“Yes,” the girl said, pondering. “Yes, that’s right.”
“On top of that,” he went on, “we can feel the heat of the Sun just as if it were still there. In fact, in this car it is getting uncomfortably warm, and only sunshine — or, rather, heat — can explain it. That shows that the Sun is still there, although we cannot see it. If it were something that had destroyed the Sun utterly, its light and heat would be gone and the Earth would grow cold as its stored warmth leaked out into space. That, again, is not happening. It is night, but as hot as any July day should be.”
“And down here, on the Earth’s surface,” Irene supplemented, “no light whatever will function. And the Sun went out of sight after light failed down here.”
They considered this aspect of the problem for a while in silence. Then Maitland spoke again, his voice vibrant with discovery.
“Doesn’t that seem to suggest something which first involved the Earth, and the Sun afterwards? Supposing that idea is right: what can we deduce from it? We know that what will bend visible light will not bend heat. Remember the old college experiment? A prism of glass will bend light out of its normally straight path, but that same prism is opaque to heat, involving a totally different set of circumstances. To refract heat waves we would use a prism of rock salt, or something like that.”
“Refraction,” the girl repeated slowly. Her voice sharpened. “Refraction! Dr. Maitland — Bob — do you think that could be the answer? You know, like a spoon in a tumbler of water? It looks sharply bent, but really it’s not. Or like a mirage, which makes things appear miles away from where they really are!”
“A mirage — on a colossal scale — Yes, I’d thought of something like that.” Maitland began a meticulous searching of his mind, trying to remember all he had learned about light. “We know that we see objects because of the light emitted or reflected from them. Then, if by some fluke the light waves no longer traveled in straight lines, we would not see the object at which we looked.”
“Right!” the girl agreed. “I know a few things about light, too. I’ve taught it in physics class. The first law of refraction is that the incident ray — the normal, straight one, that is — and the refracted ray both lie in one plane; and the second law is that a ray of light passing obliquely from a less dense to a more dense medium is bent towards the perpendicular at the point of incidence. Good heavens!” she went on rapidly. “It’s beginning to make sense. Before this happened did it seem to you that things kept jumping out of place and back again?”
“No doubt of it,” Maitland declared, rather overcome by her growing control of the situation.
“Then doesn’t it suggest that the Earth has come into contact with something — some region of space — that is a denser medium than usual, and because of it all light waves are bent to one side? Something so enormous in extent that it involves the Sun and, maybe, the whole Solar System? So, light waves don’t move straight any more, but heat waves remain unaffected.”
A scientist might have been very proud — or very jealous — of Irene Carr at that moment. Without any special qualifications, reasoning out the problem solely from elementary principles derived from her school-teaching, she had arrived at the amazing solution. Refraction — a gigantic mirage! This was the theory that was being discussed at that very moment by scientists all over the world, by long distance telephone and radio. Light alone was affected: that was the cardinal point. Every other kind of radiation was normal.
Something, somehow, was bending the light waves out of the straight line.
“But — but the stars!” Maitland exclaimed. “We can see them perfectly!” They lowered the car windows and looked outside. The darkness was so intense that it made their eyes ache. It was a relief to gaze up to where the sky was still dusted with the multi-millions of stars that had sprung into being at the start of the mystery. Maitland and the girl were quiet for a long time, two puny mortals grappling with an infinite problem in a lightless world. Then Irene spoke again.
“Where,” she asked, “is the Milky Way? My astronomy isn’t so good, but I do know that smudgy band like curdled milk. And it just isn’t there anymore.”
She was right. That swirling galaxy from which the Earth itself had been born was not visible. Neither, if it came to that, were Sirius, Procyon, Pollux or Betelgeuse, though neither she nor Maitland knew enough to be aware of it. And the Pole Star, famous since time began —
“No Pole Star!” Maitland said, astounded.
Impressed by this new discovery, they clambered out of the car and stood holding on to it as though it were their last material support in a world doomed to everlasting dark. Soft wind, warm and summery, stirred the invisible grass at the side of the road.
“Do you suppose,” Irene said, stumbling round to where Maitland was standing, “that the thing which is warping light waves is causing us to see stars which ordinarily we wouldn’t see? That mirage again?”
“You mean stars beyond our normal range of vision?”
“Yes. Why not? Space is a big place. There are countless trillions of stars we never see in the ordinary way. But if the light from them were bent enormously out of focus we would see them — are seeing them now. By the same token, at some distant point from Earth our Sun is probably visible — and the Milky Way. Maybe the inhabitants of an unknown world are wondering at this moment how the unknown sun and galaxy got into their sky and where their usual stars have gone!”
“Yes,” Maitland whispered. “By heaven — yes! A huge light-wave warp, bending everything light-years out of its usual track. I don’t know how you worked it out, but it’s the only possible explanation. It just has to be right!”
“After all,” she went on, more confidently, “refraction has no definite limits: a mirage can take place within a few feet of the observer or cover dozens of miles. In this case, light waves may be bent millions of miles out of —” She gave a little gasp as a new thought struck her. “Of course! Remember how the Sun appeared to streak towards the west, and then disappeared? That must have been when the thing came between us and the Sun. It wasn’t the Sun itself that skidded sideways; it was his light -waves. He’s still there!” She stared blindly upwards.
“At least,” Maitland said uneasily, “we won’t freeze! But this is all so impossible — a world where no light will operate. I wonder what’s going on in the cities — out on the oceans — in the air? I never stopped to think about it until now.”
Neither of them dared to voice the thoughts that were in both their minds. In any case, the rest of the world was far away, remote. Maitland reached out and caught the girl’s arm.
“Let’s sit on the grass bank. Too oppressive in the car …”
Holding on to each other, they scuffed their feet over the gravel to the side of the lane, groped for the grassy bank and settled down on it, staring into the black void. They gazed anew at the unfamiliar stars that gave no light down here, because once their light waves reached an object they had become so completely refracted that it was not visible at all. Every object on the surface of the Earth was affected in the same way. The area of refraction was so vast that any image-reflection veered right off the Earth itself into surrounding space. It was quiet, too. Only the wind out of the blackness, gentle, caressing, like a comforting hand in deepest sorrow. No birds, no sounds of country life. No friendly voices of other human beings …
“Suppose,” Irene whispered, “it goes on — and on?”
It was the human being in her that was speaking now. Cold logic had given way before natural emotion — before fear.
“It will be the end, I suppose” Maitland said soberly. “The end of the world. Without the Sun, Man couldn’t survive.
“But we’ve got the Sun,” she insisted. “It’s there — warming us. It’s the absence of light that’s the problem. If we could only get over that — We might, underground. Maybe this thing the Earth has run into won’t act below the surface. We might live down there, like — lik
e Morlocks.”
“If it goes on,” Maitland said slowly, “it’ll mean the end of vegetation as we know it; the end of staple crops, of everything that relies on photosynthesis. A new species of fungoid plants might come into being —”
“And yet, on the surface, we’ll still get sunburned, because the ultra-violet rays are unaffected.”
The whole crazy paradox quenched their conversation then. Though neither of them would admit it, even to themselves, deep down inside of them they felt a grim fear. The inborn instinct of the primitive, handed down through unguessable ages, was not to be set aside without a struggle. Darkness was ever to be dreaded …
“It’s odd, in the midst of this,” Maitland said at length, “but I keep wondering what you look like.”
The girl’s laugh sounded soft and ghostly in the blackness. “If this ever goes, you’ll see,’ she murmured. “But you might be disappointed.”
Maitland smiled bitterly to himself. If this goes —! She was fearing, even as he was, that it might never go. Earth had, perhaps, plunged forever into an area of refraction where all light was dead.
“Wish I knew the time,” he growled, raising his wristwatch and staring into the blackness. Then an idea struck him. He felt for his penknife and, after a moment’s fumbling prized open the watch and felt gently for the hands.
“Ten to twelve.” He whistled. “Nearly noon. Who’d imagine it?”
“Where were you going when this happened?” the girl inquired.
“I was going to see a patient … Look, there’s a telephone box about half a mile down the road. I think I ought to try and reach it and give his wife a ring. This might go on all day. Do you want to stay here or —”
“Not likely!”
She grasped his hand and he helped her to her feet. Linking arms, they began to walk unsteadily down the lane, feeling before them at every yard. It was hard going, and they could not immediately rid themselves of the impression that they had been suddenly blinded in a world that was normal for everyone but themselves. Instinctively they kept listening for onrushing cars, until gradually they realized how unnecessary it was. Everything was blotted out completely, just as they were. For once Nature had the complete upper hand of her erring, quarrelsome children.
“Half a mile,” Irene said as they shuffled along. “That’s a long way, in this. How will you know when we get there?”
“It’s just in a slight bend of the road. We’ll do our best, anyway. It’s better than sitting still waiting and wondering how it’s all going to end. Sooner or later we should get to Wilmington village. We’ll need food — I haven’t had my breakfast yet!”
“And I’ve nothing with me,”, the girl sighed. “I was planning to eat at roadhouses on the way … Well, let’s hope it will pass soon.”
*
In truth, nobody knew when it would pass; not even the scientists who were engrossed in the phenomenon. In totally dark observatories the world over, they were still discussing it with each other across land and sea, exchanging reports and impressions. Caught unawares by the terrific speed with which the Fault had developed, they had had no time to estimate its area. It might be untold light-centuries in extent, in which case Earth would not swim clear of it for hundreds of years. If, on the other hand, it was a mere patch as cosmic distances are reckoned, it would soon be left behind.
On one thing they were all agreed: something in the ether — they freely admitted they did not know what — was altering the incident rays of light so tremendously that laws presumed immutable had been completely revoked. The something must be a medium that was transparent to heat yet highly refractive to light; perhaps a semi-gaseous envelope, non-poisonous, created in the first instance by the explosion of a long extinct sun. This theory was extended tentatively, and for the time being it had to suffice. To a race that does not yet know exactly what the ether is, there is no shame in not understanding the real nature of the Fault. It may be centuries before we shall know the truth …
“I think,” Maitland said, “the phone box is just a few yards further on, to our left.”
He and the girl had come to the slight bend in the road: they could sense it with their feet as they advanced. Carefully they edged their way along, groping in the dark as they went. For a while they encountered the wire fence at the side of the road. Then suddenly they blundered into hard glass and steel.
“It’s it!” cried Irene.
Maitland tugged the door open, groped for the instrument and lifted the receiver. He was thankful that this district still did not use the dialing system. Wondering if he would get a reply, he put the receiver to his ear.
“Hello!” came a girl’s voice, quite composed.
“Er — can you get me Wilmington Seven Nine?” Maitland asked.
“I’ll try, sir. I suppose you can’t tell me your number?”
“Impossible. I’m in total darkness. How is it where you are?”
“Well, they tell me it’s blacker than midnight,” the girl answered. “I wouldn’t know, though. I’m blinded, and trained as a telephone operator. They’ve called me out on emergency duty … Wilmington Seven Nine. Just a moment —” Then: “Insert money, please!”
Maitland fumbled with coins. There was the friendly buzzing of the ringing tone as he waited in the darkness. He could hear Irene Carr breathing gently beside him as she stood wedged invisibly between door and frame.
“Hello!” came a thin voice in the receiver.
“That Mrs. Andrew?” he asked quickly. “Dr. Maitland speaking.”
“Oh, thank God to hear another voice, doctor!” cried the woman, fervently.
“What in heaven’s name has happened to the world? Is — is it the Judgment Day at last?”
“I wouldn’t know, Mrs. Andrews — but I agree it’s pretty ghastly. I’d like to know how your husband is. I’m stranded some ten miles from your place —”
“You don’t need to rush yourself, doctor.” The voice was strangely calm, now. “Something’s happened to my husband that I don’t rightly understand. When everything went dark he just lay abed and said something about he knew God was everywhere. Then he said he’d never thought about God while life went by, day after day, like clockwork. But now everything’s still and dark and quiet, he says he can feel God near him. That’s the truth, doctor. And he’s goin’ to be all right, I’m sure of it! He’s sleeping quite peaceful, now.”
“That’s fine,” Maitland said. “I’ll come and look at him the moment the darkness passes.”
He put the telephone back, brushed Irene’s shoulder as he grasped the door. She stepped out into the road, and they stood side by side in the stygian gloom.
“Everything all right?” she inquired.
He told her what Mrs. Andrews had said. “He seems to have made a remarkable recovery — at least for the present. I’ll have to see him when I can.”
“I think I can understand it,” she mused. “Normally, when we’re healthy and active, we’re inclined to take a lot for granted, just as we took the smooth working of the universe for granted — until now. It’s only at times like these, when everything goes out of gear that we have to stop and think about such things. And when we find ourselves out of our depth, unable to make sense of what has happened, there’s nothing left to lean on but the Almighty.”
Maitland remained silent, holding Irene’s arm. Sensing her nearness, he found himself longing more than ever to see what kind of girl this was who had such a simple solution for everything that baffled him. He turned aside and, just for a moment, he fancied he could see her. There was the faintest suggestion of a rounded chin, a straight nose, dimly outlined against the blackness beyond. Yes, and a slender figure …
While he stared disbelievingly, the silhouette took on depth. He saw the glint of light creep into hair of copper brown; and then she came out of the abyss like a vision, staring back at him with wide blue eyes that began to narrow beneath the impact of returning sunshine. Around her the landsc
ape came gradually into view, as though floodlights were being turned on, slowly —
“Great God!” he whispered, and jerked his gaze upward. Then they both fell back, hands over their faces, as the stars paled out of the sky before an advancing tide of ever-deepening gray. Gray which merged into white, into blue, Then, blinding in its intensity, the Sun rose suddenly from the west where it had disappeared, and came to a stop at the zenith.
It was high noon. The Earth had swept clear of the Fault.
Brief Gods
“Nothing really exists,” declared Professor Engleman, with due academic profundity. “That, of course, may sound preposterous, but it is nevertheless a fact and 1 am sure that the members of this erudite gathering know exactly what I mean.”
Yes, everybody knew what he meant, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to concentrate. For one thing, the great lecture hall where Engleman was holding forth was intolerably stuffy; for another there were all the attractions of a warm summer evening beckoning outside. Not far from the lecture hall lay the Great Park, in the grounds of which the hall itself stood. Through the open windows floated the sound of children’s laughter, the clack of cricket balls, even the distant sonorous strains of an open-air brass band.
Professor Engleman had been asked to demonstrate to members of the scientific profession his latest discoveries concerning the electron. This suited Engleman — who never knew what the weather was like anyway — down to the ground. But it made it tough going for his hearers who were compelled to be present.
“Nothing really exists because everything is based on the electron, and the electron itself is only a probability,” Engleman continued, without resorting to his notes. “No scientist can say positively, even today, that an electron exists as a unit of electricity: he can only infer that it does because all mathematical laws point to its presence. But we cannot see it, my friends! The very action of even trying to do so, in bringing light-waves upon it to discover it, is enough to deflect it out of sight. Hence, I say, all existence — which of necessity is based on electrons — is nothing more than a probability. As such it is a completely unstable state ”
John Russell Fearn Omnibus Page 35
