by Eando Binder
“No, we’re not shrinking!” Dr. Bronzun contradicted, pointing out of the port. “The view is wider. The ship, and everything in it except out bodies, is expanding!”
“Just a matter of view,” mumbled the engineer. “In either case, we’re done for!”
“The ship is subliming—passing, from a solid to a gaseous state!” conjectured Dr. Bronzun rapidly. “Again a natural law broken, for there is no heat. Eventually, the walls will dissolve from around us! We must have passed into an area where space-time is very thin—”
“And something tells me this area is large!” burst out Fostar. “We’ve got to stop going deeper into it, and get back to normal space-time. Angus—get at your engine. Dr. Bronzun—the trans-space drive. I’m going to use full deceleration. And pray!”
“No use!” croaked the engineer. “Not even a miracle can save us now!” Nevertheless, he sprang to his engine with grim alacrity, and began pumping the emergency fuel-feed with a frenzied energy that few men, far more optimistic, could have equalled.
Fostar stood up on his pilot seat, to better reach controls that had moved back, and grasped the power-lever. With a soundless prayer on his lips, he drew it toward him, notch by notch. The rocket blastings became a muted thunder through the walls of the ship. The hull began to creak and groan as strain built up. He pulled the handle to its last notch and held his breath.
It was seldom that a rocket engine was used at its topmost rate. Vibrational effects were dangerous. But Fostar had an added worry—the trans-space drive. If that should weaken now, under the added stresses, they would never emerge from the space-time thinned area into which they had plunged at almost light-speed.
Seconds passed—seconds that loomed as large as the chronometer that ticked them off. The expanding effect had gone on steadily. Fostar felt like a dwarf within the castle of a giant. There was some difficulty in breathing, too, as though the air molecules, growing, were passing into their lungs with difficulty.
It was weird, incredible—but it was happening.
Watching the velocimeter needle dip as the roaring engine hammered down their speed, Fostar suddenly found Alora Crodell at his side. Her hand touched his. He looked into her eyes. They were amber, and soft.
He knew what she was thinking—that in the face of death, they had been foolish to quarrel. Something sprang into his mind. It was all so starkly simple—why this elfin girl could make him so angry with her and then so angry with himself.
He grasped her hand. He must tell her quickly, in the fleeting moments left. “Alora, from the first moment—” he began.
“I know,” she said tenderly, eagerly. “And now you know why I really stowed away—”
That was all they needed to say. To Rolan Fostar, the dread of their present peril—even the greater oppression of Earth’s doom—seemed to slide away. The whole universe dissolved into those clear amber eyes, with their shining light. He felt her lips touch his, clingingly.
Angus Macluff’s grimy lips formed words unheard above the roar of his engine: “Ah, gentlemen, what a sweet way to pass into eternity!”
Fostar’s senses darkened. He felt his lungs stifling. He heard Alora’s agonized gasping. He could picture their final fate—failing through the ship’s walls as these change into drifting molecular smoke. Out into the cold of space . . .
Doomed!
His mind dipped into oblivion . . .
CHAPTER V
“HAPPY OTHER EARTH”
FOSTAR awoke to the miracle of being saved. Slumped over the pilot board, he brought up his aching head with a groan and looked around. Alora lay sprawled on the floor, eyes closed, pale as death. Dr. Bronzun, in a similar condition, was slumped beside his trans-space drive.
But Angus Macluff, fume streaked, still stood before his engine, pumping wearily with his great hands as though he had been doing it for all eternity. Fostar glanced at the velocimeter. The needle was climbing! They had come to a stop and were already flying back, out of the danger zone. Saved! The weird expansion of the ship around them had also passed its peak and was rapidly reducing again.
“Angus I We came out of it after all!” Fostar yelled joyfully. “You did it, Angus—pumping away at that engine!” He laughed crazily. “And you were so sure we were doomed!”
The engineer stopped suddenly, slid to the floor and sat there looking up scratching his grizzled thatch of hair. He seemed almost offended.
“Well, mark my words, lad, this is just a temporary reprieve. Our luck can’t hold out forever.”
Fifteen minutes later, the other two had been revived and Fostar cut down the engine to cruising range. The ship had scuttled back, well out of range of the area that had held such fatal threat. Things were back to normal size. At Dr. Bronzun’s suggestion, Fostar maneuvered the ship to a virtual halt, relative to space-time.
“The infinite has seen fit to save us,” was the scientist’s only comment. “We are undoubtedly as close to the Edge of Space as we can get without disaster. Now”—his voice rang a little—“we’ll make the records for doubting Earth!”
Busy hours followed. With all helping, Dr. Bronzun set up his various instruments.
Alora Crodell gave her services as willingly as the others. Her air of skepticism, though still with her, had worn thin. She ventured no open opinion. Her eyes watched the operations with a dark wonder.
And a greater eye seemed to watch them, from outside—the brooding, menacing eye of the Beyond! It held mockery, contempt, for the futile little busybodies in the spaceship who hoped, in knowing the worst, to warn their fellow-beings. And if they succeeded, what then? How could the unsentient Beyond be cheated of its prey?
Angus Macluff’s ready morbidity found new inspiration. “The wheels of eternity,” he said sweepingly, “grind everything to extinction!”
THREE days later, the white-haired scientist addressed them all. His eyes glowed with triumph. But in their depths they were bleak. It was a bitter victory.
“My theory is proven!” he announced. “The cosmic-rays have fallen off to half their normal concentration. Secondly, the interferometer shows that two light-years out. at the true Edge of Space, the temperature is at the final Absolute Zero. In normal space-time, filled with the free energy of entropy, the temperature is three degrees above Absolute Zero.”
He counted off the third finger of one hand. “The photon-record shows that light here is being reflected back toward the universe, from the Edge of Space. Finally, the spectroscope shows unequivocally that the velocity of our sun, and its planets, is 18,000 miles a second—toward this ultimate rim of space-time!”
His voice became solemn.
“In less than a half century—annihilation! And before that, perhaps within a decade, the beginnings of chaos on Earth’s surface, as it passes deeper and deeper into thinning space-time!”
Rolan Fostar and Angus Macluff glanced at each other quietly. To them, it was simply corroboration for something they had believed in before.
But Alora Crodell’s sharp gasp was a sign of the shock she felt. Three days she had doubted, stubbornly and hopefully. Now the bare statement of fact was an overwhelming blow.
“Are you sure?” she demanded, in not much above a whisper. “Absolutely sure?” Then she answered herself. “But of course, you must be. You have four definite proofs.” Her amber eyes were wide as she added brokenly, “My father is wrong! We have all been wrong—all the world; ignoring the truth before our eyes, because we didn’t want to believe it. Doom!”
Suddenly she underwent a change. Fury sparkled from her eyes. “But now that we know, what good is it?” she raged at the scientist “If we go back to tell Earth, it will only make the end more miserable. We can’t escape our fate, just by knowing it! We—oh!”
She crumpled into Fostar’s arms, weeping hysterically. He comforted her, and when she had taken command of herself again, he spoke softly.
“We’re going to find a new home for the human race, somewhere! Ot
her stars must have planets. We can migrate to one of them. The trans-space drive will make that possible. Earth can’t be saved, but the race might. And that’s all that counts!”
Dr. Bronzun, already back to his instruments, nodded. “Mass migration to another sun with planets is the only answer. My last set of measurements deal with certain of the stars and star groups within our own galaxy. We’ll gradually file away a series of spectrographic records of their relative motions toward the Edge of Space. Any not threatened by the same doom as f Sol will be worth investigation, for planets.”
“When we get back to Earth,” said Fostar incisively, “we must convince them of the truth and start making plans for exploration and I migration!”
Alora was staring at him, eyes shining with hope. “We’ll convince father! He’ll tell it to all the world!”
“Marten Crodell?” Fostar’s lip unconsciously pursed. “I doubt that he’ll be any too easy to convince—particularly because of his great land-holdings on the planets. All that would be wiped away, in the coming emergency. It’s justice though—”
“Is it!” blazed the girl instantly. “You still think my father is a grasping, selfish soul—oh, I hate you, Rolan Fostar!”
She tore herself out of his arms.
The trigger of Fostar’s temper clicked simultaneously, as it always seemed to do with this inexplicable girl. “Yes, Marten Crodell is all I’ve said he is!” he snapped.
And the quarrel was on, with Dr. Bronzun and Angus Macluff staring at each other helplessly. But a moment later the engineer’s gruff voice rose above theirs. “I thought I would have the pleasure of being your best man, at a wedding back on Earth, lad. But I’m doubtful now. She doesn’t love you, lad!”
“What?” It was a startled gasp from the girl.
“And you don’t love her!” pursued the engineer.
“What!” This time from Fostar. A moment later the two were in each other’s arms, glaring at Angus Macluff.
He turned away with a pious eyed. “Well, perhaps I was wrong! However”—his tones went down a pitch—“I doubt we will ever see Earth again, anyway. We are living on borrowed time!”
But the gnarled engineer’s doleful prediction seemed again one to pass along with all his unfulfilled others. The trip back held no apparent hazard and the miraculous trans-space drive hurtled them back toward the universe, day by day.
There was a succession of queer phenomena, similar to those of the outward trip as they plowed through areas of ragged space-time. But nothing serious, it seemed . . .
Not even the one during which, for five minutes, an eerie fire burned inside the ship. It had been heartstopping, when it struck. Everything had suddenly begun to flame—the metal walls, the instruments, the food they were eating at the time, and even their skins. They ran frantically for the water supply, to put it out, till Dr. Bronzun quietly announced it wasn’t an actual fire.
They noticed then that they felt no heat, no burning or pain. It was like a St. Elmo’s Fire, electrical in nature, quite harmless. Little fluorescent flames danced about, and before it was over, they were enjoying it as a magnificent spectacle.
The scientist’s conjecture was that a temporary abeyance in the laws of electricity allowed all surface electrons to indulge in their electromagnetic dance without energy. Electrical pressure—voltage—was infinitesimal, and the quantity—amperage—was only enough to give them a slight tingling sensation.
The phenomenon passed, as all the others had, and their unwavering course led them closer and closer to Earth.
ROLAN FOSTAR and Alora Crodell, adhering to a mutual promise not to quarrel, found time to extract some of the sweetness of growing intimacy.
But across their new-found happiness lay a shadow—the shadow of the Beyond—of doom. They were in themselves the final symbol of what the doom meant to the human race. In saving mankind, they would be saving only themselves—and their future.
Alora sighed, a little bitterly, during one of their serious moods, as they stood arm in arm, looking out at the universe of stars. “Why was fate so cruel to us, and all others of our time?” she complained, “to place this terrible problem before us? Why couldn’t we have been born at some earlier time?”
“Or—on some other Earth!” murmured Fostar, nodding.
“You mean some other world away from the Edge of Space?” the girl asked, puzzled by his meaning.
“No, I mean some other Earth, itself!” Fostar went on, half dreamily. “Have you ever heard the late Wilzen’s amazing theory? It’s an extension of Flammarion’s idea, that in all eternity, any combination of atoms and events that once existed can, and must have existed before—many times!”
The girl drew in her breath, at the tremendous scope of the idea.
“It’s a metaphysical concept, but j quite logical,” continued Fostar. “Eternity is a long time! By the law of chance alone, repetition must happen, even down to the last detail. Our universe, you know, is like a machine running down. Eventually all matter will be radiation, and the universe dies its heat-death. That’s entropy, and though it takes trillions of years, it’s inevitable. Then, another universe forms, from the scattered energy. Nebulae are born—stars and galaxies. Planets cool. That universe dies. On and on it goes—forever!”
The girl clutched at him, reeling mentally.
He went on. “Then, after trillions of universes, repetition occurs because it has to. Therefore, there has been another Earth and sun and planets, just as we know them! Down to the last atom and event! But this other Earth and sun may well have existed m a galaxy away from the Edge of Space. The people of that other world wouldn’t know of this doom we face. Our histones, even, may have been essentially alike! In eternity, anything can repeat. But of course, from about this point on, history must diverge, in our Earth and any other similar Earth in time.”
Alora had caught up with him. “You mean then, that there may even have been such a world with all our past wars and movements and events?—neolithic life, the Roman Empire, the Dark Ages, the Science Age, Interplanetary Travel? And individuals—Caesar, Columbus, Napoleon, Einstein—”
She broke off, gasping—“Even a you and me?”
“Why not?” mused Fostar, whimsically smiling. “Haven’t I met you before, somewhere in the land of eternity?”
“Your face is familiar!” laughed Alora.
“Seriously, though,” Fostar went on, “part of the Wilzen-Flammarion theory is that the queer sensation we have at times, of having been some place, or done something before, may be an ephemeral sort of pre-memory of another life, in another universe! But, somewhere, the destinies of that other Earth and this universe of ours fork sharply. For they didn’t have this doom facing them that we have!”
“Happy other Earth!” sighed Alora.
Fostar looked at her, smiling strangely. “No, I take it all back. The theory is exploded, at one stroke. Because, dear one, nature could not, even in an eternity of eternities, have made two beings as wonderful as you!”
“Oh, Rolan—”
Angus Macluff looked up from the grease-spot he was cleaning from his sleeve. “What in the world are you two raving about?” he grumbled. “Happy other Earth! What nonsense is that? There’s only one, and lucky we’ll be if any of its inhabitants live to talk of it when it’s gone!”
CHAPTER VI
A HOSTILE WELCOME
TWENTY-EIGHT days after the ship had soared away, its hull once again gleamed in the bright, direct rays of the sun. Earth grew out of the void like a blue blossom. It was lovely beyond comparison, to the returning voyagers.
“How beautiful and wonderful it is!” murmured Alora. Then she shuddered. “But how horrible to think that in a few years it will be—destroyed!” Her elfin face became tense. “I hope we can convince my father quickly, so that through him the world will be warned without delay!”
“You hope?” echoed Fostar, in surprise, that she should have any doubts.
The girl
flushed a little. “Marten Crodell is a strange man,” she admitted for the first time. “Sometimes I haven’t been able to understand him myself—” She broke off and finished more firmly. “But in the face of Dr. Bronzun’s evidence, he must believe.”
Rolan Fostar applied himself to the landing maneuvers. He dropped the ship through Earth’s atmosphere almost precipitately, feverishly eager to shout their news to the world. Finally the ship roared at even keel over sunny countryside, shot toward the city that Fostar had missed only by a few miles, and landed at the outskirts, before Dr. Bronzun’s laboratory-home.
They climbed out thankfully and drew in great lungfulls of sweet air, tinged with that unnameable essence that no other planet duplicated. They had been breathing subnormally oxygenated air aboard the ship, because of failing supplies, for several days.
“Well, Angus, you old second-guesser!” cried Fostar joyfully, clapping him on the back. “We’re back in spite of your numerous prophecies to the contrary!”
The engineer looked sour. “But I smell trouble ahead, gentlemen,” he grumbled. “I—and here it is, I think!”
He pointed to the wide lawn beyond the hedges. A large aerocar lay there, emblazoned with the blue and red stripes of the air police, and several uniformed officers approached.
Fostar stared at them wonderingly.
“Captain of the Air Police,” the foremost officer introduced himself. “Let me see your departure and landing papers.”
“We haven’t any,” Fostar returned, annoyed at such a detail. “You see, we didn’t land on any other planet and therefore we didn’t think it necessary to procure the papers. We’ve been on a test cruise and—
“Nevertheless, you should have the papers,” interrupted the officer coldly. “We’ve been waiting for your return. You’re under arrest!”
“Have you a warrant?” snapped Fostar.
The officer drew one from his pocket. “Here it is—duly sworn out by Marten Crodell!”
“Marten Crodell!” gasped Fostar, looking at Alora. She stared back at him helplessly.