Carr stopped, meditating, and then went on. “The Universe is expanding — that is already acknowledged. But mathematics postulate that there must come a time when the inner explosion will overtake the outward expansion. That means that the inner core of non-space-time will overtake the exploded matter at colossal speed. Faster than light, therefore faster than matter itself can move. Matter itself is being engulfed by non-space-time! And this non-space-time expansion, moving with resistless, awful speed will eat through all matter until it joins the equal state of non-space-time existing outside the universe.
“Nothing,” Carr finished hopelessly, “can stop it. Now we know why those scientists fled. They could no more defeat the laws of celestial mechanics than I can. Soon the others will flee the devouring tide. Betelgeuse, Sirius, Alpha Centauri. They will use Earth as a temporary haven no doubt, and vanquish us if they can. Then again they will flee as Earth itself comes into the danger line. The whole Universe must ultimately be swallowed up. It will be forced back into the state of non-space-time that existed before matter was.”
Muriel Clegg stared at him, the immensity of his conception slowly filtering into her mind. At length his burning eyes sought her own.
“How did it all begin?” he whispered. “Whence came this primal atom that now threatens us with destruction because its power is less swift than the non-space-time which bore it? If it began once, it can, perhaps, begin again.”
He broke off, and with characteristic suddenness said: “That will be all for now. I must see the Defense Council immediately.”
Carr had little difficulty in convincing the Defense Council of coming invasion once he had outlined his theory. And sure enough it came, two months later.
As on that other distant occasion the alarm shield gave the initial warning of imminent danger. Richard Carr answered it by issuing vital instructions. Weapons, terrible indeed, devised by his brilliant mind, came into being. Then, satisfied that the invaders would get all they had asked for, he retreated to his laboratory, and took Muriel Clegg with him. Then he threw a switch that entirely enclosed the place in a shell of protective energy.
Even so the girl was somewhat fearful.
“What happens,” she asked, as Carr stood brooding over a sheet of equations, “if they succeed in breaking through the barrier weapons?”
“They won’t. They’re not dealing with material things, but with transfigurations.” Carr switched on the external screens and he and the girl stood watching fixedly as, without any sign of fire or blasting, the invading machines just vanished into thin air while trying to attack. It was an uncanny sight, as though they had been sidetracked into another dimension.
“The basic energy quanta of those ships,” Carr said, “is rendered void because the mathematical postulations making them up are being canceled out. My weapons are based on the probability waves of the electron, incorporating nine dimensions.”
He switched off again, pondered, and then saw the girl’s eyes were upon him.
She asked a coldly logical question.
“If you’ve invented such a mighty barrier why surround this place with a force shield?”
“Because I’m not fool enough to expect an absolute exactitude in my mathematical barrier. I had to devise it hurriedly. It may not be an exact composite. The force shield here is to keep away all intruders. I’ve vital work to do.”
He swung to the bench, but at the identical moment the communicator signaled sharply. He switched on. To his surprise Defense Controller Menrose’s face appeared on the teleplate, and it was worried.
“Carr, they’re getting through.”
Carr gave an incredulous gasp. “It’s impossible.”
“Fact remains that they are and we’ve got to drop back on our normal defense weapons. God knows how we’re going to hold out. You’d better figure out what’s wrong, if it isn’t too late.”
Carr switched off, and stared perplexedly before him for a moment. Then he gave a start at a thunderous roar from outside. A titanic invading machine swept low over the city, dropped a complete salvo of incredibly destructive bombs.
Through the window Carr and the girl watched the Fifth and Sixth Traffic Parallels blow out in cascades of tumbling metal. The laboratory window shook violently in its frame.
“It means,” Carr breathed, clenching this fist, “that these creatures are cleverer than I.” He stared at the horde of machines pouring through the gap in the invisible screen. “They have worked out a system of counter-mathematics to destroy the barrier. That means —”
“We face destruction because of their immense intellect?” the girl asked bitterly. “That’s the truth, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps.” Carr’s lips tightened. “But this Earth is ours, and knowledge was given to me to try and save it. Somehow I am going to — at least save those worth saving. Quickly, come with me.”
He pressed a button and a slide opened in the metal floor. Cold light gushed up from below. The girl followed Carr along a flight of steps to an elevator. Thence they traveled down into the bowels of the earth itself for nearly a mile. Finally they came out into an underground wilderness of science.
The girl had never been here before. She gazed round on glittering crystal-like engines, mighty coils, banks of tubes, flat platforms, vacuum globes — She swung, speechless with amazement, as Carr closed the insulated slide leading to the surface elevator.
“We’re safe enough here,” he said. “The force shield protects the upper laboratory, and therefore this place down here. This laboratory is essential. Its machinery is valuable.”
He did not attempt to explain further there and then, however. Instead he looked at the girl with a meditative gaze.
“Muriel,” he said, “in a short time the invaders will beat us. Blood and toil will be offered by our people, yes — but final destruction is inevitable except for the few. And for them only a little while until the Black Infinity comes. I begin to see that I can never save Earth. But at least I can hope to create a better world on which the survivors can start again.”
The girl’s expression showed that she did not understand. He went on in a dead level voice.
“Once I realized what had gone wrong out there in space — that it was the encroachment of non-space-time, I set to work to determine what created the Universe in the first place. I was led to the absolute conclusion reached by Jeans long ago — namely, it was willed into being, perhaps by a super-scientist, or just as possibly by quite an ordinary being. In a sea of non-space-time thought would produce tangible vibrations from which matter itself would be born. A primal atom would be formed. You understand that?”
“I — I think so,” the girl hesitated. “But where does it get us? How does it stop the outflowing of —”
“It doesn’t. Nothing can. The Universe we know is doomed to extinction. When the inner core of non-space-time reaches the outer waste of non-space-time matter will cease to exist. But, if a Universe was created by thought back in the unimaginable past, so it can be again. By me!”
The girl was silent at that. She saw the light of intense ego burning in Carr’s eyes. Already he imagined himself a god.
“I have this apparatus to finish,” he concluded. “I shall complete it in time because I must. You cannot help me in its construction but you can attend to the lesser details — food, comforts, every report of the battle above our heads. I have to concentrate.”
When the certainty of defeat was finally realized a call for help reached the laboring, sleepless, superhumanly active scientist. He was in the midst of the final assembly of his queer and complicated machinery when Muriel Clegg reported a weak signal from somewhere about fifty miles away, underground. She made the announcement rather uneasily, fearful of disturbing Carr’s thoughts.
To her relief he nodded and hurried over to make full contact. Transmission was bad but just audible. The visiplate was out of action completely.
“Yes, yes, I know,” he said curtly, after li
stening to the doleful recounting of events on the surface. “We’re beaten — just as I expected we would be. Anytime now the victors will drive downward after us. That doesn’t concern me. What does concern me is that we can leave a doomed world to them and, instead, start to make a universe of our own.”
A voice squawked hysterical protests, and he paused, his face clouding as he listened.
“What kind of fools are you? I’m offering you the chance to be as gods. I am giving you the opportunity to create worlds at will — and you say such ideas usurp creation, destroy the power of the All Being who is the acknowledged artisan of the whole universe.” Carr’s mouth hardened. “There isn’t such a being. It is a fallacy handed down through millennia. Heredity? Any man, if he be a scientific genius, can become a god. I can become a god!”
The transmitted reply became a little clearer.
“Your words are reaching us distinctly now, Carr. We are separated from you by fifty miles of solid rock. We have no tools to break our way out even if we wished. You cannot reach us, or we you —”
“I can reach you,” Carr interrupted. “If I want to.”
“If you want to!” echoed the voice. “‘You’ve got to! You must devise new weapons for us and recast your mathematical barrier. The Earth is ours and we still want to defend it.”
“Fools, the lot of you,” Carr retorted contemptuously. “No power can save Earth now. The outflowing core of non-space-time will in any event soon annihilate it. That is what I am fighting. Oh, why are you so blind? Don’t you see what I offer you? The chance to create another universe out of non-space-time. I know it can be done. If you are willing to come in on this last adventure — take over a world of your own creating within this as yet unborn universe — just say the word. I will find a way for you to get here to my machinery.”
There was a long silence, presumably while the views of the people were sought. Then the voice resumed.
“No, Carr, you speak of science beyond human reach. There are certain limits beyond which a man’s domination may not go.”
Furiously Carr snapped off the switch and stalked back to his apparatus.
“Imbeciles,” he breathed hotly, fingering his massive machine. “Clods! I give them omniscience, and they prefer to fight like moles against impossible odds. Was it for this that my father made me into a genius? That I should find a way out and have none with the wit to follow me?”
“Perhaps,” Muriel Clegg said slowly, “your father did not realize that you would reach so far.”
He relaxed slowly, staring at her. Savagely he caught her arm.
“Do you mean by that that you mistrust me, too?”
“No, I don’t mistrust you,” she answered frankly. “I know you to be the greatest scientist of this day and age. But I can still remember also that you are flesh and blood like the rest of us and not the omnipotent deity you would like to think yourself. Man cannot create universes, populate them, feed them, control them.”
“Equations don’t lie, woman,” he screeched.
“Perhaps not, but if you execute the sum total of those equations you’ll have a price to pay.” The girl’s voice was quiet. She faced his obvious fury without flinching. “Universes are the work of God, whom all obey and few understand. You propose to defy God, and that is something I don’t dare contemplate.”
Carr straightened up and released her arm abruptly.
“You’re as earthbound as the rest of them. You have no sense of real science. I am doing what I know to be right. I am perpetuating the glorious cause of Earthly science elsewhere, starting a universe afresh.”
“For what?” Muriel asked colorlessly. “A material universe will only evolve and then it will die, as this one is doing. It will leave everything unexplained, as this one has done. We will be blotted out before we even get a chance to understand it.”
The young scientist nodded in agreement.
“That is the point,” he cried, trying to infuse her with something of his own dynamic fire. “If however — I — or we — create a new universe we shall start from that point and work up. So we lay the foundation for a new and mightier upward climb.”
“I cannot believe it,” she said seriously. “What I have learned of physics tells me that, so long as you are material, so long as matter is in existence, you are bound to operate along false laws. You cannot start a Universe where another one left off. Cosmic cyclism insists that the chain is birth, maturity, death, and nothing — not even you — can ever alter it.”
“At least I shall try.” Carr breathed. “Don’t you see?”
She said nothing and so he turned back to his machinery. For perhaps another two hours he labored, unmindful of the girl. Then at a sudden series of vast concussions he looked up sharply.
“The invaders,” Muriel said quietly. “The last screen just went blank as they smashed surface contact. I saw them attacking the outer valves. Before long they’ll be down here.”
Carr hurried over to her, caught her shoulders.
“Muriel, I beg of you, come with me. I know I’m right. You have been so close to me through everything. You are the only one I feel I can trust. I have come nearer to loving you than anybody else I have ever known. I’ll give you — What will I not give you, if you’ll come …”
She shook her head slowly. “No. I feel that when everything is added up I’ll be higher up the ladder to salvation than you.”
“You blind, ignorant little fool!” he exploded. “Oh, why is it my lot to be cursed with numbskulls for associates? You choose death, like those other purblind idiots. Within an hour, the invaders will be down here to destroy you — and I offer you eternal life. In any case doom is inevitable while you stay on Earth.”
For a second or two he saw the shadow of a doubt in her eyes.
“I won’t let you sacrifice yourself,” he cried. “I need you — even if only for the possibility of mating and starting a new race on a world as yet unborn. Science demands that you come.”
She gave a little gasp of alarm as his hold on her shoulders tightened suddenly. Without giving her the chance to reply he whirled her to the footplate of his giant machine. She clung to him helplessly, speechless. He gave that grim smile — that smile of rocklike assurance — and reached out to the controlling switches.
Even as he did so the noise in the outlet valves to the surface increased into terrific clangor. Then it was gone!
Blank nothingness fell upon Carr and the girl, a blankness born of the sudden blasting and total destruction of all physical attributes. He no longer held the girl. Instead neither of them had bodies at all. Nothing was present except a sense of headlong motion as the faster-than-light postulations of his strange mathematical machine hurled them headlong through the infinite.
Within seconds, as it seemed to him, he was through the narrow limits of the woefully contracted Universe — hurtled out beyond into the formless space-time minus, where no matter was, where there was naught but the primal dark.
Since thought was no longer pinned by material encumbrances Carr realized that he was free.
He thought of Muriel Clegg and the fierce compulsion behind his wordless call brought her to him.
“Free thoughts in a free space,” his thoughts cried. “Nothing to hold us. To us falls the vast honor of creating a Universe. Think! Concentrate! Interlocking thought vibrations must bring matter into being. We will create the primal atom.”
Convinced of his titanic authority and power, he concentrated with all the scientific knowledge at his command. He felt too the weaker impact of the girl's mind. Before them something formed out of the grayness, fashioned by thought itself impinging on non-space time.
It grew, expanded outward, became the trembling primal atom of a new Universe. It exploded with bewildering impact, creating of itself mighty suns and nebulae …
The thought-entity which had been Richard Carr watched intently with omnipotent eyes — than as the matter formed into the gradual birth of a
n Expanding Universe a strange fear tugged his mind. Memory was slipping! He was commencing to forget!
“Muriel!” he concentrated desperately. And he wondered why he felt comforted to find that she was near. “Muriel, something is wrong. We have created a Universe. When planets have cooled — no matter how long it may be — we could have gone to one of them, created a race of mighty scientists. But I am forgetting. Why? What is wrong with my reasoning? Muriel, answer me!”
His intelligence was slipping so fast he could hardly grasp her reply.
“We have created the Beginning — not a new Beginning, as you had expected. Your thoughts and mine formed this Universe — and that was only possible in non-space time. But now normal space-time has again been created, all of its laws are operative, too. And you and I are compelled to obey them. It is the eternal law of physics, Richard. All the upward climb you and I have made — all the climb through our ancestors from the primal amoeba counts for nothing. Death would have been so much easier. We would still have stood a chance. Here we have none, for we have gone back to the core of the Beginning. Here we shall remain, all knowledge stripped from us, all to be relearned as we slowly climb again.”
But her words had lost meaning for Richard Carr. Ego, masterful science, the longing to be a god, the ability to create and master a Universe — they had been grand dreams, all gone. Muriel had gone, too, whirled back into a remote primality.
Now he had no other awareness beyond that of dull waiting. Waiting for the dawn of life when he could again begin to climb!
Like an echo from a lost infinity he seemed to remember something, a text had it not been?
No Other Gods Before Me!
But the rest was blotted out in the unknown.
Wanderer of Time
Professor Hardwick once delivered a learned lecture to a group of earnest students.
“Time does not exist in actual fact,” Professor Hardwick had said. “It is simply the term science applies to a condition of space which it does not fully comprehend. We know that there has been a Past, and can prove it; we also know that there is a Future, but we cannot prove it. Therein lies the need for the term ‘Time,’ in order that an insurmountable difficulty may become resolved into common understanding.”
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