World in Eclipse

by William Dexter

"It is true," Krill Hvensor confirmed. "And more than that — we built your pyramids."

  When you think about it, a man transported to another planet in the solar system has undergone such a terrific test of credulity (if he remains sane) that he will believe almost anything. This was my reaction to Krill Hvensor's statement. After all, if the Vulcanids could come and snatch me away from Earth, what was to prevent their having been there many times before, and what was to prevent their having sojourned there?

  And so I accepted, as indeed I must, the statement.

  In the course of time, too, I accepted many more statements. Some were fantastic, some were only logical.

  There was the almost incredible matter of the Terrestrial life span on Vulcan. This, of course, is now common knowledge to all who live today, and may well be forgotten as ever having been a novelty by those who read this in the future. But nevertheless, no Terrestrial transported to Vulcan ever found it easy to believe that while he was existing for one Vulcanid year, his fellows back on Earth were going through three Terrestrial years.

  There was the fact of interplanetary flight, too. Could a man, tied to Earth through the ages, ever accept the fact that for some beings the Solar System had no bounds? We all found this simple fact difficult to assimilate, and no less difficult on account of our own interplanetary journey. However, the fact was simple enough. True, the motive power for such flight was new to Terrestrials, but to the Vulcanids, who had used it for many centuries, it was no more mysterious than would be a sack of coal to an English housewife.

  The Vulcanid science of flight, of course, had followed a different course from that on Earth. While our technicians were fiddling with the internal combustion engine, the rocket, and jet propulsion, the Vulcanids had gone straight to the source of movement and adapted it to their own ends.

  Using magnetic fields of force for their "short" flights, such as that between Earth and Moon, they were able to travel anywhere within an astral body's field of gravitation with the barest possible use of any apparatus.

  And for the long flights through space, their Spheres of Light (this term is the nearest translation one can get in expressing Terrestrial thought in Vulcanid terms) transported them, literally, in a flash.

  When I tried to understand this propulsive power, Arabin kindly helped me. He brought to me a small glass sphere, hollow, and containing four thin vanes, each one black on one side and white on the other.

  Of course, I had seen this device hundreds of times in opticians' shop windows. The light falling on the white side of each vane caused the four tiny spokes to revolve. More than this Arabin could not tell me.

  There was the elementary theory, but how the Vulcanids had harnessed it to drive them through space at the speed of light, neither Arabin nor any other Terrestrial could tell me.

  But I digress. This chapter must tell of more than my doubts and wonderings.

  It must tell, for instance, of another acquaintance I made under the aegis of Thomas Ludlam.

  I have mentioned chess. Arabin was not my usual opponent at chess (which game, I should mention, had almost assumed the status of an international sport in the Terrestrial Colony).

  My introduction to chess was made by another Terrestrial whom I have not yet mentioned — Casimir Karim. Casimir was a broad, squat figure who might well have been a wrestler. Indeed, I later learnt that as a youth he had toured the world — or those parts where the civilising influence of wrestling and kindred sports has exerted its beneficial influence — as a wrestler.

  Casimir was an amiable Egypto-Syrian who had made his home in Alexandria, where he had been a moderately prosperous building contractor. He always lauded his native Syria, though, as being vastly superior to Egypt. He was one of the few members of our Colony whose wife was with him. This fact must be explained more fully, as it involved issues of the greatest importance.

  Casimir and his wife had been preparing to celebrate the Moslem festival of Shemel-Nessim at their top-floor flat in a suburb of Alexandria, and on the night preceding the feast had spent some time on the flat roof of their building, looking over a pair of fat sheep that had been given to them, as is the custom on this festival. They had seen the animals safely penned up for the night, and had returned to their apartment, where they were talking over the slaughter of the sheep for the morrow's feast — to which they had invited a swarm of friends.

  Suddenly, they had been alarmed by the loud bleating of the sheep. Suspecting thieves (for in Egypt, a third floor flat offers no obstacles to an enterprising youth) they had dashed out on to the roof. They had found the night unusually dark, and had stumbled across the roof to the improvised sheep pen.

  That was the last conscious act they performed upon Earth, for they regained consciousness, as I had, in the Vulcanid reception ward. A coasting Disc had claimed them as "guests" for Hafna.

  The significance of this quadruple kidnapping is far-reaching. Not only had the Vulcanids added a married couple to their lists of guests — which was a rare occurrence — but they had also carried off a pair of animals. The Terrestrial fauna on Vulcan was confined to a few smaller domestic animals, and a herd of cattle which had to be constantly replaced, owing to the sterility imposed on all Terrestrial creatures on that world. Sheep were a valuable novelty, and had proved the only exception to the law of sterility.

  This break-away from Vulcanid conditions had set the Vulcanid scientists to work investigating the phenomenon, in the hopes of remedying the sterility of other Terrestrial creatures.

  Among many of us in the Terrestrial Colony there was a theory that sterility was imposed upon all of us — men and beasts — by the Vulcanid rulers of the planet. Had we been allowed to reproduce ourselves, we argued, we might eventually have outnumbered the Vulcanids themselves.

  Casimir and his wife were near neighbours of Thomas Ludlam and myself, and, with Arabin, we made up a fairly happy quintet.

  There were, as has been said, something like 800 of us in our Colony. Within the space of two Vulcanid years I met most of these exiles, and formed strong attachments for several of them. We were of all nationalities and grades. A more assorted bunch was never found in such a small community. As a rule, however, the Vulcanids had attempted to annex several of each race and grade, so that each guest might not have cause to feel lonely. This was but one of the many admirable traits of our hosts, who sincerely made every effort to improve our otherwise appalling plight.

  I shall tell of others of our group in the course of this narrative, but now, having — most inadequately, perhaps, but none the less conscientiously — attempted to explain my first orientations in a new world, I pass to another subject. The responsibility for the introduction of this vital factor of life on Hafna has been delegated to me, Denis Grafton, for inclusion in this work.

  In treating of it, I make every apology for any apparent lack of instruction I may possess on the subject.

  The full technical records, embracing many volumes and many spools of Vulcanid stereo-projections, are available for study.

  And one thing I must say, although I am not necessarily bidden: this task has shown me that my thin veneer of "scientific" knowledge was as much a sham as the "scientific" articles I wrote for my £3,000

  a year... so long ago.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I, Denis Grafton, continue my record. These are the words of a Terrestrial, attempting to transmute Vulcanid thought to human conceptions.

  Krill Hvensor and others of the planet Hafna have spent many long months — I still use the Terrestrial term, although Vulcan has no months, in the lunar sense, for there is no moon by which to count them — they have spent many long months, I say, instructing me in the matter of the Great Fear.

  Krill Hvensor has written in these pages of the Vulcanid knowledge of the Solar System, and has told of the Vulcanid astronomers' knowledge of three dead planets, where no life exists, nor will exist, until atmospheres of chlorine and ammonia have been dissipated.

/>   That is not to say that life has never existed on these three dead worlds. Once, within Vulcanid history, they were populated by sentient beings of varying intelligence. They communicated among themselves, and interchanged visits one with the other. Their inhabitants, being of immature status intellectually, had fought innumerable battles, devising more terrible weapons and more complex defences with each era of their existence.

  Then had come the last war of all. According to the best reckoning that can be made, this cataclysm of three worlds occurred — by Terrestrial terms — about eight thousand years before the beginning of the Christian era on Earth.

  The rulers of the smallest of the three now-silent worlds had stumbled upon a secret of nature that offered to their minds the secret of conquest. By a complicated process they had arrived at a means for procuring atmospheric corrosion. The term is the only one that fits, in my vocabulary. Their device was carried first to one of their enemies' worlds, and then to the next.

  One flaw ruined them. The corrosion, by which the atmospheres of the two worlds were rendered corrupt and poisonous, functioned more slowly than they had planned. Varying gravitational force on each planet caused the delay, which was sufficient to enable space ships to leave each of the doomed worlds — and bring back the corrosion, or some degree of it, to the aggressors.

  The result was that three worlds died a death that may last for ever, unless, in remote aeons hence, life can spring up again when the venom of chlorine and ammonia shall Have cleared.

  This triple cosmic catastrophe was learned of by the beings of Hafna within a comparatively short space of time. The dread it inspired in their minds was such as to plunge the whole of the planet's thought into the problem of averting a similar disaster within the Solar System. Such a spur produced their vast leaps across space which were later to become matters of routine.

  It also produced a planet-wide network of warning devices so delicate that the slightest variation in gravitational or atmospheric conditions on any of the Sun's family of planets could be detected infallibly and almost immediately.

  Necessarily, their calculations took into consideration the possible effects of atomic reaction, whether it should be disruption, annihilation of atmosphere, polar displacement, or chain reaction.

  This gigantic system of detectors had told them within recent years of Terrestrial atomic experiments, and the atomic explosions on Earth had been the signal for all of Hafna's intelligence to focus upon our own planet. To me, this offered an explanation of a problem that had puzzled me: the reason for the concentration of Vulcanid observation of Earth.

  I cannot begin to describe the vast amount of thought, extending over many thousands of years, that had produced the Vulcanid alarm system. I learnt, without surprise, that more than one half of the planet's population was dedicated to the task of observing the reactions of every planet, and improving the Hafna system of detectors. I learnt that means of swift annihilation were ready to prevent any contagion spreading from world to world. I learnt, too, with horror, that our Earth had been focused in crossing paths of destroying rays for half a Terrestrial century.

  The Great Fear, nevertheless, was always alive on Vulcan. There was always the thought that some day, some year, perhaps in some remote future era, advancing thought on another planet would produce an unexpected weapon that would not register on the Hafna detectors.

  The development of atomic energy on Earth had produced the immediate despatch of Vulcanid

  expeditions to the Terrestrial Moon, where observation stations had been set up, and where every atomic impulse was recorded and its meaning and effect translated into counter-plans by the inhabitants of Vulcan.

  It had always been an article of astronomic faith on Earth that our Moon would not support life. But then, Terrestrial astronomers had no means of assessing the properties and biological construction of Hafna's aboriginal forms of life.

  These facts, as I have briefly recorded them above, were known to a small proportion only of our Terrestrial Colony on Vulcan. It may be — I believe it was — that the Vulcanids responsible for our existence on their planet wished to spare us the bitter knowledge that our planet was a potential target for complete destruction. It may be that they thought, rightly enough, that no good either way could come of spreading the knowledge.

  Those of us who had been tutored in this matter included myself, Thomas Ludlam, Arabin, Casimir, and a very few others.

  Our Vulcanid instructors had taken many weeks over our tuition, and from that time onwards, we were told, the matter would not be discussed again.

  Unless...

  There was one proviso.

  If the destruction of our own world became necessary, we were to be told.

  But something happened that changed that plan. The thing all Hafna had feared for thousands of years came to pass. A weapon was devised — devised and used, alas! on my own world — that failed to register on the Vulcanid detector system.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I am Leo Arabin, Commander of Project Adam, and these are my words, for those who come after.

  I have read the words of Denis Grafton and Krill Hvensor, which have been inserted before this document, and I am to enlarge upon those words.

  Denis Grafton has told of my annexation as a guest of Vulcan. There could be much more to tell, but it has no place in this narrative. What Denis Grafton has not told — and indeed, what he did not know and could not tell — was the fact that I, Leo Arabin, had been appointed to my position before his own arrival on Vulcan. One Vulcanid year after my acclimatisation on Vulcan, I was called before the Vulcanid Grand Council. The Grand Council was formed of seven pseudo-humans, whose one task was complete liaison with the Terrestrial Colony.

  It was at that time that the Grand Council decided upon the urgency of preparing plans for an expedition to Earth — a colonising expedition. This was the culmination of thousands of years'

  planning, in the course of which previous expeditions had attempted to establish a footing on Earth.

  Each time, though, Terrestrial humanity had driven out the Vulcanids.

  Now, the Grand Council learned, a menace faced Terrestrial humanity such as had never arisen before

  — the menace of self-destruction. Atomic fission, long understood but rarely practised by the scientists of Vulcan, would, they believed, annihilate the human race. Worse, it might render Earth uninhabitable for many thousands of years, by which time Vulcan itself would have become a dead world.

  On the occasion of which I write, three of us were summoned before the Grand Council to hear the opinions of those who governed Hafna. I may not say anything of these governors of the planet, but I am permitted to say that the Grand Council merely represented those opinions in a quasi-human concept. The semantics of a completely non-human race are impossible of translation into human speech, and the Grand Council, alien but yet akin to humanity, were the mouthpiece of the governors of the planet. Their rendition of Hafna thought into something approaching human terms is usually intelligible to humans, but there are times when the two races are unable to understand the motives and meanings of each other.

  It is for this last reason, of course, that humanity has been installed on Vulcan, that the Vulcanid mind, under a pseudo-human mutation, might approach somewhere near to our reasoning and learn our ways.

  Thomas Ludlam, Casimir karim and myself, then, waited upon the Grand Council to learn its will.

  What we heard astonished and horrified us, even though we had all given up all hope of returning to Earth.

  We learned then of the threat hanging over our world; heard in terms we scarcely understood — for none of us was anything of a scientist — that chain reaction set up by atomic fission would almost certainly destroy human life on Earth.

  We learned, too, that the first Vulcanid colonising expedition was even then being prepared.

  But we heard, too, the most staggering news of all. Some members of our Terrestrial Colony w
ere to accompany the expedition. We three Terrestrial humans were told — ordered might be the more correct term — that we were to be members of the human expedition. If it came in our time we should return to Earth!

  Much as we each wished for a return, though, the price would be appalling — nothing less than the annihilation of the rest of humanity on our world.

  However, there was no choice left to us, and it was not for us to decide whether the price was too great

  — as it undoubtedly was. If it was to happen, we should not have willed it so. With these thoughts we consoled ourselves, and heard the rest of the will of the governors of Hafna, transmitted to us in the strange, mechanically precise English of the Grand Council.

  They had already decided upon the personnel to lead the human section of the expedition. I was to command it — though I would prefer the word "lead" — and Ludlam and Karim were to aid me. There would be a further half dozen or so humans, and these I was to choose. The choice would have to be made discreetly, and I was ordered to allow no hint of the project to reach any other members of our Colony. Even those other half dozen or so humans who were to be of our party were not to be told until the time for embarkation came.