Eternal night glimmered black and velvety, flecked with dots of pale
blue-white. All around lay the vast universe; silent, but alive with
glaring suns and great orbs that were the planets, known and unknown.
Here teemed life among the far reaches of vast space.
And like an immortal, living ether, Jonathan Morgan sped onward and
outward into that space. Black meteors went through him and harmed him
not. Somehow he found himself aware of them, knowing that they only
pushed the gaseous components of his form aside; that when they had
passed, his body resumed its former shape. He did know that they could
not hurt him; but why, he was unaware.
The infinitely tiny motes of matter that were Jonathan Morgan swelled
and grew and expanded. He fled upward and downward with the speed of
thought. He grew and towered, and the Earth dropped away below the mad
onrush of this strange, galactic giant.
He passed Mars swiftly, casting a curious glance at its canals, seeing
half-buried cities beneath ancient sea-bottoms. Beyond the asteroid
belt he found frozen Jupiter, and Saturn with its ring, and saw strange
forms of life that eked out existences on icy worlds.
In a moment he passed over Pluto and the dark planet beyond it. There
was life here, too, of a queer, alien sort. Not flesh, but another form
of matter. He thought idly that he would like to study it, but he had
not the time.
For the call that had been vague on Earth was now grown peremptory,
summoning.
In answer to that call, he fled onward in a rush of gas that seemed to
whisper as it sped through the cold voids of space.
In short seconds he was beyond the outermost limits of Sol's domain,
ever expanding....
Proxima, nearest star to Sol, glowed brilliant in his path. Beyond it
he could see Alpha Centauri, huge and bright. The other stars, too, he
recognized. For he was out among the star trails now, and Sol was a dot
behind him.
And ever as he flew onward, always as his height grew and grew until
he straddled a thousand worlds, the call came clearer. He _knew_ now
that he had been summoned from the Earth; knew that ahead of him was an
intelligence demanding his presence.
[Illustration: _They knew they had been summoned, that far ahead
something demanded their presence._]
Insanely he flung himself out and up, searching the odd and sometimes
terrible worlds that flitted past his eyes. Alien life, spawning on
planets so far from Earth that they were undreamed, lived and died
beneath his gaze as he shot by.
The call came clarion clear, at last.
* * * * *
It said: "Creature of the Third Planet of the sun named Sol. Heed me.
You have done well to find me, very well. Turn your gaze this way,
Earthling. A little further. Yes, right there.
"The pale yellow planet. You see it? Then hasten, join us. For we have
need of every aid that the universe contains. Hurry, Earthling!"
He swirled downward toward the atmospheric belt of the amber orb
that swung lazily about a double sun. Even as he compressed his body
together, he caught a flicker of queer black lights off to one side in
the corners of his eyes. They quivered and throbbed, and almost touched
the yellow planet.
Then he was contracting, willing the motes and particles of his body
together, shooting downward toward a vast stretch of green sward and
rounded white buildings that sprawled gracefully over mile after mile
of land.
The black flames burned, forgotten.
He dropped lightly onto his feet on the smooth lawn, felt it give
beneath his feet.
"Congratulations," said a deep voice behind him, and Jonathan whirled.
A gigantic lizard faced him. It stood fifteen feet high, possessed of
powerful legs and massive, armoured body. The great reptilian head
swayed slightly in regarding him, and the eyes on either side of the
broad nostrils were alive with intelligence.
"You--you're a reptile!" Jonathan gasped.
"And you--a man," replied the creature.
Jonathan grinned and said, "I think I was prepared for any form of life
but yours. Even pure thought, or beings of non-carbon basic formation.
I--hmm. Strikes me we understand each other pretty well."
The reptile looked puzzled, then grunted.
"I forgot you came from Earth. Earth is a young planet.
Her--ah--inhabitants have not made the progress some of our other
neighbors have. That is why--why you were changed, a little. I'll tell
you of that, later.
"But now you must come with me and rest. While your body is
unaffected, your mind has been under a terrific concentrative strain.
It would cause a reaction unless rested. You see, you do not have
certain--ah--facilities as yet. Being as you are is too new."
"Just what am I? I understand your language, or your thoughts, and I've
done things I'd have said were impossible, two weeks ago."
"You will learn. Now you must rest."
* * * * *
Jonathan walked with the lumbering being along a crushed stone walk
between hedges adroop with riotously colored fruits. Ahead of them
glimmered a building, translucently white in the hot beams of the great
double-sun now low on the horizon.
"Life forms vary," said the big reptile. "Here on Neeoorna the reptile
life that became extinct on Earth flourished. It evolved more swiftly,
due to atmospheric and other conditions. Its intelligence kept pace. In
other systems there are things of thought, there are beings with liquid
helium in their veins, there are certain others with no veins at all.
"And then, to cheer you, there are still others who might well be named
men. They are men, too. They are what you would call human. They have
bodies exactly similar to your own. You shall meet them. All manner of
beings live on Neeoorna these days."
His voice was heavy. Jonathan glanced quickly at him, sympathetic.
"Something wrong?"