “Happy other Earth! What nonsense is that? There’s only one, and lucky we’ll be if any of its inhabitants live to talk of it when it’s gone!”
CHAPTER VI
A HOSTILE WELCOME
TWENTY-EIGHT days after the ship had soared away, its hull once again gleamed in the bright, direct rays of the sun. Earth grew out of the void like a blue blossom. It was lovely beyond comparison, to the returning voyagers.
“How beautiful and wonderful it is!” murmured Alora. Then she shuddered. “But how horrible to think that in a few years it will be—destroyed!” Her elfin face became tense. “I hope we can convince my father quickly, so that through him the world will be warned without delay!”
“You hope?” echoed Fostar, in surprise, that she should have any doubts.
The girl flushed a little. “Marten Crodell is a strange man,” she admitted for the first time. “Sometimes I haven’t been able to understand him myself—” She broke off and finished more firmly. “But in the face of Dr. Bronzun’s evidence, he must believe.”
Rolan Fostar applied himself to the landing maneuvers. He dropped the ship through Earth’s atmosphere almost precipitately, feverishly eager to shout their news to the world. Finally the ship roared at even keel over sunny countryside, shot toward the city that Fostar had missed only by a few miles, and landed at the outskirts, before Dr. Bronzun’s laboratory-home.
They climbed out thankfully and drew in great lungfulls of sweet air, tinged with that unnameable essence that no other planet duplicated. They had been breathing subnormally oxygenated air aboard the ship, because of failing supplies, for several days.
“Well, Angus, you old second-guesser!” cried Fostar joyfully, clapping him on the back. “We’re back in spite of your numerous prophecies to the contrary!”
The engineer looked sour. “But I smell trouble ahead, gentlemen,” he grumbled. “I—and here it is, I think!”
He pointed to the wide lawn beyond the hedges. A large aerocar lay there, emblazoned with the blue and red stripes of the air police, and several uniformed officers approached.
Fostar stared at them wonderingly.
“Captain of the Air Police,” the foremost officer introduced himself. “Let me see your departure and landing papers.”
“We haven’t any,” Fostar returned, annoyed at such a detail. “You see, we didn’t land on any other planet and therefore we didn’t think it necessary to procure the papers. We’ve been on a test cruise and—
“Nevertheless, you should have the papers,” interrupted the officer coldly. “We’ve been waiting for your return. You’re under arrest!”
“Have you a warrant?” snapped Fostar.
The officer drew one from his pocket. “Here it is—duly sworn out by Marten Crodell!”
“Marten Crodell!” gasped Fostar, looking at Alora. She stared back at him helplessly.
“He will be here in a few moments,” continued the officer. “We have notified him of your arrival.”
A FEW minutes later a gold-tinted aerocar settled down from the skies and from it stepped Marten Crodell. His tall, awkward figure, clothed in black, ambled toward them. His austere face showed lines of anger and worry both. But his eyes lit up with relief as his daughter ran into his arms.
“Thank heaven you’re safe!” he muttered. Then he drew a mask over his features and singled out Fostar for a malevolent glare.
“Rolan Fostar, you and your Dr. Bronzun are not only fanatics preaching a false doom, but you’ve withheld a new invention!” the landowner said frostily. “I’ve been waiting for your return. Finding my daughter gone, a month ago, I came to this place and had it broken into. I found the plans for your new trans-space drive!”
“How did you dare—” choked Fostar.
The landowner went on imperturbedly. “As you know, all new inventions relating to space travel must be turned over to the government immediately—a long-standing law of over three hundred years, instituted against the danger of piracy and private conquest. That is your first crime of omission. Where you went with your new drive, driven by your diseased minds, I don’t know. But I presume”—his voice became heavily sarcastic—“it had some far-fetched connection with your theory of doom. But I didn’t think you would go to such lengths as to kidnap my daughter!”
His voice hissed. “I will indict you for that crime, which is punishable by exile to an asteroid prison!”
“No, father, you can’t!” Alora cried wildly. “I wasn’t kidnaped. I stowed away, of my own free will! What’s more, I love Rolan Fostar!” She stepped to the latter’s side, grasping his aim.
Marten Crodell stared aghast, then shook his head sadly. “What have they done to you, Alora? Alone with three obsessed fools for a month in a space-ship—no wonder your head is turned!”
“Father, you must listen!” the girl interrupted firmly. “I stowed away because I thought you were driving them to a hopeless act. But they’re right—about the doom!”
Crodell was still shaking his head. “And I suppose I’m to warn the world!” he said scornfully. “In other words, Alora, they’ve made you as fanatical as they are!”
Stony-faced, he turned to the white-haired scientist. “I had the Serenity Observatory, on the moon, make a complete check. They report definitely that Earth has a relative velocity toward the heart of the universe. And that’s all that matters, because all motion in space-time is relative. Thus your doom-theory is meaningless!”
For the first time that Fostar could remember, a deep and terrible anger burned in Dr. Bronzun’s patient, kindly face.
“Fools!” he cried, his voice quivering. “They fail to see the truth! Everything in space-time is relative except—the Edge of Space. That is a finite boundary to our universe. All measurements, if based from that reference, become absolute. And the Edge of Space is—appallingly near!”
“Fanatical words!” retorted Marten Crodell dryly. “Without proof!”
“I have proof!”<
br />
The words rang sharply from Dr. Bronzun, and Fostar and Angus Macluff looked at each other significantly. The dramatic revelation was due that would around the world. Alora Crodell looked at her father half pityingly, at the shock that would soon be his.
Dr. Bronzun opened the leather case he had brought with him from the ship, and drew out his spectrum charts and photographs.
Marten Crodell looked his skepticism.
The scientist held out the proofs, his eyes shining.
But suddenly he drew them back, and his eyes became bewildered. He shuffled the prints, looking at them closely. They were all streaked smears, blotched beyond recognition. Some were completely blank!
“What’s the matter?” exclaimed Fostar, supporting Dr. Bronzun with one arm as he seemed about to collapse.
“Ruined!” gasped the scientist, in agonized tones. “Every one—obliterated! But how? Good God—how? When I filed them away, they were in perfect condition!” He started. “The mysterious fire we passed through!” he answered himself, in hollow tones. “That electrical phenomenon. It permeated everything in the ship, including this case, and ruined these plates, delicate as they are. God—”
Marten Crodell was smiling cynically. “Just as I thought!” he said mockingly. “Hallucination from beginning to end.” He waved an arm to the police officer at his side. “Arrest these men!”
FOSTAR’S thoughts writhed “Listen to reason, Marten Crodell!” he pleaded. “The doom lies out there, for you or anybody to see. Every minute counts. A new planet or system of planets must be found. Earth people must migrate to them. Cities must be built, civilization founded, on new worlds. It is a gigantic task, and the time is so short. In a few years Earth will meet thinning spacetime and chaos! And—”
But the landowner turned a deaf ear and waved the police on. Fostar envisioned days and months of court trials, bickerings, and all the claptrap of petty law agencies—and finally, perhaps, isolated imprisonment on a lonely asteroid, for years—