"For we of the little scientist group are certain that our universe will be reborn! We have found, among the records left by the brilliant scientists of our great past age, mathematical calculations that seem to prove that the laws of entropy will reverse themselves, when the cooling of our universe reaches a critical point.
"We ourselves have not the scientific knowledge now to understand all these ancient records, but we believe them and have tried to make our people believe them.
"But our people have not believed," Gerdek said sadly. "They have rejected the half-proofs we were able to present, and have listened instead to those like Vostol, who counsel surrendering to the inevitable and thinking only of our own immediate future.
"If we few scientists could only prove to our people that the rebirth of our universe will come, we would inspire them to new hope for our race and to new struggle against the advancing Cold Ones.
"That is why Shiri and I have come to your universe to ask for your help," Gerdek concluded. "When we first accidentally received your signals, we guessed your science was greater than our own decayed scientific knowledge. You, with your greater knowledge, would be able to give my people the will and the means to fight against racial extinction."
CAPTAIN FUTURE was a little staggered by the implied proposal.
"You mean that you want us to go out to that distant, dying universe of yours? Just how could we help if we did?"
Gerdek answered instantly.
"You, with your greater scientific knowledge, could convince my people that our universe will be reborn. And you could help us fight the powerful Cold Ones, help us to hang on until the great day of resurrection comes."
Curt looked doubtful. The girl Shiri saw the doubt on his face, and asked him a tense, quick question through the Martian translator.
"You believe that our universe will be revived, do you not? The ancient scientists of our race whose records we found were certain of it."
Curt Newton nodded.
"I'm certain of it, too. Our science of cosmogony tells us that a three-dimensional universe like ours or your own will cool and darken and die only to a certain point. When the amount of entropy reaches that critical point, the dead universe will be reborn."
Joan looked astounded.
"Are you sure of that, Curt? I admit I'm no scientist. But I always had the idea that when all the stars of a universe were cold and dead, that universe would remain dead forever."
"No, that was the old idea of early physicists," Captain Future told her. "They believed that the second law of thermodynamics was immutable, that the flow of energy into lower forms was a one-way, irreversible process, But generations ago, as far back as the year nineteen forty-one, they began to see that they had been too positive about it.
"The great physicist Einstein of that era finally admitted that cosmic laws were immutable in appearance only, and that the Heisenberg principle of uncertainty might rule in cosmic as well as atomic physics. Millikan, his contemporary, had always insisted that the decay of a universe might only be part of a great cycle.
"Finally, J. B. S. Haldane, another famous scientific name of that age, propounded his theory of cosmic 'dynamism,' which asserted that a dead universe would be reborn in time.
"Haldane's theory set the cosmogonists of later generations on the right track. We know now, from searching mathematical investigation, that every three-dimensional universe has a continuous cycle of decay and rebirth. It begins as a comparatively small bubble of three-dimensional space.
"But as the matter of its stars and its world melt into radiation, that bubble of space expands. That universe expands until it is a much vaster sphere, containing a welter of radiation and a few inert embers of burned-out suns.
"Then, when it reaches a critical point in size, the curved space of the bubble gives way under the strain. The bubble collapses upon itself just as a balloon blown too big will burst and collapse. The bubble of space becomes suddenly in that way a much smaller sphere, a much smaller universe. The immense amounts of free radiation, now compressed into that smaller universe, build rapidly into new nebulae, suns, planets."
Gerdek's dark eyes were brilliant with hope when he understood.
"Then if my people can keep their race alive until the critical point is reached and our universe is reborn, our racial future will be assured!"
Shiri impulsively grasped Curt's hand.
"If you could convince our Tarast people of that and could help them hold off the Cold Ones, you would have saved us."
Captain Future frowned.
"I'd certainly like to help your people. But — they wouldn't listen to your own assurances. Would they listen to us strangers, no matter what scientific proofs we presented?"
"They'd listen to you!" Shiri cried when Tiko had translated. "They'd believe anything you said — because of your red hair."
"My hair?" Curt looked blank. "I still don't see what that has to do with it."
SHIRI explained eagerly. "We Tarasts have legends of a great hero of our race, whose memory is still venerated among us. His name was Kaffr, and he lived ages ago and led our people in the conquest of our universe.
"Tradition says that he had flame-red hair, something not seen among my people for hundreds of generations. Tradition also says that in the hour of our direst need, Kaffr will return from the dead to help his people."
Curt nodded understandingly.
"Sure, every race has old legends like that. But what about it?"
Shiri's great violet eyes flashed.
"If you, with your flame-red hair, appeared in our universe, you could tell my people that you were Kaffr himself, come back from death to help them. They'd believe you! And they would believe and do everything that you told them."
"Holy space-imps!" exclaimed Grag, astonished. "They want you to palm yourself off as their national hero, Chief!"
Chapter 4: Into Infinity
CURT NEWTON was stunned also by the proposal.
"It's a crazy idea," he told the two Tarasts vehemently. "How could I impersonate this fellow Kaffr? I don't know your language or your customs. I may not look in the least like the man, aside from my hair."
"That would not matter, for nobody now knows what Kaffr really looked like," Gerdek assured him. "It has been ages since he died, remember. All that we have are just dim traditions — his superhuman powers, his intrepidity, his wisdom. The flame-red hair is the only definite point."
"And we could teach you everything you would need to know before you appeared to our people," Shiri added eagerly to Curt.
Captain Future hesitated. The adventure that offered itself seemed a mad one. To enter a completely alien universe — to pass himself off as the revered, half-deified racial hero of a whole people!
But a picture leaped into his mind. A somber mental vision of an unthinkably distant universe of dark, dead stars and frozen worlds; of a cold, unhuman menace that crept like a slow tide of horror toward the last, flickering stars and worlds that were the final refuge of a despairing human race.
He turned and looked at the Brain and the other Futuremen.
"I'm in favor of trying to help these people, even though this plan seems hopelessly risky," Curt stated. "But I can't take you into a venture like this against your judgment. Are you willing to go?"
Otho's slant-green eyes glittered with excitement.
"Go? Of course we go! Who'd miss a chance to visit a whole new universe? Why, it's the greatest opportunity for adventure we ever had!"
Grag agreed, in his rumbling voice. The giant robot never cared where he went, as long as Captain Future was leading the way.
The Brain spoke more deliberately.
"You do not underestimate the riskiness of this proposal, lad. If those people discover that you're only an impostor impersonating their racial hero, they'll tear you to bits."
Shiri looked troubled when that was translated.
"It is true, they would do that. But it will not be disco
vered. It must not be discovered!”
"Despite the risk," the Brain concluded, "I am in favor of trying it. In that distant, alien universe, opportunity for scientific research would be almost unlimited. And also, I want very much to investigate this puzzling fourth-dimensional beam-travel that Tiko Thrin has somehow devised."
"I am afraid you will not learn much about that," Gerdek warned him. "The journey from our own universe to this one seemed little more than a mad confusion of indescribable sensations."
Captain Future's gray eyes gleamed with that eager light that only great purpose and the lure of far cosmic frontiers could summon forth.
"Good, it's settled! Gerdek, we'll come to your universe. I'll do my utmost to carry through this impersonation, if you think that's the only way in which we can succeed in helping your people. We'll bring our own ship, the Comet. We may need its resources before we're through."
Otho objected, pointing to the barrel-shaped chamber of Tiko Thrin's matter-transmitter.
"We can't get the Comet into that little chamber."
"Which means that we'll have to build a much bigger matter-transmitter of the same design," Curt declared. "Gerdek and Shiri will have to build a similar receiver of large size, at their end. It will simply be a matter of duplicating in a larger scale the mechanism that Tiko Thrin has already taught them to construct."
When the details of that were settled, the Tarast man and his sister prepared to return to their own universe. Gerdek wrung Curt's hand, and the platinum-tressed girl's violet eyes were wet and shining with emotion as she parted from Captain Future.
"You have given us new hope," she told him through Tiko Thrin. "We shall be able to predict that soon Kaffr will return to his people and save them. They'll be afire with hope."
"I only hope it won't end in tragic disappointment for them," Curt murmured uneasily. "I don't like impostors, even when they have as great a purpose as this one."
GERDEK and Shiri entered the transparent chamber, and Tiko Thrin closed it upon them. The little Martian scientist sweated at the switchboard. A haze of shining force enwrapped the two Tarasts as power was turned on. When it was shut off and the haze faded, the two had vanished.
"Just think — they're already back in their own universe, billions of light-years away!" marveled Tiko.
"I didn't like the way that girl eyed you," Joan told Captain Future half seriously. "I'm going to watch you when we reach her universe."
"When we reach it?" echoed Curt, startled. "Listen, Joan — you don't by any remote chance think I'm crazy enough to take you along on as dangerous a venture as this?"
Joan's brown eyes grew stormy.
"Do you think I'd let you go off without me to a universe where all the women are platinum blondes?"
Curt chuckled, but then grew sober.
"Joan, listen — it's not just the danger you'd run that I'm thinking of. Someone ought to be here to help Tiko guard the matter-transmitter. If anything happened to it, we'd never be able to get back here."
"That's just an excuse to leave me behind," Joan declared indignantly. Then her face softened. "Oh, all right, Curt — I don't want to make it difficult for you. I'll stay here."
The following few weeks marked intense labor and preparation by the Futuremen. Out in the grounds of Tiko Thrin's little estate they constructed the larger matter-transmitter that was required. It was of the same basic design as the laboratory model, but its huge transparent chamber was ovoid in shape, the more easily to accommodate the Comet.
During intervals snatched from their work, Curt Newton and the Futuremen learned the Tarast language as best they could from Tiko Thrin. The big new transmitter rapidly took shape. But frequently the work was delayed when the Brain went into one of his reveries of abstract scientific speculation, from which it was hard to arouse him.
"I'm trying to fathom the theoretical basis of these transmitters," Simon Wright replied when Captain Future protested. "You know, lad, I still can't believe that the fourth dimension is really spatial in nature."
Joan asked a puzzled question.
"But, Simon, when we were fighting those Alius on the comet-world, you and Curt always referred to the fourth dimension of space."
"We meant the fourth spatial dimension," the Brain corrected. "That is really the fifth dimension, for according to the theory of relativity, the true fourth should be non-spatial."
Curt was impatient.
"Simon, in spite of the tenets of relativity, we know the fourth must be spatial, for we've seen that Tiko's power-beam can traverse it. We've no time now for theoretical considerations. We can investigate the theory of it later."
"Oh, very well," muttered the Brain. "But I still can't understand it. Neither can Tiko, for he simply adapted the apparatus of the alien Alius without investigation of its underlying principles."
The big transmitter finally was completed. Its huge ovoid chamber glittered like a great jewel on the green breast of the Garden Moon, crowned by the towering antenna of copper planes in curious arrangement.
The night of the Futuremen's start was at hand. At this prearranged time, Gerdek and Shiri would be expecting them at the big receiver they had been building in their faraway universe. The Comet had already been eased into the ovoid chamber.
Joan clung to Captain Future.
"I'm afraid, Curt. I never felt this way before. A remote, alien universe — and you're going there to carry out an impersonation that means death if you're discovered. It frightens me."
"And I thought you were a real planeteer," he reproached her with pretended severity.
But he held her close, before he strode away.
JOAN stood in the planet-glow, rigid with emotion as she watched Curt's tall, lean figure enter the sleek little ship in the chamber. She caught the final wave of his hand from the control room, as Tiko Thrin closed the chamber and hastened to the switchboard.
A bursting blaze of shining force suddenly enwrapped the interior of the chamber and hid the Comet. Thousands of threads of lightning seemed to stream out of the haze toward the tiny copper electrodes that lined the chamber. Then they faded, and the haze died away.
Joan felt a strange chill as she saw that the big chamber now was empty. The little ship was dematerialized, gone.
The Comet and its four dauntless occupants had been hurled across the unthinkable abysses of an untraveled dimension to that distant, dying universe.
Chapter 5: Dusk of Empire
CURT NEWTON had found the three Futuremen awaiting him in the crowded control room of the Comet, when he made his way into the ovoid chamber and entered the ship. Oog and Eek were wrestling playfully on the floor.
"All ready?" Curt had asked. "In five minutes well be hurtling out of this universe."
"Say, what would happen if Gerdek and Shiri didn't have their apparatus turned on to receive us?" Grag asked.
"What are you trying to do — ruin my morale before we start?" Otho demanded of the robot.
Curt had leaned forward at the window and waved to Joan, whom he could see standing outside the transparent ovoid chamber. He also descried Tiko Thrin at the big switchboard nearby. The little Martian was closing the last switches.
Then everything seemed to explode in a blaze of force. Captain Future felt the stunning shock of unprecedented energies in every fiber of his body. He had a sensation of falling into a bottomless abyss. Yet even though the powerful beam was hurling the Comet and its occupants across vast dimensions, Curt retained a measure of consciousness and was able to peer drunkenly out.
He had a nightmare vision of unreal spaces, through which the ship was hurtling at velocity inconceivable. It was not the void of ordinary space. This was the extra-dimensional abyss, whose super-geometrical tangle of complex coordinates baffled human perceptions. The perspective of this super-space was all wrong, impossibly curved and distorted.
Brilliant bubbles of shimmering, unreal appearance floated and streamed in this vast abyss. Each bubble w
as a separate three-dimension universe like his own, Future knew. Universes upon universes, dancing in the cosmic gulf like bubbles of shining foam! The Comet seemed hurtling amid those foaming universes in an impossible complicated corkscrew curve, yet at the same time it seemed somehow to be flying in a straight line!
Captain Future had dared many alien realms in the past. But never had his mind felt so crushed and puny and helpless as now, in the unplumbed abyss of extra-dimensional spaces outside his own universe. His intelligence recoiled from the effort to comprehend this insane welter of curved spaces and the streaming rush of countless spherical universes.
Curt became aware that they were now somehow inside one of the bubble-universes. He vaguely sensed it as a distorted sphere of space which enclosed a brooding darkness. No glitter of brilliant young stars dispelled its night — nothing but cold, black cinders of burned-out suns, icy specks of frozen planets, and far away a cluster of smoldering red stars not yet quite dead.
The Comet seemed hurtling toward that cluster of dying suns, rushing deep into it toward a lurid crimson star around which circled five worlds. The innermost of those worlds loomed up —
There came again a sharp, wrenching shock that Captain Future felt through every fiber. He struggled against dizzy nausea, and realized that now his sensations were again those of his physical body. As his vision cleared, he found himself slumped in the pilot's chair. The Futuremen were staggering dazedly beside him, peering excitedly out of the window.
"Jumping sun-imps, we're not on Deimos now!” stuttered Otho. "Look out there!"
"I don't see anything much," Grag complained. "And I still feel awful dizzy."
The Comet was resting inside another transparent ovoid chamber exactly like the one they had left. But this chamber and its auxiliary apparatus stood on the paved floor of a dusky, open court inside some big building.
The building itself was a massive, ancient-looking structure of synthetic white marble. Its sheer walls rose all around the court for a hundred feet. There was visible overhead an oddly blurred square of dusky crimson sky.
Captain Future 12 - Planets in Peril (Fall 1942) Page 3