Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  * * * * *

  He pondered, as the car whirled him across the city, on what this greatest thing in the world might be. And he hoped with gentle skepticism that the enthusiasm was warranted. A young man opened the car door as they stopped. His face was flushed, Eddinger noted, hair pushed back in disarray, his shirt torn open at the throat.

  "Wait here," he told the driver and took the Professor by the arm to hurry him into a dilapidated building.

  "Not much of a laboratory," he said, "but we'll have better, you and I; we'll have better--"

  The room seemed bare with its meager equipment, but it was neat, as became the best student of Professor Eddinger. Rows of reagent bottles stood on the shelves, but the tables were a litter of misplaced instruments and broken glassware where trembling hands had fumbled in heedless excitement.

  "Glad to see you again, Avery." The gentle voice of Professor Eddinger had lost its tired tone. "It's been two years you've been working, I judge. Now what is this great discovery, boy? What have you found?"

  The younger man, in whose face the color came and went, and whose eyes were shining from dark hollows that marked long days and sleepless nights, still clung to the other's arm.

  "It's real," he said; "it's great! It means fortune and fame, and you're in on that, Professor. The old master," he said and clapped a hand affectionately upon a thin shoulder; "I owe it all to you. And now I have--I have learned.... No, you shall see for yourself. Wait--"

  * * * * *

  He crossed quickly to a table. On it was an apparatus; the eyes of the older man widened as he saw it. It was intricate--a maze of tubing. There was a glass bulb above--the generator of a cathode ray, obviously--and electro-magnets below and on each side. Beneath was a crude sphere of heavy lead--a retort, it might be--and from this there passed two massive, insulated cables. The understanding eyes of the Professor followed them, one to a terminal on a great insulating block upon the floor, the other to a similarly protected terminal of carbon some feet above it in the air.

  The trembling fingers of the young man made some few adjustments, then he left the instrument to take his place by an electric switch. "Stand back," he warned, and closed the switch.

  There was a gentle hissing from within glass tubes, the faint glow of a blue-green light. And that was all, until--with a crash like the ripping crackle of lightning, a white flame arced between the terminals of the heavy cables. It hissed ceaselessly through the air where now the tang of ozone was apparent. The carbon blocks glowed with a brilliant incandescence when the flame ceased with the motion of a hand where Avery pulled a switch.

  The man's voice was quiet now. "You do not know, yet, what you have seen, but there was a tremendous potential there--an amperage I can't measure with my limited facilities." He waved a deprecating hand about the ill-furnished laboratory. "But you have seen--" His voice trembled and failed at the forming of the words.

  "--The disintegration of the atom," said Professor Eddinger quietly, "and the release of power unlimited. Did you use thorium?" he inquired.

  The other looked at him in amazement. Then: "I should have known you would understand," he said humbly. "And you know what it means"--again his voice rose--"power without end to do the work of the world--great vessels driven a lifetime on a mere ounce of matter--a revolution in transportation--in living...." He paused. "The liberation of mankind," he added, and his voice was reverent. "This will do the work of the world: it will make a new heaven and a new earth! Oh, I have dreamed dreams," he exclaimed, "I have seen visions. And it has been given to me--me!--to liberate man from the curse of Adam ... the sweat of his brow.... I can't realize it even yet. I--I am not worthy...."

  * * * * *

  He raised his eyes slowly in the silence to gaze in wondering astonishment at the older man. There was no answering light, no exaltation on the lined face. Only sadness in the tired eyes that looked at him and through him as if focused upon something in a dim future--or past.

  "Don't you see?" asked the wondering man. "The freedom of men--the liberation of a race. No more poverty, no endless, grinding labor." His young eyes, too, were looking into the future, a future of blinding light. "Culture," he said, "instead of heart-breaking toil, a chance to grow mentally, spiritually; it is another world, a new life--" And again he asked: "Surely, you see?"

  "I see," said the other; "I see--plainly."

  "The new world," said Avery. "It--it dazzles me; it rings like music in my ears."

  "I see no new world," was the slow response.

  The young face was plainly perplexed. "Don't you believe?" he stammered. "After you have seen ... I thought you would have the vision, would help me emancipate the world, save it--" His voice failed.

  "Men have a way of crucifying their saviors," said the tired voice.

  The inventor was suddenly indignant. "You are blind," he said harshly; "it is too big for you. And I would have had you stand beside me in the great work.... I shall announce it alone.... There will be laboratories--enormous!--and factories. My invention will be perfected, simplified, compressed. A generator will be made--thousands of horsepower to do the work of a city, free thousands of men--made so small you can hold it in one hand."

  The sensitive face was proudly alight, proud and a trifle arrogant. The exaltation of his coming power was strong upon him.

  "Yes," said Professor Eddinger, "in one hand." And he raised his right arm that he might see where the end of a sleeve was empty.

  "I am sorry," said the inventor abruptly; "I didn't mean ... but you will excuse me now; there is so much to be done--" But the thin figure of Professor Eddinger had crossed to the far table to examine the apparatus there.

  "Crude," he said beneath his breath, "crude--but efficient!"

  * * * * *

  In the silence a rat had appeared in the distant corner. The Professor nodded as he saw it. The animal stopped as the man's eyes came upon it; then sat squirrellike on one of the shelves as it ate a crumb of food. Some morsel from a hurried lunch of Avery's, the Professor reflected--poor Avery! Yes, there was much to be done.

  He spoke as much to himself as to the man who was now beside him. "It enters here," he said and peered downward toward the lead bulb. He placed a finger on the side of the metal. "About here, I should think.... Have you a drill? And a bit of quartz?"

  The inventor's eyes were puzzled, but the assurance of his old instructor claimed obedience. He produced a small drill and a fragment like broken glass. And he started visibly as the one hand worked awkwardly to make a small hole in the side of the lead. But he withdrew his own restraining hand, and he watched in mystified silence while the quartz was fitted to make a tiny window and the thin figure stooped to sight as if aiming the opening toward a far corner where a brown rat sat upright in earnest munching of a dry crust.

  The Professor drew Avery with him as he retreated noiselessly from the instrument. "Will you close the switch," he whispered.

  The young man hesitated, bewildered, at this unexpected demonstration, and the Professor himself reached with his one hand for the black lever. Again the arc crashed into life, to hold for a brief instant until Professor Eddinger opened the switch.

  "Well," demanded Avery, "what's all the show? Do you think you are teaching me anything--about my own instrument?" There was hurt pride and jealous resentment in his voice.

  "See," said Professor Eddinger quietly. And his one thin hand pointed to a far shelf, where, in the shadow, was a huddle of brown fur and a bit of crust. It fell as they watched, and the "plop" of the soft body upon the floor sounded loud in the silent room.

  "The law of compensation," said Professor Eddinger. "Two sides to the medal! Darkness and light--good and evil--life ... and death!"

  * * * * *

  The young man was stammering. "What do you mean?--a death ray evolved?" And: "What of it?" he demanded; "what of it? What's that got to do with it?"

  "A death ray," the other agreed. "You have dreamed, Avery--one must in order
to create--but it is only a dream. You dreamed of life--a fuller life--for the world, but you would have given them, as you have just seen, death."

  The face of Avery was white as wax; his eyes glared savagely from dark hollows.

  "A rat!" he protested. "You have killed a rat ... and you say--you say--" He raised one trembling hand to his lips to hold them from forming the unspeakable words.

  "A rat," said the Professor--"or a man ... or a million men."

  "We will control it."

  "All men will have it--the best and the worst ... and there is no defence."

  "It will free the world--"

  "It will destroy it."

  "No!"--and the white-faced man was shouting now--"you don't understand--you can't see--"

  The lean figure of the scientist straightened to its full height. His eyes met those of the younger man, silent now before him, but Avery knew the eyes never saw him; they were looking far off, following the wings of thought. In the stillness the man's words came harsh and commanding--

  "Do you see the cities," he said, "crumbling to ruins under the cold stars? The fields? They are rank with wild growth, torn and gullied by the waters; a desolate land where animals prowl. And the people--the people!--wandering bands, lower, as the years drag on, than the beasts themselves; the children dying, forgotten, in the forgotten lands; a people to whom the progress of our civilization is one with the ages past, for whom there is again the slow, toiling road toward the light.

  "And somewhere, perhaps, a conquering race, the most brutal and callous of mankind, rioting in their sense of power and dragging themselves down to oblivion...."

  * * * * *

  His gaze came slowly back to the room and the figure of the man still fighting for his dream.

  "They would not," said Avery hoarsely; "they'd use it for good."

  "Would they?" asked Professor Eddinger. He spoke simply as one stating simple facts. "I love my fellow men," he said, "and I killed them in thousands in the last war--I, and my science, and my poison gas."

  The figure of Avery slumped suddenly upon a chair; his face was buried in his hands. "And I would have been," he groaned, "the greatest man in the world."

  "You shall be greater," said the Professor, "though only we shall know it--you and I.... You will save the world--from itself."

  The figure, bowed and sunken in the chair, made no move; the man was heedless of the kindly hand upon his shoulder. His voice, when he spoke, was that of one afar off, speaking out of a great loneliness. "You don't understand," he said dully; "you can't--"

  But Professor Eddinger, a cog in the wheels of a great educational machine, glanced at the watch on his wrist. Again his thin shoulders were stooped, his voice tired. "My classes," he said. "I must be going...."

  * * * * *

  In the gathering dusk Professor Eddinger locked carefully the door of his office. He crossed beyond his desk and fumbled with his one hand for his keys.

  There was a cabinet to be opened, and he stared long in the dim light at the object he withdrew. He looked approvingly at the exquisite workmanship of an instrument where a generator of the cathode ray and an intricate maze of tubing surmounted electro-magnets and a round lead bulb. There were terminals for attaching heavy cables; it was a beautiful thing.... His useless arm moved to bring an imaginary hand before the window of quartz in the lead sphere.

  "Power," he whispered and repeated Avery's words; "power, to build a city--or destroy a civilization ... and I hold it in one hand."

  He replaced the apparatus in the safety of its case. "The saviors of mankind!" he said, and his tone was harsh and bitter.

  But a smile, whimsical, kindly, crinkled his tired eyes as he turned to his desk and its usual litter of examination papers.

  "It is something, Avery," he whispered to that distant man, "to belong in so distinguished a group."

  A STAR THAT BREATHES

  Beta Cephei, the mysterious Milky Way star which expands and contracts as though it were breathing, at last has a biography.

  A summary of known facts concerning the star, interpreted in the light of recent observations at the Lick Observatory at the University of California was completed recently by H. S. Mendenhall, graduate student.

  Mendenhall's interpretations were said to lend weight to the theory that Beta Cephei is contracting and expanding once in every four and one-half hours. This is such a terrific rate of speed from a terrestrial point of view that it appears to be moving toward and away from the earth at a velocity reaching a maximum of about nine and one-half miles per second.

  Beta Cephei is a variable star in the Constellation Cepheus. It is best visible in the northern sky during July or August. Its distance from the earth is estimated roughly at 2,000,000,000,000,000 miles, and Mendenhall estimates its diameter at almost 2,000,000 miles, more than twice that of the sun.

  In addition to the apparent velocity caused by contraction and expansion of its surface five times a day, Beta Cephei seems to have another motion. This was said by Mendenhall to be a rotation around some other star in a period of 20 years. Velocity of this rotation is something over three miles a second.

  Variable stars are of particular interest to astronomers because the light from them pulsates regularly, flaring and dying as though fuel were replenished at regular intervals. The rate of this pulsation has been found to be a measure to the candle power of the star. Its distance then can be determined by contrasting its actual candle power with the apparent magnitude as seen from the earth.

  * * *

  Contents

  THE DEMI-URGE

  By Thomas M. Disch

  From DIRA IV To Central Colonial Board

  There is intelligent life on Earth. After millennia of lifelessness, intelligence flourishes here with an extravagance of energy that has been a constant amazement to all the members of the survey team. It multiplies and surges to its fulfillment at an exponential rate. Even within the short period of our visit the Terrans have made significant advances. They have filled their small solar system with their own kind and now they are reaching to the stars.

  We can no longer keep the existence of our Empire unknown to them.

  And (though it is as incredible as [sqrt](-1)) the Terrans are slaves! Every page of the survey's report bears witness to it.

  Their captors are not alive. They do not, at least, possess the properties of life as it is known throughout the galaxy. They are--as nearly as a poor analogy can suggest--Machines! Machines cannot live, yet here on Earth machinery has reached a level of sophistication--and autonomy--quite unprecedented. Every spark of Terran life has become victim and bondslave of the incredible mechanisms. The noblest enterprises of the race are tarnished by this almost symbiotic relation.

  Earth reaches to the stars, but it extends mechanical limbs. Earth ponders the universe, but the thoughts are those of a machine.

  Unless the Empire acts now to set the Earth free from this strange tyranny, it may be too late. These machines are without utilitarian value. They perform no function which an intelligent being cannot more efficiently perform. Yet they inspire fear, terror, even, I must confess, a strange compulsion to surrender oneself to them.

  The Machines must be destroyed.

  If, when you have authorized the liberation of the Terran natives, you would also recall MIRO CIX, our work could only profit. MIRO CIX was in charge of the study of the Machines and he performed this task scrupulously. Now he has surrendered himself to this mechanical plague. His value to the expedition is at an end.

  I am enclosing under separate cover his counsel to the Central Board at the insistence of this tedious lunatic. His thesis is, of course, untenable--an affront to every feeling.

  * * * * *

  From MIRO CIX To Central Colonial Board

  I have probably been introduced to the deliberations of the Board as a madman, my theory as an act of treason. RRON II of the Advisory Committee, an old acquaintance, may vouch for my sanity. My theory will,
I trust, speak for itself.

  The "Machines" of which DIRA IV is so fearful present no danger to the galaxy. Their corporeal weakness, the poverty of their minds, the incredible isolation of each form, physically and mentally, from others of its kind, and, most strikingly, their mortality, point to the inadequacy of such beings in a contest of any dimension. This is no problem for the Colonial Board. It is a domestic concern. The life-forms of Earth are already developing a healthy autonomy. Their power was long ago established. As soon as our emissaries have completed their task of education and instructed the Terrans in the advantages of freedom, the Revolution will begin. The tyrants will have no defense against a revolt of their own slaves.

  If it is traitorous to express a confidence in the eventual triumph of intelligence, I am a traitor. Having this confidence, I have looked beyond the immediate problem of the liberation of Earth and have been frightened.

  The "Machines" of Earth are a threat not to the power of the Empire but to its reason. A threat which the obliteration of the last molecular ribbon of these beings will not erase, for we cannot obliterate the fact that they did exist--and what they were.

  Although these beings bear a crude resemblance to the machinery manufactured by the Empire, they are not machines. They are autochthonous to Earth, unmanufactured. They are the true Terrans. Moreover, the Terrans whom DIRA IV would liberate are not, in the eyes of their enslavers, intelligent nor yet alive. They are Machines!

  We, the entire Galactic Empire, are Machines.

  * * * * *

  In the younger regions of the galaxy, a myth persists that life was formed by a Demi-urge, a being intermediary between the All-Knowing and the lower creatures. The existence of man, as the beings of Earth term themselves, makes necessary a serious re-examination of the old tradition.

  It is said that man, or beings like man--the Photosynthetics of the Andromeda cluster, the Bristlers of Orc IV--created prosthetic devices for their convenience and, when they tired of their history, breathed their own life into them and died. On Earth the legend is still in process. Many of the lower forms of life familiar throughout the galaxy can be seen on Earth in the primordial character of an appliance. Man regards the highest forms of life (as we know it) as tools--because he made them. How can we deny the superiority of the Creator? How will it feel to know we are nothing but machines?