A Thousand Ages

by D. E. Ellis

  The translation continued—“Your clothing is similar to ours, but more exactly of the atomic age — when English was spoken in this country. The machine you descended in is unlike that of any age. It may be that you come from another planet—yet I do not think that is likely. Perhaps you will explain,” he said, gazing at Arnot.

  Thane Arnot stood up and addressed his remarks to the head of the assembly. The others were of equally venerable appearance, but without quite the force of wisdom that appeared on this noble face.

  “Since you mention the atomic age as being of the past, perhaps you will find it possible to believe that we are of the past. I was born in the year 2271 A.D., and we set out on our journey at the end of the century. We have calculated that it must be almost 3300 now!” The query in his voice brought affirmation from the translator—who used the pause to convey this part of the explanation to the rest.

  Arnot looked at their faces for some signs of belief, or incredulity; but they remained impassive. He continued—“Our ship was chiefly the result of research by Kevin MacCallum—I’m afraid he isn’t with us now, having died on the journey. He was our leader, and a great man by any standards,” he added, as though daring them to challenge the fact. “He perfected the means of travelling through space almost as fast as light and, what was more important, succeeded in building a ship to do it. We helped him in minor ways and he honoured us by choosing us to accompany him. Our destination was the nearest star, Proxima Centauri.

  “The controls of our ship, we call her the Unisphere, were set to work automatically for most of the distance. We ourselves, were put in a state of suspended animation for which we believe would take about four and a third years—bearable. When we regained consciousness, we found ourselves many light years beyond our destination, approaching an entirely different star system—Altair it is called on our maps.

  “We realised that time must have shortened for us in a manner theorised by a man called Einstein, who lived several centuries before our own. There seemed nothing to do but carry on and explore one of the satellites of a planet we found, so that our journey should not be entirely fruitless. A little time later, it occurred to us that, due to the freak activities of time when the speed of light is approached, we would never return to our own age. We could do little but carry on and hope there would be a place for us in your world.”

  Thane had told his story with many halts for translation. He had little hope that it would be understood, let alone believed. It would seem an impossible achievement in this world of few machines. He could only hope that their scholarly aspects denoted knowledge of such subjects as astronomy and the relativity of time; and that the nature of space and the possibility of travel in it, were not entirely unknown to them.

  “Your story, brief as it is, conveys much to us. We have the advantage over you of being in receipt of knowledge of the past, whereas you know nothing of the future. At first we wondered if you might not have come from another planet of this system, somehow born of ancestors left there after the Great Evacuations—but what you tell us is quite feasible, and I know you for a truthful man.”

  Arnot had looked straight into his eyes as he recounted their journey, and he had felt that every word he uttered was being carefully weighted. He now wondered if his thoughts had been probed.

  “The problem seems to be what to do with you.”

  The next remarks were addressed to the whole assembly, as well as the men at the table, and were translated for their benefit:“Our histories tell us that the atomic age was the most unfortunate in history. Our grandfathers’, fathers’ and our own lives have been spent trying to undo its disastrous results and rebuild afresh without repeating those terrible mistakes—and we have almost succeeded. We have here, before us, some representatives of that age—presumably filled with all the misplaced ambitions and ignorance that was part of the characters of their contemporaries. In fact, a potential danger in our midst.”

  “Yet, I observe in them qualities which are desirable in any community. Possibly, their ignorance can be overcome by re-education. As for the directions in which their ambitions will lead them only time will tell. Our problem is to decide whether we shall chance that they will learn to live peaceably in our ways, or whether they shall be painlessly sent over.”

  Silence followed, but the room was filled with unspoken thoughts—which even Arnot and his companions could sense. One dark gentleman raised his voice and the translator passed on his remark. “It may be good to let them learn our ways, and it may be that we will learn something useful of theirs. No doubt, they have had many experiences of which we know nothing. These cannot all be bad.”

  The Head gazed at his Council, smiling. “Children! Still eager for excitement,” he admonished. “Do you not realise the danger of learning evil ways from them?” Nevertheless, he had already made up his mind that there was something in the remark, so his warning was not received too seriously. The others knew as well as he did that they would not take the prisoners’ lives without first giving them a chance.

  “You will be free to do whatever you wish later on,” said the Head, addressing his remarks directly to Thane. “But, for the present, you must remain with Varit.” He introduced them to a young man who entered to an unspoken command. “Varit will instruct you in the art of thought-communication and our language. Afterwards we shell be able to converse more freely, and it will be possible to decide your place in the New World.”

  They were shown to apartments in another part of the building. These were comfortable, in spite of the lack of automatic devices. It was strange to have to open a door, light lanterns, instead of the apartments being automatically flooded with light as they entered, and to perform other tasks for themselves, the automatic function of which they had always taken for granted. They were thankful to discover that the apartments were provided with full central heating. What did it matter if they occasionally banged into a door they had expected to open by itself, if the beds were soft and luxurious. The meal that was brought to them made them open their eyes wide.

  On the ship their food had been the best that Earth could supply at the time. There were pills for emergencies, and they had used these often enough on the satellite; but, for psychological reasons, and also to lessen the monotony of the voyage, the food they had taken for the comparatively short periods they were awake was real, natural food. Not synthetic produce that formed the bulk of the diet of twenty-third century man. Even that real food, however, had not equalled this—Eggs, vegetables and fruit in enormous quantities. Such commodities had been scarcest of all. Indeed they could not be sure that the vegetables and fruit that now confronted them were. Whether they were new varieties, or just old ones that rarely reached the table, it was difficult to say.

  “This is worth coming back for,” sighed Bruce, as he relaxed and expanded his full middle. They were now too full to worry much about the future. In spite of the uncertainty which lay before them, soon the were sleeping soundly.

  Chapter 8

  In the days that followed, Arnot and his companions learnt many things. It was as if they had returned to their school-days. They became quite friendly with their tutor, Varit.

  At first, they kept together, but, as their circle of acquaintances grew, they gradually split up, tending to seek the company of people of their own respective ages. If they had been able to return to their own time, the progress would have been even quicker, with old friendships to renew and separate homes to go to. As it was, while they remained friends, each followed his own interest and inclinations. This was inevitable, if they were ever to settle down to a normal life once more.

  Their first lessons were taken as a group. Varit, who had evidently been chosen for the work because of his ability to speak the long-forgotten language, English, commenced by initiating them in the various methods of establishing telepathic communication. He would hold long conversations with them. Then they would return to their separate apartments and try to open
their minds to him. They were given writing materials and told to draw pictures of whatever came into their minds. Arnot was reasonably adept from the beginning—which explained the success with which their first contact had reached his mind and established communication.

  The others gradually became more proficient, although their first attempts were almost complete failures. After much practise, however, they were amazed when the pictures began to make sense. None of them had any further difficulty in getting a lucid picture when Varit stared into their eyes and concentrated. Such was the attainment of all these people in the art that they could transfer their thoughts even to a non-receptive mind under such conditions. Receiving thoughts from even a short distance required co-operation, however.

  Their attempts are transmitting their own thoughts ended in almost complete failure. Varit and others of his kind were able to receive their pictures when in their presence—and this was due almost solely to their own powers of mind-reading and probing—but they could not make contact from a distance. Neither could they communicate with each other.

  The learning of the Klaatan language—which Varit and his people spoke—went on side-by-side with their telepathy lessons; and, as they progressed, they were able to study other subjects.

  They learned that Varit’s full name was Rom Varit. At twenty-five, he had just commenced a career as a tutor of history and languages. He was handsome and well proportioned, although not of large muscular build. As they began to know them better, they found that this was characteristic of the new race.

  Now and again, they caught references to past history; but it was not until they had had several weeks of intensive training in the language that Varit gave them a full history lesson. It was their first in the new tongue.

  “I need not do more than briefly mention the years before 2,300 A.D., since you know the history of the world up to that period even better than I—in fact, there are many blanks in our history books you may be able to help us fill later. It is sufficient to say that the age of the machine came about 1800 and reached its full height in the year 2,400. Even when you left the world, machinery was all-powerful and worshipped almost as a God—but by then men had begun to think that they were Gods. Disaster came as the result of some immense experiment that took place on the moon.

  “In spite of the fact that a World Council existed in those days, peace was always a precarious thing. Politics were involved and complex. Undertakings such as this experiment were always conducted in absolute secrecy, the general public being unaware that anything unusual was taking place. Even if they had known, they would have been content to let the scientists go ahead, on the grounds that you could not stop progress. If the heads of the government thought it was all right, who were they to try to stop it?

  “This secrecy has caused the greatest gap in our history books. To this day we do not know what caused this great disaster! We do not even know which government, or group of governments—or even the World Council, itself instigated the experiment. There have been rumours and speculations of all kinds. Possibly, the correct solution lies amongst them. But all I can say with certainty is—that all sources agree that, whatever accident caused the moon to break its orbit, and narrowly miss crashing into this world, it wasn’t a natural one.”

  His audience began to indulge in a few quiet speculations themselves; for in their own time, the moon had already been a testing place for the latest explosive devices and any experiments likely to result in dangerous radiation. It had been a grand clearing ground, quieting all the arguments against conducting such experiments at all. There had even been rumours of turning it into a miniature sun, but this idea had been abandoned as being of more harm than good. The moon’s destruction had been a possibility from the time man first set foot on it.

  “We have one or two eye-witness accounts of the actual disaster, and they make terrible reading. Some countries were completely engulfed by huge tidal waves. Previously extinct volcanoes erupted again. Many new ones appeared where previously there had been none.

  “I have brought along an account written by an eye-witness. It was written many years after, on specially treated skins. Even then he must have had great difficulty in obtaining even a small quantity of what must have been a very precious commodity for clothing. He writes—

  “‘June 25th, 2441, was the last day of civilisation. It began in quite a normal manner, a calm early summer’s day. There was not the slightest indication that anything untoward was about to happen. Then, in the space of a few moments, the sky lit up on the East with a brightness that eclipsed the sun, and seconds later, it could be seen in the West also. Before we had time to speculate on its meaning, the ground heaved under us. The motion was appalling, similar to that endured in a hurricane at sea. We were flung to the ground and carried up and up, expecting at any moment to experience a sickening drop. Finally, the rising sensation ceased, but the ground continued to roll and heave in sickening waves.

  “With my wife and young son, I was near the centre of one of the few open spaces in our over-crowded country. Tit was less than a mile square but we were almost in the middle—so we had some slight protection from falling buildings. Even so, chunks of metal and plastic, twisted and torn, were hurled near. We could hear screams and crashes above the rumblings of the earth, and the roar of the wind, as the skyscrapers came tumbling down. That any survived in the towns at all must have been due to the light structures of our contemporary buildings. Small fissures and cracks were appearing in the field around us, and we could scarcely breathe for fear the ground might open up beneath us.

  “Hours seemed to pass as we lay there. We had time to wonder what gigantic weapon had been released against the other side of the world. Whichever power was using it, they could surely not have foreseen such a terrible result as this. Some facts have emerged since although there is scarcely any civilisation left to check and explore them.

  “There is no moon now. On that dreadful day, it became a great, incandescent ball of flame, many times its original size—miniature sun for a moment. Then it broke from its orbit and, like a mad bull, charged at the earth. Had it crashed into us, no doubt the whole world would have disintegrated; but, at the last moment, it was somehow deflected. A miracle perhaps. None of us understand science sufficiently well to explain the natural phenomena of magnetism and repulsion and positive and negative electrical forces. The last anyone saw of it was a ball of fire with a tail preceding, rushing towards the sun. Perhaps it is now a comet and will reappear many years hence, following a peculiar orbit of its own round the sun. Or, perhaps, it has been drawn into it.

  “‘We cannot observe the sun to see if there has been any disturbance. Although it is now twenty years since the world crashed in ruins about us, we are still living in a greyness of rain and dust-clouds. The miracle that we are alive at all is due largely to the fact that the moon shone on the other hemisphere that day. I cannot believe that anyone exists on that side of the globe, it received the direct blast of heat, and the near collision must have torn huge chunks of land away.

  “‘But on that first day of the Disaster we knew none of this. As we lay there the ground became uncomfortably hot. The air, by that time, was almost unbreathable, being thick and of tropical temperature. There was worse to come and how we survived that night, I do not know, or yet when the night came to an end. By then the world was surrounded by a pall of smoke. Fire swept everything that would burn, vegetation withering and searing off in a few moments. Fir and flashes of lightening were our only illumination during the thick of the upheaval.

  “‘It became obvious that we could stay in the open no longer. While the earth still heaved and rolled we staggered along, trying to find a substantial shelter that had survived those first enormous disturbances. It was some time before we found it; and, by then we were blackened and scarred by burns from cinders blowing by the raging wind, with our clothes hanging in scorched rags about us. We were scarcely sand and resembled wild beasts
as we stumbled into the wrecked opening of the underground railway system. We were too exhausted to care whether the walls would close and crush us. We made our way further inside, until we approached the mouth of the tube through which the trains normally travelled.

  “‘Here, huddled in small groups, sat about sixty men, women and children of all ages. They had been about to leave the tube at the moment of the Disaster. Now they sat stunned, still failing to realise the fate that had overtaken the world.

  “‘These sixty formed the nucleus of our new community, when we were able to emerge and try to find some means of living again. It was a week before we could do so. Meanwhile, we lived on supplies found in the station eating rooms. Water was our chief problem, but our thirst was somewhat alleviated by various bottled drinks, which were severely rationed. The air became heavy with sulphur fumes and the heat was indescribable. Some of our group died.

  “‘After the heat came the rain. As it hit the earth, the torrential downpour turned to steam. This drifted into the shelter, causing the already-thickened atmosphere to become unbearable. At the same time, our water problem was solved as flood water began pouring in too. There was no alternative but to leave the shelter before we drowned. The rain had cooled the ground sufficient for us to walk, or rather wade, through the water. We made our way to the highest ground in the vicinity, there standing and fighting for breath. Fortunately, the wind had completely dropped—otherwise we should have drowned had it blown those solid sheets of rain into our faces. It was still pitch black, but we had artificial lights, which had been in the possession of some of the travellers at the time of the Disaster.