The Big Book of Science Fiction

by The Big Book of Science Fiction (retail) (epub)

  Abruptly the door behind me clicked open to admit young Dal Nara, the ship’s second officer, descended from a long line of famous interstellar pilots, who grinned at me openly as she saluted.

  “Twelve more hours, sir, and we’ll be there,” she said.

  I smiled at her eagerness. “You’ll not be sorry to get back to our little sun, will you?” I asked, and she shook her head.

  “Not I! It may be just a pinhead beside Canopus and the rest, but there’s no place like it in the galaxy. I’m wondering, though, what made them call us back to the fleet so suddenly.”

  My own face clouded, at that. “I don’t know,” I said, slowly. “It’s almost unprecedented for any star to call one of its ships back from the Federation fleet, but there must have been some reason….”

  “Well,” she said cheerfully, turning toward the door, “it doesn’t matter what the reason is, so long as it means a trip home. The crew is worse than I am—they’re scrapping the generators down in the engine room to get another light-speed out of them.”

  I laughed as the door clicked shut behind her, but as I turned back to the window the question she had voiced rose again in my mind, and I gazed thoughtfully toward the yellow star ahead. For as I had told Dal Nara, it was a well-nigh unheard-of thing for any star to recall one of its cruisers from the great fleet of the Federation. Including as it did every peopled star in the galaxy, the Federation relied entirely upon the fleet to police the interstellar spaces, and to that fleet each star contributed its quota of cruisers. Only a last extremity, I knew, would ever induce any star to recall one of its ships, yet the message flashed to our ship had ordered us to return to the solar system at full speed and report at the Bureau of Astronomical Knowledge, on Neptune. Whatever was behind the order, I thought, I would learn soon enough, for we were now speeding over the last lap of our homeward journey; so I strove to put the matter from my mind for the time being.

  With an odd persistence, though, the question continued to trouble my thoughts in the hours that followed, and when we finally swept in toward the solar system twelve hours later, it was with a certain abstractedness that I watched the slow largening of the yellow star that was our sun. Our velocity had slackened steadily as we approached that star, and we were moving at a bare one light-speed when we finally swept down toward its outermost, far-swinging planet, Neptune, the solar system’s point of arrival and departure for all interstellar commerce. Even this speed we reduced still further as we sped past Neptune’s single circling moon and down through the crowded shipping lanes toward the surface of the planet itself.

  Fifty miles above its surface all sight of the planet beneath was shut off by the thousands of great ships which hung in dense masses above it—that vast tangle of interstellar traffic which makes the great planet the terror of all inexperienced pilots. From horizon to horizon, it seemed, the ships crowded upon each other, drawn from every quarter of the galaxy. Huge grain boats from Betelgeuse; vast, palatial liners from Arcturus and Vega; ship-loads of radium ores from the worlds that circle giant Antares; long, swift mailboats from distant Deneb—all these and myriad others swirled and circled in one great mass above the planet, dropping down one by one as the official traffic directors flashed from their own boats the brilliant signals which allowed a lucky one to descend. And through occasional rifts in the crowded mass of ships could be glimpsed the interplanetary traffic of the lower levels, a swarm of swift little boats which darted ceaselessly back and forth on their comparatively short journeys, ferrying crowds of passengers to Jupiter and Venus and Earth, seeming like little toy boats beside the mighty bulks of the great interstellar ships above them.

  As our own cruiser drove down toward the mass of traffic, though, it cleared away from before us instantly; for the symbol of the Federation on our bows was known from Canopus to Fomalhaut, and the cruisers of its fleet were respected by all the traffic of the galaxy. Arrowing down through this suddenly opened lane we sped smoothly down toward the planet’s surface, hovering for a moment above its perplexing maze of white buildings and green gardens, and then slanting down toward the mighty flat-roofed building which housed the Bureau of Astronomical Knowledge. As we sped down toward its roof I could not but contrast the warm, sunny green panorama beneath with the icy desert which the planet had been until two hundred thousand years before, when the scientists of the solar system had devised the great heat transmitters which catch the sun’s heat near its blazing surface and fling it out as high-frequency vibrations to the receiving apparatus on Neptune, to be transformed back into the heat which warms this world. In a moment, though, we were landing gently upon the broad roof, upon which rested scores of other shining cruisers whose crews stood outside them watching our arrival.

  Five minutes later I was whirling downward through the building’s interior in one of the automatic little cone elevators, out of which I stepped into a long white corridor. An attendant was awaiting me there, and I followed him down the corridor’s length to a high black door at its end, which he threw open for me, closing it behind me as I stepped inside.

  —

  It was an ivory-walled, high-ceilinged room in which I found myself, its whole farther side open to the sunlight and breezes of the green gardens beyond. At a desk across the room was sitting a short-set man with gray-streaked hair and keen, inquiring eyes, and as I entered he sprang up and came toward me.

  “Ran Rarak!” he exclaimed. “You’ve come! For two days, now, we’ve been expecting you.”

  “We were delayed off Aldebaran, sir, by generator trouble,” I replied, bowing, for I had recognized the speaker as Hurus Hol, chief of the Bureau of Astronomical Knowledge. Now, at a motion from him, I took a chair beside the desk while he resumed his own seat.

  A moment he regarded me in silence, and then slowly spoke. “Ran Rarak,” he said, “you must have wondered why your ship was ordered back here to the solar system. Well, it was ordered back for a reason which we dared not state in an open message, a reason which, if made public, would plunge the solar system instantly into a chaos of unutterable panic!”

  He was silent again for a moment, his eyes on mine, and then went on. “You know, Ran Rarak, that the universe itself is composed of infinite depths of space in which float great clusters of suns, star-clusters which are separated from each other by billions of light-years of space. You know, too, that our own cluster of suns, which we call the galaxy, is roughly disklike in shape, and that our own particular sun is situated at the very edge of this disk. Beyond lie only those inconceivable leagues of space which separate us from the neighboring star clusters, or island universes, depths of space never yet crossed by our own cruisers or by anything else of which we have record.

  “But now, at last, something has crossed those abysses, is crossing them; since over three weeks ago our astronomers discovered that a gigantic dark star is approaching our galaxy from the depths of infinite space—a titanic, dead sun which their instruments showed to be of a size incredible, since, dark and dead as it is, it is larger than the mightiest blazing suns in our own galaxy, larger than Canopus or Antares or Betelgeuse—a dark, dead star millions of times larger than our own fiery sun—a gigantic wanderer out of some far realm of infinite space, racing toward our galaxy at a velocity inconceivable!

  “The calculations of our scientists showed that this speeding dark star would not race into our galaxy but would speed past its edge, and out into infinite space again, passing no closer to our own sun, at the edge, than some fifteen billion miles. There was no possibility of collision or danger from it, therefore; and so though the approach of the dark star is known to all in the solar system, there is no idea of any peril connected with it. But there is something else which has been kept quite secret from the peoples of the solar system, something known only to a few astronomers and officials. And that is that during the last few weeks the path of this speeding dark star has changed from a straight path to a curving one, that it is curving inward toward the edg
e of our galaxy and will now pass our own sun, in less than twelve weeks, at a distance of less than three billion miles, instead of fifteen! And when this titanic dead sun passes that close to our own sun there can be but one result. Inevitably our own sun will be caught by the powerful gravitational grip of the giant dark star and carried out with all its planets into the depths of infinite space, never to return!”

  Hurus Hol paused, his face white and set, gazing past me with wide, unseeing eyes. My brain whirling beneath the stunning revelation, I sat rigid, silent, and in a moment he went on.

  “If this thing were known to all,” he said slowly, “there would be an instant, terrible panic over the solar system, and for that reason only a handful have been told. Flight is impossible, for there are not enough ships in the galaxy to transport the trillions of the solar system’s population to another star in the four weeks that are left to us. There is but one chance—one blind, slender chance—and that is to turn aside this onward-thundering dark star from its present inward-curving path, to cause it to pass our sun and the galaxy’s edge far enough away to be harmless. And it is for this reason that we ordered your return.

  “For it is my plan to speed out of the galaxy into the depths of outer space to meet this approaching dark star, taking all of the scientific apparatus and equipment which might be used to swerve it aside from this curving path it is following. During the last week I have assembled the equipment for the expedition and have gathered together a force of fifty star-cruisers which are even now resting on the roof of this building, manned and ready for the trip. These are only swift mail-cruisers, though, specially equipped for the trip, and it was advisable to have at least one battle-cruiser for the flagship of the force, and so your own was recalled from the Federation fleet. And although I shall go with the expedition, of course, it was my plan to have you yourself as its captain.

  “I know, however, that you have spent the last two years in the service of the Federation fleet; so if you desire, another will be appointed to the post. It is one of danger—greater danger, I think, than any of us can dream. Yet the command is yours, if you wish to accept it.”

  Hurus Hol ceased, intently scanning my face. A moment I sat silent, then rose and stepped to the great open window at the room’s far side. Outside stretched the greenery of gardens, and beyond them the white roofs of buildings, gleaming beneath the faint sunlight. Instinctively my eyes went up to the source of light, the tiny sun, small and faint and far, here, but still—the sun. A long moment I gazed up toward it, and then turned back to Hurus Hol. “I accept, sir,” I said.

  He came to his feet, his eyes shining. “I knew that you would,” he said, simply, and then: “All has been ready for days, Ran Rarak. We start at once.”

  Ten minutes later we were on the broad roof, and the crews of our fifty ships were rushing to their posts in answer to the sharp alarm of a signal bell. Another five minutes and Hurus Hol, Dal Nara, and I stood in the bridgeroom of my own cruiser, watching the white roof drop behind and beneath as we slanted up from it. In a moment the half-hundred cruisers on that roof had risen and were racing up behind us, arrowing with us toward the zenith, massed in a close, wedge-shaped formation.

  Above, the brilliant signals of the traffic boats flashed swiftly, clearing a wide lane for us, and then we had passed through the jam of traffic and were driving out past the incoming lines of interstellar ships at swiftly mounting speed, still holding the same formation with the massed cruisers behind us.

  Behind and around us, now, flamed the great panorama of the galaxy’s blazing stars, but before us lay only darkness—darkness inconceivable, into which our ships were flashing out at greater and greater speed. Neptune had vanished, and far behind lay the single yellow spark that was all visible of our solar system as we fled out from it. Out-out-out-rocketing, racing on, out past the boundaries of the great galaxy itself into the lightless void, out into the unplumbed depths of infinite space to save our threatened sun.

  II

  Twenty-four hours after our start I stood again in the bridgeroom, alone except for the silent, imperturbable figure of my ever-watchful wheelman, Nal Jak, staring out with him into the black gulf that lay before us. Many an hour we had stood side by side thus, scanning the interstellar spaces from our cruiser’s bridgeroom, but never yet had my eyes been confronted by such a lightless void as lay before me now.

  Our ship, indeed, seemed to be racing through a region where light was all but nonexistent, a darkness inconceivable to anyone who had never experienced it. Behind lay the galaxy we had left, a great swarm of shining points of light, contracting slowly as we sped away from it. Toward our right, too, several misty little patches of light glowed faintly in the darkness, hardly to be seen; though these, I knew, were other galaxies or star clusters like our own—titanic conglomerations of thronging suns dimmed to those tiny flickers of light by the inconceivable depths of space which separated them from ourselves.

  Except for these, though, we fled on through a cosmic gloom that was soul-shaking in its deepness and extent, an infinite darkness and stillness in which our ship seemed the only moving thing. Behind us, I knew, the formation of our fifty ships was following close on our track, each ship separated from the next by a five-hundred-mile interval and each flashing on at exactly the same speed as ourselves. But though we knew they followed, our fifty cruisers were naturally quite invisible to us, and as I gazed now into the tenebrous void ahead the loneliness of our position was overpowering.

  Abruptly the door behind me snapped open, and I half turned toward it as Hurus Hol entered. He glanced at our speed dials and his brows arched in surprise.

  “Good enough,” he commented. “If the rest of our ships can hold this pace it will bring us to the dark star in six days.”

  I nodded, gazing thoughtfully ahead. “Perhaps sooner,” I estimated. “The dark star is coming toward us at a tremendous velocity, remember. You will notice on the telechart…”

  Together we stepped over to the big telechart, a great rectangular plate of smoothly burnished silvery metal which hung at the bridgeroom’s end wall, the one indispensable aid to interstellar navigation. Upon it were accurately reproduced, by means of projected and reflected rays, the positions and progress of all heavenly bodies near the ship.

  Intently we contemplated it now. At the rectangle’s lower edge there gleamed on the smooth metal a score or more of little circles of glowing light, of varying sizes, representing the suns of the edge of the galaxy behind us. Outermost of these glowed the light disk that was our own sun, and around this Hurus Hol had drawn a shining line or circle lying more than four billion miles from our sun, on the chart. He had computed that if the approaching dark star came closer than that to our sun its mighty gravitational attraction would inevitably draw the latter out with it into space; so the shining line represented, for us, the danger line. And creeping down toward that line and toward our sun, farther up on the blank metal of the great chart, there moved a single giant circle of deepest black, an ebon disk a hundred times the diameter of our glowing little sun circle, which was sweeping down toward the galaxy’s edge in a great curve.

  Hurus Hol gazed thoughtfully at the sinister dark disk, and then shook his head. “There’s something very strange about that dark star,” he said, slowly. “That curving path it’s moving in is contrary to all the laws of celestial mechanics. I wonder if—”

  Before he could finish, the words were broken off in his mouth. For at that moment there came a terrific shock; our ship dipped and reeled crazily, and then was whirling blindly about as though caught and shaken by a giant hand. Dal Nara, the pilot; Hurus Hol; and I were slammed violently down toward the bridgeroom’s end with the first crash, and then I clung desperately to the edge of a switchboard as we spun dizzily about. I had a flashing glimpse, through the windows, of our fifty cruisers whirling blindly about like wind-tossed straws, and in another glimpse saw two of them caught and slammed together, both ships smashing like e
ggshells beneath the terrific impact, their crews instantly annihilated. Then, as our own ship dipped crazily downward again, I saw Hurus Hol creeping across the floor toward the controls, and in a moment I had slid down beside him. Another instant and we had our hands on the levers, and were slowly pulling them back into position.

  Caught and buffeted still by the terrific forces outside, our cruiser slowly steadied to an even keel and then leapt suddenly forward again, the forces that held us seeming to lessen swiftly as we flashed on. There came a harsh, grating sound that brought my heart to my throat as one of the cruisers was hurled past us, grazing us, and then abruptly the mighty grip that held us had suddenly disappeared and we were humming on through the same stillness and silence as before.

  I slowed our flight, then, until we hung motionless, and then we gazed wildly at each other, bruised and panting. Before we could give utterance to the exclamations on our lips, though, the door snapped open and Dal Nara burst into the bridgeroom, bleeding from a cut on her forehead. “What was that?” she cried, raising a trembling hand to her head. “It caught us there like toys—and the other ships—”

  Before any of us could answer her a bell beside me rang sharply and from the diaphragm beneath it came the voice of our message operator.

  “Ships thirty-seven, twelve, nineteen, and forty-four reported destroyed by collisions, sir,” he announced, his own voice tremulous. “The others report that they are again taking up formation behind us.”

  “Very well,” I replied. “Order them to start again in three minutes, on Number One speed-scale.”

  As I turned back from the instrument I drew a deep breath. “Four ships destroyed in less than a minute,” I said. “And by what?”

  “By a whirlpool of ether-currents, undoubtedly,” said Hurus Hol. We stared at him blankly, and he threw out a hand in quick explanation. “You know that there are currents in the ether—that was discovered ages ago—and that those currents in the galaxy have always been found to be comparatively slow and sluggish, but out here in empty space there must be currents of gigantic size and speed, and apparently we stumbled directly into a great whirlpool or maelstrom of them. We were fortunate to lose but four ships,” he added soberly.