probed down from the upper reaches of the atmosphere, blasted by hydrogen
and atomic bombs that shook the very bedrock of the planet and shattered
great, sky-high towers of white masonry into drifting dust. Twisted
wreckage fell into the city from the battle area, great cruisers reduced to
grotesque metal heaps, bent and burned and battered out of all semblance to
a ship, scorched and crushed and flattened by the energy unloosed in the
height of battle.
“They have new weapons,” said the Engineer. “New weapons and better
screens. We can hold them off a little longer. How much longer I do not
know.”
In the laboratory, located in the base of one of the tallest of the
skyscrapers in the great white city, the Engineers and the Earthlings had
watched the battle for long hours. Had seen the first impact of the fleets,
had watched the first dogfight out at the edge of atmosphere, had witnessed
the Hellhounds slowly drive the defenders back until the invaders were
within effective bombardment distance of the city itself.
“They have a screen stripper,” said the Engineer, “that is far more
effective than anything we have ever seen. It is taking too much of our
ships’ energy to hold up their screens under this new weapon.”
In the telescopic screen a brilliant blue-white flash filled all the
vision-plate as a bomb smashed into one of the few remaining towers. The
tower erupted with a flash of blinding light and disappeared, with merely
the ragged stump of masonry bearing mute testimony to its once sky-soaring
height.
“Isn’t there anyone who can help us?” asked Kingsley. “Surely there is
someone to whom we might appeal.”
“There is no one,” said the Engineer. “We are alone. For thousands of light
years there are no other great races to be found. For millions of years the
Hellhounds and the Engineers have fought, and it has always been those two
and just those two alone. Thus it is now. Before, we have driven them off.
Many times have we destroyed them almost to the point of anihilation that
we might hold their cosmic ambitions under proper check. Now it seems they
will be the victors.”
“No other race,” said Gary, musing, “for thousands of light years.”
He stared moodily at the screen, saw a piece of twisted wreckage that had
at one time been a ship crash into the stump of broken tower and hang
there, like a bloody, smoke-blackened offering tossed on the altar of war.
“But there is,” he said. “There is at least one great race very near to
us.”
“There is?” asked Caroline. “Where?”
“On the other universe,” said Gary. “A race that is fully as great, as
capable as the Engineers. A race that should be glad to help us in this
fight.”
“Great suffering snakes,” yelped Herb, “why didn’t we think of that
before?”
“I do not understand,” said the Engineer. “I agree they are a great race
and very close to us. Much too close, in fact. But they might as well be a
billion light years away. They can do us no good. How would you get them
here?”
“Yes,” rumbled Kingsley, “how would you get them here?”
Gary turned to the Engineer. “You have talked to them,” he said. “Have you
any idea of what kind of people they might be?”
“A great people,” said the Engineer. “Greater than we in certain sciences.
They are the ones who notified us of the danger of the approaching
universes. They knew they were nearing our universe when we didn’t even
know there was another universe other than our own. Such very clever
people.”
“Talk to them again,” said Gary. “Give them the information that will
enable them to make a miniature universe… one of Caroline’s
hyperspheres.”
“But,” said the Engineer, “that would do no good.”
“It would,” said Gary, grimly, “if they could use the laws of space to form
a blister on the surface of their universe. If they could go out to the
very edge of their space-time frame and create a little bubble of space – a
bubble that would pinch off, independent of the parent universe and exist
independently in the five-dimension inter-space.”
Gary heard the rasp of Kingsley’s breath in his helmet phones.
“They could cross to our universe,” rumbled the scientist. “They could
navigate through the inter-space with complete immunity.”
Gary nodded inside his helmet. “Exactly,” he said.
“Why, Gary,” whispered Caroline, “what a thought!”
“Boy,” said Herb, “I can hardly wait to see them Hellhounds when we sic
those fellows on them.”
“Maybe,” said Tommy, “they won’t come.”
“I will talk to them,” said the Engineer.
He left the room and they followed him through a mighty corridor to another
room filled with elaborate machinery.
The Engineer strode to a control panel and worked with dials and studs.
Intense blue power surged through long tubes and flashed in dizzy whirls
through coils of glass.
Tubes boomed into sudden brilliance and the deep hum of power surged into
the room.
They could hear the probing fingers of the Engineer’s thoughts, thrusting
out, calling to those other people in another universe. The power of
thought being hurled through the very warp and weave of twisted time and
space.
Then came another probing thought, a string of thoughts that were
impossible to understand, hazed and blurred and all distorted. But
apparently perfectly clear to the Engineer, who stood motionless under the
inverted cone of glass that shimmered with blue fire of power.
Two entities talking to one another and the queer, challenging unknown of
five-dimensional inter-space separating them!
The power ebbed and the blue fire sank to a glimmer in the tubes.
The Engineer turned around and faced the Earthlings.
“They will come,” he said, “but only on one condition.”
Suddenly a shiver went through Gary. Condition! That was something he
hadn’t thought about – that these other things might exact terms, might
want concessions, might seek to wring front another universe some measure
of profit for a service done.
He had always thought of them as benevolent beings, entities like the
Engineers, living a life of service, establishing themselves as guardians
of their universe. But that was it. Would they go out of their way to save
another universe? Or would they fight only for their own? Was there such a
thing as selflessness and universal brotherhood? Or must the universes, in
time to come, be forever at one another’s throats, as in ancient times
nations had torn at one another in savage anger, in more recent times
planets had warred for their selfish interests?
“What condition?” asked Kingsley.
“That we or they find out something concerning the nature of the
inter-space and of the energy which will be generated when the universes
rub,” said the Engineer. “They are willing to come and fight for us, but
they are not willing to deliberately invite disaster to themselves. No one
knows what the inter-space is like. No one knows what laws of science it
may hold. There may be laws that are utterly foreign to both our universes,
laws that would defy our every bit of knowledge. They are afraid that the
budding of a smaller universe from the surface of their own might serve to
generate the energy they know will result when two four-dimensional frames
draw close to one another.”
“Now, wait,” said Gary. “There is something I didn’t consider when I
proposed this thing. It just occurred to me now. When you said the word
‘condition,’ it came to my mind that they might want concessions or
promises. I was wrong, interpreted the thought wrong. But the idea is still
there. We don’t know what these things in the other universe might be. We
don’t know what they look like or what their philosophy is or what they can
do. If we allowed them to come here, we’d be giving them a key to this
universe. Just opening the door for them. They might be all right and they
might not. They might take over the universe.”
“There’s something to that,” said Tommy. “We should have thought of it
before.”
“I do not believe it,” said the Engineer. “I have some reason to believe
they would not be a menace to us.”
“What reason?” rumbled Kingsley.
“They notified us of the danger,” said the Engineer.
“They wanted help,” said Tommy.
“We have been of little help to them,” said the Engineer.
“What difference does it make?” asked Herb. “Unless we can do something
about this energy, we’re going to be goners, anyhow. And that goes for the
other universe as well. If they could save themselves by ruining us, maybe
they’d do it, but it’s a cinch that if we puff out they go along with us.”
“That’s right,” agreed Kingsley. “It would be to their interest to help us
beat off the Hellhounds on the chance that we might find something to save
the universes. They wouldn’t be very likely to turn on us until somebody