The experiment, however, was being mounted without the permission of the Council and without an extensive preliminary discussion of all possibilities. This made it seem like the secret manufacture of weapons in the darkest eras of man’s history and gave it a flavour of cowardly secrecy not common to people of today.
It is true that the great objective they hoped to reach seemed to justify the means, but… they had to remain pure in spirit! The old human conflict between the end and the means of its attainment had arisen: and the experience of thousands of generations teaches mankind that there is a certain boundary limiting the means to an end that must not be overstepped.
The case of Beth Lohn gave the African no rest. Thirty-two years before, one of Earth’s leading mathematicians, Beth Lohn, had discovered that certain signs of displacement in the interaction of strong power fields could be explained by the existence of parallel dimensions. He carried out a series of interesting experiments involving the disappearance of objects. The Academy of the Bounds of Knowledge found an error in his computations and produced an explanation of the observed phenomena that differed from his in principle. Beth Lohn, with his powerful mind hypertrophied at the expense of an underdeveloped sense of moral values and uninhibited desires, was a man of great strength and equally great egoism who decided to continue his experiments in his own way. To get convincing proofs he drew into the work courageous young volunteers who were willing to sacrifice themselves in the service of science. The people in Beth Lohn’s experiments disappeared as completely as the things had done and, contrary to the hopes of the ruthless mathematician, not one of them made his presence known from “the other side” of the other dimension. When Beth Lohn had sent a group of twelve people into “non-existence,” in other words had destroyed them, he was arraigned before the court. He succeeded in proving that he really believed his victims to be alive and somewhere in another dimension and that he had only acted with their consent; he was condemned to exile, spent ten years on Mercury and then, on returning to Earth, went to the Island of Oblivion, out of resentment for our world. Mven Mass felt that Beth Lohn’s story was very much like his own; there, too, a secret experiment undertaken for objectives rejected by science had been forbidden and this was an analogy that Mven Mass did not like.
In two days’ time there would be a transmission round the Great Circle and after that he would be free for eight days for the experiment!
Mven Mass threw back his head to look at the sky. The stars seemed brighter and nearer than usual. Many of them he knew by their ancient names, knew them as old friends — and were they not, indeed, the age-old friends of man that had shown him his ways, given him lofty ideas and encouraged him to dream?
A not very bright star inclining to the northern horizon was the Pole Star or Gamma Cephei. In the Era of Disunity the Pole Star had been in Ursa Minor, the Little Bear, but the revolution of the fringe of the Galaxy, and of the solar system with it, was in the direction of Cepheus. Cygnus, the Swan, one of the most interesting constellations in the northern sky, stretching through the Milky Way, had its long neck turned to the south. In this constellation there was a most beautiful binary star that the ancient Arabs had named Albireo. It was afterwards discovered that there were really three stars, the binary Albireo I and Albireo II, a huge blue star with an extensive planetary system. They were almost as far from us as Deneb, the huge star in the Swan’s tail with a luminosity equal to 4,800 of our suns. Only eight years before this a direct answer had been received from the inhabited worlds of the Deneb system to a message transmitted in the second year of the Great Circle Era. During the last transmission our trusty friend 61 Cygni had received a message of warning from Albireo II some 400 years after it had been sent but which was nevertheless of great interest. A famous Cosmic explorer from Albireo II whose name was transmitted in terrestrial sounds as Vlihh oz Ddiz, had been lost in the vicinity of the Lyra Constellation where he met one of the greatest dangers of the Cosmos, an Ookr star. Terrestrial scientists have placed these stars in class E so called in honour of Einstein, the greatest physicist of ancient days, who predicted their existence although it was long disputed; the limit for the mass of a star was even determined and given the name of the Chandrasekhar Limit. But that ancient astronomer based his calculations exclusively on the mechanics of gravitation and thermodynamics and did not take into consideration the intricate electromagnetic structure of the giant stars. It was precisely these forces that conditioned the existence of E stars that in size rival the huge red M class giants like Antares or Betelgeuse but their density is greater, something like that of our Sun. The terrific gravitation of such bodies prevented radiation so that light could not leave the star and travel through space.
These inconceivably gigantic and mysterious masses had existed in space for an infinitely long time, secretly drawing into their inert ocean everything that came within reach of the inescapable tentacles of their gravity.
There were periods of the lengthy accumulation of matter that later ended with the heating of the surface of the star until it reached class O”, that is, reached a temperature of 100,000 °C.; at last there came the final explosion that hurled into space new stars with new planets, in the way the Crab Nebula once exploded and spread until it had a diameter of fifty billion kilometres.
There was a similar idea in ancient Indian religious mythology; the periods of the deity’s inert repose were called the Nights of Brahma which alternated with his Days, the periods of creative activity.
The explosion was equal in force to the explosion of a quadrillion of the murderous hydrogen bombs made in the Era of Disunity.
The presence in space of absolutely dark stars of the E class could only be guessed by their gravitation and a spaceship whose course lay in the vicinity of the monster was doomed. The invisible infrared stars of the T class also constituted a danger to spaceships; the same applied to dark clouds of big particles or absolutely cold bodies of the TT class.
Mven Mass stood thinking that the establishment of the Great Circle that linked up all the worlds inhabited by reasoning beings had been the greatest of all revolutions for Earth and, consequently, for all inhabited planets. Firstly, this had been a victory over time, over the shortness of the span of human life, that had prevented us and our thinking brothers in other worlds from penetrating into the farther depths of space. The transmission of information around the Great Circle was the transmission into an indefinite future since human thought, transmitted in this form, would continue its journey through space until it reached the farthest regions. The study of the most distant stars had become possible because the receipt of information from any place where there were planets that understood the Circle was only a matter of time. Only recently Earth received a message from the huge but very distant star known as Gamma Cygni; the star is 2,800 parsecs from us and a message takes over 9,000 years to reach Earth but that which had been received was understandable and could be deciphered by those members of the Great Circle whose thought processes are similar. It is another matter if a message should come from globular stellar systems or clusters that are older than our flat systems.
The same is true of the centre of the Galaxy — in its axial star-cloud there is a colossal zone of life on millions of planet systems that do not know the darkness of night for they are illuminated by the radiation of the centre of the Galaxy! Incomprehensible communications have been received from there, pictures of intricate structure that cannot be expressed by any of our concepts. The Academy of the Bounds of Knowledge has been trying, unsuccessfully, to decipher them for eight hundred years. And yet, perhaps…. The African’s heart missed a beat at the suddenness of the idea — reports from the nearer planet systems, members of the Great Circle, dealt with the internal life of each of the inhabited planets, its science, technology, its works of art while the distant, ancient worlds of the Galaxy showed the external. Cosmic movement of their science and life. How they rearranged the planetary systems to suit the
mselves…. How they sweep space clear of meteoroids that interfere with spaceships and dump them, together with cold planets unsuited to life, into their central sun in order to lengthen the duration of its radiation or with the intention of increasing its heating effect. If that is not enough, perhaps they rearrange neighbouring planetary systems where the best conditions of life for gigantic civilizations are created….
Half ironically, half seriously, Mven Mass got in touch with the Repository of Great Circle Records and selected the catalogue number of a distant message. The screen of his viewer was filled with strange pictures that had reached Earth from the globular cluster Omega Centauri. This cluster is the second nearest to the solar system and is only 6,800 parsecs removed. Light from its bright stars travelled through outer space for 22,000 years before reaching the eye of earthbound man.
A dense blue haze spread in even layers that were pierced by vertical black cylinders rotating fairly rapidly. The contours of the cylinders were scarcely perceptible — from time to time they contracted until they were like squat cones with their bases joined. Then the blue haze would break up into fiery crescents that revolved madly about the axes of the cones. Blackness retreated into the heights, liuge, dazzlingly white columns grew up and from behind them faceted points, green in colour, formed diagonal curtains….
Mven Mass rubbed his forehead in an effort to grasp anything that made sense.
On the screen the pointed green blades wound in spirals around the white columns and suddenly showered down in a stream of gleaming metal globes that lay in the form of a broad, circular belt. The belt began to grow in width and in height. Mven Mass smiled and switched off the record, returning to his former contemplation….
Owing to the absence of populated worlds, or rather, to the absence of contact with them in the higher latitudes of the Galaxy, the people of Earth were still unable to get out of the equatorial belt of the Galaxy where space is darkened by fragments of matter and dust. We could not rise above the gloom in which our star and its neighbours are plunged. It was, therefore, difficult for us to learn about the Universe, even with the aid of the Great Circle.
Mven Mass turned his eyes to the horizon, to the Coma Berenices Constellation lying below Ursa Major and under the Canes Venatici. This was the North Pole of the Galaxy — in this direction lay the whole expanse of extragalactic space in the same way as at the opposite point of the sky, in the Piscis Anstrinus Constellation, near the well-known star Fomalhaut, lay the South Pole of the galactic system. In the outer region of the Galaxy, where our Sun is situated, the width of the branch of the spiral galactic disc is no more than 600 parsecs. Perpendicular to the plane of the galactic equator it was enough to cover a distance of 300–400 parsecs to rise above the level of the Galaxy’s gigantic stellar wheel. This route could not be covered by a spaceship but it was well within reach of Circle transmissions… but… so far not a single planet of any of the stars in those areas had joined the Circle.
These eternal riddles and unanswered questions would have been turned into nothing if another revolution, the greatest in science, could be achieved — if time could be conquered, if we could learn to overcome any distance in any span of time and enter the endless expanses of the Cosmos as its master. Then our Galaxy and other stellar islands would be no farther away from us than the tiny islands of the Mediterranean, against which the sea was splashing down below in the darkness of night. This was justification for the desperate experiment planned by Renn Bose and being put into effect by him, by Mven Mass, Director of the Outer Stations. If only they could have a better scientific basis to their experiment and obtain the sanction of the Council….
The lights of the Spiral Way changed colour from orange to white — 2 a.m. the traffic peak. Mven Mass remembered that next day there would be the Fete of the Flaming Bowls to which Chara Nandi had invited him. The Director of the Outer Stations could not forget the reddish-bronze girl with her precisely supple movements that he had met on the beach. She was like a flower of sincerity and strong passions, rare enough in an epoch when feelings had been disciplined.
Mven Mass went back to his study, called the Institute of Metagalactics, that worked at night, and asked them to send him stereotelefilms of a few galaxies next evening. Having obtained their consent he went up to the roof of the inner building where he kept his long-range leaping apparatus. Mven Mass was very fond of this unpopular sport and had achieved a fair degree of skill. He strapped the helium container to his body, leaped agilely into the air and for a second switched on a tractor propeller that was driven by a light accumulator. He described an arc about 600 metres long and, landing on a ledge of the Catering House, repeated the jump. In five such leaps he reached a small garden under a limestone cliff where he landed on an aluminium tower, removed the apparatus and slid down a pole to the ground and so to his hard bed standing under a huge plane-tree.
The African fell asleep to the rustling of the leaves of the giant tree.
The Fete of the Flaming Bowls got its name from the well-known poem by the poet-historian Zann Senn in which he describes the ancient Indian custom of selecting the most beautiful women to carry swords and bowls containing flaming aromatic incense to heroes about to set out for the performance of great deeds. Swords and bowls were no longer in use but remained as the symbol of heroism. Heroic deeds had grown to countless numbers amongst the bold and energetic population of the planet. A tremendous capacity for work, possessed in the past by only those few people who were known as geniuses, depended entirely on the physical strength of the body and an abundance of hormone stimnlators. Correct physical training for thousands of years had made the average person on the planet the equal of the heroes of antiquity, insatiable in his desire for heroic deeds, love and knowledge.
The Fete of the Flaming Bowls was the women’s spring festival. Every year in the fourth month after the winter solstice or, according to the old calendar, in April, the most beautiful women on Earth took part in dances, singing and gymnastics. The finest shades of beauty of the various races that showed in the mixed population of the planet were to be seen here in inexhaustible variety like the facets of a precious stone; they gave endless pleasure to their audiences which included everybody from scientists and engineers, tired out with their meticulous labours, to inspired artists and the still youthful pupils of the Third Cycle schools.
No less beautiful was the Festival of Hercules, the men’s autumn festival celebrated in the ninth month. At this festival young men coming of age reported on the Herculean labours they had performed. Later it became the custom on these occasions to review all the noteworthy deeds and achievements of the past year. And so the festival had become a general one, celebrated by both men and women, and lasting three days — the Day of Useful Excellence, the Day of Higher Art, and the Day of Scientific Audacity and Fantasy. One year Mven Mass had been elected hero of the first and third days.
Veda Kong sang a number of songs. Mven Mass appeared the gigantic Solar Hall of the Tyrrhenian Stadium during her performance. He found the ninth sector of the fourth radius where Evda Nahl and Chara Nandi were sitting and stood there in the shadow of an arcade listening to Veda’s low deep voice. She was dressed in white. Her blonde head thrown back and her face turned to the upper galleries of the hall, she was singing a song of joy and to the African she seemed the very incarnation of spring. Every member of the audience pressed one of the four buttons in front of him. The golden, blue, emerald or red lights flickering on the ceiling showed the artist to what extent the performance had been appreciated and took the place of the noisy applause of former days.
Veda finished singing and was awarded by a bright cluster of gold and blue lights amongst which the very few green ones were completely lost. Her face flushed with excitement as usual, she ran to her friends. At that moment they were joined by Mven Mass whom they heartily welcomed.
The African looked round the stadium in search of his teacher and predecessor but Darr Veter was nowhere
to be seen.
“Where have you hidden Darr Veter?” he asked jokingly, turning to the three women.
“And where have you hidden Renn Bose?” Evda Nahl replied, and the African hastily avoided her penetrating glance.
“Veter is digging holes in South America,” said the more kind-hearted Veda and a shadow passed over her face. With a protective gesture Chara Nandi pulled Veda towards her, pressing her cheek against Veda’s. The faces of the two women were vastly different but possessed a gentle tenderness which lent them similarity.
Chara’s eyebrows; straight and low under a high forehead, resembled the outline of a soaring bird and were in perfect harmony with her long narrow eyes. Veda’s eyebrows slanted upwards.
“A bird flapping its wings,” thought the African. Chara’s thick, shining; black hair lay on her neck and shoulders contrasting sharply with Veda’s fair hair, piled high on her head.
Chara glanced at the clock in the domed roof and got up. Her dress astounded the African. On the girl’s smooth shoulders lay a platinum chain leaving her high neck open. The chain was fastened below her throat by a gleaming red tourmaline.
Her firm breasts, like wide upturned bowls carved with a very delicate chisel, were almost completely exposed. Between them, stretching from the tourmaline clasp to her belt ran a narrow strip of dark purple velvet. Similar strips, running across the middle of each breast, were held taut by the chain and joined on her bare back. The girl’s very narrow waist was encircled by a white belt besprinkled with black stars and fastened by a platinum buckle in the form of a crescent, from which a strip of dark purple velvet hung down to her knees. Attached to her belt behind was what seemed like half a long skirt of heavy white silk, also decorated with black stars. The dancer wore no jewels with the exception of glittering buckles on her tiny black slippers.
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