In the Centre of the Galaxy

by Clark Darlton

  The planet here was one of the many that were settled by the Arkonides. The assumptions were thus confirmed. Already FR-7 knew that he was not facing the creators of the Silver Arrow. He now activated his speech sector to be ready to understand and answer any sound symbols the aliens might have. His combination positronic structure enabled him to make sense of any vocalized speech after he had heard a sample of it.

  The middle one of the uniformed beings was a robot. FR-7, having been built and programmed by Terranians, bowed in greeting, but to the robot last. With this gesture he announced himself as a messenger of humanoids.

  "Welcome to Zermalonka," said one of the beings in a loud voice. "We don’t often have visitors. Who are you?"

  FR-7 registered the information that here they didn’t know anything about either the rise or fall of the Terranian-Arkonide stellar empire. This particular race lived off to itself and even in 300 years of intensive exploration the Terranians had not been able to penetrate this region. The Europeans, who, a thousand years ago had landed in Africa or America for the first time, must have felt something like FR-7 now.

  "I come to you from the Terranians, a mighty race, but with a request." FR-7 did not behave instinctively but logically—and thus naturally as programmed in a human way. He stressed the power of Terra but added immediately that he was asking for something. That should assure him the good will of the Zermalonkites. "We’re looking for a ship. Did any ship land in your world just a short while back?"

  "The last alien ship landed here 10 revolutions of the sun ago," sounded the ready answer. In a fraction of a second, FR-7 figured the date. He knew the rotation and the revolution times of the planets. The ship the aliens were referring to landed about 7 years ago. "It was an exploration expedition from a neighbouring system. It stayed for half a revolution of the sun and then left. Is that the ship you’re looking for?"

  "No," replied FR-7. "We’re looking for a slender, silver torpedo with robots on board. If it was here, it must have landed three rotations ago, or even later."

  "It didn’t—we can’t help you." For a moment it looked as if both beings and the robot wanted to turn around and go away. Then they hesitated. "A silver torpedo? And robots on board? Do you mean the Metalix?"

  "The Metalix?" FR-7 searched his memory bank in vain. The Metalix were not recorded. "Who are they?"

  "A very intelligent but cruel race who give no quarter nor show no mercy. A non-organic race."

  "Robots?"

  "You may call them that but they’re different."

  "Different? How?"

  "They act and think on their own. Their masters are unknown, perhaps non-existent. You can’t deal with them."

  "How do you know all this?"

  It was the key question. FR-7 had driven his interrogators into a corner. They now had to show their colours—how they’d gotten their information without being destroyed because of it. For if the owners of the Silver Arrows could not be dealt with, and destroyed everything that came their way, then the Zermalonkites could not possibly survive—that is, if indeed they had the information.

  "We received reports to that effect."

  FR-7 had to admit that it was a plausible explanation. If this planet had even some connection with other worlds, there could not be a better one.

  "A last question and request: do you know where the home base of the Metalix is? And if so, would you mind telling us?"

  Shocked, the two beings retreated a step; only the robot in the middle stayed where he was.

  "The position of the home base of the Metalix? You want to know where it is? Whoever knows that will be destroyed and we don’t know a living soul who’s ever seen their world. We cannot help you, stranger."

  "I’m only the messenger of the Terranians," FR-7 said and bowed stiffly. "On their behalf, I thank you. May we go?"

  "Could we stop you?"

  FR-7 shook his head, turned around and went back to the EX-238.

  The Zermalonkites spoke logically and reasonably. FR-7 liked them. They didn’t waste any time on unnecessary things. Organic beings should take a lesson from them; then they could accomplish twice as much.

  As the Zermalonka planet sank away from the EX-238 and they crossed to the next nearest sun system, FR-7 said to Koster: "Considering all the circumstances, it will take us 3,000 years to get to all the planets within the circumference of 10 light-years."

  Koster did not reply.

  * * * *

  After eight days the log of the EX-238 had the following entry:

  Today, System Mora, three planets. Second planet inhabited. Reptile race, half intelligent. Agricultural civilization. No indication of our expedition’s target. First contact.

  Koster, over-tired and exhausted, shook his head as Mora 2 disappeared from screens and instruments.

  "That was the 40th try, Iltu. Negative. It’s senseless, believe me. This way we won’t ever again find Pucky and Homunk. No one knows anything about the Silver Arrows. There is only the hint the Zermalonkites gave us. It was the first and last one. It seems that the Silver Arrows don’t exist at all."

  "But they do!" The little mousebeaver had changed inside the week. She was of a more serious nature than Pucky and had always been silent and retiring. Now she seemed rather discouraged and despondent. But inwardly she did not give up hope. "We must find him! We simply must!"

  Koster, who had never differentiated between the men of his regular crew and the mousebeavers, now bowed towards her and stroked her fur.

  "We’ll find them, Iltu. Most certainly we’ll find them. I could never face Rhodan again if I had to go back without Pucky and Homunk."

  "I love Pucky," Iltu whispered shyly.

  It didn’t sound sentimental or mushy. Koster was deeply moved. Did it really make a difference with whom you were in love? Didn’t it also depend on how you loved? And Koster felt that Iltu’s love for Pucky was genuine.

  "We’ll keep on looking," he said and tried to sound confident. "The two of them must be somewhere and it would be ridiculous if we couldn’t trace them. We’ll ignore stars that aren’t in a direct course to the Centre. I do believe that the home base of the Metalix is at the exact centre of the galaxy."

  "Is there any evidence for that?"

  "A lot. All previous sightings have been around the Centre. When these sightings are drawn on an astronomy map and connected by lines, all the lines cross at the Centre."

  "The Centre, well…" Iltu stared at the screens on which only silent stars were to be seen. While they had been talking, one of the stars had grown larger. It was the next objective of the EX-238. "At the Centre! What will we find there?" She looked at Koster questioningly. "I mean with respect to physical difficulties."

  "I don’t quite understand…"

  "We’ve already seen phenomena that are totally strange to us. What will it be like there, where the concentration of stars is heaviest?"

  "But it isn’t heaviest, Iltu. Several expeditions have reported that the exact centre of the galaxy is entirely without stars. These are very old reports of the Arkonides and other races. Earth ships have never come this far." He shrugged his shoulders. "I wouldn’t know what natural phenomena we might expect there."

  "I talked about it once with Pucky," Iltu said. "He thought it was even possible that gravitational conditions might be the reverse of what we know."

  "That’s nonsense, of course," Koster instructed her and smiled a little. "Why should it be the reverse, of all things?"

  "The centre of the galaxy is like the hub of a wheel, see? The entire centre of the Milky Way with its billions of suns is rotating around this hub. With its gravity, these suns are held in place; otherwise, because of the force of their centrifugal flight the suns would simply take off into intergalactic space. Pucky thought that all these suns were attracted to the Centre the way planets are to their suns."

  "Yes, but why should there be unusual conditions just because they revolve around the Centre rather than around a
sun?"

  "Well, of course not, but there’s a difference when the centrifugal force of 5 or 10 planets pulls at a sun or if billions of suns pull at a particular point. Pucky thought that because of these billions of suns there would be absolutely no gravity on the worlds in the Centre. It would be nullified by the centrifugal forces, maybe even exceeded."

  "A bold opinion, to be sure," countered Koster and smiled indulgently once more. "But then, I could also theorize that the light pressure of the closely set stars would be so strong that its effects would be felt equally from all directions and a pressure-gravity would be created. There would then still be gravity."

  Iltu looked past Koster at the screen.

  "It’s all theory—it doesn’t matter whose. We don’t know anything. We only know that Pucky has fallen into the hands of sinister living beings—if they’re living beings! With that, our knowledge ends."

  Koster did not stir as he said: "What about Harno? Pucky talked about asking him for help. I don’t know who this Harno is, I’ve only heard about him. Do you want to tell me, Iltu? Who is Harno?"

  "An energy being, ancient and immortal. A mysterious being that feeds on starlight and has conquered time. It takes on the shape of a black sphere whose smooth surface can mirror events that are happening at the same time far away in space. But Harno’s size can change from that of a chicken egg—or assume gigantic proportions. He is energy—and time."

  "I’ve never seen Harno—but I’d like to very much sometime. Do you think you can get him to appear?"

  "Pucky asked Harno for help once. Harno sent a projection and said he couldn’t come himself. I think it’s useless."

  "Nothing’s useless!" Koster seemed to be filled with a new fever for activity. The thought of a meeting with Harno excited him; Iltu could feel it. "Try to call him forth. I can’t see any other possibility of finding Pucky."

  "For that we need a strong telepathic block. Besides me, only Ooch is a telepath. It won’t be enough to penetrate to the end of the universe. And to the end of time."

  "The end of time…!" Koster looked at Iltu. "What could be the end of time? What does it look like beyond the end of time?"

  Iltu did not reply. She stood up. "I’ll speak to Ooch. Perhaps we’ll try it."

  Koster nodded after her. "And I’m flying towards the 41st planet, Iltu."

  * * * *

  "What was possible for the mutants must also be possible for us." Iltu looked at the mousebeavers one by one. Silent, full of expectation, they squatted in the common room. They had listened to Iltu’s explanation and had expressed their doubts. A discussion arose but Iltu and Ooch had managed to counter all the arguments that were brought up. "You don’t necessarily have to be a telepath to serve as an amplifier. You are all good telekinetics and have properly activated brains. If we all hold hands, Ooch’s and my telepathic impulses will be amplified ninefold. They will reach Harno, wherever he might be."

  "Only four-and-a-half times," Wullewull corrected.

  "How so?"

  "The ninefold effect has to be divided by you two—a quite simple mathematical step. I can do arithmetic. The teacher at school always said…"

  "We know the story," Iltu interrupted him. "Shall we try it or not? It’s for Pucky, don’t forget!"

  The mousebeavers nodded in unison. The question had been unnecessary. They might be playful by nature and mostly had only nonsense in their heads but when it came tight down to it they could be relied upon. Besides which, it concerned Pucky, their acknowledged leader. Pucky was their ideal. It was he who had saved their race from final destruction because he had made friends with human beings. He was the most capable of them all.

  Iltu took Ooch by the hand. To her left, little Biggy. Soon the circle was complete. The touching each other physically also established the contact of flowing thought streams which served to amplify the thought impulses set up by Iltu and Ooch. No word was spoken.

  Iltu and Ooch concentrated only on their nearly unimaginable task, sending an SOS into eternity—and they didn’t even know in which direction this eternity was. Logically in the direction of the retreating universe, this much even Iltu knew, for towards the centre there was only the past. Harno, on the contrary, was in the future.

  Absolute silence reigned in the room. Whatever was happening in the hallways or in central control might just as well have been in another world that had nothing to do with the concentration of the mousebeavers. Koster was flying toward a new sun system that made no difference—he might just as well have been a thousand light-years away.

  Iltu constantly sent out the thought that would count most with Harno.

  Ooch, too, was thinking it.

  "Harno! You must help! Harno… Harno…"

  Ten minutes went by. Half an hour.

  After an hour they gave it up.

  "We’ll try again after a break," Iltu said calmly. "We have to have patience and never lose faith in our success. Without this faith the thought-impulses would be too weak. Doubts are like resistors in an electrical circuit. Maybe Ooch and I should emit more precisely beamed thought streams and also should change the direction frequently. I’m convinced that Harno will receive our call. And when he does, he’ll come. He’s sure to come."

  If Koster could have seen the mousebeavers now, he would have been astonished. He knew them only as a gay and frolicking band, without worries or cares. But now Ooch and Wullewull were sitting next to each other peacefully, their features reflective. Fippi was talking quietly to her friend Biggy and this time neither Ooch nor Wullewull was their main topic of conversation. The others had lain down to gather new strength.

  But Koster could not see them; besides, he had other worries. The sun they were approaching had no planets and he steered toward the next one. Right and left were plenty of stars but he ignored them all. His direction was directly ahead where the Silver Arrow had disappeared.

  Thus the EX-238 raced straight towards the centre of the galaxy.

  Before they had reached the next star, however, Iltu suddenly appeared in central control. Koster had just let one of his officers relieve him and was about to go to his cabin. He almost stumbled over Iltu who materialized directly under his feet.

  "We’ve done it!" Iltu was breathless with excitement. "Harno’s come—he’s come himself! In our cabin. Come on, Major…"

  Koster took hold of Iltu’s hand and in no time he could see again. He was standing in the mousebeaver quarters. The absolute silence of the clan would have been strange and disturbing under other circumstances but in this case it was natural enough.

  Near the long table in the middle of the room there floated a black, shining sphere. It seemed to swallow up all the light that fell onto its surface and if it reflected anything it surely wasn’t light. It was something indefinable and weird. Koster shuddered. Suddenly he was freezing.

  Iltu let go of his hand.

  "This is Maj. Koster, the commander, Harno," she said.

  Koster would not have been surprised if this peculiar thing would have answered aloud. But the answer was only in his brain, just like in all the mousebeavers’ brains. It was silent but clear; it even had a certain pressure and ached a little.

  "You’ve called me and I’ve come. Pucky is in danger—in great danger. But not only Pucky. One of these days there had to be a meeting with the Metalix. They are a deviant species."

  Koster wondered what the sphere might mean by ‘deviant’. Robots were a normal sight among advanced civilizations of the galaxy. Every civilization, sooner or later, constructed machines and robots. In the course of development, it was natural that these robots would learn to think and act for themselves in order to make life easier for their masters.

  "But these robots have no masters!"

  Harno’s communication caught Koster in the middle of his reflections. That peculiar being—could the sphere be a being…?—must be a thought-reader. It had answered a question Koster’d never even asked.

  "No maste
rs? How can that be? Someone, surely, must have designed and built them. Could robots do it themselves?"

  "At a certain stage. But that’s not the point, Koster. For these robots there are circumstances that must still be explained. Not now, not here, but later, when it’s time. First Pucky must be out of danger. I’ll show you where he’s to be found. By the way, this ship is taking the direct course toward Pucky."

  "The centre of the galaxy?" Koster exclaimed.

  "Exactly—the Centre."

  Or rather, the sun that’s in the Centre. It has only one planet. That is the home base of the Metalix.

  The black sphere grew suddenly lighter and translucent. It disintegrated. In doing so, it changed into a half-shell of barely visible matter. Then it grew bigger. Sparkling points appeared from nowhere—stars. They formed themselves into a sphere. In the centre there were no stars, excepting one. It shimmered a quiet yellow light.

  "That’s the centre of the Milky Way," was the thought that penetrated into Koster’s brain from Harno, and into all other brains that were present in the room. "The red point is the EX-238—you can recognize it by its motion. Commander Koster, look to your course! The star-free area takes up two light-years. In the middle, the yellow sun, that is it. It’s easy to find."

  Iltu moved slightly. "Harno," she said loudly. "What’s happening to Pucky? Can we land there without danger? Will we be attacked? We need your advice, your help."

  "I’ve shown you where Pucky is to be found; more I cannot do now. I’ll hurry on ahead and stay near your friend. No one will see me, no one will even guess at my presence. I can help only when life is in danger. At the moment there is no danger—at least not for Homunk."

  "And Pucky?"

  "He knows how to take care of himself," was the answer.

  The stars dimmed and again the black sphere of energy and time appeared. It seemed to pulsate as it floated toward the ceiling.