had figured out something about this energy.”
“And we can’t control something we don’t understand,” said Caroline. “We
have to find out what that energy is, what it’s like, what form it is apt
to take, something about it, so we will know how to handle it.”
“How much more time have we to find some way to save us from the big
explosion?” asked Gary.
“Very little time,” said the Engineer. “Very little time. We are perilously
close to the danger point. Shortly the two space-time frames of the two
universes will start reacting upon one another, creating the lines of force
and stress that will set up the energy fields in the inter-space.”
“And you say there is another race that can tell us about this
inter-space?”
“One other race I know of,” said the Engineer. “There may be others, but I
know only of this one. And it is hard to reach. Perhaps impossible to
reach.”
“Listen,” said Gary, “it is our only chance. We might as well fail in
reaching them as waiting here for the energy to come and wipe us out. Let a
couple of us try. The others may find something else before it is too late.
Caroline’s hyperspheres might take care of the energy, but we can’t be
sure. And we have to be sure. The universe depends upon us being sure. We
can’t just shoot in the dark.
We have to know.”
“And if we find out,” said Herb, “those guys over in the other universe can
come over and help us hold the Hellhounds off while we rig up the stuff we
have to have.”
“I’m afraid,” said Kingsley, “we have to take the chance.”
“Chance,” said the Engineer. “It’s a whole lot more than chance. The place
I have in mind may not even exist.”
“May not even exist?” asked Caroline and there was an edge of terror in her
words.
“It is far away,” said the Engineer. “Not far in space – perhaps even close
to us in space. But far away in time.”
“In time?” asked Tommy. “Some great civilization of the past?”
“No,” said the Engineer. “A civilization of the future. A civilization
which may never exist. One that may never come to be.”
“How do you know about it, then?” flared Gary.
“I followed its world line,” said the Engineer. “And yet not its actual
world line, but the world line that was to come. I traced it into the realm
of probability. I followed it ahead in time, saw it as it is not yet, as it
may never be. I saw the shadow of its probability.”
Gary’s head reeled. What talk was this? Following of probable world lines.
Tracing the course of an empire before it had occurred! Seeing a place that
might not ever exist. Talking of sending someone to a place that might
never be!
But Caroline was talking now, her cool voice smooth and calm, but with a
trace of excitement tinging the tenor of her words.
“You mean you used a geodesic tracer to follow the world line into
probability. That you established the fact that in some future time a
certain world may exist under such conditions as you saw. That barring
unforeseen circumstances it will exist as you saw it, but that you cannot
be certain it ever will exist, for the world line you traced could not take
into account that factor of accident which might destroy the world or
divert it from the path you charted, the path that it logically would have
to take.”
“That is correct,” said the Engineer. “Except for one thing. And that is
that the world will exist as I saw it in some measure. For all
probabilities must exist to some extent. But its existence might be so
tenuous that we could never reach it… that for us, in hard, solid fact,
it would have no real existence. In other words, we could not set foot upon
it. For every real thing there are infinite probabilities, all existing,
drawing some shadow of existence from the mere fact that they are probable
or have been probable or will be probable. The stress and condition of
circumstance selects one of these probabilities, makes it an actuality. But
the others have an existence, just the same. An existence, perhaps, that we
could not perceive.”
“But you did see this shadow of probability?” rumbled Kingsley.
“Yes,” said the Engineer, “I saw it very plainly. So plainly that I am
tempted to believe it may be an actuality in time to come. But of that I
cannot be sure. As I said, it may not exist, may never exist – at least to
an extent where we could reach it – where it would have any bearing on our
lives.”
“There is a chance, though, that we could reach it?” asked Gary.
“There is a chance,” said the Engineer.
“Then,” said Herb, impatiently, “what are we waiting for?”
“But,” said Gary, “if the universe is destroyed, if we should fail and the
universe be destroyed, would that probability still be there? Wouldn’t the
fact that you saw it prove that we will find some way to save the
universe?”
“It proves nothing,” said the Engineer. “Even were the universe destroyed,
the probability would still exist, for the world could have been.
Destruction of the universe would be a factor of accident which would
eliminate actuality and force all lines of probability to remain mere
probability.”
“You mean,” breathed Caroline, “that we could go to a world which exists
only as a probable world line and get information there to save the
universe – that even after the universe is destroyed, if we fail and it is
destroyed, the information which might have saved it still could be found,
but too late, of course, to be of any use to us, on that probable world?”
“Yes,” said the Engineer, “but there would be no one to find it then. The
solution would be there, never used, at a time when it would be too late to
use it. It is so hard to explain this thought as it should be explained.”
“Maybe it’s all right,” said Herb, “but I crave action. When do we start
for this place that might not be there when we get where we headed for?”
“I will show you,” said the Engineer.
They followed him through a maze of laboratory rooms until they came to one
which boasted only one piece of equipment, a huge polished bowl set in the
floor, blazing with reflected light from the single lamp that shone in the
ceiling above it.
The Engineer indicated the bowl. “Watch,” he told them.
He walked to a board on the opposite wall and swiftly set up an equation on
a calculating machine. The machine whirred and clicked and chuckled and the
Engineer depressed a series of studs in the control board. The inside of
the bowl clouded and seemed to take on motion, like a gigantic whirlpool of
flowing nothingness. Faster and faster became the impression of motion.
Gary found himself unable to pull his eyes away from the wonder of the bowl
– as if the very motion were hypnotic.
Then the swirl of motion began to take form, misty, tenuous form, as if
they were viewing a strange solar system from a vast distance. The solar
system faded from view as the vision in the bowl narrowed down to one
planet. Other planets flowed out of the picture and the one grew larger and
larger, a ball swinging slowly in space.
Then it filled all the bowl and Gary could see seas and cities and
mountains and vast deserts. But the mountains were not high, more like
weathered hills than mountains, and the seas were shallow. Deserts covered
most of the spinning globe and the cities were in ruins.
There was something tantalizingly familiar about that spinning ball,
something that struck a chord of memory, something about the solar system –
as if he had seen it once before.
And then it struck him like an open hand across his mouth.
“The Earth!” he cried. “That is the Earth!”
“Yes,” said the Engineer, “that is your planet, but you see it as it will
be many millions of years from now. It is an old, old planet.”
“Or as it may never be,” whispered Caroline.
“You are right,” said the Engineer. “Or as it may never be.”
Chapter Eleven
TOMMY EVANS’ ship rested on one of the lower roofs of the city, just
outside the laboratories level. In a few minutes now it would be lifted and
hurled through a warp of space and time that should place it upon the Earth
they had seen in the swirling bowl… an Earth that was no more than a
probability… an Earth that wouldn’t exist for millions of years if it
ever existed.
“Take good care of that ship,” Tommy told Gary. Gary slapped him on the