Edge of Time

by Donald A. Wollheim (as David Grinnell)

  She was silent for a while longer. "Yes," she finally said. "It's wonderful. It isn't like the sky where I have been. That's wonderful too, but in a different way. That sky, so filled with big white stars, is more awesome. It tends to overpower you, to bear down on you weightily. This sky is easier, yet so much more intense. Somehow it seems to get into you, to get at your soul with its suggestion of depth and space, its feel of immortality."

  He nodded and puffed at his pipe.

  After a long silence, she went on, speaking softly as if to herself. "I feel humble before all this, yet I also feel that I ought to be singing. I feel a connection with everything, with the trees and the grass, with the insects and the wind and the very rocks around me. Gazing into our sky gives me a deep harmony with existence."

  Warren gazed into the heavens meditatively. He nodded. "You've changed, Marge," he said. "Do you know that? So, I guess, have I. This business has changed us all. But I think it has done wonders for you, most of all. You don't seem the same kid that came out here only a few months ago."

  Marge drew in her breath, gave him a quick glance in the darkness. "I—I don't know what you mean," she said. "Though I hope it's meant as a compliment."

  His smile was concealed by the darkness. She was a different girl; there was something about her that made him feel warm and relaxed.

  They sat there for another half hour, saying little but finding a quiet contentment under the stars. Then they got up and walked slowly back through the dark starlit night to the lodge. He said good-by to her when she went upstairs, and walked briefly back to the records hall to see if all was in order. This was a nightly recheck that he had undertaken as part of the general security measures.

  On his way between the buildings, a dark figure came up to him, blocked him. "Alton!" said the other, and he recognized the voice of the guard, Jack Quern.

  He started to move around him, but Jack's hand came out and grabbed his arm. "Listen here, Alton. I don't like you moving in on my girl. I been taldn' the kid around, and I ain't the kind of guy to let some smart-aleck cut me out. Lay off, see. Or else!"

  A flash of anger surged through Warren. "Or else—what?"

  "Or else this!" came the reply. But Warren ducked before Quern's fist could land. He twisted agilely, and swung a hard-fisted right. For a few seconds there was a scuffle. Quern was a good street fighter, but in Warren he was dealing with a man who had learned the tricks of combat in the armed service. Warren was not hurt, but hoped he'd landed a few on the guard.

  They broke clear and harsh words were spoken. But Warren warned him coolly that Marge was "nobody's girl" and whom she saw was strictly her own business.

  As he left the angry guard, Warren debated with himself as to his own emotions in regard to the girl. He suspected he knew. He'd run into a lot of young ladies who thought a well-known foreign correspondent was a good catch, yet somehow none of them had struck an answering spark. "But on a hillside overlooking the strangest and vastest project in scientific history, that spark had been struck. . . .

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SAVE FOR ONCE or twice, Leopold Steiner had not been a regular participant in the transferal program. But at the round table session that took place a week later, he was the center of attraction. For what he had to say was of the utmost importance.

  He began the meeting by discussing briefly the origin of their man-made universe in a single giant protoatom of hydrogen, standing outside our own space and time. He went on to describe the explosion of this atom, and how its component parts spread outward, first as the thinnest of gases, then began to draw together into cosmic dust, and this in turn into the various elements and finally the stars and planets of a single galactic cluster.

  "This galaxy has been expanding still, enlarging by the lasting momentum of the original explosion, even as our own universe is also expanding. But whereas we are now certain that our universe is infinite and that it is also probable that new matter is coming into existence all the time, we also know that such is not the case with our experiment. We, after all, created it, even if we cannot control it afterward. We also know that we ourselves have established its limits.

  "It is limited by the encysting forces of our space-time continuum, a segment of which has been torn apart to allow it to exist, but which is also governed by space-time resistance. It is further checked by the application of atomic power generated here at our own plant. This augments the

  natural resistance of our own universe and which, working together, is capable of equaling the total energy of the micro-universe itself.

  "Thus the continuous expansion of our microcosm is definitely limited. I must now tell you that its outward expansion has reached its limits; that it has stopped expanding; and that it is beginning to contract."

  He paused, looked around to see if all were following him. Warren was sitting tilted back in his chair, listening calmly. From what he gathered, the end of the experiment was approaching. The others seemed a little disturbed. Marge, however, was leaning forward, her face tense.

  "Do you mean that the microcosm is facing its end?" she asked Steiner.

  The world-famous physicist looked at her, shrugged. "Not any more immediately than we had supposed. It may take another two or three years to end. It will be interesting to know how. And. of course, we must wait until it happens."

  Marge shook her head impatiently. "Yes, I understand that it may take time for it all to end. But I was thinking of the planets, and more especially of the life on them. Will this affect them soon, and if so, how?"

  Steiner rubbed his chin. "I suppose it will affect them. That is an interesting speculation, yes. But how, and to just what degree, we don't know yet. He paused a moment.

  "You see," he started, "we have been measuring the drift of the micro-universe stars and the movement of the galaxy and its clusters. We have now seen that the outermost fringes, having reached the outer borders of the micro-universe, find themselves distorted in space. They are subject to a dimensional twisting which turns them back—forces them to rebound, if you will. They expend their outward energy, start to fall slowly back toward the center of the universal sphere. This process began slowly, but we now see it full swing.

  "As the stars and their attendant planets begin to move back toward the common center, they will begin to make for a concentration of gases and material at the hub. Before this, there had been an attenuation of this concentration, which permitted the growth of life, among other things. Now a reverse of the process will occur. As the stars fall back and concentrate they will tend to accumulate heat. They will seem to return to a more primitive condition. Eventually we may suppose they will form a concentrated mass of energy and matter at the very center—the very reconstitution of the primitive atom.

  "As for the planets—which you know, from a strictly astrophysical viewpoint, are the least significant of cosmic materials—they will probably become untenable to life as soon as this process is generally under way. I would say they might have another few million years before the last and most rugged forms of bacterial life are wiped out. Much sooner, of course, for the more highly organized forms of life. Maybe your League of Planets could last a hundred thousand more years before these civilizations become hopelessly disrupted in the accumulating heat and stellar dust."

  He passed around photos indicating the shifts that had taken place.

  Warren was now disturbed. "I gather from what you say that we shall now start to witness the end of a universe, the doom of many civilizations and those who five within them. Then is there no hope for those people?"

  Weidekind answered him. "How could there be? We all know that every world must eventually end. It will be very interesting to see how the individual inhabitants meet it."

  "A depressing thought," said Enderby. "Nonetheless this microcosm has benefited our own world, and so in that way you could say that the inhabitants lived on."

  Marge was pale. She said in a horrified tone, "And is that to
be the be-all and end-all of those wonderful peoples?

  The millions and millions of men and women who strived and hoped and suffered to make better homes for themselves, and for each other? Must all their efforts and sacrifices end in heat and slow death, choke out in blankets of cosmic dust, to have their proud cities and constructions and bold, generous plans for the future all back into flames and vanish forever?"

  The others, sobered, looked at her. "I'm afraid there's no hope," said Steiner. "Isn't that the ultimate end of all men? You have heard the Biblical saying, 'Dust thou art to dust returneth.' Do you think the death of all men greater than the death of one single man?"

  Marge shook her head, vastly disturbed. "I cannot believe it. One man's death is but a single mortal incident—only a part of a much greater whole. The whole, the society, the entire species, was not meant to be destroyed. Men die so that their fellow-men may live. But not all to die."

  Enderby broke in. "This will not help. We were privileged to witness the birth of a universe, now we must, perforce, witness its death. Perhaps it was not meant for us to witness these things, we who are mortal. But now that we have embarked on this, we must see the end as well as the beginning."

  After that, the relation of the various transferals was something of an anticlimax. Interesting as they might have been at another time, the knowledge of forthcoming doom colored everything. But one thing was clear—so far, apparently, the inhabitants of the microcosm had not discovered for themselves the total end. What was apparent from outside observation was not so easily detected from within.

  The microcosm was undergoing the most Utopian era of its existence. Throughout the worlds the pains and agonies of social evolution had terminated in the achievement' of world-wide "mastery of science and natural laws. Abundance was the rule, and that which one world lacked, it obtained fairly from others. Yet the inhabitants did not lack for interest and work. A multitude of philosophical discussions occupied the best minds, and sports had arisen to a complexity and diversity startling to contemplate. All the arts were reaching heights never before dreamed of—and though little of this could be brought back to the Mountain laboratories in their full depth and complexity, the transferees still managed to amass such records as would keep the minds and artists of Earth busy for centuries to come.

  After the meeting broke up and while Warren was preparing to retire, he happened to overhear part of a conversation between Enderby and Stanhope. The photographic expert and chief of their records hall was worried. He had been seeing figures moving around the distant woods. He said he suspected prowlers.

  "You think men are camping in the woods near here?" asked Enderby quiedy.

  Stanhope nodded. "I never see them come into plain sight, but it's as if we were being watched."

  Enderby nodded. "Don't mention this to anyone. As a matter of fact, I'm glad to hear of it. As it happens, I have requested additional watchers and what you say confirms my request. Ever since those attempts on the records, I've asked for increased vigilance. I'm sure there's a stake-out being made here to protect us. But say nothing about it. There's someone among us who is not all he pretends to be—just which man I'm still not sure—but until we ferret him out, keep quiet."

  Stanhope and Enderby moved out of Warren's hearing. The reporter went up to his room, deep in thought.

  The following afternoon, after three others had made transferals, came Warren's turn next. He occupied a special role among the investigators, for it turned out to be his sector that held the central exchange bureau of the League of

  Planets. Such was the role of the City of Dau, a Komarian planetary metropolis.

  After the transfer, his first impression was of bubbles, hundreds of gorgeous multi-colored bubbles floating gently beneath a blue sky. He was standing somewhere watching bubbles. As he stood, the scene seemed to rock gently and the bubbles seemed to shift and move softly about.

  He blinked his eyes, looked hard. Yes, they were bubbles, and they were buildings too. Then the Komarian brain his mind usurped began to supply the answers. Mentally he oriented himself against the change.

  This was Dau—but it was a Dau quite changed from the city he'd visited on the great day of the founding of the League. This was Dau twelve thousand years later; a city changed beyond compare. A city having nothing in common save a very ancient name, whose origin was lost in antiquity.

  It was a city of great bubbles, bubbles of plastic force, blown permanently and enclosing the living quarters of the city's populace. These bubbles, moving above the surface at the desire of their occupants, were single homes or compound dwellings, as desired. Within them people lived and slept and did their work or pursued their individual interests. The landscape about the city had been returned to natural beauty. Great meadows, flower gardens of delightful color, mountains hewed out for deliberate scenic effect and even several carefully controlled volcanoes, gave richness to the scene. The city occupied the planet, and its homes might be anywhere; over a rolling ocean, in a deliberately planned jungle, or in a beautiful parkland.

  The man whose body Warren occupied, whose name is not easily transcribed in an Earthly tongue, turned from gazing out the window. There were rooms in his bubble-home, and they were chambers in keeping with the world outside. Chairs floated gently above the floors; colorful pictures shimmered and moved against the walls, and many devices, unknown to Terra, conveyed pleasure to mind and eye and ear. This was also a work chamber, for it was the duty of the city-world of Dau to act as the records hall and exchange bureau of all the worlds in their universe.

  The family in each bubble-home had a connection with certain worlds, and they interchanged and co-ordinated news, scientific discoveries and speculative theories. The communicators were crystalline globes which hung suspended in certain rooms. These were phased in with other such globe-communicators in Dau, and other inhabited, planets of the micro-universe. Within them could be seen and heard whatever was visible in the other corresponding globe.

  So Warren went back to his work that day, and he watched within the globes the faces of other beings on other worlds and transcribed by sub-atomic memory banks all that was of importance. These memory banks in turn correlated all that was new from everywhere on Dau, sorted it out in vast central storage centers, booked it, catalogued it, cross-filed it.

  He exchanged greetings with several of his friends, heard bits of news, filed reports on sports of distant worlds of whose very nature he was ignorant, recorded the latest of arguments on religions and philosophies, with which he had little concern, heeded what intrigued him, placed bets on certain events in an arena of a distant planet that happened momentarily to amuse him.

  In that way he spent his day. In his rest period he ate, had a few drinks, talked with companions, saw a female friend and otherwise had an average uneventful day.

  Several weeks went by in this languid yet ever full fashion. Warren was caught up in the endless variety of marvels. There was no compulsory work, yet there was so much of fascination in the universe-wide civilization that most of the citizens of Dau actually overworked, but were not conscious of it.

  Then one evening as his bubble-home cniised amid the storm clouds of a storm area, while below the trees were lashed by the gales of the controlled weather station, he monitored a discussion of the elections among strange antlike beings of a not fully civilized world, there was a general news alarm. There had not been one for many years. At first he did not know what it was. His communicator globe had suddenly gone black, then cleared to flash red three times in succession.

  That was a signal for a universe-wide news story. This would only happen for news that affected everyone—and what sort of story could break like that?

  The globe cleared. There was momentary confusion as several channels seemed to fight for space. Then a face emerged briefly. The age-lined features of a well-known astrophysicist. "I break in, friends, to bring you the announcement of a phophecy, and a confirmation. I bring you th
e recast of the prophecy, made by the Oracle of the White Star two hundred years ago."

  His face faded and there came into view a strange face. It was a woman's face, but a curious one, quite unlike the Komarian standards of beauty. She was pale of skin and her head was swathed in a white scarf with a diamond emblem in the form of a star pinned to it. Her brow came down and out in a wide slope, culminating in unexpectedly beetling eyebrows of black. Beneath these brows, sunk very deep in her head, as if hidden from the light, protected by these monstrous crags of brows, were her eyes, dark and deep and shining. Below this beetling brow and probing eyes, her face seemed to taper down quickly. A sharp thin nose, very tiny lips and a tiny chin completed the unusual face.

  The effect was eerie, but not surprising to the man of Dau. Those were the features of a race typical to regions of

  The Great Glare—worlds circling several suns, or worlds in intense star clusters. But this particular face was familiar.

  The woman spoke. She had a ritualistic way of speaking; she seemed to chant her words, but her voice had a haunting quality. And she spoke of coming doom.

  She said the universe had reached its outermost expansion; the stars were going to fall back to their original source. She said the end of the worlds was coming, and that all should prepare for it. She said that preparations should be started, for though thousands of years still lay before mankind, there should be no time lost.

  Then the face faded. There was a moment of brief silence, then the astrophysicist came in again.

  "We have been investigating this prophecy for two hundred years. We are now ready to state our findings. The Oracle is correct. Our measurements have confirmed that our galaxy has ceased its outward motion, that the outer-most fringes of our known stars are beginning to retract, that they have reversed their motion. The red shift of the farthest stars has become a violet one. The universe is beginning to collapse.