He nodded, his eyes holding mine. "The globe-men," he said, simply.
We stared at him, and he stepped swiftly to the door, tried it and
found it fast, then came back and sat down beside us.
"The globe-men," he repeated solemnly, "those children of Alto, those
creatures of hell, who have turned their parent sun from its course to
send it crashing into our own, to wipe out our universe."
At our exclamations of stunned surprize he was silent, musing, his
eyes seeming to gaze out through somber vistas of horror invisible to
us. When he spoke again it was slowly, broodingly, as though he had
forgotten our presence.
"I have found what we came here to learn," he was saying; "have
discovered the reason for the deflection of this star. Yet even
before, I guessed.... If a star have planets and those planets
inhabitants--inhabitants of supreme science, supreme power--would they
not use that science and that power to save themselves from death, even
though it means death for another universe? And that is what they have
done, and what I suspected before.
"It was that suspicion that stood me in good stead when we were
examined there by the chief of the globe-men. I had glimpsed on his
desk sheets with astronomical designs on them, and so I took a sheet
myself and drew on it a simple design which he understood immediately,
a design which represented two suns colliding. It convinced him of my
knowledge, my intelligence, so that when he sent the rest of you to
this cell he retained me for questioning. And for hours afterward I
drew other sketches, other designs, while with gestures he interrogated
me concerning them. It was slow, fumbling communication, but it was
communication, and gradually we perfected a system of signs and
drawings by which we were able to exchange ideas. And through the
succeeding days our sign-communication continued.
"I informed him, in this way, that we were visitors from another star,
but I was too cautious to let him know that we were children of the sun
into which Alto was soon to crash. Instead I named Sirius as our native
star, explaining that we had come from there in our vibration-cruiser
for purposes of exploration. It was the cruiser which interested him
most, evidently. The scientists of the globe-people had been examining
it, he told me, and he now asked me innumerable questions concerning
its design and operation. For though the globe-men have gravity-screen
ships, like our own old-fashioned ones, in which they can travel from
planet to planet, they have no such star-cruisers as this one of ours.
Hence his questions, which I evaded as well as I could, turning the
subject to the coming collision of the two suns, which I stated had
been foreseen by the astronomers of my own universe. And as I had
expected, my news of the coming collision was no surprize to him. For,
as he casually explained, that collision was being engineered in fact
by his own people, the globe-men, for their own purposes.
"For ages, it seems, these globe-men have dwelt on the planets of Alto.
First they had inhabited the outermost planet, billions of miles from
Alto itself, but which was yet warm enough for existence because of
their sun's titanic size and immense heat. There they had risen to
greatness, had built up their science and civilization to undreamed-of
heights. But as the ages passed, that outermost world of theirs was
growing colder and colder, since Alto, like all other suns, was slowly
but steadily cooling, shrinking and dying, radiating less and less
heat. At last there came a time when the planet of the globe-men was
fast becoming too cold for existence there, and then their scientists
stirred themselves to find a way out. Spurred on by necessity, they hit
upon the invention of the gravity screen and with it constructed their
first interplanetary space-ships. These they made in vast numbers, and
in them the globe-people moved _en masse_ to the next innermost planet,
which still received enough heat from Alto to support life. There they
settled, and there their civilization endured for further ages.
"But slowly, surely, their sun continued to cool and die, and with the
terrible, machinelike inevitability of natural laws there came a day
when again their world had grown too cold for their existence. This
time, though, they had the remedy for their situation at hand, and
again there took place a great migration from their cold planet to a
warmer inner one. And so, as the ages passed, they escaped extinction
by migrating from planet to planet, moving ever sunward as their sun
waned in size and splendor, creeping closer and closer toward its dying
fires.
"At last, though, after long ages, there drew down toward them the doom
which they had averted for so long. Alto was still shrinking, cooling,
and now they were settled upon its warmest, inmost planet, and had
no warmer world to which to flee. But a short time longer, as they
measured time, and their planet would become a frozen, lifeless world,
for their sun would inevitably cool still further until it was one of
the countless dark stars, dead and burned-out suns, which throng the
heavens. It seemed, indeed, that this time there was to be no escape.
"But now there came forward a party among them which advanced a
proposal of colossal proportions. They pointed out that Alto was moving
steadily toward another sun, one much the same size as their own but
flaming with heat and life, which it would pass closely within a short
time. But if, instead of passing each other, the two suns should meet,
should crash into each other, what then would be the result? It would
be, of course, that the collision would form one new sun instead of the
former two--one titanic, flaming sun whose heat would be sufficient to
support life on any planet for countless ages. The inmost planets of
Alto's system, and virtually all the planets of the other sun's system,
would be annihilated by the collision, of course, would perish in that
flaming shock of suns. But the outermost planets of Alto, which lay in
orbits billions of miles from it, would be safe enough and would take
up their orbits around this great new sun in place of Alto. And on
these planets the globe-people could exist for eons, supported by the
heat of the great new sun. It was a perfect plan, and required only
that their own sun, Alto, be swerved from its path just enough to make
it crash into the other sun instead of passing it.
"To accomplish this, to swerve their star from its course, the
globe-men made use of a simple physical principle. You know that a
round, spinning body, moving across or through any medium, changes its
direction if the rate of its spinning is changed. A ball that rolls
across a smooth table without spinning at all will move in a straight
line. But if the ball spins as it rolls it will move in a curved
line, the amount and direction of curve depending upon the amount and
direction of spin. Now their sun, which had rotated at the same rate
for ages, had rolled through the ether for ages on the same great
course, never swerving. And so, they reasoned, if their sun's rate of
spin or rotation could be increased a little it would curve aside a
little from its accustomed course.
"The problem, then, was to increase their sun's rate of spin, and
to accomplish this they gathered all their science. A mighty tower
was erected over their city, on whose great top-platform were
placed machines which could generate an etheric ray or vibration of
inconceivable power, a ray which could be directed at will through the
great telescopelike projector which they had provided for it.
"This done, they waited until the moment calculated by their
astronomers, then aimed the great projector-tube at the edge of their
sun that was rotating away from them, and turned on the ray. This was
the crucial point of their scheme, for now they were risking their
very universe. It was necessary for them to increase their sun's rate
of spin just enough to make it swerve aside, but if the rate of spin
were increased just a little too much it would mean disaster, since
when a sun spins too fast it breaks up like a great flywheel, splits
into a double star. It is that process, the process of fission, which
has formed the countless double stars and bursted suns in the heavens
around us, since each was only a single star or sun which broke up
because of its too-great speed of rotation, or spin. And the globe-men
knew that it would require but very little increase in their own sun's
rate of spin to make it, too, split asunder. So they watched with
infinite care while their brilliant ray stabbed up toward the sun's
edge, and when, under the terrific power of that pushing ray, the star
began to spin faster, they at once turned off the ray, which was used
for a short time only. But it had been effective; for now, as their
sun spun faster, it began to swerve a little from its usual course,
and they knew that now it would crash into the other approaching sun
instead of passing it. So their end was achieved, and so they began
their preparations for their great migration out to Alto's outermost
planets, a migration which would take place just before the collision.
And then--we came.
"We came, and now we have discovered that for which we came, the
reason for Alto's change in course. For it was the science and will
of the globe-men that turned their sun aside, that threatens now the
annihilation of the Eight Worlds. Doom presses upon them, and to
escape that doom they are destroying our sun, our planets, our very
universe!"
4
I do not remember that any of us spoke when Sarto Sen's voice had
ceased. And yet, stunned as we were by the thing he had told us, our
knowledge was in some ways a relief. We had discovered, at least, what
had swerved Alto from its course, and if science and intelligence alone
could cause the sun to veer from its path, science and intelligence
might steer it back into that path.
When I said as much to Sarto Sen his face lit up. "You are right, Jan
Tor!" he exclaimed. "There's a chance! And even as Mur Dak predicted,
that chance depends on us. For if we can escape from here and get back
to the Eight Worlds, we can come back with a greater force and crush
these globe-men, and use their own force-projector to swerve their sun
out of its present path."
"But why go back to the Eight Worlds?" objected Hal Kur. "Why not get
up to that platform, if we escape, and use the projector ourselves?"
Sarto Sen shook his head. "It's impossible," he told the big engineer.
"If we escape from here at all it will be by night, for by day the
rooms and corridors outside are thronged with globe-men. And by night
we could do nothing, for Alto, the sun itself, would not then be in the
sky. Nor could we wait for its rising, there on the platform, since
our escape would soon be discovered, and we should be attacked there.
Our only chance is to get out of here by night, make our way up to
the platform, and make a dash for our ship. If we can do that we can
flash back to our own universe and get the help we need to crush these
globe-people."
"But when shall we make the attempt?" I asked, and my heart leaped at
Sarto Sen's answer. "To-night! The sooner we get out the better. A few
hours after dark we'll try it."
He went on, then, to unfold his plan for escape, and we listened
intently, while big Hal Kur's eyes gleamed at the prospect of action.
Our plan was simple enough, and likely enough to fail, we knew, but it
was our only chance. What course we would follow after getting free of
our cell we did not even discuss. There was nothing for it but to make
our break and trust to luck to bring us through the thousand obstacles
that lay between us and the tower-platform which held our ship.
The remaining hours of that day were the longest I have ever
experienced. The slanting shafts of light from the loopholes seemed
to move across the room with infinite slowness, while we awaited
impatiently the coming of night. At last the light-bars darkened,
disappeared, as the dying crimson sun sank beyond the rim of the world
outside. Darkness had descended on that world, now, and here and there
among the buildings and streets of the weird city outside flared points
of red light. Still we waited, until the vague, half-heard sounds of
soft movement and thrumming speech outside had lessened, ceased, until
at last the only sound to be heard was an occasional shuffling movement
of the guard outside the door.
Sarto Sen rose, making to us a signal of readiness, and then threw
himself flat on the floor of the room's center. At the farther side of
the cell lay Hal Kur and Nar Lon, as though sleeping, with a thick roll
of garments between them which resembled another sleeping figure. These
preparations made, I stepped to the door and stationed myself directly
inside it, to one side, my heart pounding now as the moment for action
approached.
All was ready, and seeing this, Sarto Sen began his part. Lying there
on the floor he gave utterance to a low, deep groan. There was silence
for a moment, and then another low moan arose from him, and now I heard
a shuffling movement outside the door as the guard there approached
to listen. Again Sarto Sen groaned, terribly, and after a moment's
pause there came a rattling of bolts as the guard slid them aside. I
flattened myself back against the wall, and in a second the door opened.
Even in the darkness, glancing sidewise, I could make out the round,
globular form of the guard, his eyes peering into our cell and his
fire-disk held out in cautious readiness. A moment he paused, peering
at the three dim figures lying across the room; then, as if satisfied,
turned his eyes back upon Sarto Sen, at the same moment taking a step
inside the door. And with a single bound I was upon him.
* * * * *
Of all the fights in my career I place that struggle there in the
darkness with our globe-man guard as the most horrible. I had leaped
with the object of wresting the deadly fire-disk from him before he
could make use of it, and fortunately the force of my spring had
knocked it from his grasp. His short, thin arms clutched at me with
surprizing power, though, while the insectlike lower limbs grasped my
own and pulled me instantly to the floor. A moment I rolled there in
mad combat, striving to gain a hold on my opponent's smooth, round
body, and then a thing happened the memory of which sickens me even
now. For as my hands clutched for a hold on the sleek, cold, globular
body, that body suddenly collapsed beneath my weight, breaking like
a skinful of water and spurting out a mass of semi-liquid, jellylike
substance which flowed across the floor in a shining, malodorous
mass. Flesh-like as they were in appearance, these creatures were but
globular shells of ooze.
Sick to my very soul I rose to my feet, looking wildly at the others,
who had rushed to aid me. There had been no cry from our guard during
that moment of combat and the silence around us was unchanged. Sarto
Sen was already at the door, peering down the corridor, and in a moment
we were out of the cell and making our way stealthily down the long
hall. As we left the cell, though, my foot struck against something,
and reaching down I picked up the little fire-disk of our guard. As we
crept down the long corridor I clutched it tightly in my hand.
The long hall, dimly lit by a few red flares set in its walls, seemed
quite deserted. Ahead, though, shone a square of brighter light, and
we knew this to be the spot where the corridor crossed the anteroom
of the guards. Nearer we crept toward it, ever more stealthily, until
at last we crouched at the edge of the open doorway, staring into the
bright-lit anteroom.
There were but four of the globe-men guards in it now, and three of
these were apparently sleeping, resting with closed eyes on a long,
low seat against the wall. The other, though, was moving restlessly
about the room, the deadly fire-disk in his grasp ready for action. We
must cross this room, I knew, to reach the hall of the great pillar,
yet it would mean instant death to attempt it beneath the eyes of this
creature.
A moment we crouched there, undecided whether or not to chance all in
a rush for the one wakeful guard, when the entire matter was suddenly
taken out of our hands. The globe-man, in his pacing about the room,
had come within a few feet of the doorway outside which we crouched,
and at that very moment the silence around us was shattered by a sound
which came to my ears like the thunder of an explosion. Hal Kur had
sneezed!
With the sound the pacing guard wheeled instantly and confronted us,
uttering a thrumming cry which brought the other three instantly to
their feet. We were evenly matched, four to four, and before they had
time to use their deadly disks we were upon them. The next moment was
one of wild confusion, a whirling of men and globular bodies about the
little room, a babel of hoarse shouts and thrumming cries. Clinging
desperately to one of the slippery creatures I had a momentary glimpse
of Hal Kur raising one of the guards bodily into the air and crashing
him down on the hard floor like a smashed egg. Then a powerful twist of
my opponent flung me sidewise out of the combat.
I staggered to my feet and saw that one guard lay broken and dead on
the floor while the other three had slipped from our clutches and were
retreating through the doorway by which we had come. Abruptly they
paused, and the arm of one came up with a fire-disk trained full upon
us.
In that moment I became aware of something in my hand to which I had
clung through all the mêlée, something round and thin and hard, with a
raised button on its side. Instinctively, entirely without thought, I
raised the thing toward the three guards opposite, pressing the button
on its side. A little ball of rosy fire seemed to leap out from my
hand with the action, flicking sighingly through the air and striking
the group of globe-men squarely. There was a roar of flame, a moment's
flaring up of raging pink fire, and then flame and guards alike had
vanished.
I turned, staggered with my friends toward the door. From far behind,
now, we heard deep, thrumming cries, and the shuffle of quick feet.
Our escape was discovered, we knew, and our only chance lay in reaching
the great pillar and its cage-lift before we were cut off, so we raced
on down the corridor with our utmost speed, sparing no breath for
speech. The cries behind were growing swiftly louder and nearer, and
somewhere near by there was a sudden clamor of gongs. But now we were
bursting recklessly into the great hall, finding it quite empty, its
deep shadows dispelled only by a few feeble points of light. Into the
upper darkness loomed the vast bulk of the great, slanting column, and
with the last of our strength we reeled across the floor toward it.
The door in the pillar's side was open, and through it we tumbled
hastily into the little cage-elevator inside. The clamor of pursuit was
growing rapidly in volume, now. Frantically I fumbled with the studs in
the cage's side, with which I had seen our captors operate it. There
was a moment of heart-breaking delay, and then, just as the uproar of
pursuit seemed about to burst into the great hall, a switch clicked
beneath my fingers and instantly our cage was shooting up the shaft
with tremendous speed, toward the platform above.
A moment of this thundering progress and then the car slowed, stopped.
We were in absolute darkness, but before sliding aside the section of
platform over us I whispered tensely to the others. "There will be
guards on the platform," I told them, "but we must make away with them
at once and get to the ship. It's our only chance, for there must be
cage-lifts in the other pillars too, and they'll come up those after
us."
With the words I touched the lever which swung aside the section of
floor above us, and instantly it slid back with a metallic jarring
sound that made my heart stand still. There was no sound of alarm,
though, from above, so after a moment of tense waiting we rose silently
from the cage and stepped out upon the platform itself.
We were standing near the edge of the platform, which was partly
illuminated by splashes of ruddy light from a few flares suspended
over it. Far below in the darkness lay the city of the globe-men,
outlined only by a sparse peppering of twinkling crimson lights. Above
stretched the splendid, star-jeweled skies, in which I could discern
the brilliant yellow orb that was the sun of the Eight Worlds. And now
I turned my attention back to the platform, and glancing beyond the
dark, enigmatic mechanisms which loomed around us, I saw the long,
gleaming bulk of our cruiser, lying still in the clear space where it
had fallen. Beside it a suspended flare poured down its red light,
and under that light were gathered three of the globe-men, examining
intently some small mechanism on the floor.
I wondered, momentarily, whether these creatures had yet discovered
the secret of our cruiser's design and operation, and then forgot my
wonder as we began to creep stealthily toward them. As we crawled past
a little heap of short, thick metal bars, each of us grasped one, and
then crept on again. In a moment we were within a dozen paces of the
unsuspecting globe-men, and at once we sprang to our feet and charged
down upon them with up-lifted maces.
So unexpected and so swift was our attack that the three had time only
to turn toward us, half-raising their fire-disks, and then our heavy
clubs had crashed down through their round, soft bodies, sending them
to the floor in a sprawling, oozing mass. We dropped our weapons and
sprang toward the cruiser.
Its lower door was open, and instantly we were inside it. At once Sarto
Sen sprang up the stair toward the conning-tower, while Hal Kur and
Nar Lon raced into the generator-room. I paused to slam shut the heavy
door, its closing automatically starting the throbbing oxygen pumps,
and then hastened up the stair also. Even as I did so there began the
familiar humming of the vibration-generators, droning out with swiftly
gathering power. And now I had reached the conning-tower, where Sarto
Sen was working swiftly with the controls.
At the moment that I burst into the little room there came a sudden
harsh grating of metal from outside, and then a score of high-pitched,
thrumming cries. I sprang to the window, and there, across the red-lit
platform, a mass of dark, globular figures had suddenly poured up onto
the platform's surface, from another of its pillar-lifts. They ran
toward us, heard the humming of the cruiser's generators, and then
stopped short. Their fire-disks swept up and a dozen balls of the
destroying flame leapt toward us. But at the moment that they did so
there was a swift clicking of switches beneath the hands of Sarto Sen,
a sudden roar of wind, and then the red-lit platform and all on it had
vanished from sight as our ship flashed out again into the void of
space.
5
Always, now, I remember the weeks of our homeward flight as a seemingly
endless time during which we flashed on and on through space,
struggling against our own desire to sleep. For now there were but
four of us to operate the cruiser, and the generators alone required
the constant care of two of our number, while another must stand watch
in the conning-tower. That meant that each of us could grasp but a few
hours of sleep at irregular intervals, while our ship fled on. Even
so I do not think that we could have managed with any other engineer
than Nar Lon, for he, who had been chief of the engineers, was equal to
three men in his knowledge and vigilance.
So we sped on, while Alto dwindled in size behind us, and the bright
star that was our own sun burned out in waxing glory ahead. And through
the long hours of my watches in the conning-tower I watched red star
and yellow with an unceasing, growing fearfulness, for well I knew
that with each second they were leaping closer and closer toward each
other, and toward the doom of the Eight Worlds.
On and on our cruiser hummed, at its highest speed, fleeing through the
void toward our own sun with the velocity of light. And surely never
was voyage so strange as ours, since time began. A voyage from star
to star, in a ship flung forward by unseen vibrations, its crew four
haggard and burning-eyed men who were racing against time to carry the
news on which depended the fate of our universe. Dreamlike had been our
outward voyage, but this homeward flight resembled an endless torturing
nightmare.
At last, though, its end drew in sight, and gradually we slackened
speed as we flashed nearer toward our own universe. By the time we
received our first telestereo challenge from an Interplanetary Patrol
cruiser outside Neptune we were moving at a scant million miles an
hour. When we announced our identity, though, a peremptory order was
flashed across the solar system for all interplanetary traffic to clear
the space-lanes between ourselves and Earth, so that we were able to
hurtle on toward the green planet at full speed without danger of
collisions. And so, at last, our ship was slanting down again over the
great Hall of Planets, into the very landing-court from which we had
made the start of our momentous voyage.
Fighting against the fatigue which threatened to overwhelm me, I
staggered out of the cruiser into the waiting hands of those in the
landing-court, and five minutes later I was stumbling onto the dais
where Mur Dak faced the hastily assembled Council. Standing there,
swaying a little from sheer exhaustion, I spoke to Mur Dak and to the
Council, relating in concise phrases the events of our voyage and the
discovery we had made. When I had finished, saluting and slumping into
a chair, there was an utter, deathlike silence over the great hall, and
then a sigh went up as Mur Dak stepped forward to speak.
"You have heard the report of Jan Tor," he said, his voice calm and
even as ever, "and you know now what doom threatens us and what chance
we have to avert that doom. And now you must make decision. As you
know, during the past weeks our scientists have been engaged in the
construction of many hundreds of new vibration-cruisers like the one
used by Jan Tor in his voyage. Soon, now, these cruisers will be
completed, and they can be used by us in either of two ways.
"We can use them to save a fragment of our people, since in these ships
a few thousand of us can escape to another star, though all the rest
of us must inevitably perish with our universe when the two suns meet.
Or we can use them for battle, instead of flight, speeding out in them
to this planet of Alto's, attacking these globe-people and using their
own force-ray projector in an attempt to swerve Alto aside before it
destroys us. And that is the decision which you must make, a decision
on which rests the fate of the races of man. Shall a few of us flee in
these star-cruisers to another universe, allowing the oncoming sun to
destroy our own, or shall we go out in them to Alto and make a single
desperate attempt to swerve the approaching sun aside, and save the
Eight Worlds?"
And now again there was silence, a thick and heavy silence, fateful
with the doom of universes, the destiny of suns. I felt sleep
overwhelming me, now, and though I struggled to keep my tired eyelids
open I was slipping farther and farther down into drowsy depths of
oblivion. Dimly, as though from an infinite distance, I heard a mighty
shouting rising from the massed members around me. Then, just before
complete unconsciousness descended on me, the roaring lessened for a
single moment, and in that moment I heard the voice of Mur Dak, strong
and vibrant.
"You have made decision," he was saying, "and when the cruiser-fleet is
completed it shall start at once--_for Alto!_"
* * * * *
The three weeks that elapsed between our return and the sailing of
the great fleet were undoubtedly the most frenzied in the history of
the Eight Worlds. Our own scientists had calculated that if we were
to save our universe, Alto must be swerved from its course within the
next fifty days, since after that it would be too late, for even if
swerved aside after that time the dying sun would still crash through
at least part of our solar system, wrecking it completely. We must
reach the ray-projector on Alto's planet and use it before the end of
the fiftieth day, or it would be too late.
So through the first twenty of those fifty days all other work
throughout the Eight Worlds had been abandoned and every effort was
concentrated upon the completion of the cruisers. Each planet was
furnishing its own contingent for the fleet, and on each of the Eight
Worlds men toiled to exhaustion in laboratory and factory, while others
stood ready to take their places. Swiftly the cruisers, more than a
thousand in number, approached completion, and now were being equipped
with the weapon our scientists had devised for them, a deadly blue ray
which had the power of stimulating atomic movement in every molecule of
matter it touched to such a point that whatever matter was struck by it
vanished beneath its touch, splitting instantly into its original atoms.
And through the nights, now, the men of every planet could see over
their heads, like a great menace in the heavens, the fiery orb of
Alto, growing, growing, dripping a crimson radiance upon the Eight
Worlds, hanging in the heavens like a great seal of blood. And beneath
that sign of death the work went madly on. And on all our planets
laughter in sunlight and joy and freedom seemed things gone forever.
For over the Eight Worlds lay the gigantic, shadowing wings of fear....
One event stands out in my memory against that time of terror, one
which occurred on the third day after our return. Mur Dak had summoned
us again in the Hall of Planets, this time to his own office, and
there, in the name of the Council, he formally tendered me the post of
commander-in-chief of the great fleet which was even then preparing.
No greater honor could have been accorded anyone in the Eight Worlds,
and I could only stammer a few words of thanks. And then the chairman
turned to Sarto Sen with the information that he had been named second
in command. To our surprize, though, my friend made no answer, turning
away from us for a moment and staring out of a window. When he turned
back to us it was to say quietly, "I can't accept the post."