The Edge Of Beyond, page 11
`And did they cure him?' asked Toby.
`Yes. But he came to love the place so much that he stayed there. He is now married to a woman of Terromagna.'
`Well,' breathed the Professor. 'What a remarkable story, although I see nothing in it to strain the credulity.' His eyes twinkled. 'One of these days we may have a young man from Earth marrying a girl of Mino.'
`Don't talk nonsense,' protested Rex.
The name of my friend is Multavo,' went on Vargo. 'He has done very well and is now an important engineer-doctor.'
`What do you mean by that?' inquired Toby. 'On Earth we have engineers and we have doctors, but they are two different professions.'
`On Terromagna a man may combine several professions which overlap. By reason of a highly developed brain which makes learning easy he may be master of several subjects. He can be a scientist as well as an engineer and a doctor.'
`This is all the more reason why we should go,' declared the Professor, enthusiastically. 'This sounds like the sort of planet I have always hoped to find. I felt sure there must be one somewhere.'
`I have said it is far away,' insisted Vargo. 'The crew do not like to be away from home for too long in case the ship is reported missing.'
`Is that the real reason why you have made a secret of the place?'
Vargo dodged the question. 'There is Terromagna.' He pointed to a star shining in a distant constellation, the brightest of a group set around another body, one that blazed with a light so brilliant that it could only be a true star — a sun. They all looked at it. As Vargo had said, the constellation was obviously far away.
It is in the Third Region,' said Vargo, reading their thoughts. 'Rarely do our ships go beyond the Second Region.'
We are already half-way there,' the Professor pointed out. `Please ask the crew if they are willing to go'
Again Vargo hesitated.
Toby now took a hand. Looking Vargo straight in the eyes he said : 'You have still not told us the true reason why you are opposed to a visit to Terromagna. Why not be frank with us? Tell us the truth and we shall be content to accept your decision.'
`Very well,' said Vargo, slowly. 'But first let me ask you a question. Would you put a dangerous toy in the hands of a child too young to understand it?'
`Of course not. But what has that to do with us? We are not children.'
`Some of your scientists on Earth behave like children.'
`I think I see what he means,' rejoined the Professor. He turned to Vargo. 'You are afraid that on Terromagna we might learn things which, if we revealed them on Earth, might fall into the hands of men who, not properly understanding them, might do a great deal of mischief.'
`That is the fact of the matter,' admitted Vargo. 'They were not thinking so much of what you might do on Earth as what you might do to your neighbours. You are dangerous enough already.'
`Who do you mean when you say they were not thinking?'
`The High Council on Mino.'
`I see. So they ordered you to keep away from Terromagna.'
`They did not order me. They suggested it would be better if we kept away and said nothing about it.'
`So actually it was left to your discretion.'
`Yes.'
`Surely that was a strange decision for the Council to take?'
`I don't know for certain, but I believe Rolto had been talking to them.'
`Ah ! Now we're getting to the bottom of it,' asserted the Professor.
'Rolto was willing enough for us to go to Ardilla, where we might have lost our sanity,' said Rex, bitterly.
`You have always known him to be a dangerous man,' said Vargo. 'He is still obsessed with the idea that Earth is a menace to the rest of our System, in particular to its near neighbour Mars, our original home, which has already suffered one major catastrophe through the folly of ambitious scientists.
`Well, now we understand the position it is for you to decide whether we go to Terromagna or go home,' declared the Professor. 'But I promise that if we go to Terromagna anything we may learn there shall be kept secret. That answers your objection.'
Vargo turned to the crew, presumably for their opinion. There was a brief conversation and he turned back. 'We will go to Terromagna,' he announced. He smiled faintly. 'I have long wanted to see the place,' he confessed.
`Capital!' cried the Professor. 'Let us be on our way. Dear me ! I am all excitement. It has always been my hope to visit a world of such an age that its civilization surpasses all imagination. By the way, Vargo. I assume these people have spaceships?'
`They have everything,' replied Vargo, somewhat vaguely.
`Then they may have been to Earth.'
`They may have looked at it to see what was going on there, but nothing more than that because, if I have been correctly informed, they have a strict policy of non-interference with other worlds. Guided by experience, having had troubles of their own, they believe that adventures outside their own System might lead to disunity at home. They are self-contained and happy, having found long ago what so many worlds are seeking. The truth.'
`Then we have nothing to fear from them'
`Nothing. All we have to fear are those hazards that are inseparable from space travel in unknown regions, where the capricious behaviour of one unstable world can cause disaster.'
Rex frowned. 'No need to remind us of that,' he muttered.
`That is a risk we were always prepared to accept,' reminded the Professor. 'Can you, Vargo, give us an idea of what we might expect to see on this world of wonders?'
`To anticipate is to spoil the pleasure of surprise,' answered Vargo. 'But for the benefit of the doctor this I will tell you. On Terromagna they are masters of all human ailments and weaknesses, physical and mental. In medicine they are supreme.'
`Well, there is this about it,' interposed Tiger, always practical. 'If we're really going places, by which I mean to the outside edge of the Milky Way, we have at least the satisfaction of knowing we have the right crew for the job. And if Vargo has a friend on the spot it should simplify matters.'
Everyone agreed.
12 Terromagna the marvelous
Of the long voyage to Terromagna nothing need be said, for it was made without incident worth recording. Rex passed much of the time sleeping, or dozing, as did those of the crew not on duty after the watches had been arranged.
It was by far the longest non-stop trip Rex had made, and before the end it had introduced a new but not unpleasant sensation. So slowly did time seem to pass, and so remote did his own world seem, that he began to wonder if it did really exist. A feeling gradually came over him, although with a sense of unreality, that he had been doing this, travelling through space, all his life. Of course, he knew that was not true, but it needed an effort to convince himself of it.
Nor was that all. With nothing to do, with nothing to hold his interest, he became more and more lethargic, so much so that he was prepared to go on dreaming away the time for ever. It was so easy. One thing only brought momentary relief. Every time he opened his eyes the distant star that was their destination appeared a little brighter, a fraction larger, otherwise he would have found it difficult to believe that they were not stationary, suspended in space from some unseen object in the dark, unknown zone above them. The others, too, even the crew, he thought, suffered to a more or less extent from this same state of unreality.
Once he thought he caught the sound of distant music, but supposing that to be impossible he put it down to his condition, or the long-continued silence in the ship playing on some half-forgotten chord of memory.
But all things, even in space, have an end, and one morning Rex observed that their objective was at last beginning to look like the great planet it really was, with its sun flooding the nearer hemisphere with light. Watching, he perceived that with their approach it grew perceptibly in size, even the dark side taking shape as the coastline of a continent appears from a ship at sea. By evening, relatively speaking, the great curve of the planet was blotting out half the sky, which was already, as they entered the tenuous fringe of atmosphere, turning slowly from black to navy blue. Impatiently Rex waited for it to turn the old familiar blue of the sky at home. That in itself might help to dispel the feeling of remoteness.
Their languor banished by mounting excitement they all stood at their windows and watched the mighty planet rushing towards them. Before long, even if he had not been told, Rex would have known they were approaching a world of intelligent beings, for it became possible to pick out areas of ground of such regular geometrical patterns, indicated by their different colours, that they could only be fields under cultivation. Across these, as straight as the flight of an arrow, were white lines that were obviously roads. At least, Rex could not think of anything else they might be, particularly as at intervals the lines were punctuated by broad white marks that looked like towns and cities built of some light-coloured material. Seas showed up boldly, and presently, lakes and rivers. Woolly clouds in a sky of lapis lazuli cast their shadows on the scene as they do on Earth.
As the ship dropped still closer, with its jet brakes beginning to check its fall, the outlines hardened, and those within the ship fell silent in wonder and admiration. Even the unemotional Vargo showed signs of astonishment, as did the crew, for all their experience.
As Gator put the ship into horizontal flight, still descending, the better to survey the scene, it became evident that what Vargo had said about a great civilization was no more than the truth. Below them, plain to see under a sky of immutable serenity, on the shore of an inland sea, was a city that only a race of super-architects could have visualized and built. Magnificent buildings flanked straight, wide, tree-lined streets, on which vehicles were moving in swift but orderly procession. Pedestrians walked on broad pavements between long beds of colour which could only be flowers. Dwelling houses, each with a garden of flowers, lined the side roads. There was colour everywhere, and an orderliness about everything not usually to be found in cities.
Here, clearly, was a great and wonderful civilization, a world of beauty and culture. Dumb with admiration Rex noticed many spaceships, standing, taking off or landing on numerous open squares apparently provided for that purpose. One of these squares was exceptionally large and, after a word with Vargo, towards this Gator now took his ship.
`This must be the capital city of which my friend Multavo has told me,' said Vargo. 'He lives here. Even though he has told me much I was not expecting anything quite like this.'
`I think that goes for all of us,' said Tiger.
Slowly the ship lost altitude. No one appeared to be taking the slightest notice of it, which suggested that there was nothing unique about a visiting spaceship.
The Professor spoke in a voice that sounded somewhat dazed. 'Tell me, Vargo. How big is Terromagna?'
`I don't know,' admitted Vargo. 'I only know that it is many times larger than Mars.'
`Many times means it must be much larger than Earth.'
`Of that there is no doubt.'
`In that case we are likely to be inconvenienced by a gravity greater than that to which we have been accustomed.'
`Not so much as you might expect. Your body and muscles will soon adapt themselves to it, even if provision is not made for it, as I think it may be.'
The Professor stared. 'Are you telling me that it is possible, by means of a device, to adjust oneself to variations of gravity?'
`Yes. It was necessary here for interplanetary travel within the system; such travel goes on constantly by regular services. Even now you can see the ships coming and going. You would not expect the many satellites of this particular sun to be all the same size. In fact, they vary considerably. Hence the need for some form of gravitational adjustment. For you people of Earth the necessity has not yet arisen, but it may when space flight becomes commonplace.'
The Professor turned again to his window. 'I see no signs of industrial activity,' he remarked.
`What do you mean by industrial activity?'
`Factories, workshops, mines — '
`Big chimneys that pour smoke into the air?'
`Yes.'
`If such methods ever existed here, and I would not say they never had because they are a common step towards civilization, they occurred so long ago that they have been forgotten. As I have told you before, what you must try to grasp, although it may not be easy while you persist in the notion that your own civilization is paramount in the Universe, is this. Your industrial age, you have told me, is not much older than a hundred of your sun cycles.'
`That is correct. But it has made, and still makes, rapid progress.'
`You only think it is rapid. Actually it has been slow compared with some. However, multiply that hundred years of progress by ten thousand and you will have arrived at the era that Terromagna now enjoys.'
`How do they produce power?' queried Tiger. 'I am an engineer, but I must have power to work my machines.'
`There is no need to produce power,' answered Vargo. `Your sun is producing more than you could use. If in space there is enough power to control the Universe there should be enough to drive your little machines. From what you have told me it may be that your scientists are just beginning to realize that. The degree of what you call civilization on a planet is in ratio with its age, and the one you see below you is very old indeed. You would, therefore, expect to find things to astonish you. That is natural because you will be jumping from one era to another; in other words, jumping across, say, ten thousand years of time, instead of proceeding through them step by step in the ordinary way. What you will see here is only the extension of Earth's knowledge as it stands today.'
Rex was still pondering Vargo's thought-provoking words when Gator checked their fall and presently touched down with hardly a bump on the main astrodome. No one came near them. Vargo opened the doors without the usual preliminaries, and not for the first time the thought struck Rex that their Minoan friend knew more about this wonder world than he had yet revealed. He was obviously so sure of himself, of everything, from the way he stepped out and looked around.
`You behave as though you were expecting somebody,' observed the Professor.
`I thought Multavo might be here to meet us.'
`Why should he be? Have you in some way been in touch with him.'
`No. But he would know that a Minoan ship was on its way here. At least, someone would know, and as Multavo is a Minoan I thought the information might be passed to him. In that case he would be here to receive us. We will wait a little while.'
Rex went out, and sitting on the steps inhaled in deep gulps. Never had that most common of all commodities, ordinary fresh air, tasted so sweet. A boy waved to him. He waved back, feeling that here at last was real civilization, a place where a stranger was received without suspicion. Yet at home, he reflected, a man could not move from one country to another without all sorts of formalities. It struck him how silly, how backward, it all was. Here were people moving from world to world without being questioned. He took the opportunity of making a closer study of the men who enjoyed this freedom.
According to Earthly standards they were normal in the matter of height and size. Their faces, clean shaven or by nature hairless, were the same colour — a little more sun-bronzed, perhaps. If there was a difference it was in the size of their heads, which seemed to Rex to be slightly larger. Prominent foreheads may have been responsible for creating an impression that their eyes were more deeply set than actually they were. There was some variation in the colour of their hair, which was worn long, reaching nearly to the shoulders. Blond tints predominated. Their figures were mostly slight and they carried themselves with a natural grace. Considered generally by Earthly standards they were a strikingly handsome race. Every man he could see looked a picture of health.
Clothes seemed standard in pattern as might have been expected, for this is a general practice with any nation. They were simple, consisting of a loose robe which hung in draped folds to just below the knees. The most common colour was a brilliant shade of blue. From the left shoulder hung a spare strip of material, in the manner of a Scottish plaid, presumably for extra warmth should it be required, or protection in inclement weather. Since no hats were in evidence it seemed reasonable to suppose that it could also be worn as a head covering. At the moment no protection was necessary for the sun was shining in a blue sky, cloudless, except for a few wisps of high cirrus cloud. Footgear was a plain soft slipper, although Rex was puzzled by one or two men who wore over this a short, heavier-looking boot with a thick sole. He could only think they were prepared for bad weather, or had come from a place where the weather was already bad, a supposition supported by the fact that these overshoes were worn chiefly by people disembarking from incoming ships. The square was rather like a bus depot at home with spacecraft taking the place of buses.
Watching the scene, it came as a mild shock of surprise to Rex to discover that he had lost all sense of unreality, of the feeling of isolation that had always been present when landing on undeveloped worlds. Why? Was it because everything was so real, so matter-of-fact? For the first time in his travels he had no awareness of being on a star. It needed an effort to convince himself that he was on one. It would have been easier to believe that he had landed in a foreign country on his own planet.
Yet behind this there was a vague sensation of having turned the clock back, of having spun back in time to some period of the Golden Age of ancient Greece or Rome. Gone was all feeling of the fear that came to him when he realized that he was far away in space and might never again see his home planet. But for the spaceships moving about, and elegant pavilions in their gardens of unknown flowers, he might almost have returned home after a long absence. Here, he was sure, there was no hostility; only warmth and friendliness. He was looking at a cultured civilization as it should be. Vargo had been right. Earth still had far to go before it reached this stage of enlightenment.
