the universe, their ship tossed about by the shifting, twisting
co-ordinates of force.
Out there somewhere, very close, was the mysterious inter-space. Close,
too, invisible in all its immensity, was another universe. An old and
tottering universe from which its inhabitants had fled, a dying universe
that had been sentenced to death so that a younger universe might live.
In just a few minutes now the space between the universes would begin to
fill with a charge of that terrible timeless, formless energy. Slowly it
would begin seeping into the two universes, slowly at first and then faster
and faster, increasing their mass, dooming them to almost instant
destruction.
But before that could happen, the disintegrator ray, the most terrible form
of energy known to the Engineers, would blast out into that field of latent
energy, would sweep outward toward that other approaching universe.
Instantly the field of energy would be turned into the terrific power of
the disintegrator ray, but millions of times more powerful than the ray
itself… a blinding sheet of energy that would stop at nothing, that would
smash the very mold of time and space, would destroy matter and cancel
other energy. And this sheet of energy would smash its way into the other
universe.
And when that happened, the energy field, draining all its energy into the
disintegrator blast, would be diverted from the younger universe, would
turn in full force upon the one to be destroyed.
Staggering under the onrush of such a fierce storm of energy, the old
universe would start contracting. Its mass would build up, faster and
faster, as the fifth-dimensional energy, riding on the beams of the
disintegrator guns, hurled itself into its space-time frame.
Gary wiped his brow with the back of his hand.
That was the way Caroline and the Engineer had figured it out. He hoped
that it would work. And yet it seemed impossible that a tiny ship, two tiny
guns manned by the puny members of the human race, could utterly annihilate
a universe, an unimaginably massive space-time matrix.
Yet he had seen the beam of a tiny flashlight, crystalizing the energy of
the eternal dimension, blast out of existence, in the twinkling of an eye,
a mighty fleet of warships protected by heavy screens, armored against
vicious bombs, impregnable to anything… to anything except the flashlight
in the hands of a wisp of a girl.
Remembering that, it was easier to believe that the disintegrators,
crystalizing a much vaster field of energy, might accomplish the
destruction of a universe. For it wasn’t the guns themselves that would do
the job, but the direction of all the energy into the other universe,
energy rising on the million-mile front set up by the fanning guns.
“The field is building up,” said Caroline. “Be ready.” Gary grinned at her.
“We’ll fire when we see the whites of their eyes,” he said.
He racked his brain for the origin of that sentence. Something out of
history. Something out of the dim old legends of the past. A folk tale of
some mighty battle of the ancient days.
He shrugged his shoulders. The story, whatever it might be, probably wasn’t
true, anyhow. So few of the ancient legends were. Just another story to be
told of a black night in the chimney corner when the wind howled around the
eaves and the rain dripped on the roof.
His eyes went to the port again, stared out into the misty blue, the blue
that seemed to throb with vibrant life.
They had to wait. Wait until the energy had built up to a point where it
would be effective. But not too long. For if they waited too long, it might
pour into their own universe and wipe them out.
“Get ready,” thundered Kingsley, and Gary’s hand went out to the switch
that would loosen the blast of the disintegrator. His fingers gripped the
switch tightly, tensed, ready for action.
“Give it to ’em,” Kingsley roared, and Gary snapped the switch.
With both hands he swung the swivel back and forth, back and forth. Beside
him, he knew, Herb was doing the same.
Outside the port blossomed a maelstrom of fiery light, a blinding, vicious
flare of light that seemed to leap and writhe and then become a solid sheet
of flame. A solid sheet of flame that drove on and on, leaping outward,
bringing doom to a worn-out universe.
It was over in just a few seconds… a few seconds during which an inferno
of energy was turned loose to rage between two universes.
Then the misty blue filled the port again and the ship was bucking, tossed
about like a chip in heavy seas, twisted and dashed about by the broken
lines of force that still heaved and quivered under the backlash of the
titanic forces which a moment before bad filled the inter-space.
Gary turned in his seat, saw that Caroline and the Engineer were bent over
the detector dial, watching it intently.
Kingsley, looking over the Engineer’s shoulder, was muttering: “No sign. No
sign of energy.”
That meant, then, that the other universe was already contracting, was
rushing backward to a new beginning… no longer a menace.
Gary patted the gun. It and Man’s ingenuity had turned the trick. Mere Man
had destroyed one universe, but had saved another. It seemed too utterly
fantastic to be true.
He looked around the control room. Tommy at the controls. Herb at the
second gun. The other three watching the energy detector. Everything was
familiar. Nothing was any different than it was before. All commonplace and
ordinary.
And yet, for the first time, tiny beings spawned within the universe had
taken firm hold of the universe’s destiny. Henceforward Man and his little
compatriots throughout the vast gulfs of space would no longer be mere
pawns in the grim tide of cosmic forces. Henceforward life would rule these
forces, bend them to its will, put them to work, change them, shift them
about.
Life was an accident. There was little doubt of that. Something that wasn’t
exactly planned. Something that had crept in, like a malignant disease in
the ordered mechanism of the universe. The universe was hostile to life.
The depths of space were too cold for life, most of the condensed matter
too hot for life, space was traversed by radiations inimical to life. But
life was triumphant. In the end, the universe would not destroy it… it
would rule the universe.
His mind went back to the day Herb had sighted that tiny flash of reflected
light in the telescopic screen, back to the finding of the girl in the
space shell. And before him seemed to unreel the chain of events that had
led up to this moment. If Caroline Martin had not been condemned to space,
if she had not known the secret of suspended animation, if that suspended
animation had not failed to suspend thought, if Herb had not seen the flash
that revealed the presence of the shell, if he, himself, had been unable to
revive the girl, if Kingsley had not been curious about why cosmic rays
should form a definite pattern…
And in that chain of happenings he seemed to see the hand of something
greater than just happenstance. What was it the old man back on Old Earth
had said? Something about a great dreamer creating stages and peopling them
with actors.
“No energy indications,” said the Engineer. “We have definitely ended the
menace. The other universe has contracted beyond the danger point. We are
saved. I am so very happy.”
He faced them. “And so very grateful, too,” he said. “Forget it,” said
Herb. “It was our neck as well as yours.”
Chapter Eighteen
HERB polished the last chicken bone methodically and sighed. “That’s the
best meal I ever ate,” he said.
They sat at the table in the apartment the Engineers had arranged for them.
It had escaped the general destruction of the Hellhound attack, although
the tower above it had been obliterated by a hydrogen bomb.
Gary filled his wineglass again and leaned back in his chair.
“I guess our job is done here,” he said. “Maybe we’ll be going home in just
a little while.”
“Home?” asked Caroline. “You mean the Earth?”
Gary nodded.
“I have almost forgotten the Earth,” she said. “It has been so long since I
have seen the Earth. I suppose it has changed a great deal since I saw it
last.”
“Perhaps it has,” Gary told her, “although there are some things that never
change. The smell of fresh-plowed fields and the scent of hayfields at
harvest time and the beauty of trees against the skyline at evening.”
“Just a poet,” said Herb. “Just a blasted poet.”
“Maybe there will be things I won’t recognize,” said Caroline. “Things that
will be so different.”
“I’ll show you the Earth,” said Gary. “I’ll set you straight on
everything.”
“What bothers me,” declared Kingsley, “are those people from the other