* * * *
The situation of the children’s race amounted to an infinitely speeded-up bombardment instead of a millennial sniping from the sky. The Fifth Planet was newly shattered into bits. Its fragments plunged upon Earth and moon as they had weeks earlier battered Mars, and as fortnights later they would devastate Venus and plunge upon Mercury. Jagged portions of the detonated planet filled the sky of Earth with flames.
The ground shook continuously. With a mad imprecision of timing, mountain-ranges plummeted out of the sky at utterly unpredictable times and places. Anywhere on Earth, at night-time, living creatures might look upward and see the stars blotted out in irregularly-shaped, swiftly enlarging areas which would grow until there was only blackness overhead. But that could not last. It turned abruptly to white-hot incandescence as the falling enormity touched atmosphere, and crashed down upon them.
No living thing which saw the sky all turned to flame lived to remember it. Not one survived. Obviously! They were turned to wisps of incandescent gas, exploding past the normal limits of Earth’s air. Some may have seen such plungings from many miles away and died of the concussion. The ground heaved in great waves which ran terribly in all directions. Vast chasms opened in the soil, and flames as of hell flowed out of them. Seashores were overwhelmed by mountainous tidal waves, caused by cubic miles of seawater turned to steam when islands fell into the ocean at tens of miles per second.
This was what happened to Earth in the time from which the children came. Perhaps their elders had foreseen it in time to take some measures, which would be the children’s ship. But that ship had been built very hastily. It could have been begun before the bombardment started, or it could have been completed only near the end, when asteroids already plunged into defenseless Earth and it heaved and writhed in agony.
Humans caught in such a cosmic trap would be in no mood to negotiate or make promises, if any sort of beachhead to the future could be set up. They would pour through and the world of the present must simply dissolve into incoherence. There could be no peace. It was unthinkable.
* * * *
The investigation-team from the East arrived to learn from Soames all about the landing of the ship.
He told them, giving them the tape from the wave-guide radar and speaking with strict precision of every event up to the moment of his arrival at Gissell Bay with the children and their artifacts. He did not mention telepathy or time-travel because they seemed so impossible.
When the military men wanted information about instantly available super-weapons, he told them that he knew nothing of weapons. They’d have to judge from the gadgets the children had brought. When the public-relations men asked briskly from what other planet or solar system the spaceship had come, and when a search-ship might be expected, looking for the children, he was ironic. He suggested that the children might give that information if asked in the proper language. He didn’t know it. But the two physicists were men whose names he knew and respected. They listened to what he said. They’d look at the devices from the ship and then come back and talk to him.
He went back to his brooding. The children had travelled through time. Everything pointed to it, from the meteor-watch radar to the children’s reaction at sight of the pock-marked moon and their knowledge that there should have been a Fifth Planet, to which they assigned four moons. It had happened. Positively. But there was one small difficulty. If time-travel were possible, a man travelling about in the past might by some accident kill his grandfather, or his father, in which case he could not be born, and hence could not possibly go back in time. But if he did not go back in time he would be born and could face the possibility of preventing his own existence—if time-travel was possible. But this was impossible, so time-travel was impossible.
On a higher technical level, there is just one law of nature which seems infallibly true, since its latest modification to allow for nuclear energy. It is the law of the conservation of mass and energy. The total of energy and matter taken together in the universe as a whole, cannot change. Matter can be converted to energy and doubtless energy to matter, but the total is fixed for all time and for each instant of time. So, if a ship could move from one time-period to another, it would lessen the total of matter and energy in the time-period it left, and increase the total when—where—where-when it arrived. And this would mean that the law of the conservation of mass and energy was wrong. But it wasn’t. It was right.
Soames tried to reconcile what he had to accept with what he knew. He failed. He provisionally conceded that the children’s civilization did something which in his frame of reference was impossible. They had other frames of reference than his. He tried to find their frame of reference in something simpler than time-travel. He picked one impossible accomplishment and tried to duplicate it, then to approach it, then to parallel it. He scribbled and diagrammed and scowled and sweated. He had no real hope, of course. But presently he swore abruptly and stared at what he had drawn.
He’d begun a second set of diagrams when the two physicists of the investigation-team came back. There was a short man and a thin one. They looked dazed.
“They are children,” said the thin man in a very thin voice, “and they are human children, and their science makes us ridiculous. They are centuries ahead of us. I could not understand any device they had. I could not imagine how any of them worked.”
“It is impossible to talk at a distance,” said Soames.
“What do you mean?” asked the thin man, still numb from what he’d seen.
“Sound diminishes as the square of the distance,” Soames explained. “You can’t make a sound—unless you use a cannon—that can be heard ten miles away. It’s impossible to talk at a distance.”
“I feel crazy too,” said the short man, “but there are telephones.”
“It’s not talking at a distance. You talk to a microphone at a few inches. Someone listens to a receiver held against his ear. You don’t talk to the man, but the microphone. He doesn’t listen to you, but a receiver. The effect is the same as talking at a distance, so you ignore the fact that it isn’t. I’ve played a game with the things the children brought. I won it, one game.”
Both men listened intently.
“I’ve been pretending,” said Soames, “that I’m a member of the kids’ race, cast away like they are on Earth. As a castaway I know that things can be done that the local savages—us—consider impossible. But I need special materials to do them with. My civilization has provided them. They don’t exist here. But I refuse to sink to barbarism. Yet I can’t reconstruct my civilization. What can I do?”
The thin physicist suddenly raised his head. The short man looked up.
“I’ll take what materials the savages of Earth can supply,” said Soames. “I’ll settle for an approximation. And in practice, as a castaway in a savage environment, I’ll wind up with a civilization which isn’t that of the savages, and isn’t of my own race, but in some ways is better than either because it’s tailored to fit the materials at hand and the environment I’m in.”
The short physicist said slowly:
“I think I see what you’re driving at. But it’s just an idea.…”
“I tried it on that one-way heat conductor,” said Soames. “I can’t duplicate it. But I’ve designed something that will mean nearly but not quite what their cooking-pot does. Take a look at this.”
He spread out the completed diagram of the first thing he’d worked on. It was quite clear. He’d helped design the meteor-watch radar at Gissell Bay, and his use of electronic symbols was normal. There was only one part of the device that he’d needed to sketch in some detail. The thin physicist traced the diagram.
“You’ve designed a coil with extremely low self-induction—”
“Not low,” corrected Soames. “Negative. This has less than no self-induction. It feeds back to instead of fighting an applied current. Put any current in it, and it feeds back to increase the magnetism until it reaches
saturation. Then it starts to lose its magnetism and that feeds back a counter-emf which increases the demagnetizing current until it’s saturated with opposite polarity. You get an alternating magnet, which doesn’t evolve heat because of its magnetic instability, but absorbs heat trying to maintain its stability. This thing will absorb heat from anywhere—the air, water, sunlight or what have you—and give out electric current.”
The two scientists stared, and traced the diagram again, and stared at each other.
“It—should!” said the thin man. “It—it has to! This is magnificent! It’s more important than one-way heat conduction! This is…”
“This is not nearly as convenient as a pot that gets cold on the outside so it can get hot on the inside,” observed Soames. “From a castaway’s standpoint it’s crude. But this is what can happen from two civilizations affecting each other without immediately resorting to murder. You might try it.”
The two physicists blinked. Then the short man said uneasily:
“Can we do it?”
The thin man said more feverishly than before:
“Of course! Look at that weather-making thing! We can’t duplicate it exactly, but when you think—There’s no Hall effect in liquids. Nobody ever tried to find one in ionized gases. But when you think—”
The short man gulped. Then he said:
“You won’t change the temperature, and to make an equation—”
They talked to each other, feverishly. They scribbled. They almost babbled in their haste. When the other members of the investigating-team arrived, they had the look of men who walk on clouds.
The military men were not happy. They were empty-handed. They could not even get statistical information from the children.
They had no useful information. Fran’s pocket instrument was cryptic, and held no promise as a weapon. They could not hope to duplicate what Soames had called a super-radar. The cooking-pot, if duplicated, might by modification supply power for ships and submarines, or even planes. But there were no weapons. None.
* * * *
The public-relations men were frightened. The children’s coming must produce a financial panic. All of Earth’s civilization was demonstrably out of date. Earth technology was so old-fashioned that instantly its obsolescence was realized, our economic system must fall apart.
Only the two physicists beamed at each other. They’d learned no scientific facts from the children or their equipment, but they’d picked up a trick of thinking from Soames.
By that time it was night. Soames went again to the surprisingly ordinary cottage that Gail occupied with the four children.
“I’ve had quite a day,” said Gail tiredly. “And I’m worried; for the children. For you. For myself. I’m—I’m terrified, Brad!”
He put out his hands. He steadied her. Then, without intending it, he held her close. She did not resist. She cried heart-brokenly on his shoulder from pure nervous strain.
Suddenly Captain Moggs appeared. Gail was immediately composed and remote. But one hand, holding Soames’ sleeve, still quivered a little.
“It’s dreadful!” said Captain Moggs. “You’ll never be able to believe what’s happened! The Russians have pictures of the spaceship! The pictures Mr. Soames took! They know everything! They must have gotten the pictures when their planes landed at Gissell Bay! But how?”
Soames could have answered, and quite accurately. Some enterprising member of the Russian scientific team had been left alone in the developing-room at the base.
“They gave copies of the pictures to the UN assembly,” wailed Captain Moggs. “All of them! They say they are pictures of the alien ship which landed—and they are—and they say that we Americans took the crew to the United States—which we did—but they say we’re now making a treaty with the non-human monsters who came in the ship! They say that we’re selling out the rest of humanity! That we’re making a bargain to betray the world to horrors out of space, in return for safety for ourselves! They demand that the United Nations take over the ship and its crew.”
Soames whistled softly. The charge was just insane enough to be credited. There was no longer a ship, too, and the children were far from monsters. So there was no way to convince anyone that America even made an honest attempt to satisfy or answer the complaint. The matter of the children and their ship had been badly handled. But there was no way to handle it well. The coming of the children was a catastrophe any way you looked at it.
“There was nothing to be done,” mourned Captain Moggs, “but state the facts. Our delegation said the ship crashed on landing, and its occupants needed time to recover from the shock and to develop some way to communicate with us. Our delegation said a complete report hadn’t even been made to our government, but that one will be prepared and made public immediately.”
Gail looked up at Soames in the darkness. He nodded.
“That report,” said Soames. “That’s us. Particularly you.”
“Yes,” said Gail confidently. “You write the technical side, and I’ll do a human-interest story for the UN that will make everybody love them!”
Soames felt more than usually a scoundrel.
“Hold it,” he said unhappily. “It’s all right to make the kids attractive, but not too much. Do you remember why?”
Gail stopped short.
“They don’t come from a comfortably distant solar system,” said Soames, more unhappily still. “They come from Earth, from another time, where there are mountains falling from the sky. And the children’s families have to stay right where they are until flaming islands turn their sky to flame and crash down on them to destroy them. Because we can’t let them come here.”
Gail stared up at him, and all the life went out of her face.
“Oh, surely!” she said with bitterness. “Surely! That’s right! We can’t afford it! I don’t know about you or the rest of the world, but I’m going to hate myself all the rest of my life!”
CHAPTER 6
Soames, remembering Rex, got two puppies for the children next morning. He was inside the cottage when Captain Moggs turned up. He watched Mal and Hod, outside on the lawn, playing with the two small dogs. Zani sat at a table indoors, drawing. Gail had shown her pictures of cities and provided her with paper and soft pencils. Zani grasped the idea immediately. She drew, without remarkable skill but with a certain pleasing directness. Now she drew a city while Gail hovered near.
“I reported to Washington of your willingness to work on the report, Mr. Soames,” said Captain Moggs with gratification. “Your status has been clarified. The papers are on the way here now.”
Soames started a little. From where he stood, he could watch Mal and Hod out of a window, and by turning his eyes he could see Zani. She could see nothing that went on where Mal cuddled one puppy, girl-fashion, while Hod played in quite another fashion with the other. The window was behind Zani.
Soames had not been too attentive. He realized it.
“What’s that, Captain?”
“Your status is clarified,” said Captain Moggs, authoritatively. “You have been appointed a civilian consultant. You had no official status before. The bookkeeping problem was serious. Now you have a civil service status, a rating, an assimilated rank and a security classification.”
Soames turned again to watch the children out-of-doors. Fran came around from the back of the cottage. He carried something in his hands. It was a white rabbit. He’d brought it to show Mal and Hod. They put down the puppies and gazed at it in amazement, stroking its fur and talking inaudibly.
Soames looked swiftly at Zani. Her pencil had ceased to make strokes upon the paper. She had the expression of someone watching absorbedly, though her eyes were on the paper before her.
Gail stirred, and Soames made a gesture to her. Puzzled, she came to his side. He said quietly:
“Watch the kids outside and Zani at the same time.”
Fran retrieved the rabbit and went away with it, to give it back to its owners
. Zani returned to her drawing. The two children outside went back to the puppies. One small dog sprawled triumphantly over the other with an expression of bland amiability on his face. For no reason at all, he began to chew meditatively on the other puppy’s ear. His victim protested with no indignation at all.
* * * *
Zani, with her back to the scene, giggled to herself. The two children outdoors separated the puppies to play with them again, individually.
“Zani knew,” said Soames under his breath. “She knew what the others saw.”
“It happens all the time,” said Gail in a similar low tone. “I’ve noticed, since you pointed it out. But they aren’t telepaths! They talk to each other constantly. If they were telepaths they wouldn’t need to.”
Captain Moggs exclaimed. She’d gone to look at Zani’s drawing:
“Really, Gail, the child draws very nicely! But do you think she should waste time on pictures like this, when it’s so important that she and the others learn English?”
Gail said quietly:
“She’s drawing pictures of her own world. That’s a city like her people build. I thought it would be a good idea to get such pictures from her.”
Gail went to look at the drawing, at which Zani labored with a young girl’s complacent absorption in something she knows will be approved by a grown-up when it’s done. With a gesture, Gail invited Soames to look. He did.
Zani had drawn the sky-line of a city, but it was an odd one. There were tall buildings, but their walls were draping, catenary curves. There were splendid towers and soaring highways,which leaped across emptiness to magnificent landings. There were groups of structures with no straight line visible anywhere.
The Murray Leinster Megapack Page 176
