John Russell Fearn Omnibus

by John Russell Fearn

  Rad got off the stool with his mind made up. He returned the file to its accustomed position and then began a search of the shelves for a sterilized container.

  Chapter II

  Rad gave no hint of his plans to anybody, and least of all to Invia whom he met after working hours in the usual way every evening. Though she sensed something was on his mind she did not try to probe too far. In fact, deep down, she was feeling somewhat conscience-stricken at the rather ruthless ultimatum she had given him. Pride alone prevented her from rescinding it.

  In the hours when he was alone Rad analysed himself methodically and dispassionately, fully aware that he had turned himself into a scientific guinea-pig. After a week of consuming filtered heavy water he began to discover definite physiological reactions. His temperature was three degrees above normal and his heartbeats had increased by five to the minute.

  But still the issue of the experiment was in doubt. He might either burn out his normal life span in one terrific burst of energy—or else his bodily structure would rise superior to the driving force controlling it and so take unto itself an almost indefinite life.

  This doubt was sheer torture to Rad and it prevented him from concentrating on plans to save the planet. For another week he persisted with heavy water. In fact he was compelled to do so. He had discovered by now that it was a drug, holding him by reason of the intolerable thirst it created every few hours. Except for this he felt amazingly well, and there were also definite mental improvements he could detect. No problem was quite so hard to solve as it had been.

  ****

  In three weeks he had the answer to the experiment, and when he met Invia at the usual time in the late evening he told her immediately of what he had been doing. Certainly she required no proof. It was there in the brightness of his eyes, the surprising warmth of his skin, and the rapid answers he had for every one of her questions.

  “Then what does it mean?” she asked finally.

  For a moment Rad did not answer. He was looking out over the endless desert, lying still under the stars. Here where they were seated the city was behind them, its glare of light spreading out into dimming haze amidst the wastes surrounding it.

  “I think,” Rad answered, rousing himself, “that it means I shall be immortal. At first I ran the risk of death from ketabolism—that is the breakdown of cells—but I reasoned that because Nature always finds a balance if she is in any way outraged, some kind of shield would form itself to save me. Now I know that that is exactly what has happened … Extreme energy and yet slowing down of bodily development has produced a form of anabolism. At present it is only in the early stages, but later it will mean that I shall be as good as invulnerable.”

  “To what end?” the girl whispered. “To outlive everybody else, to become the last man on a dying world? Did you think of that?”

  Rad laid a hand on her arm, his eyes straining to see her in the starlight.

  “Given the gift of comparative immortality, Invia, I can save the planet. I’ve made plans for life underground, for developing a new form of air and warmth to take the place of atmosphere and sun. I have other nebulous plans for travelling in four dimensions to new worlds at present beyond our three-dimensioned reach. We may find worlds upon whose surfaces we’ll be able to live: but to complete those plans may take many ordinary generations. As an eternal man I can bring them to fruition,”

  “So that is your dream, beloved, to become the immortal ruler of our own people’s renaissance?”

  “A dream which you started, Invia, and which I intend to fulfil. But I cannot do it alone. To watch you grow old and die beside me would be unbearable. I would sooner kill myself now whilst I am still vulnerable than face that. Dearest, you asked me to save the world and the race, and I have shown you how I intend to do it. Now I am going to ask something of you. I want you to become immortal too.”

  Rad felt the girl draw away from him abruptly, but he retained his grip upon her arm.

  “Why not?” he argued. “You have no family ties, nobody at all to consider except yourself, and me. If we do marry finally, as I hope we shall, do you wish to grow old and die whilst I remain young?”

  “But … to be immortal!” Invia’s voice was awe-struck.

  “You want to save the planet and posterity, Invia. It is the part you must play to help achieve that end. I cannot work without you, but with you immortal like myself nothing can hinder us!”

  Invia meditated for a long time before she asked a question. Then it was such a prosaic one that Rad laughed.

  “Rad, is heavy water painful stuff to drink?”

  “Bless your life, no! Not in the least! All it means is a fortnight’s raging thirst, for which the reward is eternal life!”

  Rad felt her arm steal about his shoulder, and in that moment he knew that their strange odyssey had begun. Because they were both still young, they had the courage of their convictions, but neither of them—not even the far-sighted Rad—had grasped how completely their submission to eternal life would separate them from normal society.

  ****

  When her first fortnight of heavy water consumption was over, Invia began to realise, as Rad had done, how immense was the metamorphosis in her mental and physical make-up.

  With the expansion of her intelligence, she lost interest in her work at the Bureau of Statistics and instead devoted herself to helping Rad with his scientific plans. He, two weeks ahead of her in development, had left the scientific laboratories—to the wonder but by no means the anger of the savants who ruled the city—and was busy working out a thousand-and-one details relevant to life underground, together with a plan for a four-dimensioned space machine for the explorations of spatial regions denied to three-dimensional travel.

  He and Invia paused only once in their labours, and this was to be married, with the permission of the Eugenical Council. They departed for a honeymoon and then returned to work again.

  “How long do you think it will take us to get this master plan complete?” asked the girl asked one morning.

  Rad glanced at her, then back to the miscellany of drawings on the drafting boards.

  “About two years,” he answered slowly. “Two years wherein to correct every defect before I seek audience with the savants. Two years to explore the planets lying in four-dimensional space. Two years for everything.”

  Invia nodded slowly; then an idea seemed to strike her.

  “Suppose the savants become suspicious of our ever increasing powers and trace our genius and immortality to heavy water? They might even begin taking it themselves!”

  “Let them!” Rad answered in contempt. “We’ll always remain far ahead of them … There is one thing you have got to realize, Invia: you and I will be the rulers of our race once we emerge from the chaos of our original planning. Rulers for all time!”

  “Yes!” Invia’s eyes were glowing again. “Yes, of course! It’s such a tremendous thought I can’t really take it in.”

  A shadow suddenly crossed her face and Rad caught at her arm in silent question.

  “Just a speculation,” she said sighing. “Nature never gives of her greatest gifts freely, you know. Doesn’t it seem to you that for immortality there must be a price?”

  Rad did not answer. It was a question too searching to dwell upon now there was no way back. But some time later they discovered to their grim discomfiture that Nature had already exacted the first instalment of her price. Both of them were completely sterile. Progeny was impossible.

  “Which means,” Invia said slowly, “that the race as a whole must never become immortalised as we are, otherwise it will remain static. None will follow on. No new ideas will come. Always the same Eternals … No, nobody must ever use heavy water in the way we have.”

  Rad was in silent agreement even though he made no comment. He turned back to the scientific planning with increased fervour, but Invia had a different reaction.

  A woman, a lover of children, all the purpose of her
union with Rad seemed now to be extinct. She found no pleasure in the contemplation of endless scientific, barren years; even less pleasure in the survey of her perfect body with its now slightly distended head. By this time she was the cleverest woman on the planet, and knew it. She knew too that her husband was quite the greatest scientist who had ever lived, and yet … With a vicious pang she realised that had she not been so insistent on Rad saving the planet they might have had many years of normal happiness. Science had hit back.

  Two years passed, and in this time the hurt in Invia’s soul had died a little. Inevitably she and Rad had become the toast of the city because of their fertile intellects. Rad had been forced to make money somehow and he had accomplished it by becoming scientific consultant to the savants. His brilliance plainly puzzled them, but they did not question it. So far, it seemed, nobody had discovered the odd change in the irrigation canals…

  And now all was ready for exploration of four-dimensional space and the investigation of so-far unseen worlds. In Rad’s private laboratory, to which nobody except Invia had ever been admitted, there stood the space machine in which the exploration was to be made. In general outline it appeared like any other spaceship of the times—pointed at the ends and bellying in the centre. The intricacy lay in the power-plant and controls, by which normal space could be left behind and the detour into hyperspace—or the fourth dimension—accomplished. Actually, there was no need for Rad to be so secretive for nobody outside himself and Invia, with their sharpened minds, could possibly have grasped the fundamentals involved, let alone the complex advanced mathematics.

  Before the actual departure Rad put out the story that he and his wife had decided to take a rest from scientific experiments and take a protracted vacation in the void. Since there was no law against it no comment was passed, and it would at least satisfactorily explain their absence.

  At the appointed time the take-off was made without any undue fuss. In silence Rad and the girl sat watching the ochre disk of Mars falling away beneath them at 50,000 miles an hour, but upon neither of them was there any sense of accelerated strain – so flawlessly did the inertia-nullifiers perform their function.

  “I can’t exactly see why we have to plunge into the fourth dimension immediately,” Invia said at length, gazing out onto the glittering stars and then jerking her face away as she unintentionally glanced towards the blinding sun. “Why not make a thorough survey of the other normal planets in this normal space and see if they have any possibilities?”

  Rad shook his head. “Be a waste of time. We know already from tests and astronomical observations that they—”

  “Only cursory examinations, Rad. You must admit that. I just feel that something may have been overlooked.”

  “Well, if so, we’ll make it our last resort instead of the first. I still believe our real chance lies in hyperspace. It may even be teeming with worlds which we cannot see.”

  Invia gave in. Rad was obviously determined, and when at length the space machine was seven million miles from the red planet he set about making his preparations with the mathematical keyboard which would bring about the transition.

  “I don’t pretend to know what will happen,” he said, as Invia sat by the observation window gazing out onto the deeps. “According to the equations we should make the transition quite smoothly—but sometimes equations and actual practice are at variance. You’re prepared for whatever might happen?”

  “Of course.” Invia nodded slowly.

  “Right! Then here goes!”

  The switches and pointers set to his requirements Rad pulled across the massive lever which automatically set free the complex energies controlling the ship’s mathematical position in space. Since no known physical setup could swing the vessel aside from normal space, the only alternative was the pure vibrations of mathematics – a system as profound as it was abstract and quite incomprehensible to anybody of normal intelligence.

  But there was a response! Almost immediately the vessel seemed to rotate curiously, as though it were spinning over and over and yet, paradoxically, was standing still. There was the undeniable conviction of two sensations at once, and—even more extraordinary—the ability to assimilate the two opposite sensations simultaneously.

  Through the window Rad and Invia saw the stars apparently elongate from brilliant points into bars, their ends tapering off almost imperceptibly into nothing. Side by side with this process there was a curious turned-around feelings in the minds of Rad and Invia, as though they were on the outside of things whilst looking inwards.

  It was only when they looked at each other after their long survey through the window that they realised what had happened. They could see round corners—not all the time, but when they made a deliberate mental effort to do so. At first it was a stupefying sensation to be able to see the back of an object, or the front without changing position in the slightest.

  “The only answer,” Rad said at length, “is that our senses have adjusted themselves to the space in which we’re now travelling. I rather thought that would happen, which makes the fourth dimension of space a practical proposition if we can find a worthwhile world anywhere within it.”

  “Yes, but suppose the ability to adjust our senses to the fourth dimension is our privilege alone? People who cannot adjust themselves are going to find themselves in frightful difficulties. Matter of fact,” Invia added, “I can’t quite understand how we are able to do it.”

  “Primarily the effect is mental,” Rad explained. “Just as, in the normal way, we adjust our minds quickly to an unusual situation until we can understand it. Just as, in the ordinary way, we accept three dimensions, so we are now able to accept an added dimension because our minds have attuned themselves.”

  “The transition is complete then?”

  “According to the instruments, yes,” Rad agreed. “And space here certainly looks mighty queer.”

  This was definitely an understatement. The stars and the planets which had been visible from normal space were still in view and unchanged in actual position, but every one of them had the curious rod-like extension which veered into nowhere. Even the sun, when viewed through dark shields, appeared like a titanic flaming cone with prominences twirling down to the uttermost vanishing point of the cone’s ‘apex’. But apart from these normal things which had been four dimensionally changed there were also additions. Rad became aware of them after the vessel had been hurtling onwards for perhaps fifteen minutes.

  “Notice over there,” he said, nodding to a point south of the cosmos. “Two cones which were not there before. They may be stars; they might equally be true four-dimensional planets invisible from our normal space. Better have a look through the telescope.”

  He switched in the automatic control and then turned to the telescopic equipment which operated against a sheet of perfectly clear, warpless glass. Carefully, he focussed and peered through the eyepiece. The odd thing was that the two cone-like objects lost their cone appearance at close quarters viewing and formed instead into noticeable globes. Rad adjusted his mind to the effort of gazing and found it simple to see in front and behind the globes just as he wished.

  “They’re definitely planets,” he said at length. “The fact that they have a disk appearance when seen from the front proves it. A star has no such appearance…”

  “I’m surprised you know anything at all about them when they’re shaped as cones,” Invia remarked.

  Rad raised his head from the eyepiece and looked at her.

  “That cone business is an illusion,” he said. “It isn’t solid at all; it’s a warp of light waves caused by the four-dimensional space through which we’re gazing. Pretty much the same effect as a light having its prismatic halo when you view it through a steamed glass. Actually, the stars and planets are unchanged in themselves, but their light is bent at an angle, appearing cone-like to us.”

  “Then…” Invia thought for a moment. “Then the worlds of normal space are also visib
le in this fourth dimension? I rather thought they’d vanish.”

  “Why should they? Every solid object has four dimensions, but in the ordinary way we are only capable of seeing in three. If we went back home we’d see our world four-dimensionally as long as we stayed within the influence of this space machine. These two new planets, though, must be genuine creations of this hyperspace otherwise we’d have seen then long ago in the normal cosmos.”

  Invia came across to the telescope and viewed the two worlds for herself—back and front. Both of them had dark markings which could have been just anything.

  “Are they using our sun as their primary, do you think?” she asked.

  “No reason why not, though it seems a bit odd. Gravitation must exist in four as much as in three dimensions, of course, and they probably obey our sun on that account. In fact,” Rad added, thinking, “it’s the only answer. No other large body or primary within sight and they certainly couldn’t just be there relying on each other’s gravity. They’d have been drawn off long ago to the source of the nearest attraction.”

  “Best thing we can do is have a look at them,” Invia said. “Land on them, I mean.”

  Rad nodded. He was already on the control board, changing the vessel’s course so that it was directly in line with the nearer of the two worlds.

  Chapter III

  In this four-dimensional space, distance was certainly deceptive. Rad reckoned that the nearest of the planets was some 30-million miles distant but to his surprise the indicators recorded over 72-million miles before the world in question was filling all the void ahead.

  The nearer the spaceship had come to the planet the more the cone-like warp of light waves had retracted until now the illusion was completely gone and the world looked exactly like any other—except that fourth dimensional senses still made it possible to see either frontal or rear of a hemisphere at will.