Children of the Void

by William Dexter

One of our first demands upon him when we boarded the Disc was to pass to him the message of the bat-creatures, and their plea that they should return to Earth with us. So impressed had we been with the urgency of their condition, and the apparent sincerity of their motives, that we pressed him to have this brought to the attention of the Nagani, so that a telementor demonstration could be arranged.

  But he shook his head.

  “Later” he said, “I shall tell you many things . . . There is a long story to be told, and now there is no time.” And he hurried away to his place in one of the control cabins.

  We slept long, for we were all thoroughly exhausted. And when we did not sleep we spent much time bringing this chronicle up to date. That done, and the end of the last chapter reached, we found the Disc within sight of our Moon. As yet, the Earth has not appeared on our screens, and the Moon itself only appears momentarily in one corner of the screen.

  When at last Krill Hvensor had time to speak with us, we heard his story.

  He and the Nagani had seen us fall into the blue dust of Varang-Varang, and had rushed to our aid, but a further sinking of the surface had held them back. For some time they had tried to dig their way down to us, but at last the landslide caused by their work had made it necessary for the Disc to take off.

  At that moment, apparently, there had been grave news from those of the Nagani who had been engaged in research throughout the journey from Earth. Their calculations had revealed the fact that Varang-Varang was heading for the Sun.

  The consequences of a collision between Varang-Varang and our Sun—as the Nagani experts had seen at once—would have been cataclysmic. The impact—even the near approach of a body of Varang-Varang’s size—would have touched off an explosion of cosmic proportions. Our Sun, to an observer on the edge of our Galaxy, would have flared into prominence as a nova, and the flash would have vaporised every particle of matter out to the rim of far Pluto’s orbit and beyond.

  We were appalled at the information, but Krill Hvensor waved away our fears.

  The Nagani, he revealed, believed that they could avert the disaster. There was one way to do so—shift the orbit of Varang-Varang yet again.

  They dared not attempt this by explosive means, fearing unknown consequences. The original detonation that had moved the planet out of its orbit had been unpredictable iq its results and the course of Varang-Varang’s mad career through space had been equally unforeseeable.

  So they had planned to make use of the power they best knew how to use and control—the Stellar Drive. But to do so —to tap the magnetic fields that exist throughout the Solar System and probably throughout the Universe—they had need of every Disc they could muster. There had been urgent summonses to other Discs, and all their available craft had raced to the rallying point.

  They had concentrated their power from a point below the almost flat orbits of the Solar planets, in the hope of drawing Varang-Varang downward and setting is upon a course nearly at right angles to the orbital axis of the other planets. The least variation from its present course, the slightest dip in its mad rush, would eventually take it off its target, the Sun, and would finally see it flung outside the confines of die System.

  On the other hand, such a strategy had its dangers. Too sudden a variation in Varang-Varang’s course would have a swift and deadly effect upon other planets anywhere within millions of miles, and might fling Earth, Mars, Venus and Mercury into a chaos that could at last draw them Sunward.

  So while we had been imprisoned on the desolate planet, the Nagani had engineered their cosmic coup, and at last, Krill Hvensor told us, a slight variation had been observed in Varang-Varang’s course.

  Once started, there was little that could be done to change the new orbit, and the Nagani fleet had scattered to far reaches of the Solar System to synchronise their observations from the remotest distance possible. With their inhuman, alien detachment the Nagani had at first refused to return to Varang-Varang for the four castaways they had left there, but at last, after much argument and at grave risk, they had sent back the one Disc for us.

  We thought in silence of the dreadful adventure that would have lain ahead of us had we not been rescued. Then our minds returned—simultaneously, it seemed—to the bat-creatures.

  Their secret, their cryptic demand to seek that unknown thing they needed on our Earth—what would now come of that?

  There was a long conversation between Karinga Varga and Krill Hvensor, carried on mainly in the Virian’s own language which was a thing rare enough to cause us great wonder. Karinga Varga seemed to be pleading the case of the bat-men, while Krill Hvensor appeared stoically indifferent to their plight.

  The outcome of their discussion was one that we had almost foreseen; the Beast-Men had been left behind, and there was no chance of inducing the Nagani to return for them.

  So it now looks as though we shall never learn the strange secret of the bat-men’s race. Were they, after all, the reformed beings they had represented themselves to be? Would we have been well advised in introducing yet another alien race to Earth, where the human population is already vastly outnumbered by the industrious little Nagani folk? It seems to be a question that will never be answered now.

  And yet, whatever the Virians may think among themselves, I cannot help feeling an agonised pity for those eight survivors of a vanished race. In form, they were repulsive, but I personally had come to feel strangely sympathetic towards them. I would certainly have been repelled physically at the thought of living in close proximity to them, but their earnest desire to follow to the end the philosophy of their “Wise Ones” commanded at least my own respect, and, I believe, the respect of the other three of us who had spoken with the Beast-Men.

  Now it is sad to me to think of these alien monsters abandoned on their mad planet, which, even if it is not flung into the Sun, will eventually be lost outside the Solar System.

  My ponderings at this stage were arrested by a wonderful sight springing to life on our televisor screen.

  The Moon suddenly loomed up large and dazzling before us, and then as the Disc swung off its course, we had our first sight of Earth again.

  A clear, pale green globe, it swept into view round the bright edge of the Moon. Now it holds steadily in the centre of our screen, and our final course has been set.

  It is odd to reflect that every human being on Earth—except for the children born since our Return so few years ago—has seen a similar sight. Before the catastrophe that destroyed Terrestrial life, not one living person had seen the Earth from this distance. And now we in this Disc see it again.

  As the hours pass, the spin of the globe is perceptible, and blurred bluish-green landmarks become more distinct. Soon, we shall see these as seas and continents. The Antarctic icecap already gleams like silver through the haze of atmosphere that is hundreds of miles deep. If it were not for the diffusing action of the rich cloak of atmosphere, we should by now see our home world even more sharply.

  If only Man could have seen this sight but once in the days of humanity’s pride, he would have exerted every effort toward making space-flight practicable, instead of quarrelling with his neighbours to the degree which nearly destroyed his whole race.

  Now the last lap is before us. Our Disc still speeds on, but with greatly retarded pace. This braking action is the most essential phase of the technique of space travel. Without a considerable diminution of speed, the space craft would heat to an intolerable degree in speeding through the atmosphere. Even now, the high temperature inside is considerable, and we suffer some distress, but the prospect of returning home so soon now, after our hazardous venture, more than compensates for our present discomfort.

  Beneath us is an expanse of ocean, and our Disc swings in great wide sweeps which now bring one coast line into view, and now the other.

  On the American coast of the Atlantic it is barely dawn yet, but Europe, when it swings into view, is brilliantly lit by a mid-day sun. The width of our brakin
g sweeps is tremendous, and even with our edge-wise progress skimming through the thin atmosphere two hundred miles above the surface so as to present only the curved edge of the Disc to the friction of the thin air—we feel the craft’s temperature increasing.

  It is easy to appreciate now, why in the past “Flying Saucers” were discredited by those who did not believe in them. The rate at which we are travelling whips the Disc across the heavens at a speed impossible to pre-catastrophe aircraft. So that when the deriders of the “Flying Saucer” stories would produce as their proof the “impossible” speeds of what had been seen, they found ready converts to their belief that “It couldn’t have happened.”

  To us as we swing across oceans and continents our speed seems gentle and smooth: when we descend to lower levels, though, it will be too dizzy for human eyes to appreciate.

  Within a few hours we shall have touched down. We have few preparations to make, for we came aboard with little, and we shall take home nothing. And so I now make ready to disconnect my typewriter from the power socket that feeds it. When we are once more installed in our homes there may be final details to add to this narrative to round it off . . . and then I look forward to peace and rest.

  To be swept from the face of the Earth twice in a lifetime, without knowing one’s destination, is enough for any man. . ,

  XIII

  The narrative is not closed, despite what I wrote in the last page.

  Once again I have to write a chapter in the story of Man’s rehabilitation—perhaps the most important chapter yet written in that long story.

  Time has passed since our Disc grounded in Hyde Park, and now I do believe that the end of our story is in view. There still remain some developments to be concluded. After that, the tale of humanity’s progress will be told at a different tempo—by some other hand—and on a different plane of understanding.

  Let me go back to events that followed our landing.

  I will pass over the deeply emotional greeting that awaited us from those we had left behind when we departed to meet the menace of Varang-Varang. Those who read this in the near future took part in that greeting; those of the more remote future will regard the recounting of it as a waste of time.

  The event that set our lives upon a different course came within a week of our landing.

  We settled down after our terrifying journey, and had started to plan for the future, envisaging an emigration from our London homes to the farm at Primswood, where living conditions would be healthier. To maintain a colony even as small as ours in the heart of a decaying city was no longer practical, and all our plans for moving had been laid some time before our Varang-Varang venture.

  I think the great shock came on what would have been one of our last nights in London.

  Arab in and I, with Karim, Krill Hvensor and Karinga Varga, were gathered in the studio to plan the final details of our people’s evacuation of London. This meeting place, which I may not have referred to yet in this chronicle, was a long glass-roofed penthouse on the roof of the building next door to Parkside, the Bayswater Road hotel where most of us had been living for so long. We had adapted it to serve as our office, and there, spread out on wide draughtsmen’s tables, were large-scale maps of the district south of the Thames.

  It was to this area that we planned to move our London colony, and marked in a wide crescent on the maps was the territory we intended to occupy. From the heights of Norwood, just south of the old Crystal Palace site, sweeping east and south through Beckenham, Bromley and Chislehurst to Primswood, was the district we planned as our future home, perhaps to remain so for many generations to come.

  London itself by now had become almost untenable. The water supplies had long since dwindled to a trickle, and we had become dependent on private wells and the underground flow of the ancient river feeding the Serpentine. In the ten or twelve years of our habitation there conditions had deteriorated, and we looked forward to more hygienic and happier conditions in the new area we planned to move into.

  And so we were checking final details of distribution of our people that night when—it happened.

  From the floor below the penthouse we heard a harsh, grating voice call to us.

  Arabin darted across to the door at the head of the stairs, and as he flung it open, we heard the call distinctly and unmistakeably.

  It was the voice of one of the bat-creatures.

  Krill Hvensor stood in astonishment, for he had never yet heard the bat-men speak, although we had told him about our meetings with them. The rest of us ran clattering down the dark stairway, which was lit only by the gleam from our battery lamps in the studio.

  As we stood at the foot of the first flight of stairs, undecided which way to turn, the voice came again, from behind a closed door.

  “We are here, where if is darkest,” it called. “We cannot appear where you have light.”

  “How did you come here?” demanded Arabin, trying to force open the door, and a note of alarm vibrating in his voice.

  “We came . . . with your ship,” the voice answered. “No —you must not open the door. There is too much light outside the door, but from here we can speak with you. We must have darkness.”

  Arabin stood back from the door. In the dim light from the stairs we saw him draw his arm across his forehead. Karim stood gripping the stair rail, perspiration gleaming on his face. Krill Hvensor, left behind at the top of the stairs, was outlined in the light from the studio, and he stood, with head bowed and arms crossed on his chest. “The Beast-Men!” he murmured. “They have tricked us!”

  Karinga Varga waved an impatient hand to his fellow Virian, and muttered to him in their own language.

  The picture of the four of them, momentarily frozen there, still remains in my mind. They can only have stood like that for a second, but that second—at the time—seemed everlasting.

  Then Arabin spoke again.

  “What now?” he called towards the locked door. “What do you want of us now?”

  “We want that which we came to seek,” replied the slow, hard voice.

  Arabin sat on the lowest stair, and pushed back his long white hair from his eyes.

  “What is this thing you seek?” he asked. “You have never made us. understand. Have you none of our words that will show to our minds this thing you seek?”

  He turned to Karinga Varga. “Can you see the thing in their minds?” he demanded of the Virian.

  The Virian stood in deep thought for a long minute, then... “There is something that is not complete,” he whispered. “Something needed to complete a thing they have. The batmen have brought with them from their world a . . . No. I cannot see it, this thing they have brought with them. Their minds are busy with the thing they seek. I know they need it to complete something . . . Wait! Now they are turning their minds together upon the thing they have brought with them . . . It is . . .” and he suddenly paused in amazement.

  “It is a rock they have brought with them,” he said in a surprised whisper.

  “We may get somewhere now,” breathed Arabin. Then he turned again to the door.

  “Karinga Varga says you have brought with you from your world a rock,” he said deliberately. “Why have you brought this thing? Is it another such that you seek here?”

  The rasping, unemotional voice of the bat-man answered him before he could finish speaking.

  “We seek another such as this,” it said. “And yet it must be different. On our world, all the stones are like this we have brought with us. On your world there are many different kinds of stone. One of them we seek.”

  “But why?" I asked. “When you have found this stone you seek on our world, what will you do with it? Of what use

  can it be to you? Where will you. . . ?”

  “That’s a question,” put in Leo, breathlessly. “Where will they use this rock they want? How long are they going to stay . . . ? My God! They’ll have to stay here for ever! There’s no possible way to get them back to Var
ang-Varang!”

  The shock of learning that the bat-creatures were with us again had put this obvious conclusion out of our minds. Now it flared there angrily.

  We all spoke at once. We called upon the bat-men in loud voices, and demanded to know many things. There was a chaos of shouting there in the darkness. Then we realised that one of the bat-men had been speaking in his dull, harsh voice, throughout all our noise. We sat in silence and heard him out.

  “. . . a way you do not yet know,” we heard the voice saying, “but it has been no secret to our people for many lifetimes. We are able to move from place to place on our world without moving. Have you not the knowledge of this secret?

  When you left our temple, you left it by our way. When we entered your ship, we entered it by our way. We need no doors when we move so.”

  There was a silence while the creature waited for us to answer.

  A half-forgotten memory came to my mind, from the days when I had written for the Mercury.

  “We have known of this, but have not learned the secret of its ways yet,” I said. “We used to call this ‘teleportation’ when we talked of it. We scarcely believed that it was possible.”

  Even now—was it possible? We had left the underground temple prison on Varang-Varang by some means, but how? Was it some queer twist of Karinga Varga’s amazing mind that had opened to us, for a moment, the secret of teleportation?

  Arabin interrupted my thought.

  “You seek a stone here,” he agreed. “How are you going to find it? Our world has too much light, even at night, for you to bear. How, then, will you make your search?”

  The answer came rolling to us from a corner of the landing.

  We leaped back as one of the “hermit-crab” globes trundled towards us and rolled to a standstill.

  So the bat-men of Varang-Varang had come among us, bringing with them their uncanny externalised eyes and ears, which we had believed to be separate entities when first we met them on Varang-Varang.