The Edge Of Beyond, page 10
`Could they reach Earth?'
`They might. Men on Earth go mad, I believe. Rolto is convinced you are all mad.'
`I don't quite follow you.'
`When a man falls victim to the rays, one particularly susceptible perhaps, what you call madness comes upon him. He is no longer master of himself. I have heard you use the expression moonstruck in connection with men who do strange things after sleeping in the open exposed to your Moon: from which I suspect that your Moon may give off these same emanations in a lesser degree. Or, on certain occasions, the rays may come from Ardilla. I don't know.'
`Are your people on Mino or Lentos ever affected by these rays?' inquired the Professor.
`We think so. It is the explanation of why a man who has always led a blameless life is suddenly capable of a dreadful act. He cannot be blamed, for he cannot help himself. The thoughts that enter his head are not his. They come from without and he is powerless to resist them. For good or evil he must obey what is commanded. We protect ourselves as far as it is possible with our limited knowledge and in due course the people of Earth may learn to do the same. You have acquired a certain amount of scientific information but there is still much you do not suspect, much less understand.'
`Just a minute,' put in Rex, incredulously, 'are you saying that a thought can float about loose in space, so to speak, like a thistle seed?'
`Why not, if it is transmitted and no one picks it up?'
`But can a thought be transmitted?'
`Of course.'
`By accident or design?'
`Both. We on Mino have learned to transmit thought, over a limited distance admittedly; but if we can do it over short distances there may be people who can do it over immense distances. You have seen it done. Two people in close sympathy can do it by accident.'
Toby, his medical interest aroused, looked interested.
That's true. It's not uncommon on Earth, notably in the case of twins. One person says something and another says, "How queer, I was just going to say that myself".'
`Exactly,' resumed Vargo. 'Actually there is nothing queer about it. The thought simply jumps across the short distance between them. The closer the relationship, the stronger the emotion, the more likely is that to happen. Fear can spread through a crowd and cause panic; with animals a stampede. It was from this that we on Mino developed the ability to pass thoughts at will, as you saw when Rex spoke my thoughts when first we met on Mars. Thought projection saved the Spacemaster when it was about to crash on Jupiter, you remember. There was no connection between me and the ships that rescued us but something must have passed between us. What was it if not a ray of some sort? What, if not a ray, operates your radio and radar on Earth?'
`That's electronics.'
`That is the name you have given them. By any other name they would still be what they are, artificial radiations developed from the forces that link the masses of solid matter that roll for ever in space, held in position by what you call gravity. What is gravity? You don't know. We don't know. There are other worlds much older than ours and they don't know. We only know it is the mysterious power, the unseen force, that keeps order where otherwise all would be chaos. Consider these things and ask yourselves if your recent experience was so remarkable after all.'
`I wonder,' murmured the Professor, pensively. 'I wonder if the ancients, who talked of a man being possessed of a devil and tried to cast it out, knew a secret that has long been lost. Was the devil in fact an evil thought, lost for a time in space, eventually to find a lodging in the brain of the man possessed?'
`Here, wait a minute,' protested Tiger. 'I'm a practical man and I'm getting out of my depth.'
`Well, now you have seen what some rays can do,' said Vargo, simply. 'We know they exist. Scientists on Earth know they exist for I have heard you mention some of them — X-rays, gamma rays, ultra-violet rays, infra-red rays, and so on. Where they come from or what causes them we have yet to discover. That they are all essential to the existence of the Universe we need not doubt. They are eternal and indestructible. They are the beginning and the end of all things. They are all-powerful, the real rulers of the Universe.' Vargo paused. 'It would be well if your scientists realized this,' he went on, 'for interference with these forces can lead only to disaster on a scale beyond imagination. Use them by all means, but treat them as friends, as we do. After all, they provide the motive power for our ships. But misuse them and their wrath can be terrible. This is the lesson Earth may learn too late, and the reason why Rolto would destroy you before you destroy us all. In a flash of flame and a whiff of smoke our Solar System could disappear, yet so vast is the Universe that it would not even be missed.'
Vargo, after what for him was a long speech, turned away, leaving Rex to ponder on the solemn words he had spoken.
`You are sure those radiations that upset us were coming from Ardilla?' asked the Professor, presently.
`Yes.'
`Why are you so sure?'
`For two reasons.'
`What are they?'
`First, because Ardilla is the dominant star in this region.'
`And the other?'
`The men of whom I told you, the crew that returned to Mino with their brains disordered and under a single control, had set out with the intention of landing on Ardilla. They may or may not have reached it. We don't know. We shall never know. But it now seems certain that either they went very close or were exposed to the baleful influence for so long that they never recovered.'
`I can't recall that you told us exactly what form this mental disorder took,' remarked the Professor.
`Would you have believed me? Would it have made any difference if I had?'
`No. But we would have been prepared.'
`With cosmic radiations, sinister or otherwise, there can be no question of being prepared. By the time you are conscious of them the damage is done. They have you in their grip. Your experience was brief, and, therefore, the effects only temporary.'
'Rolto knew all about this when he suggested we go to Ardilla,' put in Rex.
`Of course.'
`You knew that?'
`Yes. That was why we protected ourselves and advised you to do the same. You declined, for which reason I was watching you closely, knowing that if anything happened you would be the first to feel the effects.'
`How did you know that something was wrong with us?'
The expressions on your faces told me,' answered Vargo. `They were beginning to wear the same vacant look as those of the men who returned to Mino with their minds unhinged. I realized at once that only prompt action would save us so I told Gator to retire at maximum velocity, assuming that the radiations would lose power with distance, as, fortunately for all of us, they did.
`Thank you for acting so quickly,' said the Professor, earnestly.
`I take it you no longer wish to go to Ardilla?'
The Professor smiled wanly. 'We have been close enough, thank you.'
`Where, then, would you like to go?'
`I shall be content to leave that to you.'
`I will speak to Gator and Borron about it,' promised Vargo.
11 On and on
One of the problems of voyaging through the interminable void that has been called space was how best to employ time between landings. In space travel, journeys inevitably must be of long duration, with nothing more exciting to look at through the windows of the ship than a view of the heavens more or less the same as they appear from Earth.
There were, Rex learned, three things one could do to while away the time and relieve boredom. One could read. One could talk, debating a subject of mutual interest; or one could sleep. In actual practice there was found to be a limit to each of these time-passing occupations, with the result that as any one became tedious it was dropped, and succeeded by one of the others. This became a regular routine.
Those members of the ship's crew not on watch, long faced with this problem, had solved it in a more simple manner. They did nothing at all. They merely sat silent, unmoving, so still that they might have fallen asleep with their eyes open. For all Rex knew they might be sleeping. Whether they thought, and if so what they thought about, he did not know. He suspected they had from long practice developed a faculty for sinking into a state of coma, wherein their brains were as inactive as their bodies.
Another thing that Rex had learned about space travel was that it induced a peculiar form of fear that was not the fear of death, and was not to be compared with what on Earth is known as fear. That sort of fear only returned when he was confronted with a physical reality — such as the elephant men. He could only think that this strange state of fear, the fear of nothing in particular, derived from a mental condition that had not yet had time to adjust itself to what he was doing. He was not afraid of anything he could have described.
He was certainly not afraid of falling, for there was nothing in sight on which to fall. It was impossible to imagine falling on a star, although this of course would be the ultimate fate of the ship should anything go wrong. Fear of falling comes only when there is a connecting link between a person and the ground, as in the case of looking down from a high building or the edge of a cliff. As far as Rex was concerned he realized that the effect of falling ten thousand miles would be no worse than falling from a height of a few hundred feet. The result would be the same. He would be killed either way. Admittedly, the thought of falling ten thousand miles was more disturbing than a drop of a hundred feet.
No, his fear was not that sort of fear, it was fear of the unknown, brought on either by complete and utter isolation from all common objects, or the awful immensity of the Universe which he was now beginning to appreciate. One could contemplate the Universe on Earth, of course; but there, with feet planted on solid ground and familiar objects around one, it had not the overwhelming effect as it had from the inside of a vehicle in space itself, with only the mighty forces of nature around it. On the ground if one was afraid it was always fear of something, some tangible object. In space fear seemed to be born from the fact that there was nothing to be afraid of.
At least, nothing that one could see.
If only there were clouds, or if the sky were blue, it might be different, conjectured Rex. That, being its normal colour, real or imaginary, might create an illusion of being near home. But now. Always around, above and below, was that awful vault of black emptiness which the gleaming points of light that were the stars in their eternal orbits only served to emphasize. There was something disconcerting about seeing stars below as if he was standing on his head. The place for stars was above.
Rex was lost in thought as well when Tiger broke in with the question. 'By the way, where are we bound for — anywhere in particular?'
The Professor, who had been making some notes, came to with a start. 'Yes, indeed. Where are we going?' he asked Vargo.
`I had thought you would wish to return to Mino.'
`Why?'
`After your recent experience surely your curiosity is satisfied?'
`I'm afraid such experiences only add zest to my curiosity,' confessed the Professor. He pushed up his glasses and looked at the others. 'It seems a pity to go home,' he said. 'Having come so far we might as well make a thorough survey while we are here. How do we go for air and provisions, Vargo?'
`There is no difficulty about that,' replied Vargo. 'We came equipped for a remote operation.'
`Then have you any suggestion to make?'
Vargo hesitated. Borron said a single word, softly. Gator stepped in with a remark in the Minoan language. One of the older members of the crew said something, and this led to a discussion in Minoan.
By this time Rex could speak the language fairly well; so could they all, for that matter; but his command of it was not quite up to the standard of Vargo's English, which could now be called perfect, except that his natural speaking voice was pitched differently, and he had a little difficulty in the pronounciation of certain words. He was inclined to accentuate the vowel sounds, to drag them out, particularly the letter A, as was done in some local dialects at home. Actually, Rex could understand more than he could say. The Professor could by this time speak Minoan fluently. Like some people on Earth he seemed to have a natural aptitude for languages.
Listening to the conversation still being carried on in Minoan, presumably for those members of the crew who had not picked up much English, Rex could follow it well enough to make out that the debate centred round a proposal to go somewhere. Several names were mentioned, obviously the names of planets; but one was repeated several times. It was Terromagna.
`We probably know the place under a different name,' said the Professor, who was listening.
The same difficulty always arose when stars and planets were being discussed, for the Minoans had their own names for them and no way had been found of identifying them by their Earthly names. In space, certainly in the Second Region, the heavens presented a picture entirely different from the one seen from Earth. Stars of the third or fourth magnitude now appeared as bodies of the first magnitude. And vice versa. The constellations, too, seen from a different angle, had lost their familiar positions, and the Professor admitted that he could no longer recognize them. The only member of their own Solar System still outstanding was the Sun, and even this had diminished to a point where it was sometimes lost to view behind a nearer body — much to Rex's concern, to whom it was the last remaining link with home.
`What is this place Terromagna of which you are speaking?' asked the Professor at last.
`It is a world,' answered Vargo.
`I gathered that. Is there anything remarkable about it?' Vargo's face registered a peculiar expression. 'There are many remarkable things about it.'
`Remarkable in what way?'
`Its age, its size, its knowledge.'
`Are the conditions there congenial?'
`They are perfect.'
What you are saying is it has an advanced civilization.'
`The most advanced of any known to us.'
`Could you be a little more specific?'
Terromagna is the dominant planet in a solar system of forty bodies, large and small. Its age is unknown to us, and, I believe, to the people who live on it, although I am told that their records go back to before the time our own Solar System came into existence. They were then at war with each other. When they saw the folly of this, for their populations were dying out, they made an end of war and so were able to devote their energies to making life perfect.'
`You once asked us to imagine what our own world would be like in a million years provided we did not destroy ourselves,' reminded the Professor. Was this one of the worlds you had in mind?'
`Yes. Their knowledge is far beyond imagination.'
`What sort of knowledge?'
`Scientific, medical, philosophical.'
`Then they understand all about rays,' put in Rex.
`Of course.'
`Have they any nasty ones — like Ardilla?'
`No doubt they could put out such radiations if they wished, but as far as I know they do not. They are concerned only with peace in the Universe. Of course they emanate some radiations. So does every planet as it becomes what you call civilized, the strength and purpose of such rays depending on the degree of knowledge. In this matter Earth is no exception. The atmosphere around you is alive with the beams and rays that operate your many instruments and electrical devices. They reach ever farther into space, farther perhaps than you realize. Other planets in the same stage of development are doing the same thing, with the result that these radiations are now interfering with each other.'
`Interference on our radio machines is put down to atmospheric conditions,' said Rex.
`The result of your obstinate belief that Earth alone in the Universe carries life in an intelligent form. The truth is, compared with Terromagna you are still ignorant children.'
`Why have you never told us about this place?' questioned Tiger.
Vargo did not answer.
`Have you ever been there?' inquired the Professor.
`No.'
`Has any member of the crew been there?'
`No.'
`Can you speak the language?'
`Not more than a few words.'
`Then you must be speaking from hearsay. You have no first hand information?'
Rex thought he caught a meaning glance pass between Vargo and Gator, but what this signified he could not guess.
He suspected they were thought-reading, as if there was a conspiracy between them, although he had not the remotest idea of what it could be, or why.
He asked the next question. 'Is there some peculiar danger attached to this place?'
No danger whatever.'
`Then why don't we go there?' queried the Professor. 'What is all this secrecy about?'
Vargo seemed to find the question difficult to answer. 'It is far away,' he explained.
`That's not the real reason,' challenged the Professor, shrewdly.
`You would see on Terromagna things so wonderful that you might become dissatisfied with your own world,' suggested Vargo, rather lamely, Rex thought.
`How do you know if you have never been there?'
`I have been told.'
`By whom?'
`A friend.'
`How does he know?'
`He lives there.'
`Lives there !'
`Yes.'
`How could that come about?'
`He went there in a ship from Terromagna that called on Mino.'
`What made him do that?'
`He was ill. He suffered from a mental sickness. The captain of the visiting ship said on Terromagna they could cure him. So he went.'
