Islands of Space by Jr. John W. Campbell

  VIII

  Forty hours later, Arcot was running the ship smoothly at top speed onceagain. The four men had gone to bed after more than thirty hours of hardwork. That, coupled with the exhaustion of working under four gravities,as they had while the ship was going through the storm, was enough tomake them sleep soundly.

  Arcot had awakened before the others and had turned on the drive afterresetting their course.

  After that was done, there was little to do, and time began to hangheavily on Arcot's hands. He decided to make a thorough inspection ofthe hull when the others awoke. The terrific strain might have openedcracks in the lux metal hull that would not be detectable from theinside because the inner wall was separated from the outer envelope.

  Accordingly, he got out the spacesuits, making sure the oxygen tankswere full and all was ready. Then he went into the library, got out somebooks, and set about some calculations he had in mind.

  When Morey woke, some hours later, he found Arcot still at work on hiscalculations.

  "Hey!" he said, swinging himself into the chair beside Arcot, "I thoughtyou'd be on the lookout for more cosmic rays!"

  "Curious delusion, wasn't it?" asked Arcot blandly. "As a matter offact, I've been busy doing some figuring. I think our chance of meetinganother such region is about one in a million million million million.Considering those chances, I don't think we need to worry. I don't seehow we ever met _one_--but the chances of hitting one are better thanhitting two."

  Just then Fuller stuck his head in the door.

  "Oh," he said, "so you're at it already? Well, I wonder if one of youcould tell me just what it was we hit? I've been so busy I haven't had achance to think."

  "Don't take the chance now, then," grinned Morey. "You might strain yourbrain."

  "_Please_!" Fuller pleaded, wincing. "Not before breakfast. Just explainwhat that storm was."

  "We simply came to a region in space where cosmic rays are created,"explained Arcot.

  Fuller frowned. "But there's nothing out here to generate cosmic rays!"

  Arcot nodded. "True. I think I know their real source, but I believeI'll merely say they are created here. I want to do more work on this.My idea for an energy source greater than any other in the universe hasbeen confirmed.

  "At any rate, they are created in that space, a perfect vacuum, and thespace there is distorted terrifically by the titanic forces at work. Itis bent and twisted far out of the normal, even curvature, and it wasthat bumpy spot in space that threw us about so.

  "When we first entered, using the space-strain drive, the space aroundthe ship, distorted as it was, conflicted with the region of the cosmicray generation and the ship lost out. The curvature of space that theship caused was sometimes reinforced and sometimes cancelled out by thetwisted space around it, and the tremendous surges of current back andforth from the main power coil to the storage coils caused the electricdischarges that kept burning through the air. I notice we all got a fewburns from that. The field was caused by the terrific surges of current,and that magnetic field caused the walls of the ship to heat up due tothe generation of electric current in the walls."

  Fuller looked around at the walls of the ship. "Well, the _AncientMariner_ sure took a beating."

  "As a matter of fact, I was worried about that," said Arcot. "Strong asthat hull is, it might easily have been strained in that field ofterrific force. If it happened to hit two 'space waves' at once, itmight have given it an acceleration in two different directions at once,which would strain the walls with a force amounting to thousands oftons. I laid out the suits up front, and I think we might reasonably getout there and take a look at the old boat. When Wade gets up--well,well--speak of the devil! My, doesn't he look energetic?"

  Wade's huge body was floating in through the library door. He wasyawning sleepily and rubbing his eyes. It was evident he had not yetwashed, and his growing beard, which was heavy and black on his cheeks,testified to his need for a shave. The others had shaved before cominginto the library.

  "Wade," said Arcot, "we're going outside, and we have to have someone inhere to operate the airlock. Suppose you get to work on the hirsuteadornment; there's an atomic hydrogen cutting torch down in the lab youcan use, if you wish. The rest of us are going outside." Then Arcot'svoice became serious. "By the way, don't try any little jokes likestarting off with a little acceleration. I don't think you would--you'vegot good sense--but I like to make certain. If you did, we'd be leftbehind, and you'd never find us in the vast immensity of intergalacticspace."

  It wasn't a pleasant idea to contemplate. Each of the suits had a radiofor communication with each other and with the ship, but they would onlycarry a few hundred miles. A mere step in space!

  Wade shook his head, grinning. "I have no desire to be left all bymyself on this ship, thank you. You don't need to worry."

  A few minutes later, Arcot, Morey, and Fuller stepped out of the airlockand set to work, using power flashlights to examine the outer hull forany signs of possible strain.

  The flashlights, equipped as they were with storage coils for power,were actually powerful searchlights, but in the airlessness of space,the rays were absolutely invisible. They could only be seen when theyhit the relux inner wall at such an angle that they were reflecteddirectly into the observer's eyes. The lux metal wall, beingtransparent, was naturally invisible, and the smooth relux, reflectingone hundred percent of the incident light, did not become illuminated,for illumination is the result of the scattering of light.

  It was necessary to look closely and pass the beams over every squareinch of the surface. However, a crack would be rough, and hence wouldscatter light and be even more readily visible than otherwise.

  To their great relief, after an hour and a half of careful inspection,none of them had found any signs of a crack, and they went back into theship to resume the voyage.

  Again they hurled through space, the twin ghost ships following themclosely. Hour after hour the ship went on. Now they had something elseto do. They were at work calculating some problems that Arcot hadsuggested in connection with the velocities of motion that had beenobserved in the stars at the edge of the island universe they wereapproaching. Since these stars revolved about the mass of the entiregalaxy, it was possible to calculate the mass of the entire universe byaveraging the values from several stars. Their results were not exact,but they were reliable enough. They found the universe to have a mass oftwo hundred and fifty million suns, only a little less than the homeGalaxy. It was an average-sized nebula.

  Still the hours dragged as they came gradually nearer theirgoal--gradually, despite their speed of twenty-four light years persecond!

  At the end of the second day after their trouble with the cosmic rayfield, they stopped for observation. They were now so near the IslandUniverse that the stars spread out in a huge disc ahead of them.

  "About three hundred thousand light years distant, I should guess," saidMorey.

  "We know our velocity fairly accurately," said Wade. "Why can't wecalculate the distance between two of these stars and then go on in?"

  "Good idea," agreed Arcot. "Take the angle, will you, Morey? I'll swingthe ship."

  After taking their measurements, they advanced for one hour. Knowingthis distance from experience, they were able to calculate the diameterof this galaxy. It turned out to be on the order of ninety thousandlight years.

  They were now much closer; they seemed, indeed, on the very edge of thegiant universe. The thousands of stars flamed bright below them,stretching across their horizon more and more--a galaxy the eyes of menhad never before seen at such close range! This galaxy had not yetcondensed entirely to stars, and in its heart there still remained thevast gas cloud that would eventually be stars and planets. The vastmisty cloud was plainly visible, glowing with a milky light like somevast frosted light bulb.

  It was impossible to conceive the size of the thing; it looked only likesome model, for they were still over a quarter of a million light year
sfrom it.

  Morey looked up from his calculations. "I think we should be there inabout three hours. Suppose we go at full speed for about two hours andthen change to low speed?"

  "You're the astronomical boss, Morey," said Arcot. "Let's go!"

  They swung the ship about once more and started again. As they drewnearer to this new universe, they began to feel more interest in thetrip. Things were beginning to happen!

  The ship plunged ahead at full speed for two hours. They could seenothing at that velocity except the two ghost ships that were theirever-present companions. Then they stopped once more.

  About them, they saw great suns shining. One was so close they could seeit as a disc with the naked eye. But they could not see clearly; theentire sky was misty and the stars that were not close were blotted out.The room seemed to grow warm.

  "Hey! Your calculations were off!" called Arcot. "We're getting out ofhere!"

  Suddenly the air snapped and they were traveling at low speed under thedrive of the space-strain apparatus. The entire space about them was litwith a dim violet glow. In ten minutes, the glow was gone and Arcot cutthe drive.

  They were out in ordinary dark space, with its star-studded blackness.

  "What was the matter with my calculations?" Morey wanted to know.

  "Oh, nothing much," Arcot said casually. "You were only about thirtythousand light years off. We landed right in the middle of the centralgas cloud, and we were plowing through it at a relative velocity ofaround sixteen thousand miles per second! No wonder we got hot!

  "We're lucky we didn't come near any stars in the process; if we had, wecould have had to recharge the coil."

  "It's a wonder we didn't burn up at that velocity," said Fuller.

  "The gas wasn't dense enough," Arcot explained. "That gas is a bettervacuum than the best pump could give you on Earth; there are fewermolecules per cubic inch than there are in a radio tube.

  "But now that we're out of that, let's see if we can find a planet. Noneed to take photographs going in; if we want to find the star again, wecan take photos as we leave. If we don't want to find it, we would justwaste film.

  "I'll leave it to Morey to find the star we want."

  Morey set to work at once with the telescope; trying to find the neareststar of spectral type G-0, as had been agreed upon. He also wanted tofind one of the same magnitude, or brilliance. At last, afterinvestigating several such suns, he discovered one which seemed tofulfill all his wishes. The ship was turned, and they started toward theadventure they had really hoped to find.

  As they rushed through space, the distorted stars shining vividly beforethem, they saw the one which was their goal. A bright, slowly changingviolet point on the cross-hairs of the aiming telescope.

  "How far is it?" asked Arcot.

  "About thirty light centuries," replied Morey, watching the stareagerly.

  They drove on in silence. Then, suddenly, Morey cried out: "Look! It'sgone!"

  "What happened?" asked Arcot in surprise.

  Morey rubbed his chin in thought. "The star suddenly flared brightly foran instant, then disappeared. Evidently, it was a G-0 giant which hadburned up most of the hydrogen that stars normally use for fuel. Whenthat happens, a star begins to collapse, increasing in brilliance due tothe heat generated by the gas falling toward the center of the star.

  "Then other nuclear reactions begin to take place, and, due to theincreased transparency of the star, a supernova is produced. The starblows away most of its gaseous envelope, leaving only the superdensecore. In other words, it leaves a white dwarf." He paused and looked atArcot. "I wonder if that star did have any planets?"

  They all knew what he meant. What was the probable fate of beings whosesun had suddenly collapsed to a tiny, relatively cold point in the sky?

  Suddenly, there loomed before them the dim bulk of the star, a discalready, and Arcot snapped the ship over to the molecular motion driveat once. He knew they must be close. Before them was the angry disc ofthe flaming white star.

  Arcot swung the ship a bit to one side, running in close to the flamingstar. It was not exceedingly hot, despite the high temperature andintense radiation, for the radiating surface was too small.

  They swung about the star in a parabolic orbit, for, at their velocity,the sun could not hold them in a planetary orbit.

  "Our velocity, relative to this star, is pretty high," Arcot announced."I'm swinging in close so that I can use the star's attraction as abrake. At this distance, it will be about six gravities, and we can addto that a molecular drive braking of four gravities.

  "Suppose you look around and see if there are any planets. We can breakfree and head for another star if there aren't."

  Even at ten gravities of deceleration, it took several hours to reducetheir speed to a point which would make it possible to head for anyplanet of the tiny sun.

  Morey went to the observatory and swept the sky with the telectroscope.

  It was difficult to find planets because the reflected light from theweak star was so dim, but he finally found one. He took angular readingson it and on the central sun. A little later, he took more readings.Because of the changing velocity of the ship, the readings were not tooaccurate, but his calculations showed it to be several hundred millionmiles out.

  They were decelerating rapidly, and soon their momentum had been reducedto less than four miles a second. When they reached the planet, Arcotthrew the ship into an orbit around it and began to spiral down.

  Through the clear lux windows of the control room, the men looked downupon a bleak, frozen world.