of factual evidence. We still aren’t sure what it’s all about, although we
know a great deal more now than we did then.
“The facts we did gather, you see, indicated that whatever we were
receiving must be definite signals, must originate within some sort of
intelligence. Some intelligence, you see, that would know just when and
where to send them. But there was the problem of distance. Just suppose for
a moment that they were coming from the Great Nebula. It takes light almost
a billion years to reach us from the Nebula. While it is very probable that
the speed of light can be far exceeded, there is little reason to believe
at present than anything could be so much faster than light that signaling
could be practical across such enormous space. Unless, of course, the
matter of time were mixed up a little, and when you get into that you have
a problem that takes more than just a master mind. There was just one thing
that would seem a probable answer… that if the signals were being sent
from many light years distant, they were being routed through something
other than all that space. Perhaps through another continuum of space-time,
through what you might call, for the want of a better term, the fourth
dimension.”
“Doctor,” said Herb, “you got me all balled up.”
Dr. Kingsley’s chuckle rumbled through the room.
“It had us that way, too,” he said. “And then we figured maybe we were
getting pure thought. Thought telepathed across the light years of
unimaginable space. Just what the speed of thought would be no one could
even guess. It might be instantaneous… it might be no faster than the
speed of light… or any speed in between the two. But we do know one
thing: that the signals we are receiving are the projection of thought.
Whether they come straigh through space or whether they travel through some
shortcut, through some manipulation of space-time frames, do not know and I
probably will never know.
“It took us months to build that machine you saw in the other room.
Briefly, it picks up the signals, translates them from the pure energy of
thought into actual thought, into symbols our mind can read. We also
developed a method of sending our own thoughts back, of communicating with
whatever or whoever it is that is trying to talk with Pluto. So far we
haven’t been successful in getting an entire message across. However,
apparently we have succeeded in advising whoever is sending out the
messages that we are trying to answer, for recently the messages have
changed, have a note of desperation, frantic command, almost a pleading
quality.”
He brushed his coat sleeve across his brow.
“It’s all so confusing,” he confessed.
“But,” asked Herb, “why would anyone send messages to Pluto? Until men came
here, there was no life on the planet. Just a barren planet, without any
atmosphere, too cold for anything to live. The tail end of creation.”
Kingsley stared solemnly at Herb.
“Young man,” he said, “we must never take anything for granted. How are we
to say there never was life or intelligence on Pluto? How do we know that a
great civilization might not have risen and flourished here aeons ago? How
do we know that an expeditionary force from some far-distant star might not
have come here and colonized this outer planet many years ago?”
“It don’t sound reasonable,” said Herb.
Kingsley gestured impatiently.
“Neither do these signals sound reasonable,” he rumbled. “But there they
are. I’ve thought about the things you mention. I am damned with an
imagination, something no scientist should have. A scientist should just
plug along, applying this bit of knowledge to that bit of knowledge to
arrive at something new. He should leave the imagination to the
philosophers. But I’m not that way. I try to imagine what might have
happened or what is going to happen. I’ve imagined a mother planet groping
out across all space, trying to get in touch with some long-lost colony
here on Pluto. I’ve imagined someone trying to re-establish communication
with the people who lived here millions of years ago. But it doesn’t get me
anywhere.”
Gary filled and lit his pipe, frowning down at the glowing tobacco. Voices
in space again. Voices talking across the void. Saying things to rack the
human soul.
“Doctor,” he said, “you aren’t the only one who has heard thought from
outer space.”
Kingsley swung on him, almost belligerently. “Who else?” he demanded.
“Miss Martin,” said Gary quietly, puffing at his pipe. “You haven’t heard
Miss Martin’s story yet. I have a hunch that she can help you out.”
“How’s that?” rumbled the scientist.
“Well, you see,” said Gary, softly, “she’s just passed through a thousand
years of mind training. She’s thought without ceasing for almost ten
centuries.”
Kingsley’s face drooped in amazement.
“That’s impossible,” he said.
Gary shook his head. “Not impossible at all. Not with suspended animation.”
Kingsley opened his mouth to object again, but Gary hurried on. “Doctor,”
he asked, “do you remember the historical account of the Caroline Martin
who refused to give an invention to the military board during the Jovian
war?”
“Why, yes,” said Kingsley. “Scientists have speculated for many years on
just what it was she found -”
He started out of his chair.
“Caroline Martin!” he shouted. He looked at the girl.
“Your name is Caroline Martin, too,” he whispered huskily.
Gary nodded. “Doctor, this is the woman who refused to give up that secret
a thousand years ago.”
Chapter Five
DR. KINGSLEY glanced at his watch.
“It’s almost time for the signals to begin,” he said. “In another few
minutes we will be swinging around to face the Great Nebula. If you looked
out you would see it over the horizon now.”
Caroline Martin sat in the chair before the thought machine, the domed
helmet settled on her head. All eyes in the room were glued on the tiny
light atop the mechanism. When the signals started coming that light would
blink its bright-red eye.
“Lord, it’s uncanny,” whispered Tommy Evans. He brushed at his face with
his hand.
Gary watched the girl. Sitting there so straight, like a queen with a crown
upon her head. Sitting there, waiting, waiting to hear something that spoke
across a gulf that took light many years to span.
Brain sharpened by a thousand years of thought, a woman who was schooled in
hard and simple logic. She had thought of many things out in the shell, she
said, had set up problems and had worked them out. What were those problems
she had thought about? What were the mysteries she had solved? She was a
young, rather sweet-faced kid, who ought to like a good game of tennis, or
a dance and she’d thought a thousand years.
Then the light began to blink and Gary saw Caroline lean forward, heard the
breath catch sharply in her throat. The pencil she had poised above the pad
dropped from her fingers and fell onto the floor.
Heavy silence engulfed the room, broken only by the whistling of the breath
in Kingsley’s nostrils. He whispered to Gary: “She understands! She
understands…”
Gary gestured him to silence.
The red light blinked out and Caroline swung around slowly in the chair.
Her eyes were wide and for a moment she seemed unable to give voice to the
words she sought.
Then she spoke. “They think they are contacting someone else,” she said.
“Some great civilization that must have lived here at one time. The
messages come from far away. From even farther than the Great Nebula. The
Nebula just happens to be in the same direction. They are puzzled that we
do not answer. They know someone has been trying to answer. They’re trying
to help us to get through. They talked in scientific terms I could not
understand. Something to do with the warping of space and time, but
involving principles that are entirely new. They want something and they
are impatient. It seems there is a great danger someplace. They think that
we can help.”
“Great danger to whom?” asked Kingsley.
“I couldn’t understand,” said Caroline.
“Can you talk back to them?” asked Gary. “Do you think you could make them
understand?”
“I’ll try,” she said.
“All you have to do is think,” Kingsley told her. “Think clearly and
forcefully. Concentrate all that you can, as if you were trying to push the
thought away from you. The helmet picks up the impulses and routes them
through the thought projector.”
Her slim fingers reached out and turned a dial. Tubes came to life and
burned into a blue intensity of light. A soaring hum of power filled the
tiny room.
The hum became a steady drone and the tubes were filled with a light that
hurt one’s eyes.
“She’s talking to them now,” thought Gary. “She is talking to them.”