The Space Warp

by John Russell Fearn

  “But surely, man, it must be? The entire Solar System has swum into this fault, hasn’t it?”

  “Uh-huh—but don’t get the situation wrong, Gordon.” Douglas turned to look at him directly. “Space hasn’t disappeared, remember: it has only become altered and agitated by reason of a fault, just as a sheet of water doesn’t disappear when a wind passes over it. It merely becomes agitated, but it is still there.”

  “From which you infer what?”

  “Damned if I know, really, but as long as space exists, be it agitated or normal, I’m hoping it might be possible to get some results. In fact I’m hoping it more so because Earth’s own radio waves are completely blanked for the time being, which ought to make the way clear.”

  “Then isn’t night a better time with solar static absent?”

  “Makes no difference. Solar static is there all the time. Night only happens on a revolving planet. In space the sun is shining all the time, and releasing his electronic disturbances. That isn’t any bar at all.”

  “There’s one thing I do know,” Gordon said, getting to his feet and moving restlessly. “It’s infernally hot in here. I can hardly breathe!” He crossed to the thermometer and looked at it; then he started. “Hundred and twenty-five!” he gasped. “Who the heck ever heard of a temperature like that in Britain?”

  “Spatial agitation,” Douglas said ambiguously, his lean fingers playing with the controls of the radio equipment. “And I hope they don’t cut off the power or we’re sunk.”

  In this respect he had no need of worry. Government orders throughout the world had commanded that power of the electrical variety should stay on since it did not constitute naked flame; and in any case vital needs had to be fulfilled. Most utilities were still working in the insufferable heat, and hospitals too were compelled to maintain power supply. Indeed, by and large, humanity at the moment was only suffering one inconvenience and that was the preposterous mercury climb.

  “Wonder what it’s like outside?” Gordon Briggs hazarded, and moved to the door of the Nissen hut.

  “I shouldn’t if I were you!” Douglas exclaimed sharply.

  “Eh? Why not? Be cooler.”

  “On the contrary, you’re liable to find it hotter and it is also possible that out in the open there may be radiations getting through from the sun which don’t normally reach us. Some in the region of the seventh octave are deadly. They can produce blindness and paralysis. Better stay where you are. This tin roof isn’t much protection, I know, but it’s better than nothing.”

  Douglas glanced about him once and then turned back to the radio equipment, adjusting the headphones on his ears. Gordon reflected, then he opened the door, but did not go outside. Instead he stood gazing into an unbelievably bright afternoon, the heat waves dancing on the rugged landscape and the distant hills mysteriously glowing with the intensity of the light-photons striking them. It was quite the most ‘sizzling’ summer afternoon Gordon had ever seen.

  “I get the impression,” he said presently, turning back to the hut, “that tin isn’t much use against the sun. What do you suppose we could do to stop the heat getting through?”

  “Nothing,” Douglas answered bluntly.

  “Huh?”

  “I mean that. I’ve no proof of it, but I think the heat waves are going clean through the interstices of matter. This heat isn’t just the temperature rise you get through radiation of heat waves on a tin roof: it’s the actual heat waves, naked and unadorned, boring straight at us.”

  “In that case, then, whatever other radiations there may be—like the seventh octave ones, for instance—must be boring through too?”

  “Probably. Just take our chance—” Douglas stopped dead for a moment and tensed forward, his fingers twisting the control knobs on his radio apparatus.

  Gordon bent close to him. “Hear something?” he asked tensely. There was a second or two’s pause before Douglas shook his head ruefully.

  “I thought I did for a moment. Atmospheric hum, I’m afraid. It could have been a voice, pitched in such a key that it doesn’t make sense to us—or maybe I’m imagining....” He gave a sigh. “Reception of any kind of signal is going to be in the lap of the gods. The space warp is going to make it as difficult for radio waves to travel as for a liner to steer a straight course in a tempestuous sea—”

  * * * * * * *

  Not that the Atlantic Ocean was tempestuous at this moment. It was calmer than a sheet of glass, yet its horizon limits were masked in a pearly haze that had a phenomenal brightness all its own. It was beautiful and yet terrifying at the same time, as though a glowing curtain of swan down were slowly closing in on every hand. And, overhead, the blinding bright sun emitting its torrent of insufferable heat.

  Nobody was on the deck of the liner Queen Enid, and she was also motionless in the calm sea. Down below in the stokehold and engine rooms the men were unable to work because of the heat. Even the strongest of them could not stand up to a temperature of 153 degrees Fahrenheit, which was the registration in the bowels of the ship. So Com­mander Rilson had done the only thing possible—ordered a complete halt in activity until there should be a let-up in the weird phenomenon that had struck the world. He himself, and most of the crew, were in their cabins, trying to recover for the brief spells on the bridge which must be kept if the giant vessel were to be safely handled as it lay to.

  In the main lounge passengers were sprawled about as though dead, limp with the heat, calling incessantly for drinks that were brought by waiters who could hardly drag one foot before the other.

  Dennis Archer and Betty Walford had gone beyond the stage where drinking satisfied them any more. What was the point in constantly drinking when, the moment the liquid had been consumed, thirst rose again to terrifying demands? Right now they lounged half asleep in arm­chairs, breathing heavily, mopping their streaming faces at intervals.

  “I once went through the Persian Gulf,” Dennis said at length, speaking with effort, “but it was a blizzard compared with this lot.”

  Betty stirred languidly. “How long will it go on, do you suppose?”

  “No idea. Nobody knows— Oh, steward!” Dennis raised a limp hand and a steward came over to him. “Yes, sir?”

  “Any information as to how long this business is going on? Has the Captain issued a bulletin or anything?”

  “’Fraid not, sir. Trouble is the radio is out of action and there’s no news from anywhere.” The steward looked worried. “Never saw anything like this before, sir, and I’ve been making this trip most of my life. Becalmed—and hotter than anything I’ve ever known.”

  “What’s our present position?” Dennis asked lazily.

  “About four hundred miles north of the Azores, sir.”

  “Okay. Thanks very much.”

  “Which means nobody knows what to make of it,” Betty said. Then she forced a little laugh. “How right you were when you said it wouldn’t go dark! It’s just the opposite, judging from the view through the outlook window there.”

  Dennis frowned. “I don’t recollect saying it wouldn’t go dark.”

  “Well then I asked if it would and you didn’t answer. Lord!” Betty half staggered to her feet and swayed, “I can’t stand much more of this, Den! I’ve got to have some fresh air. I’m going up on deck.”

  “Captain Rilson has forbidden it.” Dennis made an effort and rose up beside the girl.

  “I don’t care if he has: I can’t stand this. Come on.” Whether it was against regulations or not did not con­cern them at the moment. All they wanted was some kind of respite from the overpowering warmth—for here, right out on the open ocean, there was nothing to prevent the sun’s heat rays beating down mercilessly through every portion of the liner.

  And it was the same for all ships at sea. Many had made port and disgorged their passengers and crew to places that, whilst still warm, were not so grilling as on the open ocean. But other vessels were like the Queen Enid, becalmed and roasting like the
inside of an oven.

  It was neither better nor worse on deck, as Dennis and Betty discovered. They did not take the risk of going out into the naked sunlight. Instead they remained in the shadow of the liner’s superstructure, hoping for a cooling breeze from the haze-swathed ocean—but none came. There was only the motionless air and the burning rays that felt as though they would melt the very bones themselves.

  “Becalmed we may be,” Dennis said presently, “but I get the impression that we’re drifting. We’re not at anchor, anyway, and there is a slight movement.”

  “Does it matter?” Betty asked hopelessly. “Much more of this heat, Den, and we’ll die. You know we will. It’s more than flesh and blood can stand.”

  She was right there, and Dennis knew it though he would not admit it. If the thermometer mercury climbed any higher heat prostration would be rife throughout the liner. Every one of the passengers, and possibly the crew as well, would die of blazing heat and torturing thirst.

  “Captain Rilson’s on the bridge, anyway,” Dennis said at length, nodding in the bridge’s direction. “He must be as tough as iron to stand it. I’ve a mind to have a word with him.”

  “Isn’t allowed, Den. The bridge is one spot where—”

  “I’m going anyway. Rilson may know something and anything’s better than this sizzling uncertainty. You stay here in the shade.”

  “Not if you go,” Betty insisted. “Whatever happens to you might as well happen to me.”

  Den shrugged and took her arm. Together they advanced from the shadows and into the blaze of the sun. The moment they did so they realised they had to run for it to prevent themselves fainting. Its force on their unshielded heads was like a spear driving into them. They began running and in a few seconds reached the steps leading up to the bridge. Five minutes later they were within the bridge itself, cut off once more from the direct sunlight. Commander Rilson and his first mate, both of them stripped to the waist—and a similarly nude sailor in shorts controlling the wheel—glanced round at the arrival of the pair.

  “Passengers are not permitted on the bridge, sir,” Rilson said briefly. “Kindly leave this moment!”

  “This isn’t an ordinary occasion, Captain,” Dennis responded. “Surely if we’ve taken the risk of hurrying through that ghastly sunlight outside you will have the courtesy to answer a few questions?”

  “Meaning?” Rilson looked tautly into the pearly distances.

  “Put simply, Commander—what’s wrong? How did we ever get into this Turkish bath?”

  “You knew perfectly well what has happened, sir. The radio warnings were full of it before radio waves unfortunately ceased to operate. We are in the midst of a flaw in the ether of space and the whole world is involved.”

  Betty sat down heavily on a tip-up stool against the wall. “Haven’t you some idea when it will cease, Captain?” she asked. “After all, you have access to information denied to the passengers.”

  The Commander, his rugged face gleaming as though water had been thrown into it, glanced at her. “Believe me, madam, if I had any way of getting information as to what is likely to happen next I’d pass it on to everybody on this vessel immediately. As it is I just don’t know. The only concrete thing seems to be that the temperature is still rising. In the stokehold it registers one hundred and sixty-two. On the open deck it is one hundred and forty-eight.”

  “It can’t go on!” Dennis insisted. “If it does—”

  “If it does,” Rilson said quietly, “we shall die. There are no two ways about that.”

  “What would happen if we went for a swim?” Betty asked, after a brief silence. “Would it be—cooling?”

  “I would say it would be fatal,” Rilson retorted. “If you decide to swim in these conditions, madam, I will take no responsibility for what may happen. Please understand one thing: all known laws are crazy at the moment. Not only heat waves. Our compasses, for instance, are hopelessly wrong. The magnetic attraction of the North Pole is no longer operating as it should. Our needles are swinging aimlessly.”

  “Then I was right!” Dennis exclaimed. “We are drift­ing slowly!”

  “Correct—but I have no idea where. This haze envelopes everything. It is safer to drift to nowhere in particular than try and steer a course without a compass. We can at least pull ourselves up in case of an impending collision. Near as I can tell by the sextant we’re moving in the direction of the Azores—”

  “Or somewhere,” the first mate interrupted suddenly, looking intently through the window. “Take a look at that, sir. What do you make of it?”

  The Commander was not the only one who peered into the distance. Dennis and Betty peered over his shoulders, and the man at the wheel strained up on tiptoe.

  “It’s Egypt!” Dennis said abruptly. “Look! You can see the Pyramids and the Sphinx. No possible doubt of it.”

  Commander Rilson blinked, more shaken than he had ever been in his maritime life.

  “That’s ridiculous,” the first mate said bluntly. “We have drifted a little, certainly, but we’re still in the Atlantic Ocean. We can’t possibly be near enough to Egypt to see the Sphinx and Pyramids—”

  His voice trailed off at the end of his sentence and became silent, chiefly because there was no use him denying the evidence before his eyes—for with every second the Sphinx and Pyramids were becoming more distinct through the mist. The effect was rendered all the more peculiar by the fact that the glassy ocean seemed to dissolve mysteriously into sand—and within a matter of twenty minutes at the most the Queen Enid would definitely drift into that region.

  “It’s unbelievable!” Commander Rilson declared; and it was just as he had said this that something else happened. The Sphinx and Pyramids disappeared and instead there appeared the unmistakable outlines of New York City.

  “Light waves!” Rilson exclaimed, suddenly realising the truth. “Nothing there at all really—just exceptionally vivid mirages. I never saw anything to equal it—”

  Neither had lots of other people. At this moment the phenomenon besetting the Queen Enid was apparent all over the world. The apparently immutable law that an object must be in a certain place because the light-waves radiating from it say it is so had ceased, like radio waves, to operate. Or if it operated at all it was in a completely disorganised form, just as an image is disturbed in a clear sheet of water when waves cross the pool.

  In all parts of the world the law that a thing is so because it can be seen was suddenly at variance. True, the solid believable “get-hold-of” facts remained. One could hold a brick and be sure it was there, whilst the aberrant light-waves said you were holding something else—or even that you were holding nothing at all.

  In Australia, where it was still night, the sky was ridden with incredible visions of liners floating upside down in the serene heavens—deflected light-waves from the oceans on the other side of the world. In the daylit hemisphere famous landmarks, which automatically emanated more light-photons than a smaller object, changed position bewilderingly. The Empire State Building, for instance, was declared to be standing in the middle of Clapham Common! On the other hand, Tower Bridge was seen by many Americans to be spanning Broadway.

  People, mountains, mice and molehills switched about with bewildering speed, utterly disproving all normal laws. In every case they were found to be but wraiths with no more solidity than a rainbow. Light no longer came direct: it was bent, warped, and refracted as Earth sped further and further into the giant fault in space.. The Earth, as light-waves went even more crazy, was seething with unbearable heat.

  From the Tropics tens of thousands of people were stream­ing, chartering every known means of transport to snatch them away from the roasting griddle that had become the Equator. Here, too, the sun’s other radiations were at work—radiations only guessed at in the normal way or detected by instruments. Radiations unseen which blinded hundreds of thousands of men, women and children in the equatorial regions, whilst others were blasted
down with a devilish and fatal skin disease which had all the appearance of radiation-burns. The real tragedy of warped space was now commencing really to make itself felt—and none knew how long the horror would continue, for not even science could measure the extent of the warp in space.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  DEVOLUTION

  Whilst the peoples of the world struggled like ants to escape from a bush-fire, Evelyn Woodcroft and Janet Meigan each lay slumped in wicker chairs, legs out-thrust in a most unladylike fashion, arms dangling helplessly over the chairs’ sides.

  Prayerbook Meigan sat in shirt and trousers beside the table, smoking a cigarette and scowling at the open door­way through which the appalling sunshine blazed. Rivulets of perspiration were coursing down his smooth face.

  “God Almighty, I never knew a heat-wave like this!” Mike Woodcroft declared at last, tearing off his sweat-sodden shirt and flinging it to one side. “Or anyway I never knew one to come on so suddenly!”

  “‘He opened His mouth, and the Earth melted’,” Prayerbook observed absently.

  Mike swung on him, his eyes hard. “Don’t you start spouting Biblical stuff now, Prayerbook, or I’ll break your neck! So help me, I’m in no mood to stand for it!”

  “Sooner it comes night the better I’ll like it,” Evelyn remarked lazily, picking up a newspaper and using it as a fan. “This is worse than being on the hot seat: at least you get that over quick.”

  “It’s all so—so unnatural,” Janet said, sitting up. “As if everything is burning up. In fact I—”

  She frowned as she gazed through the open window, then she got to her feet and went across the bungalow’s narrow main room. She withdrew her hand sharply from the sunlit door as it scorched her palm.

  “Look over there!” she exclaimed, and pointed to a spot in the hazy distance. Smoke was pluming blackly into the shimmering air.

  “Grass fire,” Mike growled, coming to her side, his big chest gleaming with sweat. “Can’t expect much else in this. We must be hitting the highest temperature ever. Which reminds me—”