Time to Come

by August Derleth (ed)

  “Never mind!” He moved away from the telescope. “I don’t need the alcohol now, Milly.” .

  , “You might have considered that before you started yelling orders at me.”

  “Look for yourself! There’s something new out there, "beside Jupiter.”

  She glanced in the telescope and then back at him, disinterested and still angry. “Of course; something black. But I won’t have you put me off like this, Emil. You seem to have forgotten—”

  “Later, Milly. I’m going up to the observatory.”

  “Emil! I want you to listen to me!”

  “Put the things away and lock the door, Milly, will you? I want to catch Dr. Bullett and Dr. Crane before they leave.”

  Words poured from her lips in a torrent, but he ignored her. At some point, as he crossed the campus toward Ryder Hill, Dr. Padgham’s day-long anger shaded away into pleasurable excitement.

  The path up to the observatory was steep. The professor had to pause twice to catch his breath, for he was old and considerably larger than he should have been. He was heartened to see the glow of light in the reception room. Either Dr. Bullett or Dr. Crane was still at the observatory, then. As he considered the matter, Dr. Padgham rather hoped he would find only one of them.

  Dr. Bullett and Dr. Crane were both young, ambitious, intelligent, and widely respected astronomers. Having been jointly in charge of the observatory since it was built, they had been fast friends—until recently. Their falling out was the tea-table sensation of the campus. The cause of their disagreement was, of course, scholarly—Dr. Bullett’s publication of his Theory of the Heliocentric Universe, which was not only an attack upon Dr. Crane’s, more cherished concepts of the universe but seemed very personal because of repeated references to research which had been made by both men.

  As it turned out, both astronomers met Dr. Padgham when he entered the observatory. And it was only because of' their bitter antagonism that either of them gave him a hearing. The professor explained what he had seen. Dr. Bullett at once labeled the discovery an illusion and Dr. Crane, instinctively, took an opposed point of view.

  “It’s probably a meteor,” he said gently. “But let’s check it with the big eye and make sure. Dr. Bullett has a regrettable habit of condemning other men’s opinions whenever they disagree with his own.”

  As soon as the observatory telescope had been focused upon Jupiter, Dr. Crane turned toward the professor, frowning.

  “It’s there, all right,” he said. He glared at Dr. Bullett. “I’d guess it has a mass four or five times that of Jupiter itself; but it’s funny no other observatory has reported it.”

  “What do you think it is, Dr. Crane?” the professor asked.

  The astronomer drummed speculatively on the mechanism of the telescope and looked at Dr. Bullett. “I’ve an idea this may upset some of our current fairy tales about the universe.”

  Dr. Bullett angrily took over the glass. “On the contrary,” he said, “this should prove my Heliocentric Theory.”

  “Oh?” Dr. Padgham felt distinctly uncomfortable, first because he seemed to have set off a further difference between the two men; secondly because he wasn’t exactly sure what Bullett’s Heliocentric Theory was. True, he had waded through the treatise when it was first published in the Journal, but the pages of mathematics had meant very little to him. The only thing he understood was Dr. Bullett’s general hypothesis that the Solar System was the exact center of a finite universe which expanded and contracted at intervals calculable in terms of billions of light years.

  “I suggest that you examine the manifestation again,” Dr. Bullett went on suavely. “It is a tremendous mass, and it is moving in an orbit that crosses Jupiter’s.”

  “Any body entering the Solar System could trace such a pattern,” Dr. Crane said frigidly, “if you concede an infinite universe with no central point of explosion.”

  Dr. Bullett laughed. “Such a system, Dr. Crane, must necessarily presuppose curved light and curved orbits for every body of matters. This—” He hesitated, unable to find a suitable name for it; with a shrug, he gave up. “This thing of Padgham’s you will observe, is moving in a straight line directly toward the sun—the center of the Heliocentric Universe. What we are witnessing is the end of a period of expansion. This is the first of the rim-stars to fall inward again toward our sun; it is the beginning of the period of contraction.”

  “You build a remarkable fiction on a single piece of evidence,” Dr. Crane countered. The two men began to quarrel bitterly. Suddenly Dr. Padgham had a violent pang of nagging, personal responsibility.'If he had not burst into the observatory with news of his discovery, the antagonism between the two astronomers would not have broken out again. Futilely he tried to intervene; the two men ignored him. And Dr. Padgham’s feeling of personal responsibility persisted, growing like the searing flames of a troubled conscience.

  Dr. Padgham stole another look in the telescope. What he saw was a vast, black saucer, the color of the space surrounding it and yet subtly and distinctly different It was like a black,- opaque disk lying flat on a sheet of shimmering black silk. The thing was entirely clear and at the same time vaguely nebulous. While he watched, it suddenly loomed larger; the glow of Jupiter vanished behind it For a moment

  Dr. Padgham had the impression that' he was not observing a tangible and material object, but a vast emptiness, a kind of hole in the canopy of space.

  When he turned away from the telescope he was shivering. His throat was cold as he told the two astronomers what he had seen. Their eager excitement was almost—but not quite —enough to bury their animosity....

  The Reverend Samuel Colwaite stood on the veranda of his bungalow with jungle leaves rustling high above him: The son of the chief had promised not to use the ancient sacrifices at his wedding. It was the Reverend Colwaite’s greatest triumph since he had come to the mission; it symbolized the final degradation of Bwani Ngani and the heathen gods. The Reverend Colwaite clenched his fists and raised his eyes in prayer toward the sky, his mind pulsing with the exciting -tang of hatred. He saw the black disk drop silently into the heavens, swallowing up one of the stars. The Reverend Colwaite read it as a sign that his triumph had been noted and approved; and his soul sang with exaltation. . . .

  Within a week the intrusion of the black disk into the Solar System had become something of a sensation—in a mild scholarly way. The excitement spread outward from the university observatory. As each new group of astronomers heard of the discovery, more giant lenses were trained upon the stranger. Everywhere theorists began to turn out papers of explanation, all carefully hedged about with qualifying footnotes. But the total audience was still very limited and specialized. There had been no notice of any sort in the popular press, except for a single paragraph buried in Time and headed “Quo Jupiter?”

  Since Dr. Padgham had made the discovery, the intruder was called Padgham’s Planet. The name seemed to be the only point on which any of them agreed. There were as many different points of view as there were observers and the disagreement was always venomously violent.

  As he read the scholarly papers that came to the university, Emil Padgham tried to fight off his persistent and unquenched sense of personal responsibility. Vainly he tried to resist having the phenomenon bear his name. He sought-evidence that some observatory somewhere had discovered the intruder before he had; but he found none. No astronomer reported anything Until after he had news of the original discovery from the university.

  Dr. Padgham’s sense of responsibility turned slowly- ominous and terrifying; for a majority of the astronomers conceded that Padgham’s Planet would probably hit the earth— a black mass four times the size of Jupiter.

  “Yes, it’s possible, if Bullett’s Heliocentric Theory is sound,” Dr. Crane told Emil Padgham. “In which case, Bullet will be right—and he’ll never live to know it” The astronomer smiled pleasantly. “On the other hand, according to the more acceptable concepts, Padgham’s Plane
t is moving in a normal, elliptical orbit; it should pass through the Solar System without damage. We simply haven’t observed it long enough to understand the direction of its orbit.”

  “Yet since it’s possible that this—” Dr. Padgham smiled lamely, because the only suitable phrase seemed so archaic and unscientific. “—that this may be the end of the world—” Dr. Crane shrugged. “Of the scattered dust we call the Solar System. But the universe is endless, Dr. Padgham. There’ll still be life somewhere else.”

  “But doesn’t science have a responsibility to the public?” “You mean, is it up to us to call on them to—to give up their sins and repent?” The astronomer found the idea very amusing.

  “I was thinking of it from a slightly different angle. If it happens, it will be quick—floods, quakes, fires, and then nothingness.” As Dr. Padgham verbalized the catastrophe, each word expanded the weight of the responsibility lying on his soul. He added weakly, “If the public doesn’t know in advance of the danger, there would be no time for panic.” That, somehow, would be his fault too, if he could do nothing now to prevent it

  “You’re suggesting that we conspire to keep this quiet, more or less for the good of the patient? Because he’s going to die anyway? You’re a foolish sentimentalist, Dr. Padgham.”

  “Sentiment sometimes has a value.”

  “But science deals in the truth, not its implications.”

  Dr. Padgham persisted patiently, “Nonetheless, you say you aren’t sure. The public isn’t likely to understand that quite as you do, Dr. Crane, nor to accept it with any grace.

  You might create panic for nothing; it could destroy civilization—science along with everything else.”

  “Now that argument makes sense. I'll see what I can do. The Western Association is meeting here, on campus, next weekend; I might arrange it for you to address them yourself. . .

  . . . Saminov threw the translations on Dr. Varik’s desk and the little astronomer’s hands shook as he read them. Saminov waited, ramrod straight, fingering the lapel of his uniform while he glared down on Dr. Varik’s gleaming bald head. At last the astronomer looked up.

  “But this was only three weeks ago,” he said hopefully.

  “And you have made no observations, Varik?”

  “I—I—” The astronomer clenched his fist and hoped that his lie would sound convincing. “Indeed, yes; naturally; but I have waited for the—the decision of the Party.” He darted toward the telescope.

  “You did wisely,” Saminov agreed. “But your report will be ready for publication in the morning? Properly dated?”

  “Yes; yes!” The astronomer’s voice trembled with awe and wonder. “Come see it for yourself, Saminov, a great black sphere so large it obscures Jupiter!"

  The scientists who met in the university observatory Saturday evening were quite unaccustomed to any kind of public notice. They were, consequently, altogether flattered when they found that Mike Parron had attended the meeting; and it only dulled the flattery a little when the reporter said he wanted to interview Dr. Padgham first.

  Mike Parron and Dr. Padgham talked in the observatory, while the members of the association gathered in the lecture hall below. The professor was worried. He had already discussed the problem with the astronomers. They had definitely not warmed to the idea of concealing the present possibility of disaster. With a reporter actually attending the meeting, the professor knew his prospects were decidedly dim.

  Parron perched on the corner of a desk, a slim, tweedy, alert-eyed man, with a cigarette drooping from his lips.

  “So you found it three weeks ago,” he said, reviewing the notes he had taken at the meeting. “You were the first man to see it? Funny thing, Dr. Padgham. AP had a report on the wires this morning from Moscow. Seems a Russian—Dr. Varik—claims a prior discovery, two days earlier than yours. They’ve named it the Lenin, and they’re playing the whole’ thing up big.”

  Dr. Padgham gasped with relief. “I hadn’t heard.” For that one moment his own feeling of responsibility lifted.

  “But don’t worry about it They always claim a first in everything.”

  “No! I’m sure they’re right It relieves my mind a great deal. All this time I’ve had a feeling that it was somehow my fault. If I had just kept quiet, perhaps none of this—” The professor spread his hands helplessly. “It’s foolish, of course, but I can’t shake the idea.”

  The reporter shifted his cigarette, dropping a tiny mound of ash on the. polished floor. “It is serious, isn’t it Dr. Padgham?”

  “You’ve talked to Dr. Bullett?”

  “He buttonholed me at the door. Gave me a lot of chatter about something he called the Heliocentric Universe. All I got out of it is that Padgham’s Planet—or the Lenin, if you like—”

  “Lenin, by all means.”

  “Well, it’s dead certain to hit the earth.”

  “Only if Dr. Bullett’s theory holds water.”

  “The hell with theory! This is a story!”

  “Mr. Parron, I want to ask you not to print it.”

  The reporter was amazed. “What do you take me for? I’ve won two Pulitzers writing the news—all the news. Boss Aretta tried coercion on me once, with a gun in my back; it didn’t work. If you think you—”

  “Should a story be printed, Mr. Parron, regardless of the harm it can do?”

  “A good newspaper publishes the truth, period.” “Consider the facts first. If the—if the Lenin is going to hit us, it hardly matters what you write, one way or the other. Isn’t it better to leave the public in ignorance as long as possible? On the other hand, if nothing is going to happen, your story could only cause chaos and terror that might destroy civilization.”

  The reporter laughed while he crushed out his cigarette. “I never thought I’d live to hear a professor pleading for ignorance. Let me make one thing clear: I’m a reporter, Dr. Padgham, not a moral philosopher.”

  Mike Parron turned away and slouched down the stairway to the reception room. Dr. Padgham followed him slowly, miserably dejected. It was impossible for him to hold back the crushing conviction of his own responsibility.

  He slipped out quietly and walked back to Faculty Avenue. Instead of going into the house, he climbed the stairway to his hobby room over the garage. He sat for a long time staring at his telescope, but in his mind he saw the flaming terror of a civilization helplessly watching the approach of its own destruction.

  He looked with horror on the gray, black face of death. Not the death of himself as an individual. That was normal and necessary. MB was an old man and, all told; he. had lived a pleasant life. His own extinction meant nothing. But what he saw now was the end of man and of all the things of his making; of life itself, caught in the convulsive flame of broiling granite and seething seas, the fine atomic mist of nothingness.

  Milly came up the steps, smiling when she saw him.

  “I’m so glad you’re back, Emil!”

  He got up quickly. “I'm sorry; I should have let you know.”

  “It’s all right now.” She clung to his hand as they walked back toward the house. “It’s so odd, Emil! After all these years, I—I was afraid to be here alone.”

  He nodded toward the night sky. “Because of that?”

  “I suppose so. But it isn’t for myself, Emil. I began to think about other people. Especially the children; the very little (mes. It seems such a—such a shame, somehow.” Her voice broke and he saw that she was crying.

  As they mounted the steps to the porch, Dr. Bullett hailed them from the front walk* on his way home from the observatory.

  “Night, Dr. Padgham. Fine meeting, wasn’t it?”

  “Very.”

  “That reporter fellow—Parron—he promised us this would be on every front page in the country by tomorrow morning. My Theory of the Heliocentric Universe!” He glared triumphantly up at the stars. “Think of it! Proof in my own lifetime!”

  Dr. Padgham trembled because he-thought, instead, of tor
ment and chaos, of mobs stampeding in terror to escape the inescapable.

  “Look, Dr. Padgham!” Dr. Bullett called again, pointing toward the sky. “It’s already close enough for you to see it with your naked eye.”

  Both Dr. Padgham and Milly studied the heavens, but neither of them could find the black intruder. The professor apologized, “I suppose my sight isn’t what it used to be. I’ll have to stick to my telescope a little while longer. . . .”

  ... The drums throbbed and Bwani Ngani sprang into the circle of dancing black giants, shrilling the ancient hymn to the God of the Thousand Eyes. He wore his fiercest god-mask, a towering monstrosity of drooping feathers splashed with the sacrificial blood. He pointed toward the sign in the sky and chanted his incantation to the demons.

  The son of the chief' and his bride clung hand in hand on the fringe of the frantic mob, withdrawn from the hypnotic savagery of hate. They spoke with their eyes; after a moment they turned away and took the path toward the mission cottage.

  “So much fear and anger,” she whispered when they were alone. “I have no room in my heart for it, or it would drive out my love for you.”

  “And signs in the sky! Childish nonsense. The white friends at the mission have taught us that.”

  “God is Love, hot a demon or a devil mask. That I learned, too.”

  They saw the roof of the mission through the trees and, in the clearing in front, the Reverend Colwaite and his staff were gathered at prayer....

  . . The first newspaper account of the discovery of Padgham’s Planet, written in restrained and scientific prose, had aroused very little popular interest. There the matter might have died if the newspapers had not referred to the thing by name. Within an hour a diplomatic incident had exploded. The Russians claimed the right to name the phenomenon; formal protest was made to the state department. The American press reacted unanimously. It became a matter of national honor to defend the name of Padgham’s Planet.

  Dr. Padgham tried desperately to use the situation to escape his burning conviction of responsibility that gave him no peace. If the Russians claimed the invader, let them have it. But the astronomers were too busy quarreling over interpretations of the phenomenon to give Dr. Padgham a hearing. After a delay of a week, the editor of an influential city newspaper consented to see him; but when Dr. Padgham explained what he wanted, the editor merely shook his head.