“Possibly,” Douglas admitted, and smiled faintly. “But even then the signals might turn out to be a natural phenomenon, and not artificial. Remember all that kerfuffle years ago when strange signals were received at precisely identical intervals? At first some people thought they were genuine little green men. But they were natural!”
“Yeah—I remember. That’s when they discovered pulsars. You think this might be something similar?”
“I’m not sure—but I don’t think so.”
They fell quiet, listening to the reedy, up-and-down noise, somewhat like an oscillation whistle, superimposed on the midst of the static chaos. Only it was not an oscillation whistle. It was something different, something from away out in space, and both of them knew it. Then suddenly, as they were straining to make sense of it, it blanked out.
Impatiently Douglas reached out to the controls and adjusted them, but all his ‘fishing’ failed to restore the signal. .
There was only the crackling static and the dancing waves on the oscillograph.
“No use,” Douglas grunted, tugging off the headphones and rubbing his ears tenderly. “We’ve lost it.”
Gordon removed his own phones and sat thinking for a moment or two, then he shrugged. “Can’t say we didn’t try. What do we do now? Give up?”
“I’ll never do that! Better leave the speaker and recorder in operation and see if anything else happens. Meantime we’ll take a check on what else is happening.”
The instruments he had around him were mostly home made, but they were accurate enough, where the warp did not affect them unduly, to reveal that heat waves, light waves, and a fair percentage of cosmic waves were battering through the roof of the Nissen hut. Douglas compressed his lips as he made this discovery and then looked about him.
“As I said earlier,” Gordon remarked, “we’re in plenty of danger with all these radiations flooding around us. Mystery to me is that they haven’t attacked us so far. Apart from this ghastly heat I don’t feel any ill effects, though. Do you?”
“No. If we had some lead or something we might be able to rig up a kind of shelter and keep under it. It ought to stop the shorter wavelengths like cosmic.”
“By sunset there won’t be any more need for protection, will there?”
“On the contrary. Cosmic waves don’t emanate from the sun, Gordon. At least not in any great quantity. They come from space itself day and night. Science proved that long ago. But space is evidently in such an agitated state that its normal powers of absorption and deflection are set at zero. It is, though, mighty queer that we haven’t been affected in any way.”
“Let’s hope the luck holds,” Gordon murmured, crossing his fingers and holding them up.
What neither of them had realised, chiefly because they were not general scientists but merely enthusiastic radio amateurs, was that the deflective electrical field set up by their apparatus was making it impossible for the incoming radiations to have any direct effect—at least within a fixed radius of the apparatus at which they sat. Beyond it, by the further wall of the hut for instance, the danger was considerable, but they were blissfully unaware of it. The agitation in the region of the transmitter and generator was tremendous, the outflowing force quite sufficient to act as a neutralising screen. The only radiations not affected by this electrical ‘spill’ were light and heat, but neither of these constituted a vital danger at the moment.
“Have a cigarette,” Gordon invited, holding out a squashed packet.
“Thanks.” Douglas took one, then he nearly dropped it from his fingers as there came a resumption of the strange signals from the loudspeaker, warped and distorted with distance and static.
Gordon’s face was a study for a second or two, his mouth wide open and his eyes fixed in stupefied bewilderment on the loudspeaker. When he wanted to speak he could not: he could only motion with his hand and gulp.
Douglas was the first to recover. He threw down the cigarette and crouched over the apparatus, making sure that everything was still being recorded.
Douglas jammed on his headphones and Gordon did likewise. For the moment nothing else mattered but the extraordinary fact that they seemed to have got a result.
Twenty minutes later the signal ceased. There was only the blur of static in headphones and speaker—nothing more.
For half an hour, then an hour, Douglas and Gordon tested and experimented and sweated, but the communication was completely lost.
“So what happens now?” Gordon asked at last. “We’ve made a recording and—subject to professional scientists analysing and authenticating it—possibly an amazing discovery concerning extra-terrestrial life. That is, assuming we’re going to pull out of this dangerous warp.”
“I think we will,” Douglas answered quietly. “And what a tale we have to tell when this is all over!”
CHAPTER SIX
UP FROM THE DEPTHS
For the passengers and crew aboard the Queen Enid the space warp produced the most incredible creations of all. The seemingly concrete views of first the Sphinx and Pyramids, and then New York City had faded now and instead there were phantom ships seen drifting in many parts of the glassy ocean, most of them appearing to be curiously suspended above the face of the deep and, obviously, merely the creation of diffracted light-waves from another part of the sea.
The temperature on the open deck registered 150 degrees, but, overpowering though it was, most of the passengers hid themselves amidst the superstructure—through which the setting sun none the less shone—and looked out on the ocean in genuine fear. One or two had been stricken down with heat prostration and others with curious mental ailments, but the majority—Dennis Archer and Betty Walford amongst them—were still in possession of their faculties and watching for that blessed moment when the sizzling sun would be masked by the horizon.
Meantime, the liner drifted—and during this time things which Rilson, or his crew and passengers, could never have dreamed of were happening, deep down in the ocean’s depths. Here, where light had never penetrated since the world had cooled, blinding brilliance was pouring as the sun’s rays shone directly through the earth. It stirred to life monstrous denizens of the deep, blind and gigantic terrors which had never known light, and which struggled away from it frantically as it poured into their subterranean retreat. Upwards towards the surface, in an endeavour to flee from the devouring brilliance, came all manner of maritime life, all of it unclassified in the annals of sea inhabitants.
“What do you make of it, Mr. Denham?” Rilson asked, after he and the first mate had been studying the view from the bridge for a while. “I never saw the ocean so alive before.”
“Never been a time before, sir, when the ocean was transparent,” the first mate answered. “Look at that infernal thing out there!” He pointed quickly. “If I didn’t see it with my own eyes as I do now I’d swear it’s a sea-serpent.”
He was quite right, though he had something of a seaman’s fear of perpetuating a sea myth. This was definitely no myth, however. With succeeding generations of evolution the sea-serpent of the prehistoric had sunk lower and lower into the depths of the ocean, only emerging at intervals through some internal disturbance in .the deeps—but now it had come to the surface with the rest of the giants, a monstrous undulating reptile of quite two hundred feet in length.
Other things were appearing too: gigantic saurian heads, objects like mammoth octopi, and fish with saw beaks powerful enough to rend a small yacht in twain.
“This is getting dangerous,” Rilson decided abruptly. “Order all fit men to their posts and have the passengers take a hand too. These infernal things will wreck the ship if we don’t deal with them right away.”
His order was instantly obeyed and a few minutes later, passengers and crew alike set about the task of defending their lives against the sea monsters bent on destroying them. Not being a war vessel the Queen Enid was not very well supplied with armament, but she had one or two guns which succee
ded in giving a good account of themselves. An hour later the attack was over and, pursued by the blazing brilliance of the sun shining underneath the sea, the weary passengers floundered below for rest and, if possible, some sanctuary from the glare relentlessly surrounding them.
But for Commander Rilson there was no rest. During the onslaught on the deep sea fish the vessel had drifted to an amazing extent and was now within sight of the Azores Islands.
“Better find some men capable of manning the engine room, sir,” Denham said. “If we drift onto those we’re liable to stove in.”
“True.” Rilson’s voice sounded abstracted as he gazed into the blazing flood of light at right angles to his line of vision. Then at the first mate’s glance of enquiry he added: “I’m just trying to determine what all that is, Mr. Denham. It isn’t moving, so it isn’t life—but I never saw anything quite so extraordinary.”
The Azores Islands were no longer islands as such. Their tops were visible above the thin line that marked the surface of the ocean: after that they became mountainsides, going down into the brilliantly lighted depths. And, at what must have been the level of the ocean floor itself, there lay a city of white stone, overhung in parts by mighty undersea forests.
“Definitely a buried city,” Denham said at last.
“That place,” Rilson said, “is Atlantis! There can be no doubt of it. Scientists have theorized on its position and placed it on the one-time continent of Mu, which is now the bed of the Atlantic Ocean. And the Azores Islands are the peaks of the mountains around Atlantis. Yes, no doubt of it. Get a camera quickly.”
Denham quickly obeyed and within a few minutes the lost city had been recorded for future study. This done Rilson gave the order for all men capable of tolerating the engine room to get below immediately.
* * * * * * *
In Mike Woodcroft’s country bungalow the Earth’s flight through the flaw in the ether meant mounting anguish as the hours crawled by.
“I could stand this better if it were not far this blasted sun!” Mike panted, after a long silence. “You can’t get away from it! No shelter—no way to stop it! It blazes, an’ blazes, an’ blazes!” His voice cracked. “There must be some way!”
He lurched uncertainly to his feet, stumbled to the doorway and looked outside stupidly. There were no shadows! Fantastic! Impossible!
“It’s killing my eyes,” Evelyn groaned, turning her head wearily and flinging an unavailing arm across her face. “It’s—it’s like looking into a full-powered searchlight a few yards away.”
“Be night soon, thank God!” Mike whispered, lurching back into the room and heading once more towards the drinks.
Janet watched his progress and wiped a sodden hand over her lips. “I shouldn’t take too much of that, Mike,” she warned. “It might do things to you.”
“What d’you want me to do, die of thirst?” he demanded.
“It isn’t that, Mike, but it is supposed to be dangerous. That’s why I’m trying to hold off.”
“Mebby I haven’t got your will-power,” Mike growled, and with that he drank greedily, pure fiery spirit that he did not even trouble to soda down.
With a temperature ranging near 140 degrees you cannot do that and expect to get away with it. After he had finished drinking he stood for a moment or two swaying, slaked for the moment, sweat pouring down his face and bare chest. Then he made an effort to move back to his chair. On his way to it he stopped abruptly and crashed over on his face to the floor.
“The darned idiot!” Evelyn exclaimed, scrambling wearily from her chair. “He’s drunk.” She tumbled on her knees and dragged heavily at Mike’s broad shoulders. Then a new expression came to her face. It was between surprise and unspeakable misery. “Say, he isn’t—he isn’t drunk—” Her words were hardly audible. “I think he’s—dead!”
Janet and Prayerbook hurried over to her side and made a quick examination, but there was nothing they could do.
“Well, don’t stand looking at him!” Evelyn shrieked, tears and perspiration coursing together down her cheeks.
“Better put him in the bedroom,” Janet said quietly. “And I’m sorry, Evelyn. I know you loved him in a pretty big way.”
Evelyn did not answer. She was too stunned with events to make any comment, so Prayerbook made a signal and he and Janet between them heaved the corpse into one of the adjoining bedrooms and dumped it on the bed.
“She’s certainly taking it very badly,” Prayerbook said, rubbing his pointed chin. He was not showing any sign yet of breaking down himself. He had a cold, hard nature that, so far, not even a cosmic fault had been able to disturb. He peered at Janet for a moment as she stood in front of him. Every bone in her body was outlined against the glare. She was a small, slender skeleton with the vaguest outline of her flesh showing in shimmering waves against the mad light photons.
“Plenty of fires now,” she said, looking through the open doorway. “Three more over there! How’s the temperature going now?”
“Hundred an’ forty-five,” Prayerbook answered, squinting at the mercury—then gradually a surprised look came to his face. “Say, it was around that a few minutes ago when Mike passed out.”
His voice stopped and Janet could feel the urgency in his manner. “What is it?” she asked, turning sharply and looking at him.
“I—I dunno. But unless I’m crazy this mercury has stopped rising at last! If that’s the case the heat isn’t getting any worse!”
Janet moved to his side, breathing heavily, brushing the damp strands of hair from her face. To their tortured vision the thermometer hung in a haze of brilliance, the sun blazing through the wooden wall as it hung low over the horizon.
A minute passed, two minutes, but the mercury remained steady, practically at the limit of its column expansion. Janet and Prayerbook did not know it any more than anybody else in the world, but the distorted heat radiation that had enveloped Earth had reached the maximum. The highest recorded temperature was proved afterwards to have been at Barbados, where an all-time high of 182 degrees Fahrenheit in the interior of buildings was reached.
Prayerbook turned away at last, frowning. He gave a glance about him and then looked enquiry at Janet.
“Wonder what Evelyn’s doing? She’s mighty quiet. I’d better take a look. Struck me, as it did you, that her mind isn’t any too steady.”
He crossed to the bedroom and peeped inside. Evelyn was lying on her back beside the dead body of Mike, her hands locked behind her blonde head. From the gentle heaving of her breast it looked as though she had at last found relief in sleep.
“Asleep—beside him,” Prayerbook muttered, coming back to Janet. “Seems sort of gruesome to me. The dead are dead. I say. Nothing you can do about that.”
He rubbed his sore, light-blurred eyes and sat down beside the table again. Janet moistened her lips with a drop or two of soda water—nothing more. It tasted flat and warm. Then she came and sat at Prayerbook’s side. “Be sunset soon,” she whispered.
“Uh-huh. ’Bout time, too!”
Like countless millions of others in the world they waited for that moment when the appalling sun would dip below the horizon—just as, like the others, they did not comprehend how complete was the disorder in light-waves. The truth only came to them when, after touching the horizon, the sun did not set, but blazed with the same relentless fury as before.
At first neither Janet nor Prayerbook could believe it. They suspected some tremendous refraction in the atmosphere that was making the sun appear to linger whereas is actually must be below the horizon—then, very slowly, it dawned on them what had happened. Earth appeared, as it had to everybody else, to be made of glass. The sun sank lower until it was casting its rays obliquely. To look down towards the sun was horrifying; dizzying, and an even greater shock because relief had been expected. Instead terror was added to terror.
“It can’t be!” Janet cried, beating her fist on the table. “No! The sun can’t shine th
rough the ground like this! We’ve got delusions or something.”
“Perhaps it’s the end of the world,” Prayerbook whispered. “It says in the Bible—‘And the heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.’ Jan, there’s no night any more! No night! It’s an endless day!”
For the first time there was a crack in the steel-hard armour of a killer; the first real trace of fear in the make-up of a man who spouted Scriptures whilst he watched a victim die slowly.
“Take is easy,” Janet muttered, her face drawn. “Don’t go off the deep end, Prayerbook. That isn’t your way.”
She watched him intently, her eyes aching. He gave her a blank kind of look. “No night,” he repeated huskily, flinging up useless arms over his face to hide the glare. “I can’t stand it, Jan! I’ve got to get away from it! Hide myself! I’ve got to! Don’t you understand?”
Suddenly he leapt to his feet, plunged past the girl, and then ran like a madman down the shale driveway outside. Janet tried to follow his movements but the oblique-angled sun was blazing up at her in a sea of unholy flame. She called once—weakly, despairingly.
“Prayerbook, come back here! Come back!”
But he did not come back. He did not attempt to drive the car—in any case it would have seared the skin from his hands had he even tried. In fact he did not attempt anything normal. He was motivated by one desire only, to find darkness and rest in a world from which night had been stripped. Perhaps he blundered into one of the grass fires, perhaps he devolved into some grotesque primordial strain, perhaps a lot of things. In the records of people missing after the Endless Day his name never appeared.
Janet turned slowly, stunned with the realization that she was now alone with one emotionally overwrought woman and a dead man. She pressed a hand to her throbbing forehead and stood for a while with her back to the sunlight. It gave her some relief but its heat was sickening in the extreme.
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