Through the tiny port in front of him he could see the blue intensity of the void in which they moved.
Out here time and space were thinning down and breaking up. Like a boat riding on the surface of a heaving sea, they were riding the very rim of the universe, their ship tossed about by the shifting, twisting co-ordinates of force.
Out there somewhere, very close, was the mysterious inter-space. Close, too, invisible in all its immensity, was another universe. An old and tottering universe from which its inhabitants had fled, a dying universe that had been sentenced to death so that a younger universe might live.
In just a few minutes now the space between the universes would begin to fill with a charge of that terrible timeless, formless energy. Slowly it would begin seeping into the two universes, slowly at first and then faster and faster, increasing their mass, dooming them to almost instant destruction.
But before that could happen, the disintegrator ray, the most terrible form of energy known to the Engineers, would blast out into that field of latent energy, would sweep outward toward that other approaching universe.
Instantly the field of energy would be turned into the terrific power of the disintegrator ray, but millions of times more powerful than the ray itself… a blinding sheet of energy that would stop at nothing, that would smash the very mold of time and space, would destroy matter and cancel other energy. And this sheet of energy would smash its way into the other universe.
And when that happened, the energy field, draining all its energy into the disintegrator blast, would be diverted from the younger universe, would turn in full force upon the one to be destroyed.
Staggering under the onrush of such a fierce storm of energy, the old universe would start contracting. Its mass would build up, faster and faster, as the fifth-dimensional energy, riding on the beams of the disintegrator guns, hurled itself into its space-time frame.
Gary wiped his brow with the back of his hand.
That was the way Caroline and the Engineer had figured it out. He hoped that it would work. And yet it seemed impossible that a tiny ship, two tiny guns manned by the puny members of the human race, could utterly annihilate a universe, an unimaginably massive space-time matrix.
Yet he had seen the beam of a tiny flashlight, crystalizing the energy of the eternal dimension, blast out of existence, in the twinkling of an eye, a mighty fleet of warships protected by heavy screens, armored against vicious bombs, impregnable to anything… to anything except the flashlight in the hands of a wisp of a girl.
Remembering that, it was easier to believe that the disintegrators, crystalizing a much vaster field of energy, might accomplish the destruction of a universe. For it wasn’t the guns themselves that would do the job, but the direction of all the energy into the other universe, energy rising on the million-mile front set up by the fanning guns.
“The field is building up,” said Caroline. “Be ready.” Gary grinned at her. “We’ll fire when we see the whites of their eyes,” he said.
He racked his brain for the origin of that sentence. Something out of history. Something out of the dim old legends of the past. A folk tale of some mighty battle of the ancient days.
He shrugged his shoulders. The story, whatever it might be, probably wasn’t true, anyhow. So few of the ancient legends were. Just another story to be told of a black night in the chimney corner when the wind howled around the eaves and the rain dripped on the roof.
His eyes went to the port again, stared out into the misty blue, the blue that seemed to throb with vibrant life.
They had to wait. Wait until the energy had built up to a point where it would be effective. But not too long. For if they waited too long, it might pour into their own universe and wipe them out.
“Get ready,” thundered Kingsley, and Gary’s hand went out to the switch that would loosen the blast of the disintegrator. His fingers gripped the switch tightly, tensed, ready for action.
“Give it to ‘em,” Kingsley roared, and Gary snapped the switch.
With both hands he swung the swivel back and forth, back and forth. Beside him, he knew, Herb was doing the same.
Outside the port blossomed a maelstrom of fiery light, a blinding, vicious flare of light that seemed to leap and writhe and then become a solid sheet of flame. A solid sheet of flame that drove on and on, leaping outward, bringing doom to a worn-out universe.
It was over in just a few seconds… a few seconds during which an inferno of energy was turned loose to rage between two universes.
Then the misty blue filled the port again and the ship was bucking, tossed about like a chip in heavy seas, twisted and dashed about by the broken lines of force that still heaved and quivered under the backlash of the titanic forces which a moment before bad filled the inter-space.
Gary turned in his seat, saw that Caroline and the Engineer were bent over the detector dial, watching it intently.
Kingsley, looking over the Engineer’s shoulder, was muttering: “No sign. No sign of energy.”
That meant, then, that the other universe was already contracting, was rushing backward to a new beginning… no longer a menace.
Gary patted the gun. It and Man’s ingenuity had turned the trick. Mere Man had destroyed one universe, but had saved another. It seemed too utterly fantastic to be true.
He looked around the control room. Tommy at the controls. Herb at the second gun. The other three watching the energy detector. Everything was familiar. Nothing was any different than it was before. All commonplace and ordinary.
And yet, for the first time, tiny beings spawned within the universe had taken firm hold of the universe’s destiny. Henceforward Man and his little compatriots throughout the vast gulfs of space would no longer be mere pawns in the grim tide of cosmic forces. Henceforward life would rule these forces, bend them to its will, put them to work, change them, shift them about.
Life was an accident. There was little doubt of that. Something that wasn’t exactly planned. Something that had crept in, like a malignant disease in the ordered mechanism of the universe. The universe was hostile to life.
The depths of space were too cold for life, most of the condensed matter too hot for life, space was traversed by radiations inimical to life. But life was triumphant. In the end, the universe would not destroy it… it would rule the universe.
His mind went back to the day Herb had sighted that tiny flash of reflected light in the telescopic screen, back to the finding of the girl in the space shell. And before him seemed to unreel the chain of events that had led up to this moment. If Caroline Martin had not been condemned to space, if she had not known the secret of suspended animation, if that suspended animation had not failed to suspend thought, if Herb had not seen the flash that revealed the presence of the shell, if he, himself, had been unable to revive the girl, if Kingsley had not been curious about why cosmic rays should form a definite pattern…
And in that chain of happenings he seemed to see the hand of something greater than just happenstance. What was it the old man back on Old Earth had said? Something about a great dreamer creating stages and peopling them with actors.
“No energy indications,” said the Engineer. “We have definitely ended the menace. The other universe has contracted beyond the danger point. We are saved. I am so very happy.”
He faced them. “And so very grateful, too,” he said. “Forget it,” said Herb. “It was our neck as well as yours.”
* * *
Chapter Eighteen
« ^
HERB polished the last chicken bone methodically and sighed. “That’s the best meal I ever ate,” he said.
They sat at the table in the apartment the Engineers had arranged for them.
It had escaped the general destruction of the Hellhound attack, although the tower above it had been obliterated by a hydrogen bomb.
Gary filled his wineglass again and leaned back in his chair.
“I guess our job is done here,” he said. “Ma
ybe we’ll be going home in just a little while.”
“Home?” asked Caroline. “You mean the Earth?”
Gary nodded.
“I have almost forgotten the Earth,” she said. “It has been so long since I have seen the Earth. I suppose it has changed a great deal since I saw it last.”
“Perhaps it has,” Gary told her, “although there are some things that never change. The smell of fresh-plowed fields and the scent of hayfields at harvest time and the beauty of trees against the skyline at evening.”
“Just a poet,” said Herb. “Just a blasted poet.”
“Maybe there will be things I won’t recognize,” said Caroline. “Things that will be so different.”
“I’ll show you the Earth,” said Gary. “I’ll set you straight on everything.”
“What bothers me,” declared Kingsley, “are those people from the other universe. It’s just like letting undesirable elements come in under our immigration schedule on Earth. You can’t tell what sort of people they are. They might be life forms that are inimical to us.”
“Or,” suggested Caroline, “they might be possessors of great scientific accomplishments and a higher culture. They might add much to this universe.”
“There isn’t much danger from them,” said Gary. “The Engineers are taking care of them. They’re keeping them cooped up in the hypersphere they used to cross interspace until suitable places for their settlement can be found. The Engineers will keep an eye on them.”
Metallic feet grated on the floor and Engineer 1824 came across the room toward the table.
He stopped before the table and folded his arms across his chest.
“Everything is all right?” he asked. “The food is good and you are comfortable.”
“I’ll say we are,” said Herb.
“We are glad,” said the Engineer. “We have tried so hard to make it easy for you. We are grateful that you came. Without you we never would have saved the universe. We never would have gone to Old Earth to find the secret of the energy, because we are not driven by restless imagination…an imagination that will not let one rest until all has been explained.”
“We did what we could,” rumbled Kingsley. “But all of the credit goes to Caroline. She was the one who worked out the mathematics for the creation of the hypersphere. She is the only one of us who would have been able to understand the equations relating to the energy and the inter-space.”
“You are right,” said the Engineer, “and we thank Caroline especially. But the rest of you had your part to do and did it. It has made us very proud.”
“Proud,” thought Gary. “Why should he be proud of anything we’ve done?”
The Engineer caught his thought.
“You ask why we should be proud,” he said, “and I shall tell you why. We have watched and studied you closely since you came, debating whether you should be told what there is to tell. Under different circumstances we probably would allow you to depart without a word, but we have decided that you should know.”
“Know what?” thundered Kingsley.
The rest of them were silent, waiting.
“You are aware of how your solar system came into being?” asked the Engineer.
“Sure,” said Kingsley. “There was a dynamic encounter between two stars. Our Sun and an invader. About three billion years ago.”
“That invader,” said the Engineer, “was the Sun of my people, a sun upon whose planets they had built a great civilization. My people knew well in advance that the collision would take place. Our astronomers discovered it first and after that our physicists and other scientists worked unceasingly in a futile effort either to avert the collision or to save what could be salvaged of our civilization when the encounter came. But century after century passed, with the two stars swinging closer and closer together.
There seemed no chance to save anything. We knew that the planets would be destroyed when the first giant tide from your Sun lashed out into space, that the resultant explosion would instantly destroy all life, that more than likely some of the planets would be totally destroyed.
“Our astronomers told us that our Sun would pass within two million miles of your star, that it would grip and drag far out in space some of the molten mass which your Sun would eject. In such a case we could see but little hope for the continuance of our civilization.”
His thoughts broke off, but no one said a word. All eyes were staring at the impassive metal face of the Engineer, waiting for him to continue.
“Finally, knowing that all their efforts were hopeless, my people constructed vast spaceships. Spaceships designed for living, for spending many years in space. And long before the collision occurred these ships were launched, carrying select groups of our civilization. Representative groups. Men of different sciences, with many records of our civilization.”
“The Ark,” said Caroline, breathlessly. “The old story of the Ark.”
“I do not understand,” said the Engineer.
“It doesn’t matter,” Caroline said. “Please go on.”
“From far out in space my people watched the two stars sweep past each other,” said the Engineer. “It was as if the very heavens had exploded.
Great tongues of gas and molten matter speared out into space for millions of miles. They saw their own Sun drag a great mass of this stellar material for billions of miles out into space, strewing fragments of it en route.
They saw the gradual formation of the matter around your Sun and then, in time, they lost sight of it, for they were moving far out into space and the eruptive masses were settling down into a quieter state.
“For generation after generation, my people hunted for a new home. Men died and were given burial in space. Children were born and grew old in turn and died. For century after century the great ships voyaged from star to star, seeking a planetary system on which they might settle and make their homes.
One of the ships ran too close to a giant sun and was drawn to its death.
Another was split wide open when it collided with a dark star. But the rest braved the dangers and uncertainties of space, hunting, always hunting for a home.”
Another pause and still there were no questions. The Engineer went on:
“But no planetary system could be found. Only one star in every ten thousand has a planetary system, and they might have hunted for thousands of years without finding one.
“Finally, tired out with searching, they decided to return to your Sun. For while there was as yet no planetary system there, they knew that in ages to come there would be.”
The cold wind from space was flicking Gary in the face again. Could this tale the Engineer was telling be the truth? Was this why the Engineers had been signaling to Pluto?
The Engineer’s thoughts were coming again.
“After many years they reached your Sun, and as they approached it they saw that planets were beginning to form around the centers of relatively dense matter. But there was something else. Swinging in a great, erratic orbit on the very edge of this nebula-like mass of raw planetary matter was a planet which they recognized. It was one of the planets of their old home star, fourth out from their Sun. It had been stolen from their Sun, now was swinging in an orbit of its own around its adopted star.
“My people had found a home at last. They descended to the surface of the planet to find that its atmosphere was gone, that all life had vanished, that all signs of civilization had been utterly wiped out.
“But they settled there and tried to rebuild, in part at least, the civilization that was their heritage. But it was a heart-rending task. For years and centuries they watched the slow formation of your solar system, saw the planets take on shape and slowly cool, waiting against the day when the race might occupy them. But the process was too slow. The work of building their civilization anew, the lack of atmosphere, the utter cold of space, were sapping the strength of my people. They foresaw the day when they would perish, when the last one of the
race would die. But they planned for the future. They planned very carefully.
“They created us and gave us great ships and sent us out to try to find them new homes, hoping against hope that we would be able to find them a better home before it was too late. For out in space our ships separated, each traveling its own way, bent on a survey of the entire universe if such were necessary.”
“They created you?” asked Gary. “What do you mean? Aren’t you direct descendants of that other race, the race of the invading star?”
“No,” said the Engineer. “We are robots. But so carefully made, so well endowed with a semblance of life that we cannot be distinguished from authentic life forms. I sometimes think that in all these years we may have become life in all reality. I have thought about it a great deal, have hoped so much that we might in time become something more than mere machines.”
In the silence, Gary wondered why he had not guessed the truth before. It had been there to see. The form, the very actions of the Engineers were mechanistic. Once the Engineer had told them that he was bound by mechanistic precepts, that he and his fellows possessed almost no imagination. And machines, of course, would have no imagination.
But they had seemed so much like people, almost like human beings, that he had thought of them as actual life, but cast in metallic rather than protoplasmic form.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Kingsley.
“Boy,” said Herb, “you’re topnotch robots, if I do say so.”
Gary snarled at him across the table. “Pipe down,” he warned.
“Maybe you aren’t robots any more,” Caroline was saying. “Maybe through all these years you have become real entities. Your creators must have given you electrochemical brains, and that, after all, is what the human brain amounts to. In time those brains would become real, almost as efficient, probably in some instances even more efficient than a protoplasmic brain.
And brain power, the ability to think and reason, seems to be all that counts when everything is balanced out.”
“Thank you,” said the Engineer. “Thank you very much. You are so kind to say so. That is what I have tried to tell myself.”