Gary wiped his brow with the back of his hand.
That was the way Caroline and the Engineer had figured it out. He hoped it worked. And yet it seemed impossible that a tiny ship, two tiny guns manned by the puny members of the human race, could utterly annihilate a universe, a massive space-time matrix.
Yet he had seen the beam of a tiny flashlight, crystallizing the energy of the eternal dimension, blast out of existence, in the twinkling of an eye, a mighty fleet of warships, protected by heavy screens, armored against vicious bombs, impregnable to anything—to anything except the flashlight in the hand of a wisp of a girl.
Remembering this, it was easier to believe that the disintegrators, crystallizing a much vaster field of energy, might accomplish the destruction of a universe. But it wasn’t the guns themselves that would do it, but the direction of all the energy into the other universe, energy riding on a million or more mile front of the fanning guns.
“The field is building up,” Caroline said. “Be ready.”
Gary grinned at her. “We’ll fire when we see the whites of their eyes,” he said.
He racked his brain for the origin of that sentence. Something out of history. Something out of the dim old legends of the past. A folk tale of some mighty battle of the ancient past.
He shrugged his shoulders. The story probably, wasn’t true, anyhow. Just another story to be told of a black night in the chimney corner when the wind howled around the eaves and rain dripped on the roof.
His eyes went to the port again, stared out into the misty blue, the blue that seemed to throb with vibrant life.
They had to wait. Wait until the energy had built up to a point where it would be effective. But not too long. For if they waited too long, it might pour into their own universe and wipe it out.
“Get ready,” thundered Kingsley and Gary’s hand went out to the switch that would loosen the blast of the disintegrator. His fingers gripped the switch tightly, tensed, ready for action.
“Give it to ’em!” Kingsley roared, and Gary snapped the switch.
With both hands he swung the swivel butt, back and forth, back and forth. Beside him, he knew, Herb was doing the same.
Outside the port blossomed a maelstrom of fiery light, a blinding, vicious flare of fire that seemed to leap and writhe and then became a solid sheet of flame. A solid sheet of flame that drove on and on, leaping outward, bringing doom to a worn-out universe.
It was over in just a few seconds—a few seconds when an inferno of energy was turned loose to rage between two universes.
Then the misty blue filled the port again and the ship was bucking, tossed about like a chip in heavy seas, twisted and dashed about by the broken lines of force that still heaved and quivered under the backlash of the titanic forces which a moment before had filled the inter-space.
Perspiration poured down Tommy’s face as he fought to bring the ship under control, but with little results.
GARY SWIVELED around in his chair, saw that Caroline and the Engineer were bent over the detector dial, watching it intently.
Kingsley, looking over the Engineer’s shoulder, was muttering: “No sign.
No sign of energy.”
That meant, then, that the other universe was already contracting, rushing backward to a new beginning—no longer a menace.
Gary patted the swivel butt of the gun. This and. man’s ingenuity had turned the trick. Mere man had destroyed one universe, but saved another. It seemed too utterly fantastic to be true.
He looked around the control room. Tommy at the controls, Herb at the other gun, the other three watching the energy detector. Everything was familiar, even to the multitude of dials and gauges on the control board. Nothing was any different than it was before. All commonplace and ordinary.
And yet, for the first time, tiny beings spawned within the universe had taken firm hold of the universe’s destiny. Henceforward Man and his little compatriots throughout the vast gulfs of space would no longer be mere pawns in the grim game of cosmic forces. Henceforward life would rule these forces, bend them to its will, put them to work, change them, shift them about.
Life was an accident. There was little doubt of that. Something that wasn’t exactly planned. Something that had crept in, like a malignant disease in the ordered mechanism of the universe. The universe was hostile to life. The depths of space were too cold for life, most of the condensed matter too hot for life; space was traversed by radiations inimical to life. But life was triumphant. In the end the universe would not destroy it—it would rule the universe.
His mind went back, back to the day Herb had sighted that tiny flash of reflected sunlight in the telescopic screen within Pluto’s orbit. Back to the finding of the girl in the space shell. And before him seemed to unreel the chain of events that had led up to this moment. If Caroline Martin had not been condemned to space, if she had not known the secret of suspended animation, if that suspended animation had not failed to suspend thought, if Herb had not seen the flash that betrayed the presence of the shell, if he, himself, had been unable to revive the girl, if Kingsley had not been curious about why cosmic rays should form a definite pattern—
And in that chain of happenings he seemed to see the hand of something greater than just happenstance. What was it the old man back on the old Earth had said? Something about a great dreamer creating stages and peopling them with actors.
Perhaps this was just the beginning. There were other universes, perhaps an endless chain of universal systems, with superuniverses inclosed in even greater superuniverses. And in time to come Man would invade and conquer these other universes even as now he was reaching out to reach and conquer new suns and stars.
“No energy indications,” said the Engineer. “I think we have definitely ended the menace. The other universe must have contracted out beyond the danger point. We are saved. I am so very, very happy.”
He turned around and faced them all. “And so very grateful, too,” he said.
“Forget it,” said Herb. “It was our neck as well as yours.”
XV.
HERB polished methodically at the last chicken bone and sighed. “That’s the best meal I ever ate,” he said.
They sat at the table in the apartment the Engineers had arranged for them. It had escaped the general destruction of the Hellhound attack, although the tower above it had been shattered by atomic bombs.
Gary filled his wineglass again and leaned back in his chair.
“I guess our job is done here,” he said. “Maybe we’ll be going home in just a little while.”
“Home?” asked Caroline. “You mean the Earth?”
Gary nodded.
“I had almost forgotten the Earth,” she said. “It has been so long since I have seen the Earth. I suppose it has changed a great deal since I saw it last.”
“Perhaps it has,” Gary told her, “although there are some things that never change. The smell of fresh plowed earth and the scent of hayfields at harvest time and the beauty of trees against the skyline at evening.”
“Just a poet at heart,” said Herb. “Just a blasted poet.”
“Maybe there will be things I won’t recognize,” said Caroline. “Things that will be so different.”
“I’ll show you the Earth,” said Gary. “I’ll set you straight on everything.”
“What bothers me,” rumbled Kingsley, “are those people from the other, universe. It’s just like letting undesirable elements in our immigration schedules on Earth. You can’t tell what sort of people they are. They might be life forms that would be inimical to us.”
“Or,” suggested Caroline, “they might be possessors of great scientific secrets and culture. They might add much to the universe.”
“There isn’t much danger from them,” said Gary. “The Engineers are handling them. They’re keeping them cooped up in the hypersphere they used to cross inter-space until suitable places for their settlement can be found. The Engineers will keep an eye on them
.”
Metallic feet grated on the floor and Engineer 1824 came across the room toward the table.
He stopped before the table and folded his arms across his chest.
“Everything is all right?” he asked. “The food is good and you are comfortable?”
“I’ll say we are,” said Herb.
“We are so glad,” said the Engineer. “We have tried so hard to make it easy for you. We are so grateful that you came. Without you we never would have saved the universe. We never would have gone to the old Earth to find the secret of the energy, because we are not driven by restless imagination—an imagination that will not let one rest until all has been explained.”
“We did what little we could,” rumbled Kingsley. “All of the credit goes to Caroline. She was the one who worked out the mathematics for the creation of the hypersphere. She is the one and the only one of us who would have been able to understand the equations relating to the energy and the interspace.”
“You are right,” said the Engineer, “and we thank Caroline especially. But the rest of you had your part to do and did it. It has made us very proud.”
“Proud,” thought Gary. “Why should he be proud?”
The Engineer caught his thoughts.
“You ask why we should be proud,” he said, “and I shall tell you. We have watched and studied you closely since you came, debating whether you should be told what there is to tell. Under different circumstances we would allow you to depart without a word, but we have decided that you should know.”
“Know what?” thundered Kingsley.
“Be patient,” said the Engineer. “In time you will see.”
A LITTLE silence fell and they waited.
“You are aware of how your Solar System came into being?” he asked.
“Sure,” said Kingsley. “There was a dynamic encounter between two stars. Our Sun and an invader. About three billion years ago.”
“That is right,” said the Engineer, “and the invader was the Sun of my people, a sun upon whose planets they had built a great civilization. My people knew that the collision was to take place. Our astronomers had known it for years; our physicists and other scientists had worked unceasingly in a futile effort to either avert the collision or to save what could be salvaged of our civilization. But century after century passed, with the two stars swinging closer and closer together. There seemed no chance to save anything. We knew that the planets would be destroyed when the first giant tide from your Sun lashed out into space, that the resultant explosion would instantly destroy all life, that more than likely some of the planets, would erupt and be totally destroyed.
“Our astronomer told us that our Sun would pass within two million miles of your Sun, that it would grip and drag far out in space some of the molten mass which your Sun would eject. In such a case we could see but little hope for the continuance of our civilization.”
His thoughts broke off, but no one said a word. All eyes were staring at the impassive metal face of the Engineer, waiting for him to continue.
“Finally, knowing that all their efforts were hopeless, my people constructed vast space ships. Space ships designed for living, for spending many years in space. And long before the collision occurred these ships were launched, carrying select groups of civilization. Representative groups. Men of different sciences, with many of the records of our civilization.”
“The Ark,” said Caroline, breathlessly. “The old story of the Ark.”
“I do not understand,” said the Engineer.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Caroline. “Please go on.”
“From far out in space, my people watched the eruption when the two stars swept past each other,” said the Engineer. “Saw the cataclysmic eruptions which occurred. It was as if the very heavens had exploded. Great tongues of gas and molten matter speared out into space for millions of miles. They saw their own sun drag a great mass of this stellar material for billions of miles out into space, strewing fragments of it en route. They saw the gradual formation of the matter around your sun and then, in time, they lost sight of it, for they were moving far out into space and the eruptive masses were settling down into a quieter state.
“For generation after generation my people hunted for a new home. Men died and were given burial in space. Children were born and grew old in turn and died. For generation after generation the great ships voyaged from star to star, seeking a planetary system on which they might settle and make their homes. One of the ships ran too close to a giant sun, was gripped by its attraction and drawn to destruction. Another was split wide open when it collided with a dark star, hurtling through space at a dizzy pace. But the rest braved the dangers and uncertainties of space, hunting, always hunting for a home.”
Another pause and still there were no questions. The Engineer went on:
“But no planetary systems could be found. Only one star in every ten thousand stars has a planetary system, and they might have hunted for thousands of years without finding one.
“Finally, tired out with searching, they decided to return to your Sun. For while there was as yet no planetary system there, they knew that in ages to come there would be.”
THE COLD WIND from space was flicking Gary in the face again. Could this tale the Engineer was telling be the truth? Was this why the Engineers had been trying to signal Pluto?
The Engineer’s thoughts were coming again.
“After many years they reached your Sun, and as they approached it they saw that planets were beginning to form around the centers of relatively dense matter that in truth a planetary system was in the process of formation. But there was something else. Swinging in a great, erratic orbit on the very edge of this nebulalike mass of raw planetary matter was a planet, a planet which they recognized. One of the planets of their old home star, fourth out from the Sun. It had been stolen from their Sun, now was swinging in an orbit of its own.
“They had found a home at last. They descended to its surface to find that its atmosphere had been stripped from it, that all remaining life had been destroyed, that all signs of civilization had been utterly wiped out.
“But they settled there and tried to rebuild, in part at least, the civilization that was their heritage. But it was a heartrending task. For years and centuries they watched the slow formation of your Solar System, saw the planets take on shape and slowly cool, waiting for the day when they could occupy them. But it was so slow, so very, very slow. The work of building their civilization anew, the lack of atmosphere, the utter cold of space, were sapping the strength of my people. They saw the day when they would perish, when the last one would die. But they planned for the future. They planned so carefully.
“They created us and gave us great ships and sent us out to find them new homes, hoping against hope that we would be able to find them a better home before it was too late. Far out in space our ships separated, each traveling its own way, bent on a survey of the entire universe if necessary.”
“They created you?” asked Gary. “What do you mean? Aren’t you direct descendants of that other race, the race of the invading star?”
“No,” said the Engineer. “We are robots. But so skillfully made, so well endowed with a semblance of life that we cannot be distinguished from authentic life forms. I sometimes think that in all these years we may have become life in all reality. I have thought about it so much, have hoped so much that we might become something more than just machines.”
The stem of the wineglass snapped in Gary’s fingers and the chicken bone which Herb had been idly nibbling clattered on the plate.
“Robots!” yelled Kingsley.
And then the room was silent.
They all looked at the Engineer. Vaguely Gary wondered why he had not guessed the truth before. The form, the very actions of the Engineers were mechanistic. Once the Engineer had told them that they were bound by mechanistic precepts, that they possessed very little imagination.
But they had see
med so much like people, almost like human beings, that he had never thought of them other than as actual life, but cast in metallic rather than protoplasmic form.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Kingsley.
“Boy,” said Herb, “you’re topnotch robots, if I do say so.”
Gary snarled at him across the table.
“Pipe down,” he warned.
“MAYBE you aren’t robots any more,” Caroline was saying. “Maybe through all these years you have become real entities. Your creators must have given you electrochemical brains, and that, after all, is what the human brain amounts to. In time those brains would become real, almost as efficient, probably even more efficient than a protoplasmic brain. And brain power, the ability to think and reason, seems to be all that counts when everything is balanced up.”
“Thank you,” said the Engineer. “Thank you very much. You are so kind, so very, very kind. That is what I have tried to tell myself.”
“Look here,” said Gary. “It really doesn’t matter, does it? I mean, whether you are robots or independent entities. You serve the same purpose, you follow the same dictates, you create the same destiny as things that move and act through the very gift of life. In many ways, to my mind, a robot existence might be preferable to human existence.”
“You are so kind to say so,” said the Engineer, “and it makes me feel so happy. Perhaps it really doesn’t matter. I told you once that we were a proud people, that we had inherited a great trust, that we had carried out that trust. Pride might have kept us from telling you what we were, but now I am glad I have, for the rest will he easier to understand.”
“The rest,” said Tommy, in surprise. “Is there more?”
“Much more,” said the Engineer.
“Wait a second,” rumbled Kingsley. “Do you mean that all you Engineers were created by a race that flourished three billion years ago, that you have lived through that span of time?”
The Complete Serials Page 14