“At any rate fifty-seven parsecs gives complete certainty. Knock off five to allow a margin of error. That leaves fifty-two. Stand by for the warp.”
Again the countless devices and relays were checked over. Moot Ang plugged in on the cabins where the remaining five crew members were fast asleep.
The automatic physiological observation devices reported all five in normal condition. This established, the captain switched on the protective field around the crew’s quarters. Red streaks running along the frosted paneling on the port wall showed the flow of gas through the tubes concealed behind.
“Ready?” Tey Eron asked the commander.
The captain nodded, and the three men in the navigation room settled into their deep padded seats. Secured firmly with air cushions, each took a metal hypodermic syringe ready for use from a compartment in the left arm rest.
“Well, here goes — for another hundred and fifty years of Earth-life,” said Kari Ram, driving the point of the needle into his arm.
Moot Ang looked at him sharply. But the faintly mocking gleam in the young man’s eyes reassured him. When his comrades had dropped back in their seats and lost consciousness, the captain switched on the robots controlling both the warp mechanism and the protective shield, and finally flipped over some levers on a small box next to his knee which brought the massive domes down noiselessly from the ceiling. When the domes were in place, he took one last glance at the dials now illuminated with a dim bluish light and plunged the hypodermic needle into his arm.
* * *
The ship came out of its fourth warp. It was cruising along at a speed less than that of light not quite four parsecs away from its destination — the dark giant KNT-8008 belonging to the rare class of dark carbon stars. The most powerful telescopes on Earth could hardly pick it out, but now it loomed as large as the Sun viewed from Mercury on the starboard, or “north,” screens of the ship.
Stars like this with diameters 150 to 170 times the diameter of the Sun were distinguished by the abundance of carbon in their atmospheres. At a temperature of 2,000-3,000 °C. the carbon atoms formed a specific type of molecules consisting of three atoms each. Stellar atmospheres with such a molecular structure absorbed radiation in the violet region of the spectrum and hence the luminosity of stars of this class was very low in relation to their size.
The cores of the carbon giants, however, had temperatures running to 100 million degrees, and this made them powerful neutron generators that transformed light elements into heavy ones, even heavier than uranium, all the way to californium and rossium. The latter was the heaviest of the known elements, with an atomic weight of 401, and had first been obtained a good four centuries earlier.
Scientists believed it was the carbon stars that were the Universe’s factories of heavy elements which they spread into space in periodical eruptions, and that they were the source of the new chemical elements that were constantly appearing in our Galaxy. The advent of the warp ship now enabled man to study carbon stars at close range, and observe the processes of transformation of matter going on there.
The crew of the Tellur had regained consciousness?m& were at work on the research programme for the sake of which they had cut themselves off from Earth for seven hundred terrestrial years. All were fully aware that they had a long job ahead of them. The processes the expedition was to investigate were complex indeed and physicists on Earth had not yet been able to find a clue to their secrets.
The ship seemed to be cruising very slowly now, but no greater speed was needed. Its course deviated somewhat to the south from a straight line to the carbon star so as to keep the locator screen shaded from its radiation; indeed the disc remained a black void for weeks and months and years in succession.
The Tellur, or IF-1 (Z-685), as it was listed in the register of the Earth’s Cosmic fleet (meaning the first inverted-field space ship, and the 685th ever to be built), was not as huge as the long-range subphotonic space ships which had preceded it. The older type of ship had carried crews of up to two hundred, and their voyages had lasted the lifetime of more than one generation, which enabled them to penetrate quite deep into interstellar space. Each time one of these long-range ships returned, however, it brought back with it several score men and women from the distant past. But while physiologically and intellectually on a high level of development, they found it so hard to adapt themselves to the times that many of them succumbed to melancholy and depression.
Now warp ships would carry people still farther out into the Cosmos, and in a very short time — as time is measured by astronauts — Methuselahs a thousand years old would be appearing in human society. Those who would undertake voyages to other island universes would be returning to their native planet millions of years later. This was the negative side of cosmic exploration — the great barrier Nature had laid in the path of the cosmic ambitions of her restless Earth-sons.
The latest space ships carried a crew of only eight. And whereas previously astronauts had been encouraged to raise families during flights, these travellers into boundless space and the future were strictly forbidden to do so.
Although the Tellur was smaller than its predecessors, its dimensions were nevertheless huge for so small a crew.
As always after a long sleep, the eight astronauts on board, most of them young people, were brimming with energy that sought an outlet, and they spent most of their free time in the gymnasium. They devised all sorts of difficult exercises and complicated dances, or performed the most fantastic acrobatics in the antigravitation corner of the hall. Another favourite pastime was swimming in the big pool filled with ionized luminescent water that retained the exquisite blue of that cradle of humanity, the Mediterranean.
Kari Ram was hurrying to the swimming pool when he heard a melodious voice behind him.
“I need your help, Kari. This turn just won’t come off right.”
The speaker was Taina Dan, a tall, slender girl in a short tunic of a shining green fabric that matched her eyes. She was the party’s chemist, the youngest and most high-spirited member of the expedition. Often enough she irritated the staid, level-headed Kari by her impulsiveness, but he shared her passion for dancing. Smiling, he turned and went toward her.
Afra Devi, the expedition’s biologist, called out to him from the diving board as he passed by. With her back to the water, she was pulling a bathing cap over her luxurious black hair. In the meantime Tey Eron came up to Afra on the springy plastic diving board and held out his muscular arm behind the girl’s back. She threw herself backward against Tey’s arm and for a fraction of a second was balanced there, then completed the turn around the arm and the two plunged down into the water, their tawny skins gleaming with that glint of bronze that only a healthy outdoor life can give. Kari’s eyes followed them.
“He’s forgotten all about me!” Taina cried, pressing the tips of her fingers against his eyes.
“But it was beautiful, wasn’t it?” Kari replied, drawing the girl to him and leading her into the first step of the dance as they entered the sound strip.
Kari and Taina were the best dancers on board. None of the others could abandon themselves so completely to melody and rhythm. Now too Kari was swept into the world of dance, oblivious to everything but the fascination of co-ordinated movement. The girl’s hand resting on his shoulder was at once strong and tender. Her green eyes deepened in colour.
“You are just like your name,” Kari whispered. “I believe in an ancient language Taina’ meant something mysterious, unfathomed.”
“I’m glad of that,” the girl replied gravely. “I had thought that the mysterious and unfathomed existed only in the Cosmos — that it didn’t apply to Earth any more. It certainly doesn’t to people — there’s nothing enigmatic or unpredictable about us.”
“Do you regret it?”
“Sometimes. I should like to meet someone like the people who lived in the distant past. Someone who has to hide his dreams and his feelings from a hostile envi
ronment, to steel his resolve in secret and to build up his will till nothing can shake it.”
“I see what you mean. But I wasn’t thinking of people — only of unfathomed secrets… The kind one reads about in ancient novels — mysterious ruins, unknown depths, un-attained heights. And before that there were enchanted forests and springs and haunted houses where all sorts of exciting supernatural things happened.”
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful, Kari, to find some secret passage on board…”
“Leading to some mysterious chambers where…”
“Yes, Kari, go on.”
“My imagination doesn’t go any further,” said the engineer.
But Taina had got into the spirit of the thing and she
pulled Kari after her into a dimly-lit side passage. The vibration indicators blinked wearily on the walls as if the ship itself was fighting an overpowering drowsiness. Taina tiptoed down the corridor a little way and then stopped. A shadow of boredom flitted over her face but was gone before Kari could be certain that he had really seen it. An unfamiliar emotion seized him and he took the girl’s hand again.
“Let’s go to the library,” he said. “I’ve still got two hours before my watch.”
She followed him obediently.
The library was a large common room with indirect lighting that created the illusion of a luminous mist floating under the ceiling. It was located immediately aft of the central control room, as was customary in all space ships. Kari and Taina opened the pressurized door of the third transverse passage and came to the double-doored elliptical hatchway of the central gallery. No sooner had Kari stepped on the bronze plate in front of it and caused the heavy leaves to slide open than the air grew vibrant with sound. Taina brightened.
“It’s Moot Ang,” she said, pressing Kari’s fingers.
They slipped into the library. There were three men in the room. The ship’s doctor, Svet Sim, and the stocky warp engineer Yas Tin, were ensconced in soft armchairs between the upright columns of the film cabinets, and to the left, the commander of the Tellur himself was bent over the keys of the EMV.
The EMV, or electromagnetic viono, had long replaced the harsh-toned piano of old, retaining the tonal wealth of the piano but imparting to it the melodious richness of the violin. Amplifiers could give the sounds it produced an amazing power.
Moot Ang was unaware of the newcomers. He sat, leaning forward slightly, his face lifted to the rhombic panels of the ceiling, his fingers running lightly over the keyboard. As in the old-time piano, every nuance of sound depended on the musician’s touch, although the sound itself was produced not by hammers striking strings but by delicate electronic impulses that might almost be compared to the nerve impulses of the human brain.
The music flowed in interweaving harmonies that spoke of the fusion of Earth and Cosmos. Presently the pattern broke, notes of wistful melancholy mingled with the rumble of a distant storm in a gradual crescendo of sound through which rang notes like cries of despair. The tension rose higher and higher until it reached the final cataclysmic burst that resolved itself in an avalanche of dissonances sliding down and down into a dark abyss of inconsolable grief for that which was gone for ever.
But suddenly pure clear notes of limpid joy rang out under Moot Ang’s fingers and merged with the gentle sadness of the accompaniment.
Just then the door opened and Afra Devi, who had changed into a white smock, slipped into the room and went over to Svet Sim. The doctor listened to her, then signed to the captain. The captain’s hands left the keyboard and silence broke the spell of the music as swiftly as the tropical night banishes day.
The captain left the room with the doctor followed by the worried glances of the others. Something most unusual had occurred — the second navigator had had an attack of acute appendicitis. He had evidently neglected to carry-out the full programme of medical preparation for the voyage. Now Dr. Sim had to ask the captain’s permission to operate without delay.
Moot Ang hesitated. Modern medicine, with its methods of regulating nervous activity in much the same way as the impulses were regulated in electronic devices, was able to cure a great many ailments. But the doctor insisted. He argued that although the condition could be cured at the moment, the enormous strain imposed on the organism by cosmic flight might cause a relapse.
The patient was placed on a wide operating table and enmeshed in a maze of wires leading to the thirty-six electronic devices that gave a complete picture of his condition. The hypnotic sleep-inducer blinked and hummed rhythmically in the darkened room. Dr. Sim read the instruments once more and nodded to Afra Devi. It was her job to assist the doctor. Each member of the crew, besides being an expert in some branch of science, was trained for some particular shipboard duty — servicing the ship’s mechanisms, taking care of the feeding arrangements, and so on.
Afra brought out a transparent vessel filled with a bluish liquid. In it lay a segmented metal device resembling a good-sized centipede. Afra took out the device and from another vessel she extracted a conical-shaped instrument attached to some long fine tubes. A light click and the metallic centipede came to life with a barely audible whirr.
Svet Sim nodded and the apparatus was inserted in the patient’s mouth. Moot Ang moved closer to the semi-transparent screen which had been placed at an angle over the sick man’s abdomen. In the greenish glow of the screen the grey contours of the internal organs and the segmented metal device making its way down the alimentary canal were clearly visible. In a little while its blunt end was pressed against the base of the appendix.
With the apparatus pressing in the area of inflammation the pain increased and sedatives had to be administered to counteract the convulsions that appeared in the intestines. In a few minutes the data processor had completed the diagnosis and recommended the antibiotics and disinfectants needed. The metallic centipede inserted its long flexible feelers deep into the appendix and sucked out the pus and the alien bodies that had caused the inflammatory process. This was followed by a vigorous irrigation with biological solutions which quickly restored the mucous membranes of the appendix and the adjoining intestine to normal.
The patient slept peacefully while the ingenious automatic device did its work. Now the operation was over and it only remained for the doctor to remove the instrument.
The captain heaved a sigh of relief. Despite the force of medicine, unforeseen peculiarities of individual organisms often resulted in unexpected complications, for it was obviously impossible to establish in advance every deviation from the normal among all the thousands of millions of inhabitants of the Earth. And if these possible complications were nothing to worry about on Earth with its great medical institutions, they could very well be dangerous enough on expeditions like the present.
But everything had gone off well. With an easy mind Moot Ang returned to the now deserted library and sat down at the viono. But he did not play, though his hands rested on the keys. Instead his thoughts returned, as they had so many times before, to human happiness and the future.
This was his fourth voyage into the Cosmos. But never before had he embarked on a flight covering so much space and time. With man forging ahead at great speed from one accomplishment and discovery to another, with the sum total of knowledge mankind had accumulated, seven hundred years now could hardly be compared with an equal span of Earth-time in the days of the ancient civilizations. Then society’s progress was limited to opening up formerly uninhabited expanses of our planet to human habitation. In those distant days, time crawled and human progress was as slow as the movement of the Arctic and Antarctic glaciers. Time seemed to have stood still for centuries. What indeed did the human life-span amount to then, or a century, or ten centuries, for that matter?
What would the people of the ancient world have felt, Moot Ang thought with a shudder, had they known in advance how slow social development would be, had they foreseen that oppression, injustice and chaos were to remain man’s lot for so many yea
rs to come? You could sleep for seven hundred years in ancient Egypt and wake up to find the same slave system in existence, except for perhaps even more brutal exploitation. In ancient China seven-hundred-year spans began and ended with the same wars, the same dynasties, and Europe passed in like time only from the beginning of the Dark Ages to the height of the Inquisition.
But now the mere thought of the grand vistas that would be opened up by the next seven centuries — centuries packed with changes, improvements in life, ever new knowledge — staggered the imagination.
And if true happiness consists in movement, change, rapid progress, Moot Ang mused, who could be happier than he and his comrades? Yet things are not as simple as they might seem. Man’s nature is as complex as his environment. While reaching ever forward, we are always saddened by the passage of time, or rather by the loss of the fine things of the past — things that are hallowed by memory and that once gave rise to legends about golden ages vanished in the labyrinths of time.
Men could not help looking to whatever had been good in the past, and yearning for its return, for only the most clear-minded were able to foresee the inevitable coming of something better in the future. And ever since then there has persisted in the minds of men a deep regret for that which is gone, a nostalgic longing for what has ceased to be, a sadness one most poignantly feels when viewing ancient ruins and monuments to mankind’s past history. One felt all this more and more keenly as one grew older.
Moot Ang rose from his seat and squared his powerful shoulders.
Yes, all that had been vividly described in historical novels. But what was there to frighten the young men and women on board a space ship bound for the future? Loneliness? The loss of one’s relatives? The loneliness of a man projected into the future had often been described in old novels. It had meant being torn away from one’s kin. Yet these kinsfolk had been a handful of individuals linked only by the formal bond of blood. Were not all men brothers now, had not the old conventions and barriers between men everywhere on Earth been banished for ever?
The Heart of the Serpent вк-2 Page 2
