Another story novelized from the pages of Astounding Stories, telling of the experiments of an alien race who have migrated to the solar system to domicile themselves on Mars. Their experiments result in the death of their leader and lead to the Martians being overwhelmed by an invasion of beings from the microcosm...and, ultimately, to the creation of life on Earth!
Release date:
March 31, 2015
Publisher:
Gateway
Print pages:
84
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Nalofix, as its inhabitants had named it, was probably the perfect planet—one minute speck in the vast intergalaxial sea in the neighbourhood of Great Andromeda. It existed as one of a retinue of nine worlds revolving around a gigantic central sun. It had youth, beauty, eternal gentle warmth, and carried upon its fair surface a race of some fifty thousand beings.
From our standard the “beings” would have been considered revolting. They stood eight feet in height and were covered in scales; but despite this hideous physical vestment the brains of the Nalofixians were superbly developed. They were lords of their world and, indeed, of their entire System. Long since they had subjected the lesser intelligences of the neighbouring planets and were content now to pursue their scientific achievements until the end of Time. Nor was this impossible of realisation for Nalofix was a world which prevented age ever appearing on a living body. To be an inhabitant of Nalofix was also to be eternal.
Kasmus, ruler of the planet by virtue of being the cleverest scientist, had spent his ageless life trying to discover just why Nalofix set time at zero—and, so far, had not been very successful.
“Not that it really signifies,” he commented one day, whilst in the midst of his everlasting experiments. “Perhaps it is foolish to question where a gift comes from—it is better to accept it far what it is.”
“That is the way of the unlearned, Master. Science always questions. It cannot progress otherwise.”
Kasmus was silent for a moment. He and Selda, his chief advisor, were in the main experimental laboratory of the planet, a mighty building set on a high eminence apart from the city. From here there was a commanding view of the peaceful skies and equally peaceful landscapes.
“Just the same,” Kasmus said presently, his voice quiet, “there must be a reason, and I shall never rest until I have found it.”
Selda shrugged and returned to work on the charts upon which he was engaged. Kasmus did not join him, instead he strolled out onto the balcony of the laboratory and stood in silence in the evening calm. Reptilian though he was in outline there was a certain majesty in his bearing. His immense intelligence somehow set at naught his incredible physique.
Selda glanced at him once with his huge faceted eyes, then his claw-like hands continued to press the buttons on the apparatus which was making mathematical calculations. Selda was not very conscious of what he was doing. Everything was so automatic on Nalofix. One machine did the work of a hundred men. None had any real need to think—unless they wanted to probe, as Kasmus did, into the infinite mysteries.
Kasmus surveyed the darkening sky and then came back into the great, brightly-lit chamber, his shimmering garments making the faintest swishing sound as he moved. “No other planet save this one has the gift of eternal life, Selda,” he mused. “Our neighbour worlds, which we have subjected, die. Already some of them are showing signs of senility. But not Nalofix. It, and we, never age.”
“Age is purely the breakdown of matter, Master,” Selda commented, shrugging. “For some reason the atomic aggregates of this planet do not break down, nor do the cells of the beings upon it.”
“I am not sure if eternal life is a good thing.” Kasmus wandered across to the telescopic reflector, his claw delicately moving the controlling switches. “It is a freak of Nature, and it has always been my experience that Nature has no place for freaks. She suddenly restores the balance when it is least expected.”
“Meaning?” Selda looked up sharply.
“I don’t quite know, my friend. That is why I am trying to discover what makes this planet—and us—unique. If I could only do so I’d feel better prepared to face disaster should it ever come upon us.”
“Nothing is impossible — you should be scientist enough to realise that.” The Master hesitated for a moment, apparently trying to settle something in his mind—then he came forward again, summoning a robot as he did so. Immediately the mechanical servant obeyed, whisked as gently as a leaf on the air by the vibrations of its inventor’s mind.
“Fetch me File 58/J/B,” Kasmus ordered, and the robot swung through an arc and drifted across the wilderness to where the scientific records were kept.
“What are you planning, Master?” Selda asked drily. “Some kind of a surprise for me?”
“At least I think I may shake you out of your habitual acceptance of everything around us.”
Selda frowned, and waited, the ruler by his side. In a moment or two the robot came drifting back, the file in its pincer-hand. Kasmus took it and opened it on the charting desk. Selda found himself looking upon photographic plates which appeared to be concentric rings of light, dim at the outermost edge and intensely sharp at the centre.
“Do you know what this is?” Kasmus asked, and there was something close to cynical amusement in his faceted eyes.
“How should I, Master? Your science is infinitely above mine.”
Kasmus did not say it, but he inwardly wished Selda were not such a sycophant. There was something very close to subservience in the way he always admitted he was of inferior intelligence.
“This,” Kasmus said, “represents the only possible reason for Nalofix being ageless. It is the only photographic plate in existence which actually shows Time-circles. In other words, I have succeeded in photographing the abstract!”
“How?”
“That, my friend, I preserve unto myself. Space and time are interwoven—on that we are agreed. We can photograph space and the objects contained therein, but up to now photography of Time has been considered impossible because the eye cannot see time any more than it can see the wind. But a mathematical lens can, and has. Here you see Time itself trapped on a photographic plate. You will note there are nine circles. Each represents the time-circle in which the nine planets of this system are moving.”
“You photographed this from outer space, I assume?”
“Quite so—looking down on Nalofix from a distance of twenty million miles. We, of Nalofix, are nearest the luminary and occupy the smallest and brightest Time-circle. Now look at it closely. Do you not detect something peculiar about it compared to the others?”
It was a considerable time before Selda finally realised what the Master meant, then he looked up in surprise. “Why yes, I believe I do! The other eight circles are not true circles. Each one has a break in it—almost infinitesimal, but it is there. But the one in which Nalofix is travelling has no break whatever. It is a perfect circle.”
“Exactly. You will also notice in the case of the other circles that at one end of the break they are bright, and at the other end dull and indeterminate. That represents Time from birth to death—a slow progress to extinction and, when the break is reached, Time has run its course and there can only be dissolution. The other planets have followed their Time-circles and aged in consequence as they near the final break; but not in our case. We pursue our circle eternally and never come to a gap. Therefore Time remains changeless for us and our world.”
“Which explains why we are eternal! I understood you had not solved the riddle, Master.”
“I do not claim that I have even now. I have photographed the Time-circles, certainly, which can be considered an achievement, but I have not determined of what these Time-circles are composed. They may be an actual material substance or, as is more likely, they may be merely mathematical configurations, visible only to a lens which is in itself a creation of mathematics. Only when I know the composition of these Time-circles will I know what Time itself really is.”
There was silence for a moment, then Kasmus’ talons closed the file resolutely.
“For the moment, my friend, enough of that. It is a task to which I alone am dedicated, and I will solve it if it takes all eternity.”
“You spoke of a disaster which might come upon us,” Selda remarked. “Am I permitted to ask what you meant?”
“Certainly. I mean that in probing into this ultimate mystery of Time I may probe too far and unlock something inherent in Time which may destroy us—for if Time ceased to exist we automatically ceased to be. Just as, infinitely long ago, Dakos nearly brought about the destruction of our planet when he probed too far into the atom and found atomic-force. Every secret of Nature is guarded by unimaginable power, and it is on the lap of the gods whether or not that power is released normally or becomes a destroyer.”
Selda hesitated upon another question, then thought better of it as there came a faint humming sound from the immensity of the distant city.
“It is the rest-period, Master,” he remarked. “Have I your permission to withdraw?”
“Of course. We will continue tomorrow.”
Selda bowed his way out into the mighty corridor and, a few minutes later, was leaving the building. His journey to the city in the calm valley below could have been covered in a few seconds in an atom-car, but as a rule he walked. He always felt he could think better when strolling along in the calmness—and this evening was no exception.
He was half-way along the broad, shining metal roadway when he was met by a figure coming in the opposite di. . .
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