World in Eclipse

by William Dexter

  At the end of some hours, we were told that we might rise, and so we unbuckled our straps. There was a queer sense of instability as we hesitantly moved from our seats. It was not that we felt light, or that any movement seemed to threaten our balance, but simply that we seemed shaky on our feet and insecure in our movements.

  We remained in that long chamber for nearly five days by the watch I still wore, though how significant even mechanical measurement of time was I did not try to comprehend. I later heard the fascinating theory, expressed by Arabin, that time, as we had known it, ceased to exist when once a craft was outside the gravitational field of any astronomical body.

  I understand that he intends to devote further study to this apparent phenomenon. I feel that it may have some background of fact, because how else can I explain the incredibly short time — "time"? I still have to use the word — before our journey was ended? It may be that we were drugged, or that by some means our vital processes were retarded, but I can record that, still judging by my watch, we reached the Sphere's destination in something less than 800 hours.

  During that time we saw nothing outside the Sphere, but twice were allowed a sort of second-hand view by radar screen, or something very like it, of our surroundings. The experience was a vast disappointment to us all. We might have been looking out of a window on a particularly bright, starlit night.

  There came a time when we were instructed to take our seats again, and once more the temperature rose, this time even more unbearably than for the take-off. Happily, the experience was much shorter in duration, and before we were seriously distressed the temperature returned to what we had become accustomed to as normal.

  During the whole of the voyage we saw no sign of any members of the crew, nor, save for our peeps at the radar screen, of any indication that we were indeed in any sort of moving craft. I can only conclude that the knowledge of anything beyond our immediate experiences was not intended for us.

  When we were taken out of our seats, we returned down a long winding passage to the sliding door that had admitted us, and found ourselves in — a perfect replica of our own quarters. At first, we believed that there had been no journey through space, and that the Sphere had stayed in its hangar throughout those 800 hours. But as time went on, we found here and there scraps of evidence that this was a copy, and not the identical surroundings we had left. There was my chessboard there, on what seemed the selfsame table it had stood on before. But there was a difference. One of the black squares on the other board had had a deep notch, where Arabin had dropped a drinking glass months before. This board had no notch. The table, too, had always been the source of irritation to us, because one leg was too short.

  We had driven a drawing pin into the under side of that leg. This table stood perfectly, and there was no drawing pin.

  These facts set us looking out for more. We found plenty, and were convinced that this was only a copy — though an incredibly accurate one — of the places we had left.

  I must continue, though.

  We stayed in these rooms for nearly ninety days, living our old life, and wondering what had become of

  "Project Adam." Then one morning we knew that the time had come for the last stage of our journey. In place of our usual clothes we found overalls of a black, silky substance, much like the old-fashioned battle-dress worn by soldiers. We had seen similar material on Vulcan, usually worn by the Vulcanids, but had seen nothing quite like this in design.

  They were all the clothes we had, for our own had been taken away, so we put them on.

  The day, apart from our change of costume, started like any other. We breakfasted on the fruit diet we had become so used to on Vulcan. We loafed about and chatted, although our conversation was forced and nervous. We walked round our quarters, and tried to appear at ease.

  But it was impossible to keep up the pretence, and we were glad, when, a few hours later, Krill Hvensor and another Vulcanid, Vavlik Nyan, came for us. They were oddly silent, compared with their usually amiable frame of mind, as they led us out to another underground hangar.

  This was much smaller than the one where we had embarked on Vulcan, and was brightly lit, and in it I saw one of the Vulcanid Discs.

  There may be a time when the Discs are superseded, or perhaps forgotten, so I may as well give some space to describing the Disc we were to travel in. It was much smaller than the great black craft that had taken me up from that field at the back of Lytham, and was apparently used for a different purpose.

  I should say that it measured no more than fifty or sixty feet in diameter, and was about twenty feet in thickness, with a cupola on top, surmounted by a thick, tapering black mast.

  Around the edges were slots, let into a close-fitting ring which — I have since learnt — revolves separately and in opposition to the direction in which the Disc itself revolves. The Disc seemed to be constructed of a coppery metal, but whether it was a compound of copper or phosphor-bronze I am unable to say here.

  We entered through a small aperture in the under-surface — so small that Casimir, with his massive shoulders and slight corpulence, had difficulty in entering. Behind us came Krill Hvensor and Vavlik Nyan, and when they were inside, the door clanged shut.

  The interior, lit by a pervading light apparently emanating from the inside walls, was cramped and hot.

  There seemed to be three tiers, or floors, inside. As we entered the narrow passage and were thrust forward into the widest tier running across the median plane of the disc, we saw a number of smaller apertures, covered by gratings, leading to the upper and lower layers of the Disc.

  Inside, we were again secured in reclining chairs, but this time our surroundings were much smaller.

  Along the whole face of one of the narrower walls was a screen, occupying half the depth of the wall, and beside the two seats immediately facing the screen were duplicate control panels. In these seats the two Vulcanids took their places, and after securing their safety belts, Krill Hvensor dropped his hand to his control panel.

  Then came the most appalling sensation of vertigo, as the Disc took off. In a few seconds, the screen along the wall became illuminated dimly, and I gathered that we had left the hangar and were in open space. Although our positions with relation to the screen remained unchanged, we had the utmost difficulty in focusing our eyes on it, and we found the strangling sense of dizziness even more difficult to endure than the dreadful heat of the Sphere we had left ninety days earlier.

  However, it was again the initial impetus that caused the distressing vertigo, and within minutes we were able to relax as our surroundings seemed to steady themselves.

  On the screen we saw first a great bright strip down one edge, which, after some hours, gradually became curved, and finally resolved itself into a crescent.

  We were looking at the remote side of the Moon, Krill Hvensor told us.

  The strip we watched turn into a crescent, as we drew away from it, became the sunlit limb of the Moon, and bore the familiar appearance of the side seen on Earth. The central portion of the Lunar landscape — the very part we would most have wished to see — was in complete darkness.

  When we asked our Vulcanid pilots about this, Krill Hvensor shook his head slowly, and a tight-lipped smile played across his face. It was clear that our departure had been timed so that we should not see the planned system of the Vulcanid operational base there.

  Then our Disc appeared to turn, so that the sunlit landscape of Lunar craters slid across to the middle of the screen, and slowly passed across to the far edge. Before it passed out of range of the screen, though, a bright bulge seemed to grow out of its edge, and by the time the Lunar crescent had moved out of vision, we were looking at another, more distant crescent — the Earth itself.

  I think that none of us took his eyes away from the screen until the whole sphere of the Earth was in view. It was a curious sensation, seeing the crescent widen visibly, due to the more rapid waxing and waning of the sunlit sectio
n. Whereas on Earth we had been used to seeing the Moon wax and wane through a whole month, now we saw the Earth grow to a full circle within less than twelve hours.

  By the time the Sun had spread across the whole of the visible surface of the Earth, we had drawn close enough to distinguish the continents and oceans, and could distinguish the great globe's spinning motion, just as a man on Earth could watch the same phenomenon by noting the movement of a ray of sunshine across a wall.

  The uncanny thrill of thus seeing our own planet grow nearer and nearer arrested our sensation of the passing of time. Occasionally, the terrifying thought occurred to one or another of us — what if some catastrophe should destroy our Vulcanid Disc out there in space?

  And then, from time to time, we were reminded that we were returning to a dead world, for we never for a moment doubted the evidence that had been shown to Arabin on the stereo-link back on Vulcan.

  But despite this hollow thought, some vestige of hope flickered in the minds of each of us. Perhaps we should find some remnants of life? Surely, every living mortal could not have been destroyed? And yet...

  I have no notion how many hours the flight back to Earth occupied. Every minute of the time was occupied for us, in greedily watching the Earth draw nearer and nearer to our tiny Disc.

  As we came within the Earth's gravitational sphere, our speed increased, and the sharply outlined shapes of continent and ocean seemed to leap towards us. Then there came a stage when our Disc took on an oblique motion, first sliding one way and then the other, as a leaf falls to the ground. In great sweeps, the Disc covered hundreds of miles, apparently, as it swiftly shot from side to side, zigzagging in its forward trajectory to counter-act the vastly increased gravitational pull of our world.

  And at last the Disc changed its motion yet again, and the image of Europe, which now filled our screen, spun slowly round and round as we approached with a spiral dive. Even at this stage, our journey was not finished, and it was some hours before Krill Hvensor finally tensed to the controls and started to bring us down. Now our Disc hovered, and slowly took a direct vertical line downwards.

  Krill Hvensor turned to us with a smile, pointing to the screen.

  "England," he nodded.

  By this time, the outlines of cities and rivers, roads and railways appeared plainly before us. A great city, sprawled right across the screen and overlapping the edges, was spread before us. A silver thread of river wound across the middle of it, and as the thread of water widened on our nearer approach, its shape flashed recognition to my brain.

  We were above London.

  The Disc shot off sideways, whether north or south, I could not tell. I had not been able to orientate myself yet, and could only tell that the Disc was heading for one side of the river. Across the tops of buildings we sped, at an altitude of no more than five thousand feet.

  When we had passed over the close mesh of the city streets, and green fields were beginning to appear on the screen — for the image was translated to the screen in true colours — Krill Hvensor took the Disc in a steep dive, flattening out as the ground seemed to come up to meet us.

  Then we hovered for a few seconds, and the screen became filled with the image of waving tree-tops.

  Gently Krill Hvensor brought the Disc downwards until at last, after all our vast journey through space, it touched ground.

  I suppose it may be thought that we should have flung off our safety belts and dived for the air-lock.

  Instead, we sat there, hardly daring to believe that we had returned.

  Arabin was the first to move. He unbuckled the straps of his safety belt slowly, and rose to his feet. The Disc had come to ground with a slight list, and when we stood we found some difficulty in keeping to our feet.

  Krill Hvensor kept to his pilot's seat, as did his Vulcanid companion. He turned to us, though, with shining eyes and an expression that seemed truly human, and held out his hands to us.

  We shook his hands in that curious Vulcanid double grip, and he nodded quickly.

  "Now I must return," he said. "But — I shall come back to you. And I shall bring others. Watch for us here." And he pointed downwards to the spot our Disc had landed on. "Four days," he reminded us,

  "and I shall be back — with others."

  Now, we knew, we must alight.

  Before we moved down to the air-lock, Krill Hvensor handed me a small package. As he spoke, he appeared to make the greatest effort to control some emotion that gripped him. He closed his eyes tightly, and appeared to be murmuring some soundless words. Then his eyes opened, and in his normal voice, he spoke.

  "Your instructions are in this package, Denis Grafton," he said. "You will also find therein some written papers. These you will place in their correct position in the narrative you are to write."

  Again, he seemed to struggle with some unformed thought, and for a time was silent, although his lips moved again in swift but silent words.

  When he did speak again to me, his features had resumed their usual impassivity.

  "Your first and only duty now," he urged me, "is to carry out these orders. You must obey."

  I took the package from him with some surprise. As I held it in my hands, the surprise vanished, and I realised that I must obey.

  I seemed to know, as soon as I touched the package, that the others must handle it, as well. I held it towards Arabin, whose expression showed the amazement I must have portrayed in my turn at this odd piece of ritualistic behaviour. He, too, lost his look of surprise as he held the small bundle, and he passed it to Karim, who touched it and nodded.

  "Of course," said Karim. "Of course…. But naturally…."

  Arabin turned to Thomas Ludlam, but Thomas had made his way to the air-lock, and we followed him.

  As we left the navigating cabin, Krill Hvensor called after us, in a strained voice.

  "Remember," he said. "Four days from now… here… I shall be back, with others."

  Then I found myself stepping through the air-lock, and I heard the swish of the inner door closing behind us. For a second we stood there, not knowing what we should find outside the outer panel, but somehow, confident... sure...

  The panel opened, and we stepped out.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  This is Denis Grafton, and by God! he is writing in his own words now. Now that we have shaken off that damnable mental control, I can speak freely.

  This writing will continue — this writing that set out to be history — but will continue as a warning to those who come after. It is better that way. The first chapters will stand as they are, as a proof of what the world may come to if my warning is not heeded.

  I will go back to the moment when we stepped out of the Disc, and will bring events into their proper perspective.

  When the outer panel of the air-lock opened, if we had been in complete control of our minds, we would no doubt have feared the annihilation that had overtaken mankind. But those damned

  Intelligences ruling us had glossed our minds over with a veneer of confidence that would have killed us, if the atmosphere of Earth had been unbreathable.

  Fortunately, the catastrophe that had destroyed humanity had not affected the composition of the atmosphere, and we were able to breathe perfectly normally.

  We found ourselves in open parkland as we crept out from beneath the shadow of the Disc. Arabin grabbed my arm, and hustled me away quickly.

  "Move quickly…. It'll take off at any moment," he urged.

  The four of us ran until we had left the Disc a couple of hundred yards behind, and then turned to watch it. We were quite safe, though, as we might have known, for Krill Hvensor had us under observation on his screen.

  We stood silently, as the great Disc, appearing even larger now than we had believed when we first entered it, gently lifted from the ground, hovered, and then shot away in an incredibly swift upward spiral.

  I carried the package I had been given by Krill Hvensor, and looked round for a building of some
sort. I knew, and Arabin and Karim knew, that we must open the package and follow the instructions we found inside it.

  In our hurry, we had forgotten to pass the package on to Thomas Ludlam, who had been first out of the Disc and now stood a little distance away from us.

  Leaving him slightly to our rear, we all three hurried across the park where we had landed, and made for a large building standing among trees. We had no thought save to obey our orders.

  We entered the building with little thought as to what it was or what lay within, and made our way to a large room with a central table. On the table we laid the package, and started to open it.