When the last of them was carefully stowed, they returned to the
control room. They looked silently out across this strange, dead world,
thinking how much it must have been like Earth. It was dead now, and
frozen forever. The low hills that stretched out beneath them were dimly
lighted by the weak rays of a shrunken sun. Three hundred million miles
away, it glowed so weakly that this world received only a little more
heat than it might have received from a small coal fire a mile away.
So weakly it flared that in this thin atmosphere of hydrogen and helium,
its little corona glowed about it plainly, and even the stars around it
shone brilliantly. The men could see one constellation that grouped
itself in the outlines of a dragon, with the sun of this system as its
cold, baleful eye.
Gradually, Arcot lifted the ship, and, as they headed out into space,
they could see the dim frozen plains fall behind. It was as if a load of
oppressing loneliness parted from them as they flew out into the vast
spaces of the eternal stars.
X
Arcot looked speculatively at the star field in the great broad window
before him. "We'll want to find another G-0 sun, naturally, but I don't
think we ought to go directly from here. If we did, we'd have to do a
lot of backtracking to get back to this dead star. I suggest we go back
to the edge of this galaxy, taking pictures on the way out, so that any
future investigators can come in directly. It'll only take a few hours."
"I think you're right," agreed Morey. "Besides, that will give us a
wider choice of stars to pick our next G-0 from. Let's get going."
Arcot moved the red switch, and the ship shot away at half speed. They
watched the green image of the white dwarf fade and then suddenly flare
up and become bright again as they outraced the light that had left it
five centuries before.
They stopped and took more photographs so that the path could be marked.
They stopped every light century until they reached a point where the
star was merely a dim point, almost lost in the myriad of stars around
it.
Then out to the edge of the galaxy they went, out toward their own
universe.
"Arcot," Morey called, "let's go out, say one million light years into
space, at an angle to this galaxy, and see if we can get both galaxies
on one plate. It will make navigation between them easier."
"Good idea. We can get out and back in one day--and this 'time' won't
count back on Earth, anyway." Since they would travel in the
space-strain all the time, it would not count as Earth time.
Arcot pushed the red control all the way forward, and the ship began to
move at its top velocity of twenty-four light years per second. The
hours dragged heavily, as they had when they were coming in, and Arcot
remained alone on watch while the others went to their rooms for some
sleep, strapping their weightless bodies securely in the bunks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account