Weird Tales/Volume 2/Issue 2/The People of the Comet
A Fantastic New Novel Filled with
Amazing Adventures in
Another World
The People of the
Comet
By AUSTIN HALL
CHAPTER ONE
THEY say that eccentricity is one of the marks of genius.
We are not setting out to prove what has been said nor to deny it; but we are ready to assert that there are few who knew Professor Mason who would dispute his claim to being eccentric. We all knew that the Professor had a large thumb, and that, as the result of an accident and a subsequent growth, the thumb of his right hand was fully twice as large as that of his left; but we did not know why he always held it erect and watched it almost continually.
Whenever he was not seriously engaged he would hold it up and scrutinize it carefully, as if he thought it, alive, or as if it had some affinity or personality that he could understand only by continuous and careful study. He carried a small microscope in his pocket, and would often stop, even in the most serious conversation, to apply
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At such moments his looks would be far away, speculative, and of such an abstraction that even questions of importance would not avail to regain his attention. It was an eccentricity that was a bit expensive, inasmuch as it cost him friends: and lost him the respect of some of his equally grave and respected colleagues. I have heard one say:
“What! Professor Mason! That old codger! He is either insane, or else he is downright insulting. All he thinks about is his thumb. Last night, when we were together, we begun a discussion concerning the frequency of parabolic orbits of comets, and I had arrived right down to the ratio between those of the parabolic and those of the elliptic when, of a sudden, out came that microscope. Yes, sir! Right in the middle of my talk, just when I was getting interested, and for an hour that old fool sat there looking at his thumb. When I left, at last, he did not know that I was leaving. Perhaps he is peering at it yet.”
“Still,” I ventured, "no doubt he has reason. There is a reason for everything, you know. Professor Mason is not quite a fool.”
“He isn’t!”—with a snort—“Well, perhaps I am, then.”
“You say you were talking about comets?”
“Yes. Concerning the frequency of parabolic orbits thereof. But tell me: what’s a thumb got to do with a comet?”
That, of course, I could not answer. Who could?—even in these days of abstract science. Much less could I surmise that the old Professor had covered, in his thumb, what he considered one of the greatest secrets of materialistic philosophy.
Professor Mason is by no means a fool. When a wan of his training comes out with a statement it is well worth considering. No one has ever accused him of being anything that is not scientific. He is a man of hard facts, no romance nor any taint of the visionary about him: he is scientific to the last degree—and practical. Certainly none of us imagined what he had discovered in his thumb—and it was unguessable that it had to do with a comet.
It was that chance conversation with a friend that aroused my curiosity. And it brought me back to the realization that there is no law for a coincidence. A coincidence is a fact—and as such it stands out by itself with no law, nor reason, nor formulated rule whatever—an entity out of the abstract that stands as a unit—a thing that happens. I took it as a coincidence that my friend had run afoul of the old Professor's comet—for, be it known, I myself had been insulted and ignored in exactly the same manner: and not once, but three times during the previous fortnight. It was really curdling to friendship to have the old professor pull out that microscope just when you were in the most interesting part of your talk, and go peering at his thumb.
But there was one thing that I had not noticed until my friend had spoken. And afterward I repeated to myself the question he had asked me:
“What has a thumb to do with a comet?”
For therein lay the coincidence. I recalled that on each of the occasions I had inadvertently fallen into a digression on comets. The mere mention of Halley or Donati was sufficient to spring the lense from the pocket. I can see the old man yet—his eyes focused, his attention riveted, and the furrows on his forehead, deep under the locks of his fine gray hair. There was something uncanny and weird about his action: something indefinite and unknown—as if he were gazing into a secret as intangible and immense as the nebulous mysteries of the Milky Way.
I don’t believe that any man, gazing through a telescope for the first time, ever looked more appalled than did the Professor when looking through that microscope. There was something weird about his action that made you feel cold. Perhaps it was the silence—for, with no sound but the hum of the night world, and the ticking of the clock, you could not but feel lonely.
And you would feel like a fool sitting there by yourself: you were ignored as if you were impossible, and as if the old man had been whiffed, on the wings of a word, into another world. He would sit still, graven like a stone, rigid as steel, hypnotized as it were: as if life had suddenly flitted and had sniffed out his personality—his silver beard touching the table but never moving, his thumb held up, his eyes steady, and as unwinking as a cat’s. After a while you would go.
On the last occasion I had met Mrs. Mason. She came out on the porch just as I was leaving: she had her hands clasped before her.
“Doctor Howard!”
She was a beautiful old lady; a wee thing with a kindly face—one of these old ladies who remind you of your boyhood’s grandmother—the kind you love. On this night I saw that she was worried. Something was wrong.
“What is it, Mrs. Mason ?”
“Oh!” she said. "Doctor Howard. Something has happened. Can you tell me what is the matter with Philip?”
She seemed terribly perturbed, and she was such a gentle old soul. My heart went out to her. Besides, her words seemed to supplement the actions of the Professor. I had known her since boyhood—and I loved her.
“What has happened to Professor Mason ?” I asked,
She wrung her hands.
“That's what I wanted to ask you,” she said. “I thought you might know. It is his thumb. Something—something has happened to his thumb. It is terrible. Whenever he has the chance he does that—See?—” she led me to the door. “See? There he is now. He does that all the time, even as he used to watch for comets.”
It alarmed me. At first: I had thought that the Professor was overworked. I remembered that he was almost at the age of retirement, and that he had been, all his life, an indefatigable student. I resolved that I would bring it up with my colleagues, and that I would send my wife over to Mrs. Mason.
But here was a new angle. The words of the Professor's critic had aroused in me a train of thoughts that promised fruition. Now that I got down to it I recalled that comets had, on each occasion been the key to the Professor’s aberration. Of course, I had no idea that there exists an affinity, much less a law—and I think that you will allow that no man had, hitherto, ever dreamed that there is a law between a thumb and a comet.
Nevertheless it had aroused me. I would go straight to the Professor, spring right off into a discussion of comets—which by the way, is the Professor’s specialty—and if he lapsed again, I would compel him, even by force, to divulge his secret. In a few minutes I had on my coat and was on my way to the observatory.
It was a fine night: and as I looked down from the mountain I could sense the mist that I knew lay like a sea far below me. There was just the suggestion of a breeze; overhead were the stars that had been my life study, stretching away into the immensity that seems to go on forever.
Much as I knew about them, it was still so little—except the one fact that we would never know their secret. We might build telescopes and reflectors, and go on digging into the depths, without ever discovering what we were after. Little did I think that the old Professor had sought for the secret of the Universe and had found it—in his thumb!
I found him just where I thought I would—in the observatory, or, to be exact, just coming out and entering his study. He greeted me kindly. Certainly he did not look like a man with an aberration; there was just a bit of humor in his eyes—and laughter. On this night he was human, lovable—my old professor. Nevertheless he carried his thumb erect, as if he were holding on its end—an object.
At first he spoke of trivialities and kept the conversation down to the ground. He seemed to realize the offense he had committed; and he seemed desirous of avoiding any mention that would throw him into his weakness. Once or twice he glanced at his thumb, and at length he placed his hand upon the table—thumb erect.
It behooved me to be deliberate. After all, I thought, though a scalpel draws blood and is ruthless, it is necessary. I would be a psychological surgeon. So I plunged heedlessly into a discussion of comets.
It was as I thought. For an instant there was a look of helplessness in the old man’s eyes—a sort of wistfulness that might have been akin to fear—or then, it might have been a silent dread of offending. He seemed helpless—and, without ado, out came the microscope.
This was just what I wanted. I would know the why, and I was going to have it, I was the younger and the stronger. Without ceremony, I stepped forward and tore the lens from his fingers.
It was almost pitiful to see the old man; he looked up at me, startled, pleading almost afraid; finally he spoke:
“Doctor. I want my microscope!”
The tone of his voice was so soft and insinuating that I came near complying. It was only by effort that I hung on.
“Professor,” I said, "I shall return it to you after a while. But first you must answer my question.”
“Your question?”
“Just this. What has a thumb got to do with a comet?”
He was startled. He half rose in his chair; the look in his eyes turned to joy.
“Then you, too, have seen it?” he asked. “It is a fact—and it is so—I would have sworn it. It is a fact.”
He sat down. His gray eyes did not move; they seemed to be looking straight through me and out into the mysteries of the night and the stars.
“What is a fact?”
“That there is a relation between a thumb and a comet."
“Come, come,” I spoke. "This is getting us nowhere. That is just the question that I asked. I want you to tell me why you hold the lense to your thumb and what you have discovered—what it has to do with a comet.”
His eyes shifted; he held the digit up before him; he examined it carefully before he answered:
“Would you believe me if I were to tell you?”
“Why not?”
“Because, if what I have discovered is true, I have gone farther than all our telescopes can go in a million years. There is a secret in my thumb; and if you will listen I shall tell you.”
CHAPTER TWO
“DO YOU recall the eighteenth of last month? Let me ask you—did you feel an earthquake?”
“No. There was none—to my knowledge.”
He stopped and studied.
“That is the strange part of it. You say there was none, and so do the others. And yet I know there was. Or rather I should say there was a disturbance. I was alone in this building when it happened. The strange part is that none of the instruments have recorded it.”
“How would you account for that?"
“At first I couldn’t. But after a bit of reasoning I have been able to get about it. You know that there is a whole lot that we have not charted.”
“What?”
“What I mean is this—that our knowledge of the heavens is but a few years old—since the days of the Chaldeans, plus what we have been able to pick up from our knowledge of the stars, and our computations. A thing might happen now that has never occurred since the dawn of history—and it might come suddenly—unsuspected.”
“But nothing has happened.”
“Oh yes, there has.”
“What?”
“Just what I am about to tell you. I am not sure of my ground yet, so I am going to ask you to hold the secret. Afterward we shall publish it to the world.”
He stepped to the window. The moon was shining through. He studied a moment, as if he would pluck the secret from the stars; then he turned to me.
“It is so,” he said. “And I am convinced; but as yet I hardly dare propound it to science. Do you know, Doctor, I am a bit sorry for astronomy. No! Do not interrupt me. What I mean is this—that we astronomers, humble as we hold ourselves, are a bit too exalted. We behold and speculate on vast distances; and, because we do, we unconsciously accept, as it were, a sort of psychological Ptolomaic theory. That is, we, as men, weigh up the Universe with ourselves, mere men, as the center; we measure distance with our intelligence—and we strive for solution. After all, our sidereal system is a very small thing.”
“Small!”
“Yes, indeed; if there is truth in what I am about to tell you. I know that there is; but it came so suddenly, and was so overpowering, that it has taken me all these days to grasp it.”
“And you found it in your thumb!”
He held up his hand. “Wait. I shall come to that in time. Let me tell my story.
“It was on the eighteenth of last month. If you stop and think you will recall that it was a warm night, and that it was unusually sultry; so much so that I had the windows open, and for comfort, had stripped to my shirt sleeves. I had just stepped out of the observatory and had entered this very room. I was writing an article for the Astronomical Review, a sort of layman’s article that was intended, by the editors, for general distribution. Inasmuch as it was for the common reader, I was writing in a sort of analogous style, using comparisons, that the most uninitiated might understand. It was on comets and their probable use in the sidereal mechanism; for, as you know, I have always held our sidereal system as a composite, integral thing. When I came out of the observatory I sat down to my manuscript.
“But first I went to the window. It was a sultry night; very much so. So much so, in fact, that I experienced a slight difficulty in breathing. I looked out of the window and endeavored to get a bit of fresh air. I am not as young as I once was, and I have had several such attacks, especially in sultry weather. But on this night it was pronounced, and peculiar. I might say that there was something wrong with the air—a peculiar odor, heavy, and inert,—like the breath of a snake. And it was charged.
“I noticed this because I happened to touch or move my hand over a piece of silk by the window; and I was surprised by the resultant flicker of electricity that it evoked—I had never noticed it before. My heart seemed heavy, pregnant, expectant; and I felt a sudden flutter pulsing through my veins—like a palpitation. It was unusual, weird, intuitive. Again I looked out of the window.
“Now my sight is poor; and I blamed it, at the moment, on my defective vision. For, at the moment, the whole mountain was lighted by a rain of million pointed lights, like myriads of fire flies, a shower of infinitesimal fire-points. And I took it to be optical because I had exactly the same feeling in my eyes that I have when I look at the sun. In fact it pained me; so that I shut them.
“When I opened them the fire points were gone. Except the odor, there was not a thing unusual; the moon was lighting the mountain-rim to the eastward; the stars were the same; and below I could see the town lights in the valley. It was almost midnight, and most of the people of our village had retired for the night. I returned to my manuscript. I was alone.
“I had just time to sit down when it happened—like an earthquake, exactly—a sort of muffled roar, then a jerk as if the Universe were putting on the brakes, and a twisting and a grinding. It was so violent that my chair was wrenched sidewise and spinning; and I was thrown to my feet. The table shunted across against the wall; and the books in the shelves shot out over the floor. For a moment I thought that the mountain was breaking to pieces. The peak of an earthquake is the last thing in the expression of helplessness.
"I rushed to the door. It was good to be outside. The air was fresh; and the peculiar snakelike stagnation was gone. It was not my first earthquake, and of course, I was not terrified. Nevertheless it was sweet and fresh in the open air; and as I was a bit overcome I remained outside for a few minutes. Then I started back to my study, intending to go from there to the observatory; when I heard a noise behind me.
“It was a peculiar sound—like some one breathing, at first—then it was like a woman’s voice, dulcet, musical, sad. It was below the parapet where they had leveled off the mountain’s tip when they built the observatory. Then I heard the voice of a man, reassuring and full of solicitude. They were directly below me, and inasmuch as it was nearly midnight T could not, but wonder.
“Then the thought came to me that it might be none of my business. Lovers have a way of climbing mountains; and I have no doubt that there is much more fervor in courtship on a summit than at the bottom; else why these continual climbings? I returned to the study.
“I had just picked up a sheet of my manuseript when the door opened, and some one stepped into the room. There was no knocking. I looked up.
“Two people were standing at the door, a man and a maiden; and I may as well say, right here, that they were the most wonderful and perfect specimens that I have ever seen. The man was not more than twenty-seven years of age; the girl was possible eighteen or nineteen years old. The maiden was leaning on the man; and both were almost naked. At least, it seemed so when I first beheld them, for their dress was totally impossible when compared to the conventional covering of today.
“The man was covered with mantle or tunic of beautiful purple feathers—a down as soft as that that comes from under the breast of the eider duck; his arms were bare, and likewise his legs—a splendid strapping man of almost unearthly strength and beauty—such a being as might come to a poet in the midst of a classic dream; a youth who, but for his eyes, might have stood as a model for our conception of physical perfection.
“It was his eyes that first caught me and made me rise from my chair—for they were a deep glowing mahogany—the most remarkable eyes I had ever looked into, intelligent, fall-souled, superhuman. He must have been six feet two inches high, a man who, even as he stood, would have weighed well over two hundred pounds.
“He was supporting a maiden as beautiful as he, himself, was perfect—a girl of golden hair and nymphlike grace—but full-breasted, like the beauties that the Greeks put upon Olympus. Like the man, she was clothed in feathers, only they were longer and of a deeper hue of purple—a robe that reached from her knees up to the fall swell of her bosom ; but dropped down below the left breast, leaving it bare—a splendid creature of rare exquisite beauty and unhesitating innocence. Though her costume would not have done for a city street, it did not, in her case, seem at all immodest. Her little feet were encased in sandals wrought in silver and gold, and bound about her limbs by thongs of silklike leather.
“Surely no man had over seen such a pair—and upon a mountain! I stepped forward. The maiden looked first at me and then at her companion; her eyes were wonderful—not mahogany but blue—blue as the tropic sea; they were full of light, the indefinable flare of passion and tenderness. There was query in her expression—as if she were beholding something that she could not understand. She clung to her lover, drawing herself behind the protection of his arm, and regarding me as if I were a creature drawn from another world, instead of a dried-up astronomer; and as if the furnishings of the study were each and every one an engine of destruction. Her fear was that of a child, her trust in her companion that of a maiden.
“The man held up his hand, pointing. There was something tragic about his action—something that I could not understand. Surely they were man and maiden! I could see that much; but, I could not understand their motive. I stepped forward.
"I beg pardon—but—excuse me—is there something that you wish—some-hing that I—’
“I stopped, for I saw at once, from the incredulous and puzzled look upon their faces that they did not understand me. Whoever they were, they did not understand English. That was certain. So I tried again in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and finally in Arabic. From my earliest youth I have made the study of language an avocation; and you know I am almost as good a philologist as I am an astronomer. After I had essayed the same attempt in the sixth language I stopped. They were both, apparently, of Caucasian extraction; and I knew from the expression upon their faces that they had heard me. Certainly they were normal; and not defective. I do not know who was the more puzzled. For a moment we all stood still.
“Now the moon was rising to the eastward—the full moon—and its light was flooding through the window; on the eastern mountains we could see its mellow disk poised like a burnished plate. The man stepped up beside me. He caught me by the shoulder, and again he pointed; this time he spoke, in a voice full of power and magnetism—a splendid, virile voice, surcharged, as it were, with authority and intuitive personality. He pointed to the ground outside.
" 'Roos ?'
“Roos. The word was a strange one; but somehow it had a familiar ring. I had spoken in several languages; and now I was being addressed in a tongue that I could not understand. I had essayed my question in several forms; I had one remaining—Sanscrit—and the word Roos, so far as I knew, was not of the old mother tongue. I could only answer as I pointed to the ground.
“ 'Earth.'
“But the word had no significance; he was more puzzled than ever. For some moments he watched the moon, until the ring of the disk had left the crest of the mountains and had floated up into the star-salted sky. The girl rested in the fold of his arm, waiting. She, too, watched the moon. There was something uncanny in their presence; for they were both of them as beautiful as the gods of old Hellas. They spoke together; and the man pointed at the orb. The girl nodded. Her face was full of delight and wonder, as if she were beholding a spectacle that had long been promised. The man’s voice was affirmative and emphatic, certain; even if he could not understand me; and once again he pointed at the moon. The man turned to me:
“'Mas!?' He indicated the moon.
“For an instant my mind ran the gamut of several languages. Mas? Mas? And then it came—it was the moon—the old mother tongue, Sanscrit for the moon—Mas! The man was speaking Sanscrit! My heart leaped at the discovery.
“'Tho Moon—Mas!’ I nodded. It was my first conversational effort in an almost mummified language; for a moment I was bewildered; I repeated my words; ‘Yes—Mas—the Moon!'
“He smiled; again he spoke to the maiden; then he turned to me; he pointed at the ground:
«'Roos?
“It was the same word again; evidently he meant the Earth; so I repeated my answer:
"'Barth.'
“And again we came to a deadlock. I saw that, unless we could overcome it, our conversation would get us nowhere. I was supremely interested in this wonderful couple who spoke Sanscrit. It had been a dead language for thousands of years. Who could they be? Certainly I could not account for the manner of their coming, nor for their dress, nor for their beauty. Though they were man and maiden, human like myself, there was, for all that, a vast gulf between us. I had a notion of time, somehow, a vague apprehension of a leap across the bridge of the ages.
“For a moment I thought rapidly, my mind cluttered with conjectures, all of which I thrust aside for something practical. The man spoke of the Earth, or what, to him, had apparently the same meaning; and as an astronomer the word had, to me, a special significance—a planet, a part of the solar system. I thought of the globe in the corner, and pointed.
“He was delighted. At the sight of the sphere he ran over to it and spun it upon its axis; again he spoke to the maiden, in the same language: but too rapidly for me to follow. The girl fell upon her knees and watched, while the other traced his fingers over the surface. T noticed that his search was slow and uncertain, like a school boy’s first adventure with a map; and I noted, also, that most of his search was about the poles. But he was perplexed. There was something about the globe that puzzled him. Only occasionally did his face light up, and then only when he ran his fingers over some northern continent. At last he turned to me. He pointed at the sphere.
"' Roos.'
“It was not a question this time. Apparently he was satisfied on the point of the globe. Roos was, indeed, the Earth.
"I nodded then, under the lead of a happy inspiration, I pointed to California.
“The name had, apparently, no meaning; but when he followed my finger he drew back; he looked up at my face; his eyes were wide, almost wild. I don’t know that I have ever seen such an expression in a man’s eyes— it was ineredulous, almost terrified. He glanced about the room, at the books and at instruments upon the table; then he stood up. The beautiful girl by his side watched him with growing wonder. Apparently she could understand neither her companion nor myself. The man spoke, following my words, then he went into the old tongue, speaking slowly so I could follow:
“'You mean that this is California—here—that you live here!'
“He indicated my finger.
“'Exactly,’ I answered. ‘Here. This is California. We are here at this very moment.’
“'Impossible!'
“‘Impossible? Why!’ I could not understand. At first I had entertained the idea that the pair might be a couple of masqueraders out on a lark; but the language they spoke, together with their sincerity, did not allow it.
“'Why is it impossible?’ I asked. ‘I have been here for twenty years.’
“'It is impossible,’ he answered, ‘because you could not live here. You would burn. It is too far south.'
“'I do not understand you. Who are you who come here speaking an obsolete Janguage? You are not English, nor French, nor German—yet you are Caucasian. How did you come here? What do you mean by saying that we are too far south?'
“For answer he stepped to the globe, and placed his finger on the upper part of Greenland:
“ 'We should be here. Life is not possible as far south as you say. It is impossible.'
“To say that I was interested is to say nothing. I could not understand. Was ‘it possible that there was life to the north of Greenland? I stepped over to the shelf and drew down a book on Arctic exploration; I opened it at a typical illustration—an ice field—a vast expanse of heartless, frigid, piled-up icy desert.
“ 'That’s Greenland,’ I said. And to illustrate my words still further, I drew a piece of ice from the container and placed it in his hand. His jaw dropped. I felt sorry when I saw his dismay; and Thad the feeling that there was a great wrong done somehow. He sat down on a chair, and in utter misery he dropped his head upon the table and covered it with his arms. The girl nestled to him; she threw one of her beautiful arms about his neck and with her hand began stroking the hair back from his forehead.
“'What is it, Alvas?’ she asked. ‘Is it wrong? It must be as you say. You know so much. After all that you have done, you cannot fail now. It must be as you say. You have proved everything—and now that you have come back to little things you cannot fail here. You are the greatest astronomer that ever lived.'
“An astronomer !
“'Then you are an astronomer!” I exclaimed.
“The man looked up. He took the girl in his arms, and kissed her; there was a bit of anguish in the action, like that of one who has lost everything, like that of one who, in the supreme moment, has gone down in utter defeat.
“'I am afraid that it is so, Sora,’ he said. ‘It must be so. There is one thing that I had thought of; but have forgotten until now. I have made a great mistake. There are things that may and may not be. It is no more than natural that I, who have found everything, should fail in the end. It is God’s will. It is his rule that Man can go only just so far. I had forgotten vibration.’
"'What do you mean?'
“Just this, dear. You and I are only a youth and a maiden. The stuff that this man placed in my hand just now is ice, or frozen water, which we could make only under process. If it is true that it is heaped about the poles it can mean but one thing—that you and I are very very, old. Old!’—there was a depth of despair in the word—'Our world has been buried and forgotten these millions of years! You and I are probably thirty, perhaps one hundred million years of age."
“ ‘But it has only been a few days!'
“'I know it. We have come through the Universe and solved Infinity. Now we pay the penalty!'
CHAPTER THREE
"I LISTENED to their talk with an interest that can be imagined. Although I could understand their words, I could not, for all that, get at their meaning; and when the man spoke of Infinity I felt the return of my old askance. No man can solve Infinity, nor get at the beginning of things.
“Yet, for all that, here was a miracle, or something very near to it—there was something, some strange force that had brought the man and the maiden. Could it be that their age was to be measured by millions of years? I am an old man and a scientist ; and I am given to facts; my whole life has been spent in tearing down dreams and theories and forcing all things down to the level of solid mathematics. And now I was come to this!
“I looked out of the open window at the sleeping village. It was my own mountain, with the deep shadows to the south, the round old moon floating overhead, and a slight breeze rustling from the north. A dog, one of the children’s pets, was barking; from the depths of the canyon I caught the hoot of a night owl. Everything was as it should be—except these people.
“They must pay the penalty for what? For a staid astronomer I was surely having an experience!
“But now the man Alvas looked up again; he glanced curiously about the room, at the fixtures, at everything. I had the feeling, at the moment, that, should I at some far future age suddenly open my eyes upon a new civilization, I would be more curious. I noted that there was a total lack of fear in his action; he seemed to take things for granted and to assume that I was a scholar, even as he.
“ 'You are an astronomer?’ he asked.
“ 'I am. This is Hazleton Observatory.'
“The girl watched the both of us; her innocent, beautiful eyes were full of question. Somehow I could not get over the notion that she was not of our world; she was too ethereal. The man studied over my words.
“ 'It is fortunate,’ he said at length. 'Although I have made a grievous mistake it might have been worse. Fate has at least granted me a bit of good fortune. You might have been a blacksmith, a meehanie, or a tradesman; your being an astronomer assures me of at least a hearing. You will understand.’
“ 'I am sure I do not understand you now. You have not answered my question. Who are you?’
“ 'I am Alvas,” he answered. ‘Alvas, King of the Northern Pole; I am Alvas the Astronomer—son of Alvas the Wise, the fourteenth king in direct line from Alvas the Great, he who was the lord of the atom, the first king of the Sansars to conquer and harness the laws of atomic force. I am Alvas the Sansar, the first of the Scientific Kings to penetrate through matter and solve the substance. I am the first man to cut through Infinity.’
“All this was like talk from Fairyland; so I answered:
“ 'Your titles are high-sounding and interesting; but utterly strange. I know of no land of the Sansars, nor Royal line of Alvas. All I know is that you speak Sanscrit, which is a sort of mother tongue to all Caucasian tongues—therefore you must be connected with something very ancient. I cannot understand your allusion to millions of years. No tan may live so long.’
“ 'Yet you are an astronomer?'
“ 'I am.'
“ 'And you know of the moon—of Lunar civilization?’
“ ‘Civilization upon the moon!'
“ 'Ah! Then you do not know. It is strange. What is your specialty?'
“ 'I make a special study of comets.’
“ 'Ah!’ He seemed to light up with a sort of enthusiasm. He walked to the window and looked out. Then he returned; when he was directly under the light he held up his thumb. There was something strange in the action, a peculiar inquisitiveness and inspection; under the guidance of impulse, I passed him a small microscope, which, after a bit of examination, he held over his hand. Tt was a queer bit of acting. I could not but wonder—what could be the relation between his thumb and a comet? Suddenly he looked up.
“ 'You say that you specialize on comets. Can you tell me,’ he asked, ‘what a comet is? For instance, what is its reason in your Universe? I am asking you because I, too, specialize on comets.’
“ 'I don’t know, exactly,’ I answered. ‘It’s a question that is a bit difficult to answer. No man knows the reason for any part of the Universe—let alone a comet. We know that comets do not fall in with the usual laws of the solar system— their orbits are different, for instauce, and their actions are somewhat irregular. I am afraid that I cannot give you a definite answer.’
“He did not reply. Instead, he fell under the influence of the microscope; the clock ticked on, while my strange visitor with the beautiful maiden by his side peered through the lens at his thumb. At last I asked irreverently, and, I am afraid, a bit perversely:
“ 'Has a comet anything to do with that thumb?’
“It was a boyish question for an astronomer; I felt, somehow, that I was being hoaxed; for in no other way could I explain the attention that the man gave to his thumb.
“The maiden placed her finger at the point just where the nail ran into the flesh.
“ 'Alvas.' she said. ‘It was right here—the laws you have drawn out and evolved. It was so. Yet you say that you have made a mistake. It was so strange, and so unthought of. After so much speculation and so much thought, it turned out to be so simple. Yet how does it come that we are so old? It seems like only a few hours.'
“ 'I said,' he answered, ‘that it was mistake; and it was. But it is as it ould be. It could not be else. The mistake was only in my calculation. Nature does not fail. And now that I have had time to think, I know that we really should be millions of years of age —were we not, the fabric of things would fall asunder.’
“ 'Then you were right.’
“ 'God is right. There is but one mighty unity down to the tiniest thing.’
“Surely this strange pair had a message to tell. I waited expectantly. As a man of sense I thought it best to listen to their story before passing judgment. Who was this king of the Northern Pole—Alvas the Sansar—the astronomer? Was it possible that I was to look into a sealed book of our planet’s history? Whence came their knowledge of Sanscrit?
“My mind went back to the shadows of the beginning, and to the Darwinian theory, and to the one point wherein it seems to fail—on the specific origin of Man.
“It is a curious fact, that, in spite of all we know of evolution, we can never prove anything specific concerning the first actual appearance of Man. When we find him he is full-fledged. No science has ever been able to tum up a fact of transition. Evolution teaches; physiology, palaeontology, embryology, everything tends one way; except to the one and the main thing—we have never been able to dig up the manlike ape who is said to have been man’s progenitor.
“And who were the original Aryans? They are supposed to have come down from the highlands of Asia into Europe, India, and Persia, where they became Caucasians. Who were they? Whence did they come? And who were their antecedents? The nearest approach that we get to the secret is the old Sanscrit language. And this beautiful couple spoke Sanscrit! Was it possible that in the past there had been a wisdom and state far above our own vaunted civilization?
“I recalled the ice ages and the calamities that were visited upon the Earth before the coming of Man. The old Earth has had her vicissitudes. I could picture a great and wonderful civilization crushed by the hand of frost--the shifting of the poles—a few stragglers drifting, naked, before the avalanche of ice—millions of years. Man might have originated about the poles. We have never found his progenitor, simply because we have never looked in the right place. Was it possible?
“Whatever the tale that they had to tell, it would be interesting. I was all eagerness. A slight breeze was drifting through the open window, enough to catch in the downy feathers of their garments and to rustle in their purple softness. I wondered at their dress. Surely there was nothing on Earth like it.
“ 'I wish to ask you,” he said, ‘concerning your life. I am Alvas, the king of the Sansars, and this is Sora, who would haye been my Queen had everything turned out as I expected—were I not millions of years too late. I want you to tell me of your life.’
“ ‘What would you know?'
“ ‘Everything. For instance, how does it, come that you live so far south? L want to know about yourself and your civilization. How old is your civilization?'
““ 'That depends,’ I answered, ‘upon what you call civilization.’
“His face clouded, and the old puzzled look came back.
“ 'You seem civilized,’ he replied. 'Let me state it differently. How old is your history? You surely keep records, and have a knowledge of the past. How far back have you a record of Man?'
“ ‘Recorded history goes back about six thousand years,’ I replied, ‘or rather, I should say, traditional history. Beyond that we have a pall of darkness; with ‘Man upon the Earth, but no record.'
“ 'How far back have you been able to trace Man?'
“ 'About two hundred and fifty thousand years.’
“ 'And he—'
“ 'Was a savage.'
“ 'Oh, Alvas,’ spoke up the girl, ‘it has only been a few days! It cannot be! There is some mistake.’
“ 'There is no mistake, Sora,’ he answered. ‘I can explain it all in the end. Nevertheless, there has been a cataclysm of some sort.’ He turned to me. ‘Have you ever thought of speaking to the moon?'
“ 'Speaking to the moon! There is no life upon the moon. How could we speak?'
“ 'How do you know there is no life upon the moon?’
“ 'Because there is no atmosphere upon the moon. Any astronomer, even a boy, knows there is no oxygen. Life could not be—for an instant.’
“He thought for a moment; then he spoke:
“ 'You say there is no life there; you say that it is not possible; are you sure there is no oxygen?'
“ 'Quite sure.’
“ 'Then,’ he answered, ‘we are very old, indeed. And you say that Man, your Man, goes back only two hundred and fifty thousand years. How does it come that you and I speak the same language?'
“ 'I do not know,’ I replied, ‘but it seems that we are related, somehow. I cannot understand your statement that you are millions of years of age.’
“ 'It can be explained very easily,’ he said. ‘Have you any knowledge of atomic force?'
“ ‘Very little,’ I replied. ‘Our physicists are just beginning to study into the atom. We know some of the facts, and have learned some of the laws of vibration, light, and so forth.’
“ 'You understand steam?'
" 'Yes.'
“ 'Electricity ?'
" 'Yes.'
“ 'The laws of gravitation?'
“ 'Yes. We understand the laws; but we do not know what gravitation is, beyond a knowledge that it is everywhere, and penetrates through everything. Why do you ask these questions?'
“ 'Because I wish to know whether you are far enough along to understand my story. For if, as you say, there is no atmosphere upon the moon, I have been gone a very long time—according to the earthly cycle, millions of years. And yet, for all that, we have been away but a short while.’
“ 'Where have you been? Have you not been upon the Earth?’
“ 'It is a strange story that I have to tell. After I am through you will understand; and we can compare notes, and figure out what became of the civilization that I left behind—and perhaps establish some legitimate fact concerning the origin of your Man. For I have no doubt that the Sansars were your progenitors. There must have been some calamity to overthrow the civilization of the Northern Pole—some terrible cataclysm that destroyed all but a few survivors; it seems incredible that what we worked out through millions of years should go for naught. They must have wandered southward and lapsed into savagery. Have you ever found any traces of civilization, cities and such, about the Northern Pole?'
“ 'My dear sir,’ I answered, ‘we know practically nothing about the North. Beyond the Arctic Circle we may penetrate only with great hardship. If there is a vestige of the past it is buried under tons of ice: and we don’t know where to find it.’
“ 'But you have explained the stars?'
“ ‘He seemed to leap from one question to another with bewildering facility.
“ 'Explained them ?'
“ 'You know what they are, of course—their reason?'
" ‘I am afraid that we do not—that is, if you mean their reason in space, their relation to Infinity.’
“We were standing close together; the man was almost by my side; he still held the microscope in his hand. When I gave him my last answer, he reached over suddenly and caught hold of my thumb. He held it up. I did not resist.
“ ‘Suppose I were to tell you that you had the secret of things and held the reason of your visual Universe in your thumb. What would you say?'
“ 'I would say that you are very unscientific. Surely you would not expect me to descend to nonsense.'
“He smiled. ‘Undoubtedly. But I venture to say that you will agree with me that most of the things, which you consider inexplicable, are found, when analyzed and got at from the bottom, to be very simple. It is so with your visual Universe; and, paradoxically, when I am through you shall know that, though it is a very small thing, it is, for all that, infinitely beyond anything that you may imagine. If you understand anything about atomic law you can follow and understand my story,’
CHAPTER FOUR
HE SAT down on a chair that I had brought forward. The girl took her seat beside him. And then he began his tale.
“ 'I am Alvas the Sansar,’ he began, ‘Alvas the Astronomer, the King of the Sansars, the fourteenth in direct line from the Great Alvas, he who was the first lord of the atom. My people were a great people inhabiting the region of the Northern Pole.
“ 'If I lapse into the present, remember that it is because it is hard for me to realize that all I have to tell is millions of years in the past. Nevertheless it is so; and I shall be able to explain it.’
“He turned to the globe and put his finger on the spot that I had called Greenland.
“ 'If you will look at this globe you will observe that there is a great deal of land in the North. The continent which you have called Greenland reaches close to the Pole itself; and in my day extended to and beyond the Pole as far south as the seventieth degree, and was fringed on the opposite side by a number of islands, of which this,’ he pointed to Nova Zembla, ‘might have been one. Still farther south were the great continents, the torrid lands of the south, teeming with terrible life, pestilence, steaming heat, and sudden death—regions which we could circle, but which we could penetrate only at the penalty of certain destruction. All our life was clustered about the Pole,
“ 'This was due to a very simple fact of planetary evolution. The Earth, when it cooled, allowed life at the poles before anywhere else; when the rest of the Earth was a swirl of steam, when the crust of the equator was a mass of fire, the temperature of the poles, alone, was of sufficient coolness to allow the beginnings of life.
“ 'We know that the first life upon the Earth was about the poles. We know also, that, before the beginning of life, the Earth was a ball of fire. It is a part of the solar system, and much like the sun about which it rotates. We know that uncounted ages must have elapsed before the planet had cooled sufficiently to allow the hot vapors to condense and settle into the hollows to form the oceans. In the first ages the whole Earth must have been surrounded and enveloped by an immense pall of vapor through which the sun could not penetrate, and under which the Earth lay swaddled for eons, warmed by its own heat and entirely independent of anything external. In the first ages, then, the poles were much like the equator. There was no sun—only a half light, and moisture dripping never ceasingly from the everlasting clouds. It was an age of mushroom-like vegetation; but of very little animal life.
“ 'Then came the sun.
“ 'The pall of vapor broke and descended into the seas; and life began to appear and to roam over the face of the Earth. And when the sun first broke through, it was not a question of how much heat; but of how little. Naturally, the first place where life was possible was at the poles.
“ 'Thus we accounted for the beginning.'
" 'I understand,’ I answered, ‘most of our astronomers accept it even today. Life was certainly possible at the Poles before anywhere else. But I don’t recall any scholar ever suggesting that we look there for the origin of Man.’
“ 'Why not? Surely you have traced him from the north?”
“ ‘Come to think of it, we have. Tell me what you know. Whence came your Sansars?'
“But he shook his head.
“ ‘That I cannot tell. I am as ignorant of the origin of our Man as you are of yours. You say that your beginnings are shrouded in mystery and obscurity. So are ours. Only, while you may trace yourselves back to the Sansars, we can look back only into the mists of the beginning.'
“ 'How long had you a record of your Man?’ I asked.
“ 'Millions of years.'
“ 'And your civilization?’
“ ‘Several hundred thousand years. I think our civilization was much older than yours. Though we had no record of Man in the beginning, we had, nevertheless, a written chronicle that ran back many thousands of years.’
“ 'And you say that all this was in the past—millions of years ago—that you are millions of years of age—and that the Caucasian races of today are your descendants?'
“ 'I am sure of it. You speak the Sansar language, and that is proof of the relation. If you live here’—he pointed to California—‘you must be living on an Earth where the Poles are frozen; and that alone is a proof of the Time. We have been away for millions of years—though to us it seems but a number of days. Sora here,' he pointed to the girl, ‘does not understand; but I can explain. Let me look at the globe.’
“He spun the sphere upon its axis; then he stopped it and traced his finger over the North of Greenland. He shook his head.
“ 'Some of this is familiar; but not all, The city of the Sansars should be here, very close to the pole. You have it down as sea. Farther south, where you have these islands, were the observatories, close to the Magnetic Pole. The first observatory was at the Pole itself. The city of Sansar was a metropolis of a million inhabitants. All this,’ he made a sweep over the Arctic—‘was rich and inhabitable, a prosperous country teeming with resource. But here,’ he pointed to the North tip of North America, ‘we could not go. It was too hot—.’
“ 'You mean, then, that in this age of which you are speaking, the Earth was cooled off only about the poles, and that what we call North America was too hot for human habitation?’
“ 'Exactly. We lived about the pole. There were a few, our Wise Men, for instance, who calculated against the future, when the cold would encroach, and we would have to move to the southward; but the average man considered it not. There were some, super-wise, who predicted that the time would come in the eons of the future, when the whole world would freeze up entirely, and life be impossible,’
“I nodded at this.
“ ‘That is so,’ I said. ‘We have proof of that in the moon. There is no life upon the moon. And as the moon has gone so must go the Earth.'
“ 'Yes. That is where we got our proof of the future. But in our day the moon was inhabited.’
“ 'Inhabited? Then your civilization must have been greater than ours of today. How would you know? Had you means of communication with the moon?'
“ 'Yes. But that is a long story. We discovered its life and civilization through an accident of our wireless, which I do not care to relate now. I shall only say that there was not only life, but a great civilization upon the moon, and that the satellite was in the last stages of active planetary evolution; and had come to the point where life was possible only about the equator. Therefore, when you say that you are living here, in what you call California, I know that I have been gone a great length of time,.It would take millions of years for the Earth to cool off sufficiently to permit life this far south. My people of Sansar are dead, the Northern Pole is frozen, and I return to the Earth a stranger.'
“I could but listen. Was it possible that there had been life, even civilization, upon the moon? Could it be that this man, coming out of mystery, would unriddle the past? Who of us has ever gazed at the moon, without speculating over its history, without considering what it might have been when it was a whirring planet, alive and atmospheric? Surely, it was not impossible that there had been life, even civilization!
“I recalled, further, that, although all of the white races have come sweeping out of the highlands of upper Asia, there is not, for all that, one man of the original stock left there today; and there is no one, even among the greatest scholars, who can give a satisfactory answer to the riddle of the Aryans. Like bees, they have swarmed out of the original hive in the uplands of Asia. Iberians, Greeks, Latins, Celts, Goths, Hindoos, Persians, Scandinavians, Germans, Slave—each swarm sweeping and crowding its predecessor, and each one bearing in its multitudes embryonic seeds that were to bear out in the complex fruit of modern civilization. Who were the original Aryans? No man knows. Why should I doubt the Sansars?
“ 'If there has been life about the North Pole,” I spoke, ‘I wish you would tell me about it. Most of all I would have you tell me how it comes that you are here tonight, and what a thumb has to do with a comet.’
CHAPTER FIVE
HE TURNED to the globe, spun it upon its axis, and placed his hand upon the spot indicated as the Polar regions.
“ 'This,’ he said, ‘was Sansar, this part of the Earth that you have marked down as the region of ice. Here was the land that I left behind me and here was the home of my people. Right here on the north tip of what you call the continent of Greenland was the city of Sansar, where I was born, raised, and educated as king.
“ 'I am Alvas the Astronomer, the King of the Sansars, the last of the scientific kings descended from the Great Alvas, who discovered the atom. And I am here tonight, the victim, you might say, of too much research.
“ 'In the beginning I shall speak broadly and not go into too much detail.
“ 'Here lived my people, the Sansars, and here was the first life possible upon your Earth and my Earth, right here about the poles that you have forgotten.
“ 'We had a civilization that was very advanced. We had about everything, I think, that you have in your life today, steam, electricity, spectroscopic analysis, gravitational control, atomic force. We had newspapers, literature, art, music, science. We were a healthy, sports-loving people. We had pleasures, theatres, operas, games of all sorts, and all the other amusements that interest the healthy and the intellectual. We were strong, robust, refined.
“ 'Our kings were known as the Alvas, kings who devoted themselves, not to wars, but to scientific research and the education of their people. I was an Alvas, the fourteenth in direct line from the great one who had discovered the atom. My father, known as Alvas the Wise, died when I was a child, and I was reared by a group of scientists. For the Sansars were careful of their princes, and were desirous that I be raised in an atmosphere that would make me a worthy ruler. All the Alvic line had been men of science. When I was old enough I was given my choice of a specialty. I chose astronomy.
“ 'On the day that I came to maturity, and received my rights of kingship, I was given my degree as an astronomer.
“ 'I was young and full of ambition, and I entertained, I am afraid, rather wild and speculative ideas concerning the science that I had chosen as my major. I had a strong notion of my own ability, and, I must say, a rather justifiable hope that I was to surpass any of my ancestors.
“ 'Most of all did this apply to the Great Alvas, he who had discovered the atom. I had a theory that I had evolved out of a reckless mind, a theory that I would prove with a comet. I was certain that I could carry the discoveries of the Great Alvas out of the atom and out into the stars. I had the laws of Alvas at my hand; and I would soon have a comet. For we were approaching the days of the Blood Red Comet.
“ 'I had always been interested in the laws of Alvas, and I had studied carefully all of his discoveries and speculations. He was the first to solve the atom and to prove that matter is everlasting. He had shown that the atom is nothing other than a solar system entirely analogous to our sun and planets, and that there is not a particle of difference in its Jaws other than a variance in the degree of vibration. For instance: that the movement in an atomic world is infinitely faster than in the world that we call our own. He proved that the component units of the atom are revolving at the terrific speed of forty thousand miles a second, traveling so fast as to be beyond human conception; and he demonstrated that, although revolving so fast, the separate parts of the atom are as much a cog of the Universe as our own solar system, and that each infinitesimal thing, no matter how far below human sight, is as important in the scheme of the whole as anything above it.
“ 'The only difference between our world and that of the atom, said he, is that we are attuned to the vibration in which we live; and that while we measure our relative time by the procession of our revolutions about the sun, we are not living a bit longer, in respect to ratio, than a mythical inhabitant of an atomic planet revolving about the nucleus (sun) of the atom. He even gave us figures. Taking 40,000 miles a second as a basis, he went into comparative values, giving a speed of 2,400,000 miles a minute, sixty times that to the hour, and twenty-four times that for one of our days; so that, granting that each revolution of their planetary world about the nucleus (sun) means a year within the atom, a single day of twenty-four hours with us would amount to 40,000 times 60 times 60 times 24, or 3,456,000,000 years within the atom.
“ 'And he demonstrated that it is infinitely more than that, for, instead of taking the length of the atomic planetary revolution (a thing impossible to compute) as a basis, he had used, for our understanding, merely the scale of miles per second. He made no assertion that the atomic world might be inhabited, though, for that matter, he made no statement to the contrary. Under his scheme, our solar system is but a larger unit in the sum of things that go to make up the unknown that we call the Universe. After he had formulated his speculative laws he set to work to harness the atom, and by the simple process of atomic explosion gave us the atomic engine.
“ 'By the time I had ascended the throne of Sansar his laws were so well established that you might say that the whole Polar civilization based upon the principle of atomic engineering. Nevertheless, I do not think that any one before my time had ever thought of taking the laws of the atom and applying them to the stars.
“ ‘Understand, we had attained a very high standard of civilization, and there was no one, even upon the streets, who did not regard astronomy as being the vanguard of all science. It was an age of astronomy. Every one was interested in its questions, in the moon and its inhabitants, whom we knew, but had not reached; in the planets, and in the whole continuous mystery of the solar system. For we would know the truth, not only of ourselves, but of our neighbors as well; and if possible, we would set up communication. I proposed to do it through the atom.
“ 'I had evolved a theory out of the discoveries of Alvas, a simple law; but one very difficult to prove. Namely, that our sun and its planets are nothing other than an atom, and that the whole scheme of visual stars is but a mere speck in the scheme of an outside Infinity, far beyond even the beginnings of imagination. In other words, I held that the people of Sansar were merely the inhabitants of a new atom, and that our sun, great as we thought it, is only an ion in relation to the vastness that is about it. And I maintained, further, that, even as the atoms below us are related, one to the other, and are bound together by one mighty force, so is our solar system bound up by cosmic law, and that our Universe is one and indivisible—Matter!
" 'We had never been able to explain the cohesion of the atoms that lay below us, how they hold together, and through speed force and vibration weave themselves into the indestructible network that we call matter. And I held that until we had the secret of the atoms’ cohesion, we could never unriddle the stars. But, of course, it was impossible for us to go down into the atom and solve the mystery.
“ 'And that is right where I made my point. Our solar system is, itself, an atom! Then I started my attack upon established astronomy.
" ‘I maintained that our astronomers had hitherto studied the stars from an impossible angle—Infinity. And I showed that, so long as we are bound up in a Universe that centers about ourselves, we can get nowhere. It is impossible to gaze through the stars without finding more beyond them. Therefore, I maintained that we had better study the secret of our own solar atom, and find out, if possible, the secret force or cohesion that holds our solar system in its approximate relation to the rest of the stars. And I proposed to do this through the medium of a comet.
“ 'My first act upon ascending the throne of Sansar was to address the council of Wise Men. I laid my plans before them; and I asked their cooperation in the great work that I had chosen—namely, to study the first comet that approached and to prove its secret. For I held that the secret of a comet is nothing other than the cohesive force that we were seeking, and that it is entirely analogous to the ionic something that holds together the atoms of matter. I would discover what a comet is composed of, and I would learn its reason.
" 'There was a great one approaching. It was called the Blood Red Comet, and though we had never seen it, we had been told by the Lunar astronomers, with whom we were in constant communication, that it was the greatest and most spectacular cometary guest that had ever visited the heavens, that its orbit covered a million years, and that it was coming from the very outskirts of Space. I would solve this comet.
“ 'There was no one among the Wise Men who would not admit the possibility of my argument. We knew nothing about comets, except what we had gained through spectroscopic means, namely: a few facts of light, density, transparency, and a mass of consequent speculation. ‘The question arose: How would I solve the comet?
“ 'I went into my plans, plans that were a bit daring, and that at first startled my auditors.
“ 'I proposed to visit the comet. At least, I would go close enough to solve its mystery. By means of an ether ship I would ascend from the Earth and lay in wait along its path.
“ 'We had an ether ship in Sansar, an aircraft built to penetrate the ether, and designed for the special purpose of crossing to the moon. It had been under construction for a number of generations and had only recently been proved a success. It was built like a fish, with three walls, two of ajacite and one of steel, with compressed air spaces between and a layer of non-magnetic alloy coated over the steel and protected by crystalline sulphur. Ajacite is a mineral that we had discovered through our Lunar neighbors. It is the only substance that will withstand the strain of absolute zero, and the only metal that would insure against explosion when in vacuum space. For we had learned to our cost that most crafts have a tendency to explode, when above the atmosphere of the Earth, in exactly the same manner that a deep sea fish goes to pieces when brought to the surface of the ocean. Ajacite would not only resist the internal pressure, but it was impervious, as well, to all extremes of temperature; so that, while the cold outside might be five hundred degrees below the zero point, the occupant inside the ether ship would be just as comfortable as though he were walking the streets of Sansar.
“ 'Inside the walls were two compartments, one for the atomic engines and the electrical machinery, and the other for the oxygen tanks and the chemical engines that would keep the air pure throughout the journey. The ship was small, not over forty feet, and there was only room enough, after deducting apparatus space, for two persons.
“ 'The craft had made a number of flights; and I, myself, had risen in it, only a few days previously, to the height of more than a thousand miles above the Earth. I was certain that by its means I could approach the comet, and solve, once and for all, the mystery of cometary visitation.
“ 'Such was my plan, one that may appear illusionary to you; but, in the days of advanced Sansar civilization, not at all impossible. We had the craft, engines, and other necessary means of crossing the ether. The whole problem became a question of danger to myself and the consequent extinction (if the trip proved fatal) of the scientific line of the Alvas.
“ 'I overcame that very easily. By dint of argument and persuasion I won the Wise Men; and it was proclaimed throughout the world that I, Alvas, known as the Astronomer, would set out on a certain day on a cometary voyage to prove the theory of matter.
“ 'At least it was so stated in the proclamation. I did not care how it was proclaimed so long as I could make the voyage. There was nothing to do now, but await the Blood Red Comet.
CHAPTER SIX
AT THIS time the people of the Sansar world knew very little about comets.
“ 'A comet is the most mysterious inhabitant of the starry heavens. It is a thing of beauty. It flashes through the solar system, disobeys its planetary laws, display its million miles of glory and is gone, to return, perhaps in a certain number of years, perhaps never.
“ 'No man had ever been able to understand the secret of the comet. We only knew certain facts that are manifest under an analysis of the spectrum. We knew that the light is intrinsic, that it comes from the comet itself, and not from the sun. We knew that it is composed of three parts, the head, the nucleus, and the tail. The head, or coma, of a comet, is its main visual part, a ball of transparent light; the nucleus is the bright spot of light directly behind it; and the tail is the wonderful luminous cloud that streams from the head out over the heavens. All this we knew. But we did not know what composes the comet in any of its parts; neither did we know its purpose; nor its reason for flashing across the firmament on its visit to the solar system.
“ 'The whole Sansar world waited for the Blood Red Comet.
“ 'When the lunar observatories began reporting its approach we made ready. The ether ship was gone over for the last time and every detail scrupulously overhauled. The Wise Men and the Astronomers haunted the observatories while we waited the terrible visitor. We had been warned that it was the most awesome and terrible guest that had ever visited the heavens. The moon with its stronger telescopes and more advanced civilization located it first.
“ 'Then we picked it up. At first it was barely perceptible, a mere glimmering of red, no larger than a pinpoint—like a star of the faintest magnitude. Then it grew larger, running up through all the magnitudes, until it had surpassed the first and had passed into planetary brightness. In a few nights it had so gained in size that it hung like blood drop ready to fall from the heavens. From the very first it had a gruesome glimmer and a threat of terror; and, being a comet, it had the additional weight of mystery and omnipotence. From the Lunar observatories we learned that its orbit covered a million years, and when we calculated the depths of Space that it had traversed it seemed to us as coming from beyond the bounds of the Universe itself. It was not only large but it was wicked; its red light winking and dripping an unholy radiance. To the people of Sansar it was the harbinger of Fate and Terror.
“ 'But to me it was a thing of destiny. I watched the comet through the long nights as it approached the Earth, and as it began to throw out its tail I marveled at its beauty, like all the rest of Sansar. For it was the most marvelous and, for all that, the weirdest and most terrible sight ever beheld. In the full of the night it was as large as the moon itself, blood red, like a vast wound in the heavens, driving a trail of light across the night exactly like a train of blood. Behind the head followed the dazzling nucleus, shooting jets and concentric rings of light into the coma, which in its turn passed on the light to the long and terrible train that reddened the darkness.
“ 'It was enough to frighten even an astronomer; to the ignorant it was the omen of death itself. When I say that the whole polar world went into panic I am not exaggerating.
“ 'It fascinated. I had always been interested in comets; but now, when I gazed into its terrible face, I was hypnotized. I could see the thing coming out of the Infinite and proving every bit of my theory. If I could but reach the comet I was sure that I would establish ‘one of the great laws of the Universe.
“ 'The astronomers worked with me, and night upon night we studied the spectrum, took photographs, and piled up data. We went into each detail with mathematical exactness. For it was my theory that this super-comet was but an ion of cohesion. We made ready for the time when it would cross the Earth’s orbit. It was planned to ascend in the ether ship forty-eight hours ahead of the moment when it would come the nearest to the Earth. With the atomic engines and the electric propeller-controls, the trip could be made in that length of time. I was to approach the comet just as closely as possible; and I was to carry instruments with me for the gathering of scientific data.
“ 'The day of my departure was a great one in Sansar. The whole of the Polar population crowded in or about the metropolis, waiting for the departure of the ether ship. It had been proclaimed that I, and one companion, would make the cometary attempt on a night appointed. The roads were packed with thousands, and for a week people slept in the streets. In all the territory about there was not a spot that was not held by a shuddering, terrified inhabitant of Sansar.
“ 'I planned to leave in the evening when the comet was brightest and when I had its light to guide me. By this time it had grown so immense and its redness was so intense that the whole night was bathed in a mist of unhallowed crimson.
“ 'I shall never forget that night—the stillness of the air—the red sky—the throngs of people packed back from the edges of the Ether field as far as the eye could reach—the bands playing—and the solicitude of my friends and the wise men, That day was a high point in the history of Sansar. It was an epoch of the Alvas; and had I succeeded I would have surpassed by all odds any achievements of my scientific ancestors. I was not afraid. I was as confident as any youth who had ever stood upon the threshold of adventure. I had the courage of my training. If the ether could be crossed there was no doubt of my ability to approach the comet. I was not afraid of the ether.
“ 'I had just forty-eight hours, I knew that with the terrific speed that the ether ship maintained through its atomic propulsion that I could reach it.
“ 'My plans were mostly to sail along with the comet, once I was near it, observe the head or coma, as it is called, and, if possible, get a good glimpse of the nucleus. If it were feasible, and I could do it without destruction, I intended to land on the comet. That is, granting that it had enough of solidity and substance to guarantee a landing. For I knew that there was a possibility that I might find the comet to be merely a matter of light and electrical glory.
“ 'If I could not land I would return to the Earth at one sailing. That would mean, possibly, five days. There was no telling what I might encounter; and there were a thousand dangers that I had to bear in mind. For instance, meteor storms, I might find myself in the midst of a cloud of immense pounding meteors, or I might get tangled up in some strange cometary force, unknown currents, electrical storms—what not. Any number of things might happen. If the comet’s head, for instance, were composed of material matter, such as shooting particles, there was a good chance for my destruction. It were necessary that I have good control of the ether ship; for, well constructed as it was, there would be little chance, if I ventured too close, of its surviving a bombardment of bowlders traveling at the speed of cannon balls.
“ 'I had to chance it. But while I was takingthe chance, I had, to a certain degree, the confidence of my calculations. I did not fear the head of the comet. I was sure that, no matter how dazzling and terrible it might be, it could not hurt me. It was the nucleus that I had to look out for. The head I took to be the effect of radiation, light—an immense coma thrown off from the parent nucleus. The nucleus is the heart of the comet, the one part that had ever defied all our calculations. The real danger was there—likewise the secret. It might be anything, and was so much of a mystery that I would wait until I could see it before I would venture an opinion. It might be fire, a great knot of electrical force, atomic explosion, radiation—anything. Perhaps in its heart I would discover the secret of cohesion.
“ 'At the last moment, just before I made off, I met with my first disapointment.
“ 'The ether ship had been built for the accommodation of two persons. I had expected to carry along a companion to serve as an assistant during the stress of the journey. There were long hard hours ahead. The man whom I had chosen was a noted astronomer of about my own age, a young man very eager to engage in the adventure. At the last moment I lost him.
“ 'After the apparatus (scientific and otherwise) had been stored away, it was discovered that there was very little accommodation for even one person. The space was too limited. I had, therefore, the alternative of abandoning the trip altogether, or undertaking it alone. It was a sad moment, and I was not a little appalled at the prospect before me.
“ 'Just before the start I stopped to take a last look at Sansar; for I knew that it might be my last moment on the Earth. Then I entered the ship, closed it, and rang the signal to my men. The next instant I was shooting like a bullet straight into the zenith.
“ 'For the first few moments I staid with the controls. I had to take great care at the start because the hardest part of an ether ship's flight is through the atmosphere. Once I was beyond it I would be free from the terrible menace of atmospheric friction. For a while I was very busy.
“ 'To those in Sansar my departure must have been like that of a gigantic projectile, whose whizz and momentum made any definite sight impossible. The craft arose at u right angle; and though the bottom of the ship thus automatically became the side, I experienced not a bit of inconvenience. This was because of the atomic anti-gravitational current that circulated under the floor. By the simple means of a button I had released the force that gave me the control over my own gravitation. Had I so wished, I could have flown upside down. This was the great advantage of atomic energy. When once released into the ether, the ship was, so far as gravitation was concerned, entirely its own master.
" 'I was two minutes passing through the zone of atmospheric friction. Then I struck the ether; the atomic engines giving out the strange hum that is peculiar when they are generating their own propulsion. Unless struk by an oncoming meteor, I was now in a region of comparative safety. I ventured a look down at the Earth.
“ 'What I beheld was a red sea of color—the Earth bathed in the crimson light. Above, spread the weird unhallowed glow of the comet. Even the moon was red. It was a strange, foreboding sight.
“ 'I turned to the examination of the engines and the chemical machines. Then I returned to the controls and spent the time watching the glow above me and speculating upon the movement of the speed clock.
“ 'In the open ether the speed of the ship was terrific. There was scarcely a limit to its maximum. I amused myself for a while by increasing and diminishing the velocity and testing by the speed clock. But I did not do it more than a dozen times. The whole voyage had been calculated to a fraction. After the first few tests I set the ship into the speed that it was to maintain throughout the voyage. After that there was nothing to do but watch and wait and spend the long hours thinking.
“ 'At last the clock said morning. When 1 looked down I was surprised, almost shocked, at the comet-lit glow that lay below me. I had never been up high enough before to get a good view of the Earth’s disk. There it lay like a round red ball basking in the comet’s glow. It was clouded and streaked about the torrid, burning regions, but clear and definite about the poles. I could make out the continent of Sansar; and I could judge, almost to a dot, the location of the capital city.
“ 'I the left was the moon, smaller, and at that distance looking for all the world like a child of the major planet. On the right I had the sun, and before me, a few degrees to the left, the oncoming comet. I reflected that with such companions I was not entirely alone; and I was elated when I thought that, of them all, I alone was free to follow my own volition. After I had satisfied myself, I had my first lunch, set the chemical machines to work to purify the air and made my first inroad upon the store of oxygen. Then I returned to my seat by the controls.
“ 'Nothing happened until about three o'clock. The speed clock ticked onward and the chart upon which moved the tabulated dots of the ether ship and the comet showed the terrific speed at which I was traveling. There was no sound; and there was no discomfort; though it was five hundred degrees below zero outside I was just as comfortable as though I were in Sansar. I began to doze. The ship sailed along without vibration. I was almost asleep when it happened, and I do not know to this day just what it was.
“ 'The silence was broken by a roar like that of distant cannon, a set of explosions, followed by a grinding, grating, phenomena. Then silence. When I looked out in my awakened senses I could see nothing; neither was there aught behind me. Whether it was a bank of small meteor particles, or some knot of unknown force traveling through the ether, I do not know. But thereafter I kept awake.
“ 'It was not so easy as it may seem. The hum of the atomic engines was mouotonous: and though the voyage was the strangest ever undertaken by man, I found it difficult to hold to alert consciousness. But I did, mostly by keeping my mind active; and giving free rein to imagination.
“ 'I had enough for that. With the comet approaching I had plenty to keep me busy. What would it be like? And what would be my fate? I realized that I was taking a trip in defiance of all logical calculation. Suppose the atomic engines should refuse to function? Would I go falling through space forever? What would be my fate?
“ 'By the thirtieth hour the Earth had dimmed to a large star, and the moon had grown to be her twin sister. On the other hand the whole Universe seemed to be turning to comet. The coma was now as big as a wagon wheel, a vast ball of winding, whirling, crimson. I could feel its motion, and even at this distance I could sense its terror. The whole Universe was seeping red and trailing in omnipotent beauty. There was pulsation to its light, and vibration; it was like a great, monstrous, living thing, red, vast, inconceivable. Never was there such beauty of light, nor man in such a position!
“ 'And still I held on, watching, waiting through the long lonely hours. Surely nothing but the wildest dream and perversion of destiny could have brought me to such a climax! Everything had melted into one sea of crimson ; there was nothing but red light and glory ; in the center of which loomed the vast sun of the oncoming comet. What an inconceivable thing is the Universe! This incredible body coming at the speed of multiplied whirlwinds had been traveling for millions of years without ever touching the sides. Whence had it come? Where was it going?
“ 'The last hours were terrible. The light grew so intense that it was like looking into the sun. The coma had grown until it filled half the sky; red, whirling, pulsing, a vast whirlwind of fiery flame, a rolling sea of omnipotence. Though there was no sound within the ether ship, I could sense an undercurrent of terrific explosions. Perhaps it was my reason combating my imagination; it was almost impossible, in the face of such a moment, to retain a hold on clear thinking.
“ 'And still I held on, swinging to the left so that [ would just miss the rim of the comet. It was my intention to let it get just so close, and then to turn and travel in the same direction until it had passed me. I would approach the comet in the same manner as a man boarding a moving yehicle—by parallel motion. And 1 intended to get just as close as possible.
“ 'I had the chart of the voyage by my side, un electric board crossed by lines indicating millious of miles, with a red light showing the path and the position of the comet and a green one indicating the course of the ether ship. When the green light had crossed into the last square I intended to reverse the ether ship and await the sequence. By this time I had lost all hold of visual calculation. There was nothing before me but one vast sea of crimson flame.
“ 'In the last moments I laid any plans against emergency. I knew that there would be unseen dangers, and I calculated carefully. There was the possibility of the atomic engines going to pieces and tho consequent danger to the ether ship. In such a case I would employ electrical propulsion. I knew nothing of a comet and I was by no means certain that what was a law upon the Earth would continue so when under cometary influence. If atomic force should fail I would fall back upon electrical propulsion and vice versa. By means of electrical discharge I proposed to test out the poles of the comet (if it had such), and so, in ease of mishap, guide the course of the ship. Thus, if I found the negative pole I could, by the discharge of a negative current repel the ship away from the comet. Or I could do it the other way about by the discharge of positive electricity. I could discover where the poles lay by the mere discharge. And that is where I made my mistake.
“ 'I was now approaching the line of the last square upon the chart. The comet had passed out of the visual stage and into that of immensity; before me was nothing but a sheer wall of red living flame. It was immense, dazzling, whirling; a pulsation of infinite, inconceivable forces, a blinding sea of omnipotent currents, centered into a vast hell-burning whirlpool. I was like an insect flying, head on, into the face of the sun.
“ 'When I had crossed the last thousand-mile line I opened the discharge and let out the current. And that was my mistake!
“ 'The next instant was one blinding, whirling, shuttle of confusion. It was like a thunderbolt, with the ether ship rolling without rudder or guidance, straight into the head of the comet. In the flash of that instant I can remember only a feeling of red, blazing helplessness and terror; there was a roar that outdid all thunder—the crashing and booming of terrific explosions, like the Universe splitting to pieces. I had released the wrong current and had been drawn straight into the comet!
“ 'Thank the Lord for the flight of thought and reflex action!
“ 'In that one second my mind and body knew what had happened. Though I was helpless, my trained hand did just the thing that saved me. The contrary switch was thrown. The next instant I was clear of the comet. I had made the mistake of trusting to luck and throwing out the wrong current: had I not reversed the switch and loosened a negative current I would surely have been destroyed. Though the walls of the ether ship were built of non-conducting material and were impervious to almost any extreme of heat and cold, I would not have lasted long inside that terrible coma. As it was I was thrown thousands of miles out of the comet. When I recovered my equilibrium the ether ship was sailing along like a fly in a course parallel to that of the coma.
“ 'I had made a great discovery. I know now beyond all doubt, that the coma of a comet is electrical, that its light is caused by the visual discharge of electricity, coming, undoubtedly, from the nucleus.
“ ‘For a while I sailed along with the comet. The atomic engines were working perfectly, and the anti-gravitational current was just as effective as it had been upon the Earth. I was at right angles to the comet, and just us independent as I would have been millions of miles away. The controls were accurate.
“ 'By the chart I could now see that I was traveling alongside the center of the gigantic coma. The whole Universe seemed to be painted in boiling flame. It was terrible to behold—and fascinating. It pulsed and vibrated, and rolled into billows of falling fire. It was alive, as if fed from within; and at every moment it broke into cataclysms of curdling blood-red brilliancy.
“ 'For an hour I drove the ether ship along the edge of the coma, gathering data that I would make use of when back upon the Earth,
“ 'I had proved my theory concerning the head of the comet. It was a ball of transparent light, transparent at a distance, but at close quarters brilliant beyond all imagination. It was electrical—the light o factive ions moving at terrible speed—not the speed of electrical current alone, but that of a vast consolidated body—a cometary knot of force.
“ 'And yet it was not, as I had maintained, entirely harmless. I could say definitely now, that, should the head of a comet ever strike the Earth it would mean the end. Since the beginning of science our astronomers had been speculating upon the result of such a collision, some holding one view and some another. The Earth had passed several times through the tail of a comet without being harmed; there were some who held that it would be the same with the coma, or head. The nucleus was the only part that they feared.
“ 'There lay the secret. Through telescopes I had watched the nucleus shoot jets and great concentric rings of light into the coma. If the head of the comet were electrical—the effect of these discharges—what was the nucleus? Whatever the comet might be, there was no one yet who had ever advanced a theory that held the weight of probability. The nucleus was the heart of the comet. I would solve its secret.
“ 'To do this I had to fall back along the head of the comet until I came to the tail, of which I was not afraid because I had known from the beginning that it is nothing but a passage of weird, uncanny light. I intended to dart straight through it and sail toward the nucleus. What I would do then would depend upon circumstance.
“ 'There was a good chance for my destruction. Nevertheless my mishap with the coma had increased rather than diminished my ardor. I had confidence and I had, most of all, a feeling that destiny would protect me.
“ 'I eased up on the engines, held the controls, and waited while the red sea of force sailed by me. On the chart I could watch the green dot of the ether ship receding across the face of the comet. Thousands of miles! It was an expectant moment.
“The comet looked to be a few feet away; and yet I knew that it was thousands of miles from the ether ship. It was boiling crimson, cataclysmic. Never was there a thing so terrible, nor a man so fascinated. I intended to wait for the moment and then plunge into its heart.
“ 'At last the coma had passed, and I knew by the chart that I had come to the tail. The intense light grew dimmer, and, though still a bright crimson, semi-transparent. After a bit I caught a glimpse of the nucleus gleaming like a ruby or violent coal directly behind the coma. It was red as blood, burning like the ruby light of a burning volcano. It was small compared to the rest of the comet, but of such an intensity that against its light the rest was as shadow. Red is a terrible color; but this red had the terror of hell!
“ 'It seemed to be living; like the evil eye of some magnetic devil, winking, blinking, and shooting red fire into the onrushing coma. Great wreaths of hot splendor shot out from its rim, one upon another, a whirling, blinding, dazzle of spasmodic ascending glory.
“ 'When well alongside, I speeded up the engines and turned straight in. I was not afraid of the tail; but I was going to take no great chance with the nucleus. It was too terrible—super-dynamic. If I could get close enough to see what it was like, I would be satisfied.
“ 'The tail proved to be just what I expected. It was merely a trail of harmless light, through which the ether ship passed without a bit of inconvenience. If it has substance, the density of a comet’s tail is so slight that one could condense a million miles into a handful. In a few minutes I was nearing the heart of the comet.
“ 'I was careful now. Instead of rushing straight in, I approached by a cautions, circular route; that is, I circled to the rear of the nucleus, and then reversed and repeated the movement, always drawing closer. I found that it was small and that, instead of being massive, it was, when compared with the rest of the comet, not more than a mere dot. It could not have been more than one hundred miles in diameter, circular, and surrounded by a red band of intense color. I discovered that from the rear it was apparently harmless.
“ 'I sailed up close. Then,taking courage, I drove the ether ship alongside where I could get a good view of the discharges that burst from the nucleus.
“ 'I was now directly under the gigantic coma, looking down into the heart of the comet.
“ 'To speak metaphorically, it was like looking into frozen fire. The flashes or ascending halos, broke from the rim of the nucleus, a circular ring whose intensity might be compared to boiling, liquid electricity. It was dazzling, blinding, incomparable—a rim of life and power whose potency can only be pictured in the extreme of imagination, a whirling, rotating wheel, out of whose depths leaped the gyrating wreaths of glory that fed into the coma.
“ 'The rim of the nucleus was traveling about the center at slow speed. At first I took it to be a complete circle; but after a bit I saw that it was broken and that it did not entirely surround. It was this break that emphasized the circular movement; it was the only part that I could watch without being blinded.
“ 'What was in the center of the nucleus? What was it for? I remembered my theory concerning greater matter. If it were correct, and if, as I had maintained, the sun and its planets is but a super atom, then this marvelous ring of force was but an ion, I was gazing into an ion of cohesion! That was why it defied planetary law. It had not to do with planetary law. It had not to do with our solar system alone, but with other systems as well. Its function was interstellar cohesion.
“ ‘Such was my theory.
“ 'The flashes, I discovered, were harmless so long as they were not touched. After a bit I learned that the wreaths of current were broken like the ring. By maneuvering, I brought the ship opposite the break in the outer nucleus. I would get a good view of what might be inside. If I saw a chance I would sail straight into the comet’s heart!
“The break was large—perhaps twenty miles—so that when I brought my craft to a favorable ion I could get a fair view. By following the break in its rotation, I gradually accustomed my eyes tothe light within. What I saw startled me, and gave me reasons for believing that the marvelous body might, after all, be, in substance, merely a gigantic meteor. I brought the ether ship around and made for the opening.
“ 'For a minute there was a blinding flash as I passed through, then a lapse, and after that a notion of heaviness. The atomic engines began giving off the hum that is peculiar when they are combating atmospheric friction. Could it be that there was air?
“ 'I slowed down to mere airplane speed. Then I looked below me for the answer.
" 'It was the greatest and most marvelous moment that I can remember. I was in the heart of the comet, and it was alive! Below me was spread out a varied scenery, trees, plants, diminutive mountains, lakes, a short river with a beautiful waterfall, along the banks of which strange creatures were walking and feeding.
“ 'There was grass in the plains and ferns in the hollows. On the crest of the mountain was a little lake full of a pink liquid. The river bubbled out at the foot of the mountain. I approached the ground and followed the course of the river. I marveled at this little world below me. It was as natural as my own Earth.
“ 'At length I approached the source of the stream, which sprang from a small forest at the foot of the hills. In front of the trees was a pile of stones heaped and built as if for habitation.
“ 'And then! I caught the brakes and set the ether ship into its first full stop, For the heart of the nucleus was not only atmospheric, but it was the habitation, as well, of human beings. The pile of rocks that I had observed was indeed a residence. Before it, looking up at the ether ship, was a woman, or rather, I should say, a girl—the girl of the comet!’ ”
This Story Will Be Concluded in the Next Issue of WEIRD TALES. The Final
Chapters Bristle With Strange Experiences Even More Engrossing
Than Those in This First Installment. Don’t Miss
the Next WEIRD TALES.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1933, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 90 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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