He spun on the Engineer. “How much longer?” he asked. “How much longer have
we?”
“Very little time,” said the Engineer. “Very little. I fear that energy may
flood in upon us at any time.”
“That energy,” said Kingsley, a fanatical flame in his eyes. “Think of what
could be done with it. We could set up a huge framework of
fifth-dimensional space, use it as an absorber, a battery. We could send
energy almost anywhere throughout the universe. A central universal power
plant.”
“First,” declared Tommy, “you’d have to control it, be able to direct it in
a tight beam.”
“First,” insisted Caroline, “we have to do something about this other
universe.”
“Wait a second,” said Gary. “We’ve forgotten something. We asked those
people in the other universe to come over and help us, but we don’t need
them now.”
He looked at the Engineer. “Have you heard from them?” he asked.
“Yes,” said the Engineer. “I have heard from them. They still want to
come.”
“They still want to come?” Astonishment rang in Gary’s voice. “Why should
they want to come?”
“They want to emigrate to our universe,” said the Engineer. “And I have
agreed to allow them to do so.”
“You have agreed?” rumbled Kingsley. “And since when has this universe been
in the market for immigrants? We don’t know what kind of people they are.
They might be dangerous. They may want to destroy the present life within
the universe.”
“There is plenty of room for them,” said the Engineer, and if possible, his
voice seemed colder and more impersonal than ever. “There is room to spare.
We have over fifty billion galaxies – and more than fifty billion stars in
each galaxy. Only one out of every ten thousand of the stars has a solar
system, that is true, of course… but only one out of every hundred solar
systems has life. And if we need more solar systems we can manufacture
them. With the power of the dimension of eternity at our command, we can
move stars, we can hurl them together to make solar systems. With this
power we can reshape the universe, mold it to our needs.”
The idea impacted with stunning force on Gary’s brain. They could reshape
the universe! Working with the raw materials at hand, with the almost
infinite power at their command, they could alter the course of stars,
could realign the galaxies, could manufacture planets, set up a well
coordinated plan to offset entropy, the tendency to run down, the tendency
to go amuck. His mind groped futilely at the ideas, pawing them over and
over, but back of it all was a curtain of wonderment and awe. And through
his brain sang a subtle warning… a persistent little warning that
hammered at his thoughts. Mankind itself wasn’t ready for such power,
couldn’t use it intelligently, perhaps would destroy the universe with it.
Was there any other entity in the universe qualified to use it? Would it be
wise to place such power in the hands of any entity?
“But why,” Caroline was asking, “do they want to come?”
“Because,” said the Engineer, “we are going to destroy their universe to
save ours.”
It was as if a bombshell had been dropped among them. Silence clapped down.
Gary felt Caroline’s hand creep into his. He held it tight.
“But why destroy their universe?” shouted Tommy. “We have the means at hand
to save them both. All we have to do is create more of those
five-dimensional screens to absorb the energy.”
“No,” said the Engineer, “we cannot do it. Given time, we could. But there
is so little time, not nearly enough. The energy would overwhelm us once it
came. It would take so many screens and we have so little time.”
His thoughts cut off and Gary heard the shuffle of Kingsley’s feet.
“These other beings,” the Engineer went on, “know that their universe has
very little longer to exist in any event. It has almost reached the end of
its time. It soon will die the heat death. Throughout its space, matter and
energy are being swiftly distributed. Soon the day will arrive when it will
be equally distributed, when the heat, the energy, the mass throughout the
universe will be spread so thin that it scarcely exists.”
Gary sucked in his breath. “Like a watch running down,” he said.
“You’re right,” said Kingsley. “Like a watch that has run down. That is
what will happen to our universe in time.”
“Not,” said Gary, “if we have the energy from interspace at our command.”
“Already,” said the Engineer, “only one corner of this other universe is
still suitable for life… the area that is facing us. Into that corner all
life has been driven and now it has been, or is being, assembled to
transfer itself to our universe.”
“But,” asked Herb, “just how are they going to get here?”
“They will use a time warp,” said the Engineer. “They will bud out from
their universe, but in doing so they will distort the time factor in the
walls of their hypersphere – a distortion that will send them ahead in
time, will push their little universe closer to us than to their universe.
Our gravity will grasp their hypersphere and draw it in.”
“But that,” protested Gary, “will produce more energy. Their little
universe will be destroyed.”
“No,” declared the Engineer, “because they will merge their space-time
continuum with the continuum of our universe as soon as the two come
together. They will immediately become a part of our universe.”
“You told them how to create a hypersphere?” asked Herb.
“I did,” said the Engineer. “And it will save the people of that other
universe. They had tried many things, had worked out theories and new
branches of mathematics in their efforts to escape. They discovered many
things that we do not know, but they never thought of budding out from
their universe. They apparently are a mechanistic people, a people very
much like we Engineers. They seem to have lost that vital spark of
imagination with which your people are so well supplied.”
“My Lord,” said Gary, “think of it! Imagination saving the people of
another universe. The imagination of a little third-rate race that hasn’t
even started really using its imagination yet.”
“You are right,” declared the Engineer, “and in the aeons to come that
imagination will make your race the masters of the entire universe.”
“Prophesy,” said Gary.
“I know,” said the Engineer.
“There’s just one thing,” said Herb. “How is that other universe going to
be destroyed?”
“We are going to destroy it,” said the Engineer, “in exactly the same way
we destroyed the Hellhounds.”
Chapter Seventeen
Tommy sat in the pilot’s seat and urged the ship slowly forward, using
rocket blast after rocket blast to keep it on its course.
“You have to fight to stand still here,” he gritted between his teeth. “A
man can’t tell just where he is. There doesn’t seem to be any direction,
nothing to orient oneself.”
“Of course not,” rumbled Kingsley. “We’re in a sort of place no other man
has ever been. We’re right out in the area where space and time are
breaking down, where lines of force are all distorted, where everything is
jumbled and broken up.”
“The edge of the universe,” said Caroline.
Gary stared out through the vision plate. There was nothing to see, nothing
but a deep blue void that queerly seemed alive with a deep intensity of
life.
He turned from the panel and asked the Engineer:
“Any signs of energy yet?”
“Faint signs,” said the Engineer, bending lower to peer at the dial set in
a detector instrument. “Very faint signs. The other universe is almost upon
us now and the lines of force are just beginning to make themselves felt.”
“How much longer will it take?” asked Kingsley.
“I cannot tell,” said the Engineer. “We know very little about the laws out
here. It may be a very short while or it may be some time as yet.”
“Well,” said Herb, “the fireworks can start any time now. The folks from
the other universe have crossed safely and there’s no reason for the other
universe to exist. We can blast it any time we want to.”
“Gary,” said Kingsley, “you and Herb better get over to those guns. We may
want action fast.”
Gary nodded and walked to the controls of a disintegrator gun. He slid into
the seat back of the controls and reached out a hand to grasp the swivel
butt. He swung it back and forth, knew that outside the ship the grim
muzzle of the weapon was swinging in a wide arc.
Through the tiny port in front of him he could see the blue intensity of
the void in which they moved.
Out here time and space were thinning down and breaking up. Like a boat
riding on the surface of a heaving sea, they were riding the very rim of