While still air-borne Darr Veter noticed huge patches on the dull steel-grey plain — the one on the right was almost circular and the other was more elongated, an oval with the narrow end turned away from the other. These patches had been made by the spaceships of the 38th Cosmic Expedition that had recently left.
The circle came from the spaceship Tintagelle that had gone to the terrible star T and was loaded with all sorts of apparatus for the siege of the disc ship from distant worlds. The oval was made by Aella whose ascent was less steep; this ship was taking a large group of scientists to investigate the changes in matter that took place on the white dwarf of the triple star Omicron 2 Eridani. The ash that remained where the ships’ exhausts had burnt up the stony ground was about five feet thick and was covered with a binding material to prevent its being wind-carried. All that remained was to move the red fences from the old take-off ground, and this would be done as soon as Lebed left.
And there stood Lebed, iron-grey in her heat armour that would burn off during her passage through the atmosphere. After that the ship would continue its flight with gleaming walls capable of reflecting any known radiations. Nobody, however, would see it in this magnificence except the robot astronomers that tracked the flight: these machines would provide the people with nothing more than photographs of a flashing dot in the sky. When a ship came back to Earth it was always covered with dross and scored with furrows and hollows made by the explosions of tiny meteoric bodies. Darr Veter remembered how Tantra had returned — greyish-green and rust-red with parts of her outer walling in a state of collapse. None of the people standing around Lebed would ever see her again since none of them could live the hundred and seventy-two years that must elapse before she returned — a hundred and sixty-eight independent years of travel and four years to explore the planets….
Darr Veter’s work was such that he would probably not live long enough even for the ship to arrive at the planet of the green star. Just as in those days of doubt, Darr Veter once again felt great admiration for the bold ideas of Renn Bose and Mven Mass. What did it matter that their experiment had failed — what did it matter that the problem, one which affected the very foundations of the Cosmos, was still far from solution — what did it matter, if it was all nothing more than a figment of the imagination…. These lunatics were giants of creative thought for even in the refutation of their theories and the failure of their experiments people would make tremendous progress in many fields of knowledge.
Lost in thought, Darr Veter almost stumbled over the signal indicating the safety zone, turned round and saw a well-known figure. Running his fingers through his unruly red hair and screwing up his sharp eyes, Renn Bose came running towards him. A network of thin, scarcely perceptible scars had changed the face of the physicist by wrinkling it into an expression of pained intensity.
“I’m glad to see you well again, Renn!”
“I want you urgently!” said Renn Bose, holding his tiny freckled hands out to Veter.
“What are you doing here, so long before the take-off?”
“I saw Aella off, I’m very interested in the gravitation of such a heavy star. I heard you would come and so I waited for you.”
Darr Veter waited for an explanation.
“I hear you are returning to the observatory of the Outer Stations as Junius Antus has requested.”
Darr Veter nodded.
“Antus has recently recorded several undeciphered messages received from a Great Circle transmission.”
“Every month messages are received outside the usual transmission hours and each month the transmission time is advanced by two terrestrial hours. In the course of a year’s testing this amounts to an earthly day and in eight years it makes a whole hundred-thousandth of a galactic second. That is how the gaps in the reception of the Cosmos are filled in. During the last six months of the eight-year cycle we have been receiving incomprehensible messages that undoubtedly come from a great distance.”
“I’m very interested in them and would like you to take me as your assistant.”
“It would be better for me to help you. We’ll examine the records of the memory machines together.”
“What about Mven Mass?”
“We’ll take him, of course.”
“Veter, that’s just wonderful. I feel very awkward since that ill-fated experiment of mine, I’ve a feeling of guilt as far as the Council is concerned. But I can get along easily with you even if you are a member of the Council and a former Director and the one who advised me against the experiment.”
“Mven Mass is also a member of the Council.”
The physicist thought for a while, smiled at some memory of his own.
“Mven Mass, he has a feeling for my ideas and tries to concretise them for me.”
“Wasn’t it in the concretisation that you made a mistake?”
Renn Bose frowned and changed the subject.
“Is Veda Kong coming here?”
“Yes, I’m waiting for her. Did you know that she almost lost her life during the investigation of a cave, some ancient technical storehouse where there was a closed steel door?”
“It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”
“I forgot that unlike Mven Mass you have no great interest in history. The whole planet is discussing the affair and wondering what might be behind the door. Millions of people have volunteered to dig it out. Veda has given the problem to the Academy of Stochastics and Prognostication. Is Evda Nahl coming here?”
“No, she can’t come.”
“A lot of people will be disappointed! Veda’s very fond of Evda and Chara is simply devoted to her. D’you remember Chara?”
“That’s the panther-like girl… either Gypsy or Indian in origin!”
Darr Veter spread his hands in mock horror.
“How well you appreciate feminine beauty! However, I’m always making the mistake that people made in the past when they did not know anything about the laws of psychophysiology and heredity. I always want to see my feelings and my perceptions in other people.”
“Evda, like everybody else on the planet,” said Renn Bose, ignoring Veter’s confessions, “will be watching the take-off.”
The physicist pointed to a row of high tripods carrying chambers for white, infrared and ultra-violet reception placed in a semi-circle around the spaceship. The different groups of spectral rays introduced into the coloured reproduction made the screen breathe with real warmth and life in the same way as the overtone diaphragms[27] destroyed the metallic resonance in the transmission of the human voice.
Darr Veter looked towards the north whence came the heavily laden automatic electrobuses, swaying across the earth. Veda Kong jumped out of the first bus to arrive and ran towards them, catching her feet in the grass. At a run she threw herself on Darr Veter’s broad chest with such force that the long plaits that hung down from either side of her head were thrown over his shoulders and hung down his back.
Darr Veter held Veda off at some distance and looked into that infinitely dear face to which her unusual hair-do imparted new qualities.
“I was playing the Northern Queen of the Dark Ages for a children’s film,” she said, panting slightly. “I hardly had time to change and could not stop to do my hair.”
Darr Veter could imagine her in a long, tight brocade dress and a golden crown with blue stones, her ash-blonde plaits reaching down below her knees, with fearless grey eyes — and he smiled with pleasure.
“Did you wear a crown?”
“Oh, yes, and such a crown!” Veda’s finger drew in the air the outline of a wide circle with teeth round it in the shape of clover leaves.
“Shall I see it?”
“This very day. I’ll ask them to show you the film.”
Darr Veter was going to ask who the “they” were but Veda was already greeting the serious-looking physicist who was smiling naively but whole-heartedly.
“Where are the heroes of Achernar?” asked Renn Bose lookin
g at the spaceship that stood in splendid isolation.
“Over there!” Veda pointed to a tent-shaped building of milk-coloured glass and outside girders of lattice-work — the main hall of the cosmoport.
“Let’s go there, then.”
“We’re not wanted there,” said Veda, firmly. “They are watching Earth’s farewell to them. Let’s go to Lebed.”
The men followed her advice.
As she walked beside Darr Veter she asked softly:
“Do I look too absurd in this old-fashioned hair-do? I could….”
“You don’t need to do anything. It makes a charming contrast to your modern dress, plaits longer than your skirt. Let it stay!”
“I obey you, my Veter!” Veda whispered the magic words that made his heart beat faster and brought colour to his pale cheeks.
Hundreds of people were making their way unhurriedly to the ship. Many of them smiled to Veda or greeted her with a raised hand, much more frequently than they did Darr Veter or Renn Bose.
“You’re very popular, Veda,” said Renn Bose, “is that due to your work as a historian or to your notorious beauty?”
“Neither one nor the other. I mix with a lot of people both in my work and in my social engagements. You and Veter, you either hide in the depths of a laboratory or go away alone for some terribly straining night work. You do more for mankind and much more important things than I do but it is all one-sided and not for the side that is nearer the heart. Chara Nandi and Evda Nahl are much more widely known than I am.”
“Again a reproach to our technical civilization?” asked Darr Veter, jokingly.
“Not to ours but to the leftovers of former fatal mistakes. Twenty thousand years ago our troglodyte ancestors knew that art and the development of sensations connected with it were no less important to society than science.”
“In respect of relations between people?” asked the physicist, with interest.
“Exactly.”
“There was an ancient sage who said that the most difficult thing on earth is to preserve joy!” Darr Veter put in. “Look, here comes another of Veda’s loyal allies!”
Mven Mass, with a light, swinging tread, was coming straight towards them, his huge black figure attracting considerable attention.
“Chara’s dance is over!” Veda guessed, “soon we’ll see the crew of Lebed.’“
“If I were them I’d come over here on foot and as slowly as possible,” said Darr Veter, suddenly.
“You’re getting excited,” said Veda taking him by the arm.
“Naturally. For me it’s painful to think that they’re going away for ever and that I’ll never see that ship again. There’s something inside me that protests against that inescapable doom, perhaps because there are people in the ship that are dear to me!”
“That’s probably not the reason,” said Mven Mass as he joined them. His sharp ears had caught Darr Veter’s words. “It’s the inevitable protest of man against implacable time.”
“Autumn sorrow?” asked Renn Bose, with just a shade of irony as he smiled at his friend with his eyes.
“Have you noticed that it is the most energetic, vivacious people with the strongest feelings who mostly like the sad autumn of the temperate zones?” objected Mven Mass patting the physicist on the shoulder in a friendly way.
“That’s true enough,” exclaimed Veda.
“A very ancient observation.”
“Darr Veter, are you there on the field? Darr Veter, are you there on the field? You are wanted on the televisophone of the central building by Junius Antus. Junius Antus is calling you on the TVP of the central building.”
Renn Bose started and straightened up.
“May I go with you, Veter?”
“Go along in my place. It doesn’t matter much to you if you miss the take-off. Junius Antus likes showing things in the old way, the direct reception and not the recording; in that respect he is in complete agreement with Mven Mass.”
The cosmoport possessed a powerful TVP receiver and a hemispherical screen. Renn Bose entered the quiet round room. The operator on duty pressed a button and pointed to a side screen where the excited Junius Antus appeared immediately. He looked closely at the physicist and, realizing why Darr Veter had not come, nodded to Bose.
“I also intended watching the take-off but at the moment there is an explorer-reception going on in the former direction in the 62/77 range. Take the directed ray funnel and focus it on the observatory. I’ll send a vector ray across the Mediterranean to El Homra. Pick it up on the tubular fan and switch on the hemispherical screen.” Junius Antus looked away for a moment and then added, “Hurry up!”
The scientist, experienced in Cosmic reception, did all that had been ordered within two minutes. In the depths of the hemispherical screen a gigantic galaxy appeared which both scientists recognized as the Andromeda Nebula, or M 31, long known to mankind.
In the outer turn of its spiral, the one nearest the onlookers, and almost in the very centre of the lentil-shaped disc of the enormous galaxy, a tiny light appeared. There a whole system of stars branched off, looking like a thin hair although it was probably a huge sleeve of the galaxy a hundred parsecs in length. The light began to grow and the hair became bigger, while the galaxy disappeared beyond the field of vision. A stream of red and yellow stars stretched across the screen. The light changed into a little circle that gleamed at the end of the star stream. On the edge of the stream there was a prominent orange star, spectral class K, and around it the barely perceptible dots of planets were revolving. A disc of light was placed over one of them, completely covering it. Suddenly it all began to whirl round in red curves with sparks flying out of them. Renn Bose closed his eyes.
“That’s a rupture,” said Junius Antus from the side screen. “I’ve shown you a memory machine recording of what we observed last month. Now I’m going to switch on to a direct reception.”
Sparks and dark-red lines were still whirling round on the screen.
“What a peculiar phenomenon!” exclaimed the physicist. “How do you explain that ‘rupture,’ as you call it?”
“I’ll tell you later. The transmission is beginning again. But what is it you think strange?”
“The red spectrum of the rupture. In the Andromeda spectrum there is a violet bias, in other words, it should be drawing closer to us.”
“The rupture has nothing to do with Andromeda, it is a local phenomenon!”
“Do you think it accidental that their transmitting station is placed on the very edge of the galaxy, in a zone that is even farther removed from the centre than the zone of the Sun in our Galaxy?”
Junius Antus cast a sceptical glance at Renn Bose. “You’re prepared to start a discussion at any moment, forgetting that you’re talking with the Andromeda Nebula at a distance of 45 parsecs!”
“Yes, yes,” muttered the embarrassed Renn Bose, “that is, at a distance of a million and a half light years. This communication was transmitted fifteen thousand centuries ago.”
“What we’re looking at now was sent out long before the Ice Age and the appearance of man on Earth!” Junius Antus had become more amicable.
The red lines slowed down their movements, the screen went dark and then lit up again. A dully lit plain could scarcely be discerned in the twilight with mushroom-shaped structures dotted here and there. Near the front a gigantic (judging by the extent of the plain) blue circle with an obviously metallic surface gleamed coldly. One above the other two huge discs, convex on both sides, hung directly over the centre of the blue circle. No… they were not hanging but were slowly rising higher and higher. The plain vanished and only one of the discs remained on the screen; it was more convex below than above and there were crudely spiral ribs on both sides.
“Is it they… is it they?” exclaimed both scientists, almost together, thinking of the perfect similarity of this image with the photographs and drawings of the spiral disc the 37th Cosmic Expedition had found on the planet o
f the iron star.
Another whirl of red lines and the screen went dead. Renn Bose waited, afraid to take his eyes off the screen for even a second. The first human eye to see something of the life and thoughts of another galaxy! The screen, however, did not show any further signs of life. Junius Antus spoke from the side-screen of the TVP.
“The transmission has broken off. We cannot wait any longer because we are using too much of Earth’s power resources. The whole planet will be astounded. We must ask the Economic Council for reception hours outside the regular programme at intervals more frequent than at present, but that will only be possible in a year’s time, after so much has been spent on the dispatch of Lebed. Now we know that the spaceship on the black planet is from there. If Erg Noor had not found it we should never have understood what we have seen.”
“And that disc came from there? How long did it fly?” asked Renn Bose, as though talking to himself.
“It has been flying dead for about two million years through the space that divides our two galaxies,” answered Junius Antus, sternly, from the screen. “It flew until it found refuge on the planet of star T. Those spaceships are apparently built to land automatically despite the fact that for thousands and thousands of years no living hand has touched their mechanism.”
“Perhaps they live a long time?”
“But not millions of years, that would contradict the laws of thermodynamics,” answered Junius Antus, coldly. “Even though it is of enormous size the spiral disc could not contain a whole planet of people… or intelligences. As yet our two galaxies cannot reach each other, cannot exchange messages….”
“They will,” declared Renn Bose, confidently, said good-bye to Junius Antus and returned to the cosmoport whence the spaceship Lebed had just flown off.
Darr Veter, Veda Kong, Chara and Mven Mass stood somewhat apart from the two long rows of people who had come to see the ship off. All heads were turned in the direction of the central building. Noiselessly a wide platform swept past them accompanied by waving hands and shouts of greeting, something that people only permitted themselves in public on very special occasions. The twenty-two members of Lebed’s crew were on the platform.
Andromeda (A Space-Age Tale) вк-1 Page 38
