by Earl
“Can’t rotate the mirror any faster or it would fly apart,” he muttered. He had a punch-drunk expression. “What does it mean?” he whispered hoarsely. “It can’t be true! Light out here can’t travel at twice and more the accepted rate, as measured on Earth. What does it mean, doctor!”
A look of triumph shone from the latter’s face. But it was curiously intermixed with a vague sadness. “It means,” Templeton said slowly, “that one universe has been destroyed and another must take its place!”
He looked out of the port as if he could see out there the accepted universe crumbling to ruin. Then he turned back to Moore.
“Our entire conception of the universe outside the Solar System is based on visual interpretation. Science had to use light as the foot-rule with which to measure the cosmos. The accepted theory of the astro-universe today, on Earth, is based primarily on the speed of light. Einstein speaks of the uniform speed of light, an absolute value that enters each of his equations.”
Templeton waved at the mirror apparatus.
“But, as we’ve seen, the absolute velocity of light is a myth! Every measurement on Earth was made with an earthly source of light. No one thought of taking a beam of star light and measuring its velocity, after it had come across abysms of space.”
“It would be next to impossible on Earth, because of diffusion of the weak starbeam,” Moore murmured. “That’s why it was never tried. But this is so fantastic! I can hardly believe it yet! Light from Sirius with a velocity at least twice as great as we thought on Earth!”[1]
“What of the stars, then, whose beams have traversed thousands of times that distance?” Moore continued.
“Exactly, what of them?” nodded the scientist. “Simply and briefly, the light from many of the further stars is arriving here in the Solar System at almost infinite velocity!”
Young Henry Moore was making strange, moaning sounds, as if he had been an accomplice in some hideous crime. The fall meaning of this discovery beat into his brain.
“We’ve just smashed a universe!” he cried. “Annihilated it! Every measurement of the cosmos made on Earth is wrong, wrong! No allowance for the acceleration of light has ever been made. Therefore, our entire scale of extra-terrestrial values is a deception—an illusion. All the planets are nearer. The sun is nearer. The Solar System has shrunk! Not a great deal—just a few thousand miles in each case—but that shrinkage, applied to the entire cosmos—”
He stopped, appalled. He held his hands over his head as though he expected any moment to feel the universe crash about his ears.
Calm because this had not come as a complete revelation to him, Templeton continued the thought.
“Yes, mankind has put too much trust in its eyes, which cannot see the actual universe any more than they can see the subatoms. As you say, the Solar System automatically shrinks a little. As a result, all methods of measuring the distances of stars are wrong. Therefore, all the universe shrinks.”
“How much?” asked Moore. “Have you made any calculations?”
For answer, the scientist strode to a built-in file and pulled out a single sheet of paper. He smiled a bit selfconsciously.
“I had the temerity to believe my suspicions would be confirmed. Light accelerates, by my theory, not less than one-half percent per minute. This result mounts up staggeringly when we go beyond the confines of the System.”
He cleared his threat nervously.
“According to this scale, Alpha-Centauri is a light-month away—only 125 times further than Pluto. Sirius is less than 800 billion miles away, instead of 60 trillion. The farther out we go, the greater the former values fall off. For instance, a star thought to be a hundred light-years away is only one light-year!”
Moore found himself holding his breath, for no reason he could define, as he listened. It was just something breathtaking, to see a man taking the universe and squeezing it together like a sponge.
Templeton went on. “Our entire Milky Way Galaxy deflates, by the new scale, from a greater diameter of 300,000 light-years to only 30 light-years. The nearest island universe, Messier 33, moves in from a remote 770,000 to a comparatively close 70 light-years. And the farthest we know, Bootes, coming all the way from 221 million to a mere 200 light-years!” Moore was standing at the port, gazing out at the universe of stars that had suddenly contracted. For a moment he almost imagined he could see those great suns and nebulae whisking Earthward at stupendous velocities. He sighed.
“In a way, professor,” he said slowly, “it’s almost a shame. That grand universe of Einstein, Jeans, Eddington and the other cosmologists has shriveled down to a miserable pea-size.” He laughed hollowly. “We came out here to explore the void, and we go back pulling the skies down with us! Somehow, I can’t feel any glory in what we’ve done.”
Moore shrugged away his queer mood and said in more normal tones, “Well, I guess we may as well Gall it a day and go back.”
Templeton’s eyes suddenly gleamed. “I had planned to go on!” he said quietly.
“What do you mean?” blurted Moore, aghast. “Go on—where?”
“Out into the universe!”
Templeton faced his young friend squarely. “That was why I insisted on having the ship stocked with a year’s supply of necessities, and a ton of fuel. Its disintegration will give us enough power to go anywhere in the universe![2] And since the universe has just shrunk to dimensions that are quite ordinary—”
“But our wives!” interrupted Moore. “We promised—”
Templeton’s voice was thoughtful, almost mechanical. “Queer, but. I have a feeling we shouldn’t—or can’t—go back now without—” He shrugged. “We can still be back in a reasonable time. With the whole macrocosmos before us, why not go on?”
Moore agreed. Why he didn’t know. For one thing, he wanted to test the new engine. They could at least visit the nearest star without much risk. But perhaps it was that mysterious thing called fate that lured them on.
IT was like a dream, as the ship sped on through the void. The sun faded behind them until it became merely a star. True to the scientist’s prediction, there was no limiting factor to their velocity. No increase of their mass and decrease in their fuel’s ability to attain higher rates, as demanded by Einstein’s formula. They began to realize pointedly that Earth’s entire astronomical science had been a house of cards.
Moore pulled over the acceleration control till inertia pressed them heavily into the backs of their cushioned seats. Within a few hours he made a triangular calculation of the sun, Sirius and Alpha-Centauri and found they were already going three times as fast as light—by the old measurement. And still light accelerated faster, for they were able to see the stars back of them.
It was like a dream.
Moore sometimes sat for hours, gazing out at the myriad suns, slowly shaking his head. It was not easy to accept these things against all the teachings of Earth science. Three days later, by their chronometer, Moore applied deceleration.
Proxima-Centauri, for which they were heading, resolved itself out of the void and grew steadily brighter. Before they arrived, they could distinguish the triple components of the Centaurian system—two mighty yellow suns and one extremely small, white dwarf, revolving majestically around a common center of gravity. The latter, Proxima-Centauri, was at present, in its orbit, the nearest star to the Solar System.
Moore slowed the ship and took up a course through the system. With eager eyes the two interstellar travellers gazed at the triple-star group, hardly believing they were really there. They had left Pluto only a week before!
Moore turned a stunned face.
“Now I know how Columbus felt!” he whispered solemnly. “We are the first humans to see a star other than our own at close quarters—a feat considered impossible heretofore. We’ve discovered a new world!”
Templeton smiled. “You remember Columbus was told his journey was impossible—that he would fall off the edge of the world. It seems that huma
nkind constantly forms unreal barriers for itself against new achievement. And now that we have come this far, what should prevent us from going on—seeing more of the universe?”
Moore nodded, now fired by an enthusiasm as great as that which gleamed in Dr. Templeton’s eyes. If there had been any doubt in Moore’s mind that perhaps the scientist had been wrong after all, it had been erased entirely. One could not have reached Alpha-Centauri in a week by the old theory! A sort of calmness came over them now. On they would go, answering the challenge of the universe. Even their wives were forgotten.
“Which direction shall we take?” asked Moore, faintly amused at the thought that here all roads did not lead to Rome, or to Earth at all.
“Toward the constellation of Sagittarius,” Templeton’s voice rang as he went on: “To the hub of the Milky Way Galaxy—fifty thousand light-years by the old measurement, but less than one five-thousandth of that by mine!”
“It’s still a long way!” muttered Moore, driving the ship away from the triple sun system of Centauri.
ON and on they went, attaining speeds faster than before. The stars now began a precession past them, as though they were telephone posts alongside a railroad track. As their velocity mounted to incredible figures, Moore became frightened.
“Suppose we were unfortunate enough to pass close to another star,” he gasped, “or collide with it! With the dimension so greatly reduced, space is not so empty as it was!”
Templeton chuckled. “By the old theory, space was like a box 1000 miles each way, in which six wasps—representing suns—buzzed about.[3] By the new theory, space is like a box 10 miles in size, with these same six wasps in it. Do you think there might be enough room left yet?”
Moore grinned. His imagination had gotten the better of him for a moment. Space had been inconceivably empty before. Now, though it had been squeezed together thousands of times, it was still inconceivably empty.
With his fears over, and the engine functioning smoothly without constant attention, Moore began spending more time at the ports, viewing this strange new universe. His eyes viewed at close hand sights that before had been possible only through Earth’s giant telescopes—stars and nebulae of all types.[4]
Many of the passing suns were not alone. Binaries, triple systems like Centauri, and multiple systems like swarming bees paraded past the ports.
Then, suddenly, the heavens burst out in a pyrotechnic glory that took their breaths away. Hundreds and thousands of stars, and all colors and types, popped eat of the black void ahead and surrounded the speeding space ship. They viewed a panoply of the firmament impossible for Earth eyes to see—a hundred thousand stars visible to the naked eye at once.
“We’ve just run into a globular cluster,” declared Templeton. “Nothing to worry about.”[5]
They had a real fright, however, after penetrating beyond the globular cluster, when a dim little star which seemed directly in front of their ship suddenly began to expand and grow intolerably bright and hot. its rays speared into the cabin and raised the temperature until the two men perspired.
Moore whirled, ashen pale. “We’re going to hit a star! I can’t stop the ship Without killing ourselves with deceleration. We’re doomed—”
“That’s just a nova,” returned Templeton calmly. “A star that has suddenly exploded into tenuous gases. It is almost the same illusion as if we were careening into a star. But watch, it will pass to one side.”
The brightly flaming nova grew till it was moon-sized, then swung majestically to the side and faded to the rear. The cabin quickly regained its normal temperature.
“On earth,” said the scientist, “same astronomer will see this phenomenon and report it—but not for some time to come!
As a contrast to the globular cluster they had sped through, the firmament suddenly darkened to their eyes. Stars dimmed, winked out. Soon there was none visible. A horrible, intense blackness smothered the ship. It seemed to be going through a sea of black ink. Moore turned querulously to his companion, hiding his perturbation at this strange, oppressive phenomenon.
“We’re passing through a portion of space in which the weak starlight is completely absorbed. The well-known Coalsack of the Southern Cross Constellation is an example.” He had pressed his face against the port, looking out. “I think, from what I see, that it is caused by fine cosmic dust. I sense the particles streaming by.””
Soon they had passed out of this utter night, and once again the friendly stars peeped out of the curtain of space. Their velocity had now grown to inconceivable heights. The stars began streaking by like darting lightning-bugs. The two observers seemed to be in a long, wide tunnel composed of thousands of scintillating stars. Directly ahead, the configurations of the stars changed with bewildering rapidity.
“Almost a million times faster than light now!” stated Dr. Templeton, after a theoretical calculation. Moore’s triangulation methods could: no Banger be used because of the speed of passing stars.
“I—I think we’d better stop and go back,” said Moore. “If we go much further, we’ll never be able to find our sun again.” He looked out of the back port at the strange stars, wondering how many countless suns were between them and their home-star.
“We can’t lose our way as long as we keep going in a straight line,” declared Templeton. “Yes,” he added, “There is such a thing as a straight line after all. Euclid was right at the start. The necessity for dealing with ‘curved space’ came only with the wrong conceptions of light’s speed and gigantic dimensions.”
“But we can’t go on forever,” objected Moore. “We’ll eventually run out of water and air, if not fuel.”
“Look at the chronometer, and the automatic daily chart,” said Templeton undisturbed. “Two weeks crossing the Solar System. One week, with greater speed, to reach Centaur!. Four weeks since leaving the latter—total, seven weeks since leaving Earth. Allowing seven weeks for return, we have 38 weeks left of our one year of supplies. That means 19 weeks for travel beyond this point. With half of that far deceleration, we have over nine weeks in which we can accelerate—onward!
IT was not long after that the stars began to thin out noticeably. They no longer appeared in such countless numbers to the front. Thinner and thinner the heavenly ranks became until only a few stragglers darted by their ports. But when they looked out of the rear ports, the void seemed to fee filling with densely packed stars. Portions of space were a continuous milky white.
“We have reached, and passed, the hub of the Milky Way Galaxy,” said Templeton. “We’re now plunging into the really empty gulfs of space—the regions between separate island universes. The nearest outer galaxy is fifteen times the distance we’ve so far covered.”
A strange sight unfolded before their eyes as they looked back. The great Milky Way Galaxy, which contained their sun and ail the constellations they knew, came within their view as an immense swarm of pin-points. Slowly it began contracting.
As the hours, and then days, passed while they watched, it formed a dinnerplate. As their perspective became more and more remote, spiral arms grew at the outer edges. It began to look like a Fourth-of-July pinwheel caught motionless in the middle of its spin. When it had shrunk to no more than moon-size, it looked exactly like the photographs of spiral nebulae taken by telescopes on Earth.
And that, Moore realized, was exactly, what it was. To some being in the Andromeda Nebula, the Milky Way Galaxy was simply a spiral nebula, too far away for its separate suns to be distinguished unless the Andromedans had powerful telescopes.
It was an awe-inspiring sight to see a vast universe of stars dwindling into appalling distance. To see the sun from which you came lost within a glowing mass of whitish smoke, composed of 200 billion other suns. And perhaps from that moment, Moore gave up hope of ever seeing Earth again. He did not say anything to Templeton, since it was already too late, but within himself he adopted a fatalistic attitude.
They had been so absorbed in the
sight that they had noticed the passage of time only when the inescapable pangs of hunger and thirst forced them to supply their bodily needs at regular intervals. When they finally looked at the chronometer chart, they saw that they had been retreating from their galaxy for two months!
-“IS it possible,” asked Moore, “that the time passing for us is actual Barth-time? Perhaps it has only seemed like days and months, but is in reality centuries and ages! Maybe Earth is now in some far future time, as far as we’re concerned!”
“No, Henry,” contradicted the scientist with assurance. “It is actual Earth time. So don’t worry that upon our return, well find our wives lying in some forgotten cemetery. You’ll find her your wife just as you left her, exactly as much older as you are.[6]
But Moore continued to have a queer inner conviction that he would never again see the Earth he knew. Strangely, he was both right and wrong.
A WEEK later, one half of their time for outward acceleration was over, and Moore applied deceleration equalling their former rate outward.
In the next month, their galaxy reduced in size steadily until it was hardly more than a star. Space seemed to darken now, if that were possible, and stars surrounded them in the heavens. But they weren’t stars. Each was an island universe containing billions of stars. On they sped, passing island universes now as they formerly had stars. They too formed a tube through which they were hurtling at velocities exceeded only by impalpable light itself. Templeton’s new, accelerating light.
“This is now the superuniverse itself which we are traversing,” said Dr. Templeton in exultant tones. “A sort of galaxy of island universes. Earth astronomers have estimated that there are at least 500 trillion of these separate galaxies!”
“And what will we find when we emerge from this supergalaxy? Another macrogalaxy composed of billions of billion-grouped superuniverses?” asked Moore with a fine sarcasm that camouflaged his reeling mind.
