Before the Universe

"Before the Universe" was the first story Cyril and I published in collaboration. I published it myself, and watched the reader mail with considerable apprehension when the story hit the stands; we weren't very sure of ourselves. But the response was good. That was all we needed. We sat right down and wrote a sequel, "Nova Midplane," and then a third story in the series, "The Extrapolated Dimwit".

Unfortunately, by the time we came to the third story we discovered we were running out of things to say about our characters, and so we had to have help. In the Fulurian way, we solved the problem by inviting in a Third collaborator, Robert W. Lowndes, better known then as "Doc."

Lowndes had been a fan as long as any of us, but mostly by correspondence. It was the time of the Great Depression. Most of us were young enough to be sheltered by our families from the harsher aspects of that long deep sickness of the thirties, but Lowndes was all by himself in the world. He had to earn a living any way he could, and one of the ways was by working in a hospital in Connecticut (Whence the "Doc.") We knew each other almost entirely by correspondence for several years, during which time I remember that he introduced me to J. K Huysmans and I introduced him to J. B. Cabell (we didn't only read SF, you know), before things healed enough for him to visit, then move to, New York City. He became a resident of The primitive Futurian communes (dull, drugless, all-male pads that they were) pursued his writing, ultimately achieved every fan's dearest dream by getting a Job as a professional editor (Future Fiction, Science Fiction Quarterly and others) and has continued as one ever since. "The Extrapolated Dimwit" was first published in one of his magazines.

I. The Nobel Prize Twins

Jocelyn Earle was listening closely to her employer's instructions. That was one of the things about Jocelyn; she always listened closely, even if she paid no attention to suggestions once she stopped listening and started doing. He was telling her how to get the story he wanted for the Helio; he knew she would get the story her own way, but he told her anyway. The important thing was, she would get the story.

"Do you know anything at all about Clair and Gaynor?" he asked.

"No," she said.

"Well, you're the only one in the world who doesn't. Don't you ever read the papers?" She shook her head. He sighed and went on. "They are the Nobel Prize winners for the last half-dozen years. They're the ones who wiped out cancer, made possible the beam-transmission of power, created about fifty new alloys that have revolutionized industry, and originated the molecular-stress theory which is the cornerstone of the new physics.

"Gaynor is the kid of the pair. He's the one that never went to grade school, completed high school in eighteen months, and had a Ph.D. by the time he was fifteen. A child prodigy. Unlike most of those, he never burnt out. He's still going stronger than ever.

"Clair is the older and not quite so bright. He was almost old enough to vote by the time he brought out his thesis on Elementary Arithmetic (Advanced), which is a little bit harder to master than vector analysis. But, as I say, he's older than Gaynor, and he's had a chance to learn a lot more. So I guess you could say that they're about even, mentally.

"Now, this is what I want: the complete and exclusive story of what they're working on now. It won't be easy, because they don't want to give out any information. And they're smart enough to be able to keep a secret for a long, long time. That's why I want you to take the job. I wouldn't think of giving it to anybody else on the staff."

Jocelyn smiled. "I'm smart too. Is that what you mean?"

"Sure you're smart. Maybe, even, you're smart enough to get the story.... Oh, one more thing. They're both a little childish in some ways. They have a habit of playing practical jokes on people. Don't let them joke you out of the story."

"I won't," said Jocelyn Earle. "That's all?" she asked, rising.

"That's enough, isn't it?" her employer said. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know yet. But don't worry about it—I'll try to have the story by deadline tomorrow. Goodbye."

"Goodbye," said her employer, and Jocelyn Earle walked out of the room....

"And there goes another tube, Art," called Gaynor. "Shot to hell."

Clair walked over to the meter board with a sigh, stripping off his gloves as he came. "The damn things act so funny. They test fine, no flaws, and the math says they ought to work. But you shoot the juice into them, and all that's left when the smoke clears away is a thoroughly ruptured tube. Why do you suppose that is, Paul?"

He got no answer from Gaynor but a strangling gasp. He looked up to find his colleague pointing at the door, his face a mask of horror. There stood a hideous creature, presumably female, apparently Scandinavian. "Ay bane call from de agency," it said. Gaynor recovered himself first, and asked, "How the hell did you get through seven locked doors, woman? What do you want?"

The creature began to talk rapidly and excitedly, and the two scientists looked at each other. "This is just like the Nobel ceremony," howled Clair over the woman's voice. "What do you suppose she's saying?"

"Haven't the faintest notion. Let's sit down. Let's kill her. Let's do something to shut her up. How about a shot of static at her?"

"Should help," agreed Clair. He swung a cumbersome machine on, the figure in the door and pressed a button. A feeble but spectacular bolt of electricity shot at the woman with a roar, pinking her neatly. Suddenly her stream of Swedish was shut off. "You brace of heels!" she snapped. "If you don't know how to treat a lady, I'm leaving."

Gaynor sprang for the door and slammed it. "No," he said, "not until you explain— " But she cut him off with a snake-swift clip of the palm to his solar plexus and he folded. Clair swung a switch and the machine roared again, this time louder, and the woman fell beside Gaynor.

Clair knelt and felt his colleague's pulse. "She moves fast, that one" said Gaynor, without opening his eyes. "Did you get her?"

"Sure—with just enough static to put her out for a while. Get some cable and we'll see what kind of scrub-woman can breeze through locked doors."

They tied her securely; then Clair unceremoniously dumped a bucket of water over her. She came to with a sputter and gasp. "Was that thing a death-ray?" she asked with professional interest.

"No. Just high tension. Who are you and what's your business with us?"

"With a hefty tug you can take off my wig," the woman answered. Gaynor laid hold of a strand of hair and pulled. "My God!" he cried. "Her face comes with it!"

"Mask," she said briefly. "I am a reporter for the Helio, name being Earle. I want to congratulate you. gentlemen. This get-up fooled Billikin, Zweistein, and Current. You aren't the ordinary brand of scientist."

"Nor are you the ordinary brand of reporter," said Clair raptly studying her cameo-like features. "Gaynor, you ape, untie the lady."

"Not I," said his colleague hastily backing away. "It's your turn to get socked."

"I promise to behave," she said with a smile. Reluctantly the scientist cut the cables that confined her and she rose. "Do you mind if I take off this thing?" she asked indicating her horrible dress. The men stared; Clair finally said, "Not at all."

She pulled a long slide-fastener somewhere in the garment and it fell away to reveal a modish street-outfit. Gaynor gulped strangely. "Won't you sit down, Miss Oil," he said.

She settled gracefully into a chair. "Earle," she corrected him. Clair was looking fixedly at an out-of-date periodic table tacked high on the wall, aware that this peculiar woman was studying him. Approvingly? he wondered.

"Now, just what was it that you wanted with us, Miss Earle," he inquired. "Maybe we can work out some arrangement...."

II. The Prototype

If Jocelyn hadn't been a pretty girl, the deal would never have been made. But pretty Jocelyn was, and moreover she was smart enough to capitalize on her good looks.

So, it was decided that Jocelyn, in return for a promise of strict secrecy until the experiment was concluded, would be included in the maneuvers of the two scientists, would have every opportunity of finding things out and a promise that no other paper would get a crumb of information. That was a very good bargain, for Jocelyn didn't have to put anything at all up in exchange. She was pretty, and smart. That was enough.

"Maybe I can help you two great minds anyhow," she said. "What're you trying to do?"

The two looked at each other. Finally Gaynor said: "You're not a mathematician, Miss—Jocelyn, that is. I don't know whether we can translate our language into yours. But—maybe you've heard of protomagnetism?"

"No. Whit is it?"

"Well, proto—we'll call it proto for short—is something like ordinary magnetism. Only this: ordinary magnetism attracts steel and iron, principally, and only to a very slight degree anything else—such as, for instance, copper and cobalt, which respond just the tiniest bit. Proto attracts a bunch of elements, a little, but so little that it's never been noticed before For instance, it attracts radium, niton, uranium, and thorium—the radioactive group—a little. The more radioactive, the greater the attraction. And the thing it attracts most of all is the new artificial Element 99.

"Another difference—magnetism, generally speaking, is a force exerted between two particles of iron or whatever. Proto, on the other hand, ain't. Radium doesn't attract radium—both particles are attracted by something else."

"Tell her which way they're attracted," interjected Clair.

"I was coming to that," started Gaynor, but Jocelyn interrupted with: "What am I supposed to gather from all this? According to my boss, you've got some sort of a ship. That's what he sent me here for: to find out what this ship was, and what you're going to do with it."

Clair was startled. "So it's an open secret now," he said to Gaynor.

"Oh, no," said Jocelyn; "but I know there's a ship. I don't know what kind of a ship it is, but I know it's there. That's all we could find out. Now, if you will kindly stop stalling and live up to your end of the bargain ...'

"I wasn't stalling, though," said Gaynor resentfully. "That's what I was going to tell you, that we've got the Prototype, and we're just about ready to use it. And, what's more, you're coming along, because that's your part of the bargain. It wasn't before, but it is now, because I just made it so."

"Fine," said Jocelyn, unperturbed. "But where are we going?"

"That's what I was coming to— " ("It's been a long time coming," murmured Jocelyn). "We're going to the place whence comes proto. What Art was driving at a while ago is that proto doesn't pull things upward or downward, or backward or frontward or North-by-East-half-a-point-East, for that matter. It pulls them—out. Into another dimension—or so we think."

"Oh," said Jocelyn. "You mean you've got a time machine. How nice. Well thanks a lot for letting me see you fellows, and don't worry about my keeping your secret. I won't tell. And I want ..."

"What's the matter?" asked Gaynor blankly.

Jocelyn stared at him. "You're trying to trick me, that's all. And you're not going to get away with it. Time machines are impossible. And if you think you've got one—I'm going home."

"But stop, Jocelyn," cried Gaynor. "We know time machines are impossible. We didn't say it was a time machine—you did. As a matter of fact, it probably isn't a time machine."

"As a matter of fact," Clair chimed in sourly, "we don't know what it is."

Jocelyn looked up at that. "Sure you're not joking?" They both nodded vehemently. She hesitated, then, "You know," she said, "I think I'm going to like this."

An hour later, Gaynor was finishing the job of explaining things to Jocelyn while Clair finished hooking up connections in the lab in the next room.

"This tube," Gaynor was saying, "is the keystone of our work. The thing inside that looks like a buckshot is composed of what will be Element 99 when the power is turned on. There's a lot of gadgets in here that you wouldn't understand if I explained them to you, but take it from me that I did a fine job in designing this tube. Consider: 99 is artificial, and it's pretty unstable. I had to incorporate the equipment for building it up and sustaining it. 99 is also radioactive, and I had to shield it to keep you, me, and the machine from crumbling into little glowing lumps. Those together ought to mean about five hundred pounds of equipment, but that was around four hundred and ninety-five more than I could get away with, because of the lack of storage space in the Prototype. So I condensed it to this." With which effusion he hefted the article in his hand. It fell to the floor with a crunch, its delicate members battered out of shape and its finely fused tubes shattered into bits.

"I see," said Jocelyn. "A neat bit of human interest. Was that the last one?"

"No," said Gaynor somberly. "We have a couple left." He took another from a locker and as they walked from the storeroom cast a glance back at the mess on the floor. "It looked a little defective anyhow," he said.

In the lab, Clair assigned the girl a place at a rheostat. "When the buzzer buzzes," he said, "open it wide and stand back." The tube was inserted, insulated, and tested, and the three took their various places, Clair gave the signal, and the circuits were closed in perfect order. They stared at the tube. It brightened, glowed, and then—smashed wide open without an apparent reason.

Clair opened the master circuit, looked up. "It did it again," he said wearily. "Why?"

"Yeah, why?" echoed Gaynor.

"Why what?" asked Jocelyn. "Why did it break, you mean?"

"Yeah," said Clair dispiritedly.

"Isn't it supposed to do that? When the proto pulls it?"

Gaynor glared at her. "Sure the proto pulls it, and— Hey! That is what it's supposed to do!"

Clair sat down heavily. "It sure is," he agreed. "Of all the damn fools, Paul, you and I..."

Gaynor was galvanized. "So all we have to do, Art, all we have to do is make the tube strong enough to take the ship with it when it begins pulling!"

"Did I solve something?" asked Jocelyn, a little bewildered. No one paid any attention to her. All of a sudden, they were hard at work.

III. Einstein's Extreme

Physicists generally have swarms of helpers and technicians to do all the rough, tough manual labor required in their work. This is for two reasons: because successful physicists are generally in their nineties and unable to lift anything much heavier than a gavel at an alumni meeting, and because it is considered by the majority demeaning for a mind-worker to use his hands.

That is only one of the many ways in which Gaynor and Clair differed from the Genus Physicist. They were young and strong enough to lift anything within reason and they had cranes for the stuff that was unreasonable and yet had to be lifted.

And they couldn't afford to have anyone but themselves—and Miss Earle—in their lab. If anyone knew then everyone might. An irresponsible writer or reporter would scatter the news broadcast and effectively gum up their immense undertaking.

So Gaynor, Clair, and Jocelyn did every last screw-turn and rivet-spread in the creation of the Prototype.

In about two weeks the job was done. Their ship was ready, a squat but very beautiful object in the eyes of its creators. The installation was complete; it was ready for the test.

Jocelyn took final notes. "Three dozen eggs," she read from a list.

"Check," said Clair, passing them to Gaynor who stacked the boxes neatly in the ship's compact refrigeration unit.

"Six pound of bacon ..."

"And that," she said, "is the last of the food. Now, perhaps, you'll tell me why you wanted enough provisions for a month?"

Evasively, Clair answered, "You never can tell. We may like it so much out there that we'll decide to stay awhile."

Gaynor descended from the Prototype's main port. "Yeah," he said. "The lady's right. I am a physicist, Art, a physicist. Not a porter. And I do not enjoy carrying sacks of sugar and cans of corn. I don't know why I should be carrying this junk, anyway. We're not going to be gone long—presumably. If the gadgets work, two days. If not—not."

Clair chewed his thumbnail. "You never can tell," he said. "Maybe I can have a hunch myself, once in a while." He stood up and said abruptly, "Get your pencils and paper, Jocelyn. I guess we're leaving—now."

Silently, the girl gathered her notebooks up from a table and stepped into the ship. Clair swung home a last switch in the lab and passed through the bulkhead. He slammed and sealed the door. Flatly, he said, "We don't know what to expect in the line of atmosphere out there."

Gaynor took his position at the power receiver. Clair stood at the control. "I'm ready when you are, Paul," he said.

His colleague flipped a switch, a relay clicked, and the indicator arced over to the right. "Power on, Art," he said softly. And Clair closed the prime contact. Slowly the tube warmed up, glimmering with a purplish light. That was the bottle of glass and the maze of wires that was to pull them from one dimension and hurl them into another.

He slowly, s-l-o-w-1-y, pulled over a rheostat, and the tube slowly brightened.

And nothing else happened. That was all. The tube got brighter.

Desperately, angrily, Clair shoved the rheostat all the way over. And nothing, nothing at all, still seemed to have happened.

Gaynor cried sharply, "What's the matter?"

Clair said nothing. There was nothing to say. A half a year of work seemed to be wasted. And the finest chance of exploring ever given mortal men seemed to have been snatched away as a mirage. Suddenly Jocelyn screamed. "Look," she cried. "The window!" The two men turned and gasped at the sight before them.

"That isn't the lab," whispered Gaynor. "Not in a million years. We're outside, Art. We've done it!"

Clair stared through the quartz plate. The scene that met his eyes was incredible—un-Earthly. It was new, he thought. A blankness that had yet to be moulded into a thing more definite. Without shape, dimension or duration, it was—Outside.

"But what place is this, Paul? It's not space, not even space in another universe. It's no planet that could ever exist. It's not like anything that's logical at all."

"You're right. God knows. I don't think that I could give a name to this place. I don't think that any man could. Could you even hope to describe it to anyone, Jocelyn?"

"Not if I knew more words than Shakespeare. Paul—if this is nowhere near the lab or even our universe—why is gravitation in the ship normal as far as I can see?"

Gaynor smiled. "Awfully simple, woman," he said. "Obviously we have artifical gravity. We invented it almost a month ago. And—by the way— this is a spaceship too. We installed a gravity-drive. "Now then, Art, get away from that window and rig up the cameras. Jocelyn, take notes. I'm going to fiddle with a spectroscope."

The girl balanced a pad on her knee, dashing onto paper the random notes and observations of the two men. Minutes later, Clair was trying to develop a photographic plate and let loose some particularly blistering adjectives. "Shall I take that down?" she asked, raising her delicate eyebrows.

"Better not," he said. "But this—this—this lousy pan won't come out like it should. It doesn't look like much out there, I know, but this crazy plate won't show it anyway. Come here, Pavlik!" he called. Gaynor came from the other end of the ship.

"So Dr. Clair shouts aloud in the middle of a triple spectroanalysis," he said nastily. "So Dr. Gaynor comes running to find out what disaster has endangered our valuable lives. So the spectroanalysis is ruined from beginning to end. What's eating my esteemed colleague?"

Clair held up the plate. "I'm sorry, Pavel, " he said, "but this thing won't develop. I thought that since you are the expert of this expedition and I your fumbling but well-intentioned subordinate you might diagnose this little dab's trouble."

Gaynor took the plate. "Your labored sarcasm—" he began. Then his voice trailed off. Tensely he asked, "Is this the first that you've developed or tried to?"

"Yes," said Clair. "What's that got to do with it?"

"Plenty. Did you ever hear of Kodak mining? Probably not. It was like this. In the primitive days of excavation—say 1920—radium mines were driven hit or miss, win or lose. Then some bright chap discovered that if you leave a roll of film in certain spots the film will be ruined and thus mark the spot of a radium deposit. Art, this film is ruined, having been in the presence of richly radioactive matter. Need I say more?"

Clair smote himself on the forehead; "Radioactivity—here!" he cried. "I see it all and apologize for having been a blind imbecile in the face of the facts. Let's not talk about it just yet. Let's have dinner first. Being stuck in the middle of somewhere else puts an edge on your appetite."

"Any excuse for a meal," said Jocelyn, dumping a can of beans into a heating unit. "Just like a man. And when will I be told these dazzlingly obvious facts that you two seized on and curse yourselves for being so long about it?"

"After dinner, woman, you will hear all," said Gaynor firmly. They sat down in silence to eat.

The dishwashing—which consisted of dropping several cans and plates into a sealed container—was accomplished, and the three lit cigarettes. Jocelyn placed herself obtrusively before the two physicists and demanded, "Secret. Now."

Vaguely_. Clair began, "I don't exactly know. It's just that we have a feeling we're out of time entirely. Indications show that we've been pulled out of our own universe and not just chucked into another one at random, but that we've been slung outside of all the universes that ever were." He examined the tip of his cigarette intently, crossing his eyes.

"Damn it!" cried the girl. "And damn it twice! We have to be somewhere, don't we?"

"Obviously, my dear," said Gaynor soothingly. "And so we are. But as nearly as I can see, we aren't in any space-time that's ever been used before. We've got a brand new one all to ourselves. It must sound like boasting, I know, but I think we created this hunk of nothing."

Jocelyn began to laugh. "Well," she finally gurgled, "we sure made one lousy job of it! Listen, Messrs. Jehovah—why haven't we got a nice spot to land on? This seems to be an awfully big universe for just the Prototype and us three."

"Sure; it has to be," answered Clair seriously. "Einstein announced to a breathless world a long time ago: The more matter, the less space; the more space the less matter.' We are probably the closest approach that ever has or ever will be made to one of his limiting extremes—a universe of all space and no matter."

"Excuse me," said Jocelyn humbly. "The more I hear from you two enraptured scientists the stupider I feel. But would you mind explaining that no doubt pertinent axiom of Mr. Einstein? It seems very silly. I mean, the more space is displaced by matter, the less space there is. Obviously—no. I mean the less space—that is, matter—the less matter in a universe the more room there must be for space!"

The men looked at each other. "'Space displaced by matter.'" said Gaynor pityingly.

"'Room for space,' " Clair richly announced, rolling the phrase over his tongue.

"I'd feel a lot safer in recommending a good book on the subject, but roughly what Einstein implied was this," said Clair. "Space isn't nothing. Or, putting it differently, it is something. Since you don't know math, I can best describe it as a thin, weary substance partly squamous and partly rugous. Its most striking property is that when it surrounds—or penetrates—or engenders—what is called matter, which is only space, but somewhat thicker and more alert, there is a certain amount of strain.

"So naturally space gives somewhat at the seams. It wrinkles and curves all out of shape—but space, when it is curving keeps right on extending itself, and so it sort of grows crooked. In its extension it keeps on until it meets itself coming back, thereby generating a closed curve.

"Obviously the more matter the bigger a beating space takes and the sharper it curves and the sooner it meets itself. So then the closed curve is smaller and more limiting of itself."

"Thank you," said Jocelyn sweetly. "I'm sorry I asked you in the first place."

"Never mind that cad," said Gaynor indignantly. "When we get back you can tell your friends that not only did you have a whole universe practically to your self but that yours was at least three billion times bigger than theirs."

"Speaking of getting back," Clair interrupted. "What shall we do now? There isn't anything to see here—want to get home? Or shall we wait here and dope out some way of getting somewhere else where there is something to see?"

"We can't do that, Art. At least I don't want to try. If we start breaking into brand-new frames we may get so lost that we won't even remember we have a home. We'd better just scat. As it is I'm licking my lips over what we're going to tell the honorable academy of science. Hell, we've seen enough here to leave us limp—even though all we've seen is nothing."

Clair nodded, but a bit wistfully. There were lots of things that could be done here—lots of places to be visited from this jumping-off point.

"We're on our way, then," he said. "Position, Paul. Let's tap the broadcast." Jocelyn looked a question, so he explained. "We're using our own system of beam-power. Naturally, we couldn't carry enough."

Gaynor turned the switch on the audio receiver. A second passed as the tubes warmed up; then a faint hum.

"God, Art, but that's dim," he said worriedly.

Clair was equally perturbed. "Yeah—try to tap it now. There's no use stalling. Even if we don't get enough power to just slap us back we might accumulate enough to limp home."

Gaynor shrugged his shoulders and closed another switch. The dial quivered and swung over. Then seconds crawled by, and then the automatic relays in the lab seemed to have reacted, because the power intake needle quivered faintly. It came to rest at a point infinitesimally removed from zero. "Faint is right," said Gaynor.

Clair touched the prime switch. Nothing happened. The tube didn't even glow.

He shoved the rheostat over viciously. At the very peak-end of its arc, when the power flowing through the tube under normal conditions would have been inconceivable, the tractor tube very faintly reddened.

And that was all. With common accord the three voyagers looked out of the window. The scene had not changed an iota. Blackness swirled indescribably before them, on the other side of a meager inch of metal, quartz, and plastic.

IV. Baby Universe

A full minute passed as they stared out of the port. Jocelyn interrupted the dismal silence with, "It looks as if we'll have to plan on being here for a hell of a long time, gentlemen. Apparently, I'll never write those feature stories."

"Yeah," said Clair vaguely. "A hell of a long time." He cut off the trickle of power, and the indicator needle ticked back to zero. "Maybe we'd better get some sleep," he said. "We might dream of a solution."

Silently Gaynor swung down the three bunks and drew curtains between them, and they vanished into their improvised compartments.

Clair was nearly asleep when Gaynor hissed at him through the thin barrier. "What do you want now?" he asked drearily.

"It occurs to me," said Gaynor, "that we've made a mistake."

"That's about as obvious an understatement as ever I've heard in a long and aimless career. What do you mean?"

"Listen: the logical train is as follows. We haven't figured a way out because we have no power. And if we have no power we have no proto. And if we have no proto we have no pull. And now, colleague, tell me just what good it would do us if we had any power?"

"Pavlik, I'm too tired for riddles. What have you found?"

"Just this—proto attracts 99. It doesn't repel it. It can't attract us any closer because we're where the proto comes from in the first place. So even if we build up the 99—what happens then? There wouldn't be any effect!"

"Then that means," said Clair, suddenly tense, "we've reached a perfect impasse. You're right, of course. But it doesn't do us any good. Less than no good at all, in fact, because now we know that we wouldn't know how to get away if we had the power in the first place."

"Then that sums it up," said Gaynor bitterly. "We not only can't get out, but we don't know how we could get out if we could. Funny things happen to logic when you have a universe all to yourself."

Suddenly Jocelyn's sleepy voice rang out. "What," it said, "are you two conspirators muttering about? Are you planning to sacrifice the sacred virgin to the Great God Proto?"

"We've just decided," said Gaynor dolefully, "that we're here almost for good. Or at least that we'll be here until the vapor pressure of our bodies disperses us uniformly through our universe—which, as any chemist will tell you, is a long and longer time."

"Good," she said astonishingly. "Now that you've decided maybe you can get some sleep. Good night, all."

"A very unusual girl," whispered Clair hoarsely. "If it didn't seem sort of silly under the circumstances I'd propose to her."

"And what makes you think," snapped Gaynor nastily, "that she'd hate you? In fact, I had some thoughts along that line myself. Do you mind, esteemed colleague?"

"Not at all. Maybe it'll come down to the flip of a coin."

There was a long pause. Then Gaynor said nervously, "Do you suppose, Art, that we'll have to eat one another?"

"What's that?"

"You know. Cannibalism. It's customary."

"No," said Clair thoughtfully. "It would be irrational in this case. Cannibalism is called for only when there is a question of outside influence. Thus, if we were waiting to be saved by a passing space-scow there would be some point to it; that is, one might survive and live a full life at the expense of the others. However in our case while we might eat Miss Earle on running out of food the chance of survival is too small to counterbalance the degradation of human instincts involved.

"I took the precaution of hiding a bottle of Scotch—where you'll never find it, esteemed colleague—and we have enough medicine aboard to furnish us with an overdose of any variety we desire. So we simply dump some veronal into goblets, add a few jiggers, touch glasses, and say goodbye."

"Thanks, Art," said Gaynor gratefully. "You think of everything. Well—good night."

"Good night."

Breakfast was a grim and desultory affair. To raise their spirits they were playing a sort of word game. It circled gruesomely about the adjective, "apodyr tic." Jocelyn would ask, "Am I apodyctic?" and the two men would airily answer that she was and so were they and the ship and breakfast and plumbers' pipe and suspenders. "But," said Gaynor ominously, "a Springfield rifle is not."

"Well, then—is the window apodyctic?"

The two physicists looked at each other. "I'm inclined to think that it is," said Gaynor reflectively.

"I don't know," mused Clair, glancing at the little square of_, quartz. Then—

"My God!" he cried thinly. "Look at that!"

The others spun around and stared. The amorphous, stirless utter black that had been outside the port was there no longer. Instead there was motion and a mad spectrograph of colors which blended into a sort of gray sworl. A congeries of glowing spheres blazed past the window. Great looping ribbons of flame snaked past them and curled around the ship cracking quietly to themselves as they struck.

The darkness was light, and the silence was sound; they stared and saw depth of space beyond vast depth; incredible shapes and sizes and colors stirring and awakening for as far as the eye could see. Vague, glowing areas weirdly collapsed into tense spheres that screamed off in any direction. Vast shapes smashed into each other to explode into far-scattering pellets of blazing green or blue or gold.

Huge gouts of flame assailed one another. An incredibly vast rod of light that must have rivalled a solar system for magnitude collided with a great, spinning disk and absorbed it, then swelled and shattered into a million fragments that blazed with all the lights of the stars and shot off in unison to some distant goal.

Globes battled with one another near the ship, lancing out immense spears of gleaming force, smashing at each other in Jovian combat, ravening their might into the incredible void. A nebulous anthropomorphic figure the size of a galaxy strode immensely through the deeps to crumble into vast glowing discs as it neared a mighty ophidian of flame.

The three voyagers stared insanely at the colossal spectacle, nearer to madness than a human being can safely approach. It was Jocelyn who slammed the metal shutter against the port, shutting out the awful view.

"Sit down," she commanded. "You've seen all you can stand of that." Limply the two men obeyed.

"I don't think dying would matter much to me now, Art," said Gaynor flatly. "What was happening out there?"

Stupidly, pedantically, Clair said, "Every accepted cosmogony states that at one time the entire universe consisted of a single homogeneous spread of matter-energy permeating all of space. They say that this all-embracing and infinitely tenuous cloud was at absolute rest with neither motion nor the possibility of motion. There was not, there could not have been thesis or antithesis or synthesis.

"Nobody knows what happened to it after that, before it became what it is today, with most of it vacuum and the rest of it densely packed matter and energy."

"I see," said Gaynor. "What's going on—outside—is the birth of a universe. Or perhaps only its birth-pains. As yet there is no law save that law must struggle to assert itself over the insanity of matter and energy on the loose. Possibly this primitive stress-material has a will of its own—at least that's one explanation of what we saw. Possibly the eternal combat-motif is merely the expression of the ascendancy of law so long outraged by the impossible state of rest that obtained for so long....

"At any rate we have to thank the stress-material for holding out so valiantly against law—otherwise we'd not be here."

"What do you mean by that?" snapped Clair.

"Just this. That the stress-material is grateful. You see, we have created this universe and waked it into life. It is this ship that monkey-wrenched the quiescent machinery of the dead cosmos into existence. What is outside we have done.

"We are in the storm-center of the storm we have created; if law had its way we would have been the first item to be destroyed by these incredible forces. However, though it may sound insane, the stress-material displays a touching filial affection toward its parent and so forbears.

"Possibly that is madness. I don't know how long we have before the junk outside knuckles under to dialectics and so destroys us. It may be twenty seconds and it may be twenty billion years."

Clair stared at him, fascinated. "You get the damnedest notions, Paul," he breathed. "But you must be right. Take notes, Jocelyn.

"Memorandum to the academy of science—it has been definitely established that the uniform stress state will obtain until a foreign body provides the center of gravity which, in an infinity or closed-circle finity, which amounts to the same thing, is lacking. The uniform stress state does not appear to be a product of mutual attraction, for attraction in any direction is counterbalanced by an exactly equal attraction to the particles in any other direction. "

"Shall I mail this right away," asked Jocelyn sourly, "or do you want to see the transcript?"

Clair smote his forehead. "Very true," he said. "But I wish I could see Billikin's face when and if he hears of this!" His face changed suddenly. "I'll bet," he said, "he hears of this whether he knows it or not!"

"What does that mean?" asked Gaynor.

"Pavlik, you thick-skulled ape! Did you ever bother to think of what universe we're so busy creating? Our own!

"Don't you see? We couldn't have just stepped outside of space and stayed there for any length of time. We must have been snatched out for just as long as we had the power on, and as soon as it was cut off we slipped back into our own universe—the easy way! That is, the easiest point of entry is at either the beginning or the end, and we happened on the beginning.

"This little chunk of matter—the Prototype—slipped down the entropy gradient, slipped right up again, and busted the mechanics of a static system wide open!"

"So," said Gaynor, "this is the beginning and not the end."

"Sure!" cried Clair.

"How do you tell one from another, esteemed collaborator?"

Clair's face fell. "All right," he said—"what if it is the end instead? We've started it going all over again, so what's the difference?"

"None," said Gaynor.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," Jocelyn interrupted demurely. "To my girlish mind you have strayed far from the essential point. That is—getting the hell out of here. The problem is no less acute despite our newly-discovered godlike qualities. There appears to be an entirely new set of data to work on, and I humbly submit that you get to work on them with an eye to slapping us back into something vaguely resembling a happy home."

"My old grandmother told me once," said Gaynor thoughtfully, "'If you can't drink on a problem, sleep on it. And if you can't sleep on it, eat on it.' She was a crazy old girl. Let's have some lunch, I suggest soup topped with whipped cream, omelette surrounding a heaping platter of fried canned chicken, to be wound up with stewed pineapple and brandied cherries."

"Much as it pains me to contradict you," said Jocelyn firmly, "we're having beans. Hundreds and hundreds of them—not only nourishing but tasty. Not only tasty but economical. Besides, we have to watch our provisions and figures."

They also had to watch their stock of tobacco. In fact they split a cigarette three ways after eating and nearly set fire to Clair's soup-strainer lighting the segments.

"Now," said Gaynor, puffing gingerly, "we know we're not where we thought we were. The question before the house is, how do we get where we want to be?"

"We know," said Jocelyn, "that the utterly useless trickle of juice from the lab is now effectively gimmicked by all the static zipping around outside. We have a generator here which is too incredibly feeble for our purposes to be anything but a lawn ornament. The crying need is power."

Clair mused, "It would be nice if we were outside this infant universe, or at least in a middle-aged one."

"Hold it, Art," snapped Gaynor. "You said outside? Maybe there's all the power we need out there beyond the hull!"

"Yeah—but it'll be a million million years before it's in any form that we can use." He snuffed out his stub of cigarette. "Or maybe—what the hell! If we do get power enough how're we going to make proto out of it?"

"Remember that photo plate, Art?" asked Gaynor.

"Yeah. Radioactive." Then he snapped erect and shouted it, "Radioactive! Everything in this whole damned universe—we're saved, it seems, Paul. You're right—we don't have to build up 99—we've got it right outside!"

V. Pixies

It had taken them a week and a day to lead-sheath a reservoir for the radioactive gasses and to build and sheath a suction pump capable of drawing them in.

"Stand by," said Clair shortly. "Power on."

Gaynor threw the switch of their small, compact generator and Clair focused the electric lens with difficulty on the bulk of the gasses. "Ten seconds," Jocelyn finally announced. "Power off." They had felt nothing. Clair nervously strode to the window. They kept it covered, now. Hesitating a moment he flung the shutter open. The scene had not changed—they were still stranded. "Well, Paul," he asked simply. "Now what—we haven't moved."

"No?" asked Jocelyn sweetly. "Then what do you call that?"

They followed her gaze out of the port. She had, it seemed, been referring to a squadron of flying dragons that were winging their way towards the ship in a perfect V-formation.

"That," said Clair flinging the drivers into 'full speed ahead,' "I call a mistake."

Gaynor moaned gently. "That's no stress-energy. Used to have dreams like this," he gibbered. "Only they weren't quite so big and they didn't breath quite so much flame and they always turned into snakes before they curled up on my chest."

"Planet ahead," said Jocelyn. "It's all alone—hasn't got a sun. What do you make of it?"

"I'm sure I don't know," said Clair wearily. "But I'm going to land there. Being chased by flying dragons—especially flying dragons that can fly in a vacuum—is getting us nowhere."

"It's setting us onto that planet," said Jocelyn, "and I don't like its looks."

"We'll land and see what happens first," said Clair, the dominant male. They were hanging over the surface of the globe about a mile up. Suddenly it gulped at them. A huge mouth, the size of one of the Great Lakes, opened in its surface and gulped at them. "Will we?" asked Jocelyn.

"No," said Clair unhappily. "I suppose not." The ship drove on.

Jocelyn laughed madly. "Pixies off the starboard bow," she said in a flat, hysterical voice.

"Yeah?" said Gaynor skeptically. Then he looked. His eyes bulged and his mouth opened and closed apoplectically. "Where the hell are we!" he screamed. "Fairy-land?"

For pixies they were—a gauzy, fluttering band of them!

"Maybe," said Gaynor, "they'll chase off the dragons." But they made no move to do so. Instead they were keeping pace with the ship and rigging up a nasty-looking device with handles and snouts.

"I think," said Jocelyn, "that the Little People plan to do us dirt."

And sundry polychromatic rays shot from the device and struck the ship.

"That tears it!" screamed Gaynor. He flung the dynamo into operation and snapped the lens into focus. Abruptly, they found themselves back in the nascent universe they knew so well, pyrotechnics and all. Jocelyn closed the shutter.

"Now," she said, "teacher offers a big prize to the bright little boy who can tell her what that ghastly district was and why we got there."

Clair and Gaynor stared at her from the floor. "I'm sure I don't know," said Clair dully. "Whatever it was it was awfully silly."

Gaynor moaned, "Flying dragons! I thought I'd left them behind when I had my twenty-first birthday. And dammit, I'm sore at those pixies. They were untraditional. If they'd been imps with spiked tails it would have been understandable—they're expected to muck things up in general. Now, Clair—where were we, the lady asked. I'll consult our instruments."

He rose painfully and opened a graph-box to refer to the continuous record of flight maintained by the tracing needles on endless scrolls of paper.

"I think," he said, "that I know what happened.

"We must hold in mind the unassailable fact that all atoms are similarly constituted in form and all similarly constituted as regards their dynamics. That is to say, the electrons move all in a certain direction at a certain rate of speed.

"This is true of planets and the atoms that compose them; of the atoms that compose our bodies and our sensory organs in particular.

"Now—obviously these sensory organs will perceive only that type of atom which is similar to it in its major characteristics. For example, the eye will not take heed of a substance whose atoms are spinning backwards in relation to the atoms of the eye. But if the atoms of the eye are reversed in their motion they will readily perceive the matter whose electrons are now moving in a similar direction."

Clair said succinctly, "So what?"

"That, esteemed colleague, is what happened to us and the ship. That nasty place we came from is backwards—in the larger sense, I mean."

Jocelyn looked baffled. "Then I was turned upside-down and inside-out to see those nasty people? All I can say is that it was hardly worth the trouble!"

"But," puzzled Gaynor, "why should those creatures be the dead spit and image of all our mythological and childhood bogies?"

"I'm sure I wouldn't know. Quite probably, though, those things can slink through, or at least did slink through at one time to scare the hell out of our ancestors back in the ages primitive. Or possibly our inspired spinners of folklore had something a little wrong with their eyes. It may be that a rod or cone in the retina is peculiar and lets through misty shapes that belong actually to the reverse universe."

"You're probably right," said Jocelyn unexpectedly. "And little children that swear they see fairies and goblins—they must belong in the same class. Sometimes funny things can leak through. We're being frightful iconoclasts this trip—repudiating gravity, cosmogony, and etherics in one breath and establishing folklore in the next as scientific fact."

"Very true," said Clair. "But this cuts no ice. We made a mistake that time somewhere—will it happen again, Pavlik?"

"I don't see why it should," said Gaynor. "Maybe it works alternately. We can try it."

Automatically, he took his place at the power-intake equipment with one hand on the switch that controlled the generator.

"Hold on," said Jocelyn. "If we're getting out of this mess I don't see why we shouldn't celebrate."

The two men looked at one another. "Incredible girl," said Gaynor. Clair said nothing, but reached into the core of an electromagnet and drew out a gleaming three-liter tube bearing the nobel imprint of the House of MacTeague.

"Voici le Scotch," he pronounced with pride. "Get paper cups, Pavlik."

They poured shots of the liquor and touched glasses.

"To the voyage," said Jocelyn.

"To Jocelyn," announced the men in chorus.

They tossed their cups into a refuse container and took their stations. Clair juggled the lens about, adjusting it precisely.

"Power on," he said quietly.

Gaynor threw the switch of the generator, and the power trickled through—perhaps forty thousand volts. There was a dull roaring through the apparatus as Clair swung in the prime switch and moved over the rheostat. Suddenly he was afraid—what if they had been wrong? What if they hadn't moved, and were locked forever within a limitless prison of space? "Ten seconds," he said licking his lips.

Jocelyn opened the shutter with a gesture that had in it something of defiance. There, twinkling before them were a myriad points of light that cut into their souls like icy knives.

Quietly she said, 'Thence issuing, we again beheld the stars."

VI. Stars and Men

The universe they were in was an agreeably middle-aged one, with few giants and a majority of dwarf suns. They didn't know whether it was theirs or one similar, and they didn't much care. They knew that they had only to encounter a reasonably civilized race to provide them with equipment and perhaps some days that were not endless struggle to survive.

What the three voyagers needed was rest. Their chronometer lopped the day into three arbitrary sections which saw always one asleep, one at the lookout plate and one handling the powerful driving engines. They roared along at a speed inconceivable, yet traveling two weeks before the nearest star became apparent as a disk.

Jocelyn was at the port sighting the body with an instrument that would give them its approximate distance, size, and character. "About five hours away from a landing," she announced. "Type, red giant."

"Five hours?" asked Gaynor.

"Right. I can't see planets yet, if there are any. I don't know that they're typical of giant stars."

"There may be some," said Gaynor, his fingers feeling the pulse of fluid in a tube. "And they may be inhabited. And the people may be advanced enough to give us what we want. Then it's home for us all—eh? Maybe you'll get your articles printed after all."

Her haggard face curved into a smile. "And maybe you'll see the look on Billikin's face when you show him those formulae."

"Maybe. Somehow I don't feel inclined to doubt it."

Their chronometer uttered a sharp warning peal, and Clair was awake at once. "To bed, woman," he said. "The dominant male takes over." She handed him the instrument and the slip of paper on which her calculations had been made, and with a feeble gesture of hope and cheer for both of them disappeared behind her curtain.

"Extraordinary woman," said Clair after a pause. "Yeah. I don't see how she keeps going."

"I'm damned if I see how any of us keep going!" cried Clair with a sudden burst of temper.

Gaynor looked at him sharply. "Hold on to yourself, Art," he said. "As the lion said, it always gets darker before it gets lighter. How about that sun out there? Take an observation, will you?"

Clair adjusted the minute lenses and mirrors of the device and read off the result from its calibrated scale. "About three hours at our present rate. But its gravity'll take hold and speed us up most helpful. I think I see a planet."

"Look again—I think you're mistaken."

"Right—I am. It's a meteorite headed our way. Deflect to the left a few degrees if you want to stay healthy."

The ship veered sharply and a great, dark body passed them in silence.

"Maybe we'd better dodge that sun entirely, Paul," said Clair. "It might drag us in."

"I have my reasons for taking this course. Look at the fuel tank," said Gaynor shortly.

Clair bent over the panel of dials that was the heart of the ship. He read aloud from an indicator. "Twenty-three liters of driving juice left." There was a long pause. "Pretty bad, isn't it, Paul?"

"Extremely so. When we get near enough that sun I'm going to play its gravity for all its worth. We have to get somewhere fast or we don't get anywhere at …

"By the way," he added, "Jocelyn doesn't know where we stand with the fuel. Suppose we don't let her know until she has to. Right?"

"Check," said Clair. "Maybe she has a right to know, but personally I feel more comfortable in my superior misery." He swallowed a food tablet. They were just starting on them—all the roughage diet had been consumed.

They were nearing the huge red sun, now. "Steady on the course, if you're going to take her through," said Clair. "If not, deflect up about twenty degrees and level out on three degrees of elevation."

"I'm taking her through, all right," said Gaynor grimly. "And us with her!" Reckless of the engines he clamped down an iron hand on the controls and the blunt little vessel shot forward, it speed redoubled.

The glare from the nearby sun lit up the engine-room with a feverish glow; Clair by the port seemed to be watching an Earthly sunset, the gaunt lines of his face picked out sharply by the somber light. The light grew as they swung across the face of the star, and became intolerably bright. Clair abruptly slammed the shutter of the port. "We can't risk blindness just here and now," he said thinly.

They felt the ship leap ahead under their feet; gravity was asserting itself once more as they came into the sway of the monster sun. The eyes of the two men were glued to the speed indicator. It mounted from its already incredible figure, then, as Gaynor abruptly cut off the flow of driving power, quivered down—halted--again began to mount. It rose and doubled, and the heat rose with it, beating through the thin metal walls of the vessel. Glaring streaks of light streamed through microscopic cracks in the metal shutter against the port. An indicator needle swung crazily on the instrument panel; the air and body of the ship was taking on a dangerously high potential of electricity.

Clair opened the shutter and winced as the stream of radiation hit his face. "We're past it," he said. "How's our speed?"

Gaynor examined the panel. "Constant," he said. "As soon as it lets down we can boost it with a bit of driving." He examined the potential indicator. "Look at that, Art!" he exclaimed. "God help the first meteorite that tries to get near us!"

Jocelyn appeared from behind her curtain. "Congratulations," she said. "That was a neat piece of corner-cutting. Where do we go from here?"

"I'm sure I don't know," said Gaynor wearily as the eight hour bell clanged. "Take over, Miss E. He walked to his bunk, already half asleep.

The girl swallowed a few food tablets and took the controls. "Human interest," she said.

"Sure," said Clair absently. "Great guy, Pavel."

"And what did I hear about the fuel?" she asked suddenly vicious.

"Just that there isn't enough of it," said Clair innocently. "We were worried about you worrying about it."

"I see," said the girl. "Big brother stuff. Don't let that foolish woman know. She'd only make a fuss about it when there's nothing we can do to help it. The female's place is on the farm with the other domesticated stock, huh?" She stuck her chin out belligerently.

"Excuse us." said Clair. "We were misguided by each other. Now that you know, so what? That makes the three of us a happy little family in a happy little hearse squibbing ourselves God knows where until our fuel runs dry. Then we drift. And drift and drift and drift. So what? For a good night's sleep without that goddamn bell I'd cut your throat, young lady, and throw you to the wolves."

She laughed happily. "Now that's the kind of talk I like to hear." she said. "Good, honest whimsy." Then Clair laughed and started her laughing again. They were sobered somewhat by a great gout of light and a crackling roar that shook the ship from stem to stern.

"What was that?" she asked. "Or is it another one of your secrets?"

"I think we can let you in on it," he said. "Just an inoffensive meteorite that came too near us and got blown to hell for its pains. We picked up a lot of excess juice around that red giant, and we just got our chance to fire it off at something."

"Poor little meteorite!" she gurgled, and they were laughing again.

Two weeks later no laughter could be heard on the little vessel. Three haggard and gaunt human beings sprawled grotesquely on the floor. The taste of food had not been in their mouths for days, and for them there was no sleep. The stars that had been once a hope and a prayer to them glittered mockingly through their port, oblivious to so small a thing as human want.

Gaynor stirred himself. "Art," he said. "Yeah?"

"I suppose you recall our little discussion on the ethics of cannibalism back there—Outside?"

"I hope you're not making a concrete proposal, chum. I'd hate to think so."

"No, Art. But you remember what our talk led to? Think hard, you fuzz-brained chimpanzee."

"Insults will get you nowhere at this point," interrupted Jocelyn. "What are the male animals discussing?"

"Ways and means," said Gaynor. "I'll put it this way. If you didn't want to either eat your best friends or be eaten by them and you know that unless you ceased to exist shortly you would be compelled to eat them or be eaten by them—well, what would you do?"

"I think I understand," said Jocelyn slowly. "I've read about it time and again and shuddered at the thought—but now it's different. I'd hate to eat you, little Pavlik, but if we don't—do something—we'll be thinking about it in silence and then comes the drawing of straws or the flip of a coin and one of us gets brained from behind."

"I'll get the stuff," said Clair wearily dragging himself to his feet. He was heard to smash bottles in the storeroom, then returned with the flask of whiskey and a little paper box.

The others took cups and presented them; shakily he poured the liquor, slopping on the floor as much as went into the cups.

"What does the trick?" asked Gaynor curiously.

"Mercury compound," he answered shortly, and tried to open the box. He spilled the tablets on the floor, and they bent agedly to pick theirs up.

"Two apiece is enough," said Clair thinly. They dropped the pellets into the liquid. Gaynor was delighted to see that it bubbled brightly. He inhaled the bouquet of the whiskey.

"No doubt about it in the mind of any gentlemen worth the name," he said. "House of MacTeague is far and away the best that money can buy."

"You're right, Pavlik," said Jocelyn. She rested her cup momentarily on the indicator panel. She felt as though the floor were swaying beneath her feet. "Is the ship moving?" she asked.

"No," said Gaynor. "At least, no acceleration." Jocelyn proposed the toast: "To—us. The hunters and the hunted; the seekers and the sought; the quick and the dead. To us!"

The others didn't repeat the toast. Something was wrong. Clair spun around, his face picked out in a green glow that had never been seen before. They dropped their cups and crowded at the port. The ship was surrounded by a bright green glow that leaked even through the pores of the ship's metal hull. Gaynor turned to the speed indicator. "Look!" he cried hoarsely.

The device had smashed itself attempting to record a fabulous figure.

Back at the port they saw one star that grew.

"We're held and drawn by a beam of some sort," excitedly Clair explained. "We're headed for that sun!"

As the disk of that star grew great in their heaven the ship slowed its mad flight. They could see a planetary system now. The beam had shot from one of those worlds.

Swift as thought their vessel shot down on one of the worlds. The green beam was more intense now; they could see that it emanated from a great structure on the planet. There were lights—dams—cities—great scored lines in the surface of the world that might have been roads.

The beam suddenly became a brake; they descended slowly and in state. A great concrete plain came in view—it was the roof of a building. There were first specks, then figures standing there. As the ship came to rest through the port they could see them as people—human beings—beautiful and stately.

It wasn't Earth, nor even much like it. But it was all that they wanted it to be—a point from which they might continue their wanderings, get rest and food, equipment and knowledge to set them on the right trail for home.