"What this means is that the Oracle, through a wisdom peculiar to her office, has spoken truthfully. I return you now to the Oracle of the White Star."
Again the globe cleared and again the face of a white-scarved woman appeared. Yel she was not quite the same woman. She was a person of the same race, of the same oddity of feature, yet a different individual. Nonetheless this person spoke again, affirming the coming doom, urging all to take discussion as to ways and means of saving the lives of all the universe.
The globe faded out. Warren stepped back, sank down into a chair that swooped down to catch him automatically. He stared at the globe. Other faces were now appearing in it, filled with excitement. Talk was beginning to spread.
Warren's mind probed for knowledge of this Oracle. A strange person, how was it she was the first to know of the change in the universe?
Memory came back. The man whose body Warren occupied had seen her several times before, but had paid her little heed. She was an enigma, but one in a galaxy full of enigmas, so that she in particular had never troubled him.
She was regarded on her world as an "eternal" being, yet it could be plainly seen that she was not always the same person; the Oracle of the White Star was a title, yet more than a title. It was apparently a succession of women who, on achieving the title at the death of their predecessor, also seemed to achieve the memories, mentality and personality of the previous Oracle. This strange succession had been going on several thousand years, until the Oracle of the White Star had achieved galaxy-wide fame as a person of more accumulated knowledge than any living being.
She generally spoke in parables and allegories, but she was known on occasion to come forth with some illuminating fact of invention and science which accurately added to the store of universal civilization. She was not easily approachable, answered no questions about herself, and would indulge in personal prophecy on minor occasions.
This then was her discovery. She had known first of the doom, then science confirmed it. She was wise, of that there was no doubt, but to Warren it was doubly curious.
Could a person who somehow had been passed the spark of consciousness that had been steadily burning for thousands of years, be able to tap sources of cosmic knowledge denied to the most learned scientists?
But speculation of this was set aside in the rush of opinions and ideas that flooded the micro-worlds during the remainder of Warren's stay. It was about a year afterward that he blanked out, to find himself again on Thunderhook Mountain. . . .
The reports of all the transferees to come after him confirmed the story. The table reports that night were strangely similar. Through the next two hundred years the discussion was going on. The mental registry on Dau was sorting and threshing out millions of suggestions, each being tested and analyzed. By the last report no practical outcome had been arrived at.
Warren looked at the microcosm itself in the main dome that evening. It appeared changed from the first time he and Marge had seen it. It seemed to have tightened up just slightly, to show signs of curling at the edges. The change was going on.
Early the next morning Warren transferred again. He was back in Dau City once more, again one of its busy citizens working the cross-index of all the collective knowledge of ten thousand worlds.
Six hundred years had passed since the revelation of doom. A number of philosophies had come to the fore. One was a faith of doom. It preached resignation and a concentration on beauty and meditation. This had its converts.
Another was a wild scheme for hollowing out worlds, sealing them up against all cosmic radiance, and dwelling within these worlds for a million years longer than otherwise would be the case. There were many who favored this idea but the physicists scoffed at it. It would, they said, prove impractical and the psychologists said that it would prove to be mental suicide, the immolation of whole worlds.
Then, there was a philosophy of suicide itself. This held that a date be set, ten thousand years in the future, at which time in a mass celebration, all the planets should incinerate themselves in atomic fire. Go out with a blaze of glory.
There was also a group who said a way should be found to break the barriers of time and space—to break through from one universe to another. Warren found that spearheading this viewpoint was the current Oracle of the White Star, and she was gathering support steadily from the leading minds of the galaxy.
The idea of tearing aside the fabric of the very universe itself was a new one. It was the thought that creation was infinite, and that though their own universe seemed to be finite, measurable, and definitely bounded, still this could not be. The intelligent mind could not conceive of an end to itself, nor of an end to existence. If the universe was finite, what was outside it?
A theological concept, yet one which no amount of materialist thinking can ever answer. The mind is simply not constructed to conceive of its own end. On this point the Oracle was hammering away, and she was gaining supporters.
Throughout his seven months' stay in the microcosm during his transferal this debate raged. Even before Warren phased out to return to Project Microcosm and his own body it was apparent that the Oracle's views were going to be tried.
Those who favored resignation would not oppose the others. Those who planned to burrow into their worlds were perfectly free to start digging. The suiciders agreed to hold off until the others had had their trial.
The League of Planets gathered itself for the last great fight. Its millions of minds were working on the problem of breaking through the universal structure itself.
The problem was fantastic in its size. It was apparent from the start that virtually nothing could break the time-space structure of a universe save the application of force equal to or greater than the universe itself. To solve this poser, the minds of a galaxy set to work.
Warren explained all this to the researchers at that evening's council table. But the heads of all who were trained in science shook decisively. Steiner, Marco, Enderby. Weide-kind, and the others united in their agreement. The microcosm could not be broken by those within it. All the power at their command could not possibly equal the total sum of the microcosm itself.
"Besides," said Steiner, "we are adding power to its boundaries from our own atomic pile here on Thunderhook. Even if they could concentrate a large fraction of their suns' energies upon one small sector, the constant application of our magnetic brakes, powered by sources outside their universe, will counter anything they could do."
"But," said Weidekind brightly, "it will be grand to watch. A fitting climax. It should make a good story in your history of this experiment, Warren."
Warren looked around. None of the scientists, despite their own deep associations with the microcosm, seemed particularly depressed. They all retained that damnable impersonal look of the dedicated objective observer. But there was one other face besides his own, that reflected deep concern and despair. It was Marge's.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A TENSION gripped the project on Thunderhook Mountain during the next week which was quite as deep in its own way as the tension that was gripping the worlds of the microcosm during their next three thousand years. It was to be expected that those who transfered to the worlds of the man-made universe would be affected by the prevailing mood.
A man does not spend the better part of a year in the company of a society feverish with the knowledge of forthcoming doom and then return for a day in normal E^irth company without the hangover of this mental attitude. Yet there was perhaps something to justify the growing concern on Thunderhook itself.
The reports of strangers having been seen in the surrounding woods were confirmed, and it was now known that their guards had been augmented by some sort of outer ring—a group of hired watchmen spaced out along the mountain sides. The scientists were aware that the data within their records was extremely powerful; in the wrong hands it could mean ruin to the world. Not merely space flight, but star flight; the secrets of tapping cosmic ene
rgy, the secrets of harnessing sun power direct, the architectural plans for redesigning planets, blueprints for manipulating gravity and the forces beyond gravity—all these were the products of the microcosm experiment. And now that that microcosmic civilization was about to expire, it seemed that there would be no further scientific revelations.
Plainly, as Enderby explained to Warren one time,- this is the time for their hidden spy to make his strike and run. Hence the guards, hence the tension.
Besides, there was the question as to what would happen when the united worlds of the microcosm made their effort to break out of the bounds of their own universe. Notwithstanding the certainty that it could not succeed, the intimate knowledge of the attack made things vibrate.
The Oracle of the White Star's voice could be heard on all occasions during transferals, urging haste, firmly asserting that they would succeed, challenging all the facts and figures put forward by the mathematical and physical theorists of a thousand worlds. "Facts and figures may play you false. We have nothing to lose. We will break through," ^her voice would repeat, and echo and re-echo from every room on every world in a whole universe.
We will try, but the facts are against us. A part can never be greater than the whole. The most we can muster will be but a fraction of our universe's content—and' that fraction can never cancel the mass of the whole. Where is your proof that there is another universe? Show us evidence, show us the slightest shred of proof of this existence that is outside of existence."
Still the Oracle held up this one flame of hope—the hope that is beyond logic—"It is there. We must gather our energies and strike out. Believe in me and fightT'
And on Thunderhook at meals and in discussions, the voice of the Oracle would be repeated by the transferees and the' voices of Steiner and Marco and Enderby would dissent. "Where is the evidence they can have of an existence outside of their own?" There can be no contact between universes having different time-space continuums. A part can never be greater than the whole.
"And even if they bring the entire energy-mass of the entire microcosm against'the barriers of our space, we can add powers that will forever overbalance them."
But the repetition of the Oracle had a hypnotic effect. Even those who did not believe, such as Weidekind and Hyatt, Ren-dell and Williams, found themselves more and more- agitated and more and more irritated. Tempers were getting touchy.
"It is a hard thing to be in two camps at once," said Warren to Marge one morning. "It is like trying to root for both sides at once, and trying to fight for both sides at once."
The girl looked at him. That week she seemed flushed, gripped by tension. "But I cannot help feeling that Steiner and the others are wrong. The scientific knowledge of microcosm savants are so much more advanced than theirs . . . and the microcosm people are going ahead with their plans."
She spoke softly, but Warren knew that she was hoping for the success of the break-out project. Like a woman, she had identified herself with those crying for help, and no logic would sway her new loyalty. He answered by reminding her that even those other brains, trained in advanced physics beyond that of Steiner, did not truly believe in the breakthrough. All were being swayed by a mere will to believe, carried by the chanting hypnotic voice of a mystic.
Marge glanced at him, but held her tongue. And Warren went to his transferal. He slid into the troubled world of Dau City, two thousand years after the pronouncement of doom.
Gone were the bubbles, gone the landscaping. Every energy media of the world—and it was the same on all worlds—was going into the creation of the world-ship. This was the vessel that would carry the seeds of the Komarian people on the break-through attempt. The planet was now seamed and pitted, where vast veins of metals had been gouged out and used in the construction of the ship. The fields had become jungles and beasts ranged the storm-swept nights. In some spots untamed volcanoes raged, the byproduct of the ruthless methods used in tearing apart the planet to produce what they needed.
The bubble houses, cut in half into domes, squatted on the polar plateaus, clustering into great colorless cities of toil and hysteria. Those who were working on the world-ship were dedicated men, raised from childhood in an atmosphere of grim urgency, finding their happiness only in the completion of another segment of the world-ship. And others, those who had chosen a different philosophy, were apart from the ship workers.
In their cities hysteria reigned. There was a constant rise and fall of new cults and weird philosophies. There was a mood among many of "aprks nous le deluge" and these made pleasure their sole aim of life. Others devoted themselves to a constant re-examination of their souls.
Between these various viewpoints there was not much harmony. The peace was established mainly by the veritable exclusive fanaticism of each philosophy.
The world-ship was a fantastic thing. Warren worked on it for seven months during that period. It was a spaceship whose length was over a thousand miles, whose widths and diameters were similarly great, which would carry, stacked like cordwood, a quarter of the population of the globe, which would carry in its cargo chambers the entire contents of the greatest museums, libraries, and record halls. It would be driven by consuming the entire energies of mighty suns-its drive the sub-cosmic beams that grasped the basic tensions of the universe itself and burning up entire suns in mighty controlled nova-flashes, hurling itself forward in an unstoppable drive.
The ship would be completed in another thousand years, and on other worlds similar ships were being constructed. When all were ready, they would gather together in one mighty fleet, cannibalize in their drive a thousand mighty suns, and burst together at the farthest point of the universe— an area lacking in stars and where the pull of gravity of the galactic mass would be at its lowest. It was the opinion of the saner scientists that the net result would see the ships tearing along a giant curve, eventually exhaust their drive, and at last find themselves merely turned around the four-dimensional bounds of their universe and still within it.
Other scientists said the result would be total incineration of the ships, sun-drive and all, in a giant explosion.
And the Oracle's voice was always heard, repeated by record every day. She was predicting victory, promising another and greater universe beyond their dying one.
After months of work amid the beams and structures of the Komarian world-ship, the reiterated prophecy of the Oracle rang in Warren's ears like a steady background chant. He found that the mind he occupied believed it, accepted it on faith, and did not allow it to occupy the same thought processes involved in his exact engineering calculations. One was faith, the other mechanics.
So the week went on. Each transferee saw the work go on, each came back with his mind ringing with the sounds of massive construction and vibrating with the insistence of the Oracle's voice. At Thunderhook, the conference table was like a council of war, as Enderby tried to work out from the reports the exact moment the breakthrough would be attempted.
Coupled with this was the feeling of trouble in the hills. Stanhope reported an attempt that had been made to break into the records hall in the middle of the week. The door had been jimmied, the hall had been entered. But an alarm that had been installed was tripped and the intruder had fled.
Finally it was clear that the time had come for the breakthrough attempt of the microcosmic worlds. On Warren's last trip, Friday afternoon, the Komarian ship was complete and being loaded. It hung in the sky of the planet like a new satellite, a strange glistening silver satelb'te. Steadily going to it were the men, women and children who had elected to take the chance. Streams of spaceship ferries were rising up, loading and returning. In the cities, among the non-believers, a regular bacchanalia was going on. The planet would be theirs and they were preparing to have their way.
Warren brought back the date the attempt would be made. His date, and those returned by others in transferal that Friday, confirmed each other. The attempt would be made that very evening, sometim
e about eleven o'clock at night, Thunderhook time.
Enderby alerted the staff. Warren and Marge, after supper, went up to the great dome to take a look at the microcosm.
Steiner came on duty with them, relieving Marco. The three stood on the narrow balcony that ran round the inside of the great dome and stared at the pulsing sphere of the mighty microcosm. Outside of the slight astronomical changes due to the passage of time, no one could detect the moment of crisis that gripped the planets within that universe. Its spiral galaxy seemed tighter, but its stars still glowed and its awesome interior was still a peep into a universe outside our own space and time.
They stood there in silence for quite a while. The humming of the magnetic beams that held the micro-universe in check filled the dome. Marge stirred by Warren's side, saying, "It seems ages since we came to this place."
Warren nodded. "It has been ages, truly. Who would have thought that chasing down a crazy story about upstate mirages would have led to our taking part in one of the miracles of all time?"
Steiner, standing next to them, nodded. "Ah, yes. It must be so. As for me, I have seen this grow from its very origin, and I feel like a God to it. Yes, but perhaps not a very kindly God. We will probably have a little nebula on the edge of this universe tonight, after the silly little people blow up against our barriers. That is what I think will happen. They will go up in a puff of light, and then, poof—all will be much as it was before."
Warren stared into the pulsing mass of stars and sky, and asked, "Isn't there the slightest chance that they could break through? After all, they are concentrating a great deal of power against one small fraction of the skin of their universe. Might it not break open, release the disturbance into our own space-time, and close again?"
Marge sucked in her breath. Steiner chuckled. "There is a very slight chance that that could happen, yes. But luckily for us, it is not going to. If it did we might have a terrible explosion here, but the chance has been removed because we have our own atomic forces working to hold the universe in check. We do not rely just on this little universe's own borders; we never could. Left to itself, it would have expanded beyond our building. Of course now that it is falling back, it will not do that, but we are keeping our magnetic grip on it. And as long as our own outside forces are here, there will be no breakthrough, long chance or not. No, it will not happen."
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