“Hear, hear,” murmured an elder savant dutifully, and peered through sleepy eyes at the little, sixty-year old doyen of electronics who was responsible for this boring recital of known facts.
“To prove my point — and, I hope, usher in a new theory concerning electronics — I have here a machine …” Engleman indicated it standing on a massive table to one side of the rostrum. The apparatus looked like a glorified telephone switchboard with two tubes on the summit.
“With it,” Engleman continued, “it is possible to set up a disturbing electrical field which will so displace the electrons of matter as to cause their atomic constitution to form entirely new patterns. My equations tell me that, as a result of this, certain species of matter can cease to exist altogether, whilst others can assume new shapes. How far the influence of this disturber-field reaches I do not know. My study of it shows it seems to have no limit but spreads out in an ever-widening circle. Possibly, even, it may reach to the limits of the Universe and then start to contract inwards again. One thing is certain: the outward speed of the field is many times greater than that of light …”
A certain sense of uneasiness crept over the members. It was just possible that the old boy in his enthusiasm might dissipate the entire hall and its living inhabitants. His genius was such that the possibility of his having invented a failure was unthinkable. Then his next words brought relief.
“Fortunately, the control of the disturber-field is absolute. I can automatically set it to operate at ten feet or ten miles as the mood dictates. I have therefore set it tonight for a distance of exactly seven and a half miles — which, I am assured on the high authority of the Borough Surveyor, is the exact distance from this hall to St. Michael’s statue.”
There was a murmur of assent. St. Michael’s statue stood in a great deal of deserted space on the edge of London. It had been erected by some obscure religious denomination as a silent exhortation to infidels to heed more closely the Voice of Reason.
“I propose,” Engleman proceeded, “to see what happens to that statue when the disturber-field reaches it. I have only to press the switch on this machine and the job is done. We can then set off and see for ourselves what has happened to St. Michael.”
To this the reaction was unanimously in favor since it meant a jaunt through the summer evening and an exodus of the stifling lecture hall.
“I hope,” Engleman murmured, studying his apparatus, “that all is well with this equipment. I was compelled to entrust it to the tender mercies of the carriers in order to get it here, it being too large to fit into my private car. Mmm, yes, all seems to be in order.”
He peered short-sightedly at the dials and controls, and saw nothing wrong. Not that there was — at least not visibly. There were, however, certain difference in the internal workings, brought about entirely by the ruthless manhandling of the carriers who had dumped the equipment with complete lack of regard for its extreme sensitivity.
“All I have to do,” Engleman said, “is press this button here, which immediately starts the emanation of the disturber-wave …”
*
In the center of Great Park an old man of eighty-seven sat studying a pocket Bible. In spite of his age he was fairly well preserved. His back was still upright: he held the Book in hands which did not tremble. Seated as he was on the rustic seat built round the bole of a giant cedar tree, the mid-evening sunlight casting a halo through his silver hair, there was something immensely venerable about him. He seemed apart from everything, lost in his assiduous study of the Scriptures.
The gamboling children nearby took no notice of him, but once or twice a young woman, perhaps twenty-two, sprawled alone on the grass, cast a sly glance in his direction. She was pretty, shapely, and appeared to have everything a girl of her age should have. It was not possible for her to go round with a label proclaiming she had only three months to live because of the inexorable inroads of galloping consumption.
Whilst she cast covert glances at the old man, seeing in him something saintly, something perhaps which could drag her from the death sentence passed upon her, she too was also under observation, though she was not aware of it.
A few yards away from her a young man was sprawled against a tree, a wisp of grass between his teeth. He was good looking, but hard about the mouth and grim around the eyes. Back of his mind was the contemplation of murder — this very night. He meant to snuff out a young woman who had completely misled him as to her intentions. Once that was done … well, here was another young woman, alone, extremely pretty. Pity she coughed so much, but probably a few throat pastilles could cure that.
“Not bad,” Martin Senior muttered to himself lazily. “Not bad at all. Give it a bit longer and then accidentally fall over her feet as you leave. Corny introduction but better than nothing!”
He knew exactly in his own mind what he intended doing. But, even as Professor Engleman was at that very moment pointing out, nobody can be sure of anything, because nothing really exists. There is only the probability that a thing exists …
And, divided by only a scant fifty yards from these three characters and the laughing, then squabbling, children, there lay the tennis courts. The evening was too hot for anybody but enthusiasts, and into this class fell Jerry Maxbury and Edna Drew. They had been slogging at one another for over an hour, and from the look on the girl’s face she did not at all like the battering she was getting.
“All very well for you!” she shouted indignantly, as she lost game, set and match and threw down her racquet savagely. “You’ve got legs a mile long and a reach like a giraffe! How am I supposed to stand up to that?”
“You’re not supposed to,” Jerry grinned, vaulting the net and hurrying to her side. “Somebody’s got to win, Ed, and it may as well be me!”
“Beast!” Edna looked at him under her eyes, her lips pouting. She was a dark girl of average looks, usually marred by an expression of sullen resignation. Jerry, on the other hand, was a Nordic blond, the kind a teenager might swoon for — only Jerry was not interested in teenagers: only in Edna.
“You don’t have to take it so hard,” he complained, tying his sweater about his neck and then retrieving her racquet for her. “That’s the trouble with us, Ed: we never seem to agree, and yet we somehow stick together. Maybe we’re getting all our quarrels over before we get married.”
“If we ever do!” Edna retorted and strode away angrily in the direction of the Tennis Club pavilion. Jerry sighed as he watched her go, but the slim lines of her figure in the sleeveless tennis frock drew him after her. Nearby the Park clock struck nine-fifteen.
He caught up with her at the pavilion counter. In here was the “honor counter” whereby drinks, sweets and confectionery could be obtained, the payment to be placed in a special box. Whether the idea worked or not was nobody’s concern: on the whole the club membership was straightforward enough.
“Now, look —’’Jerry began, and then he could not say any more because the thing happened.
He and Edna were suddenly flat on their backs, their brains and senses stunned by an inconceivable impact. They were transiently dead and yet in full possession of their faculties. They just lay, fixedly watching a blinding whirl of lights outside the pavilion windows. There was a monstrous sucking noise like an elephant going down in a bog. This terminated in a violent explosion that made the pavilion windows rattle — then all was quiet again.
Jerry stirred slowly, gradually struggled to his feet. With a dazed look in his eyes he lifted Edna beside him. Fright had completely destroyed her earlier anger.
“What — what was it, do you suppose?” Her dark eyes were racing with questions.
“Hanged if I know. Earthquake or something. Or maybe the much vaunted X-bomb has dropped at last.”
He went to the pavilion’s open doorway and gazed outside; then he nearly fainted from shock. Simultaneously he felt Edna’s convulsive grip on his arm.
“Lord!” she gasped. “Oh, Lord!”
> For some reason the Great Park had entirely vanished! Instead the pavilion seemed to be perched on some kind of desert island, only instead of there being ocean beyond the very near horizon there were stars! Stars set in a sky of violent blue. Wherever Jerry and Edna looked there were the stars. Right behind the pavilion itself there was a sheer drop into — infinity itself. Stars were behind, above, below!
“We’re dead — or dreaming!” Jerry whispered at last.
“But not alone, thank heaven. Look — there are others!”
Jerry saw them now. Not far away were two big trees, looking ridiculously lonely and adding to the “desert island” effect. Under one of them sat an old man with silver hair; under the other was a young man, now rising to his feet and looking about him. In the middle distance a pretty young woman lay sprawled on the grass, one hand holding down the hem of her skirt as a brief hot wind gushed past and was gone.
“Hey!” Jerry yelled. “Hey, you folks! What happened?”
The young man began to advance, hesitated, and instead turned to help the girl to her feet. Then they both moved to the old man as he struggled up from the rustic bench around the cedar tree. After a moment all three came slowly forward, the younger ones held back in their urgency by the old man’s slow progress.
It struck Jerry as he watched them that everything was brightly lighted. The sun, of course. The sun? He glanced upwards again at the multitude of stars and realized the oddity of the situation. There was a sun up there, certainly, only it had a bluish instead of amber light. Also it was at the zenith, whereas it had been evening before this — whatever it was — had happened.
“What happened?” It was Edna’s urgent voice as the “outside” trio came up the pavilion steps. “We didn’t see. We were in here.”
“I just don’t know what did happen,” Martin Senior answered. “I was just lying there, thinking of this and that — then everything seemed to abruptly fly apart and snap together again, quick as a flash. Then I found myself looking at stars.”
“Same as me,” the consumptive girl said, her gray eyes wide in amazement. “Where’s the Park? The kids who were playing? In fact where is anything?”
“‘And in the twinkling of an eye all shall be changed’,” the old man murmured, shaking his white head slowly. “Y’know, I never thought I’d live to see that really happen. And if you don’t mind I’ll sit down. My legs aren’t what they used to be.”
“Sure,” Jerry agreed promptly, settling him on the pavilion steps. “Make yourself comfortable, sir, whilst we work out what’s happened.”
The old man glanced up with tired amusement in his blue eyes. “You think you can? The optimism of youth!”
“Well, there has to be an explanation, of course.” Jerry reflected for a moment. “Now, let me see —”
“We’re on some kind of asteroid, I think,” Martin Senior interrupted. “Or, more precisely, a segment of Earth has broken away from the parent body, and we happened to be on it. Where we are now, God knows.”
“God always knows,” the old man said, musing. “And a grand mess we’d all be in if He didn’t.”
“I find that sort of remark both irrelevant and unhelpful,” Edna snapped. “This is a desperately serious situation. We’re utterly marooned, and we don’t know where!”
“Take it easy,” Jerry growled. “Things are tough enough without you blowing your top!”
“Then suggest something!” Edna spread her slim bare arms and glared.
Silence. The men looked at one another and the two young women exchanged glances. Finally Jerry cleared his throat.
“Your idea of a segment of Earth flying away and taking us with it is too Arabian Nightish,” he declared, looking frankly at Martin Senior. “I’m not a scientist, but I do know it could not happen. We’re breathing air for one thing, and in a case like that we wouldn’t be. The air would be sucked like — like skin from a banana.”
“It wouldn’t be if the change were instantaneous, involving no momentum. Just a switch from place to place.”
“Eh?” Jerry stared blankly. “But that couldn’t happen!”
“Fact remains, it did.” Martin Senior looked at the starry sky. “Notice something? None of those stars form constellations that make sense. And also that sun isn’t ours at all. It’s bluer, younger, and hotter. We’re in a totally unknown area of space!”
“Perhaps,” the consumptive girl ventured, “the rest of the world is here just the same only we can’t see it for some reason?”
Martin Senior shook his head. “That is belied by the slight gravity we now have. You must have noticed it — I feel feather light, and so must the rest of you.
At which Jerry gathered himself together and then jumped. He seemed to travel right to the edge of the near horizon before he landed.
“You’re right!” he yelled back.
“Come back!” Edna screamed hysterically. “You’ll fall off into — that emptiness there!”
Jerry came back in prodigious leaps. “No chance of it, Ed, any more than you could fall of the Earth itself.”
Edna looked out into the starry silences, a desperately bewildered young woman. The same frightened, lonely look was in the eyes of the consumptive girl, too. The two younger men were trying to look self-assured but the mystification in their eyes could not be hidden. Only the old man seemed undisturbed, sitting as calmly as a weather-beaten old fisherman watching a sunset.
“This,” he said, brooding, “gives us the chance to look at ourselves, to decide how much we really count in the scheme of things. It’s a wonderful opportunity!”
Edna hugged her elbows and shivered. “Then it’s an opportunity in which I’m not interested. Look, do you others find it cold? Wish to heaven my coat was here. I left it on the chair beside the tennis court.”
Nobody said anything. The tennis court! It might be millions of light centuries away. Might even be in another space altogether. Here there was nothing but infinity, the violet sky, the silly gravitation, and a sun that had no right to be there.
“Come to think of it,” Martin Senior said presently, “it is getting cold, or else we got steamed up with fright and are now cooling off. Let’s get into the pavilion and try and knock some sense into things.”
His hard, matter-of-fact logic was just what was wanted at that moment. Edna and the consumptive girl followed him into the pavilion and seated themselves. Jerry stayed long enough to give the old man a hand; then with the doors closed they settled and considered one another.
“First things first,” Martin Senior said, his jaw very square and determined. “I’m Martin Senior, engineer’s draughtsman.”
“Lucille Grant,” the consumptive girl said, and looked anxiously about her.
Each in turn Jerry and Edna introduced themselves and then the old man smiled and sighed.
“What’s in a name anyhow?” he shrugged. “My name’s Jonathan Stone, and I’m a retired publisher. I’ve reached the age when I’ve about done everything there is to do. Where I end my life doesn’t signify, be it in this incredible place or in bed at home. I’m prepared to let the good Lord make the arrangements.”
“At your age you can’t see it as we see it,” Edna insisted.
“Speak for yourself,” Lucille put in. “I can see things exactly the same way as Mr. Stone. What does it matter anyway?”
Jonathan Stone looked at her fixedly. “Strange words from a girl your age. What are you? Twenty-five maybe?”
“Twenty-two, but I’ll never be twenty-three. The doctors have told me that.”
“Come to think of it,” Martin Senior said dryly, “we’ll none of us live for long if we don’t find the way home — and I don’t think we’ve the remotest chance of doing that.”
“Talk, talk, talk!” Edna beat her fists fiercely on her knees. “I always thought men came up with something brilliant in a crisis — and you spend your time talking rubbish! What do we do?”
“We’ve nothing to go on,�
�� Jerry protested. “And stop being so difficult, Ed. Things are bad enough …”
“We can only assume certain facts,” Martin Senior said, his tone coldly calculating. “Some scientific process, or else natural forces, has hurled us on a fragment of Earth into unknown space. The transition was instantaneous for two reasons. We were aware of it and didn’t lose consciousness, and our air came with us. Further, it was smooth and untroubled because the pavilion and the two trees remain firm. They were not uprooted and flung into chaos. We heard a violent explosion after a sucking noise. That could have been our air racing outwards and the gap closing behind. We know also we have traveled an incomprehensible distance because our own sun had disappeared, and we have a different one. Right so far?”
Heads nodded silently — all except Jonathan Stone’s. He was not even listening. Instead he was pondering his small pocket Bible.
“And the time now is …” Martin Senior considered his watch. “Er — nine-thirty. Fifteen minutes ago we were in the Great Park on Earth and everything was perfect. No amount of reasoning or logic or anything else can explain a vast trip through infinity in the space of what must have been seconds. We just don’t know what has happened.”
“Could — it reverse itself and take us back?” Jerry asked, pondering.
“No idea. You’re as wise as I am. It would take an Einstein to work this one out.”
“Can an ex-high school girl say something?” Edna enquired. “I once learned the fact that you cannot take anything away from the Universe’s structure without putting something in it’s place. Therefore —”
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