Andromeda (A Space-Age Tale)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN THE ANDROMEDA NEBULA

The huge plain of El Homra stretches away to the south of the Gulf of Sirt in North Africa. Up to the time the trade winds and doldrums were eliminated it had been known as Hammada, the Red Desert, a waste of sand and stone, especially the triangular red stones that had given it its name. In summer it had been an ocean of scorching sunlight and during the autumn and winter nights it became an ocean of cold winds. Only the wind now remained of the old Hammada and that sent wave after wave across the tall silvery-blue grass that covered the firm soil of the plain; the grass had been transplanted from the South African veldt. The whistling of the wind and the bowed grass awakened in man’s memory an uncertain feeling of sorrow and, at the same time, a feeling that the great grassy plains are somehow close to his heart, something that he had met with before in his life — not just once before, but many times and under different circumstances, in sorrow and in joy, in good times and bad.

Every take-off or landing of a spaceship left behind a circle, about a kilometre in diameter, of scorched and poisoned earth. These circles were surrounded by red metal screens and were out of bounds for a period of ten years, twice as long as the harmful fall-out from the spaceship’s exhaust would be active. After each landing or take-off the cosmoport was transferred to another place which gave its buildings the imprint of temporariness and made its staff kin to the ancient nomads of the Sahara who for thousands of years traversed the desert on a special kind of animal with a humped back, a long curved neck and big corns on its paws, an animal called the camel.

The planetship Barion on its thirteenth journey between the satellite under construction and Earth brought Darr Veter to the Arizona Plain that, on account of the accumulated radioactivity there, still remained a desert even after the climate had changed. At the very dawn of the application of nuclear energy in the Era of Disunity, many experiments and tests of this new technique had been carried out there. The radioactive fall-out has remained to this day — it is now too weak to harm man but is sufficient to check the growth of trees and bushes.

Darr Veter took pleasure not only in the great charm of Earth — its blue sky in a bridal gown of white clouds — but also in the dusty soil, the scanty, tough grass….

How wonderful it was to walk with a firm tread on solid earth, under the golden rays of the Sun and with his face turned to meet the fresh dry breeze. After he had been on the threshold of Cosmic space he could better appreciate the full beauty of our planet that our ancestors had once called “the vale of tears and sorrow.”

Grom Orme did not detain the builder for he himself wanted to be present when Lebed took off. They arrived at El Homra together on the day the expedition was to leave.

While still air-borne Darr Veter noticed huge patches on the dull steel-grey plain — the one on the right was almost circular and the other was more elongated, an oval with the narrow end turned away from the other. These patches had been made by the spaceships of the 38th Cosmic Expedition that had recently left.

The circle came from the spaceship Tintagelle that had gone to the terrible star T and was loaded with all sorts of apparatus for the siege of the disc ship from distant worlds. The oval was made by Aella whose ascent was less steep; this ship was taking a large group of scientists to investigate the changes in matter that took place on the white dwarf of the triple star Omicron 2 Eridani. The ash that remained where the ships’ exhausts had burnt up the stony ground was about five feet thick and was covered with a binding material to prevent its being wind-carried. All that remained was to move the red fences from the old take-off ground, and this would be done as soon as Lebed left.

And there stood Lebed, iron-grey in her heat armour that would burn off during her passage through the atmosphere. After that the ship would continue its flight with gleaming walls capable of reflecting any known radiations. Nobody, however, would see it in this magnificence except the robot astronomers that tracked the flight: these machines would provide the people with nothing more than photographs of a flashing dot in the sky. When a ship came back to Earth it was always covered with dross and scored with furrows and hollows made by the explosions of tiny meteoric bodies. Darr Veter remembered how Tantra had returned — greyish-green and rust-red with parts of her outer walling in a state of collapse. None of the people standing around Lebed would ever see her again since none of them could live the hundred and seventy-two years that must elapse before she returned — a hundred and sixty-eight independent years of travel and four years to explore the planets….

Darr Veter’s work was such that he would probably not live long enough even for the ship to arrive at the planet of the green star. Just as in those days of doubt, Darr Veter once again felt great admiration for the bold ideas of Renn Bose and Mven Mass. What did it matter that their experiment had failed — what did it matter that the problem, one which affected the very foundations of the Cosmos, was still far from solution — what did it matter, if it was all nothing more than a figment of the imagination…. These lunatics were giants of creative thought for even in the refutation of their theories and the failure of their experiments people would make tremendous progress in many fields of knowledge.

Lost in thought, Darr Veter almost stumbled over the signal indicating the safety zone, turned round and saw a well-known figure. Running his fingers through his unruly red hair and screwing up his sharp eyes, Renn Bose came running towards him. A network of thin. scarcely perceptible scars had changed the face of the physicist by wrinkling it into an expression of pained intensity.

“I’m glad to see you well again, Renn!”

“I want you urgently!” said Renn Bose, holding his tiny freckled hands out to Veter.

“What are you doing here, so long before the take-off?”

“I saw Aella off, I’m very interested in the gravitation of such a heavy star. I heard you would come and so I waited for you.”

Darr Veter waited for an explanation.

“I hear you are returning to the observatory of the Outer Stations as Junius Antus has requested.”

Darr Veter nodded.

“Antus has recently recorded several undeciphered messages received from a Great Circle transmission.”

“Every month messages are received outside the usual transmission hours and each month the transmission time is advanced by two terrestrial hours. In the course of a year’s testing this amounts to an earthly day and in eight years it makes a whole hundred-thousandth of a galactic second. That is how the gaps in the reception of the Cosmos are filled in. During the last six months of the eight-year cycle we have been receiving incomprehensible messages that undoubtedly come from a great distance.”

“I’m very interested in them and would like you to take me as your assistant.”

“It would be better for me to help you. We’ll examine the records of the memory machines together.”

“What about Mven Mass?”

“We’ll take him, of course.”

“Veter, that’s just wonderful. I feel very awkward since that ill-fated experiment of mine, I’ve a feeling of guilt as far as the Council is concerned. But I can get along easily with you even if you are a member of the Council and a former Director and the one who advised me against the experiment.”

“Mven Mass is also a member of the Council.”

The physicist thought for a while, smiled at some memory of his own.

“Mven Mass, he has a feeling for my ideas and tries to concretise them for me.”

“Wasn’t it in the concretisation that you made a mistake?”

Renn Bose frowned and changed the subject.

“Is Veda Kong coming here?”

“Yes, I’m waiting for her. Did you know that she almost lost her life during the investigation of a cave, some ancient technical storehouse where there was a closed steel door?”

“It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

“I forgot that unlike Mven Mass you have no great interest in history. The whole planet is discussing the affair and wondering what might be behind the door. Millions of people have volunteered to dig it out. Veda has given the problem to the Academy of Stochastics and Prognostication. Is Evda Nahl coming here?”

“No, she can’t come.”

“A lot of people will be disappointed! Veda’s very fond of Evda and Chara is simply devoted to her. D’you remember Chara?”

“That’s the panther-like girl… either Gypsy or Indian in origin!”

Darr Veter spread his hands in mock horror.

“How well you appreciate feminine beauty! However, I’m always making the mistake that people made in the past when they did not know anything about the laws of psychophysiology and heredity. I always want to see my feelings and my perceptions in other people.”

“Evda, like everybody else on the planet,” said Renn Bose, ignoring Veter’s confessions, “will be watching the take-off.”

The physicist pointed to a row of high tripods carrying chambers for white, infrared and ultra-violet reception placed in a semi-circle around the spaceship. The different groups of spectral rays introduced into the coloured reproduction made the screen breathe with real warmth and life in the same way as the overtone diaphragms[27] destroyed the metallic resonance in the transmission of the human voice.

Darr Veter looked towards the north whence came the heavily laden automatic electrobuses, swaying across the earth. Veda Kong jumped out of the first bus to arrive and ran towards them, catching her feet in the grass. At a run she threw herself on Darr Veter’s broad chest with such force that the long plaits that hung down from either side of her head were thrown over his shoulders and hung down his back.

Darr Veter held Veda off at some distance and looked into that infinitely dear face to which her unusual hair-do imparted new qualities.

“I was playing the Northern Queen of the Dark Ages for a children’s film,” she said, panting slightly. “I hardly had time to change and could not stop to do my hair.”

Darr Veter could imagine her in a long, tight brocade dress and a golden crown with blue stones, her ash-blonde plaits reaching down below her knees, with fearless grey eyes — and he smiled with pleasure.

“Did you wear a crown?”

“Oh, yes, and such a crown!” Veda’s finger drew in the air the outline of a wide circle with teeth round it in the shape of clover leaves.

“Shall I see it?”

“This very day. I’ll ask them to show you the film.”

Darr Veter was going to ask who the “they” were but Veda was already greeting the serious-looking physicist who was smiling naively but whole-heartedly.

“Where are the heroes of Achernar?” asked Renn Bose looking at the spaceship that stood in splendid isolation.

“Over there!” Veda pointed to a tent-shaped building of milk-coloured glass and outside girders of lattice-work — the main hall of the cosmoport.

“Let’s go there, then.”

“We’re not wanted there,” said Veda, firmly. “They are watching Earth’s farewell to them. Let’s go to Lebed.”

The men followed her advice.

As she walked beside Darr Veter she asked softly:

“Do I look too absurd in this old-fashioned hair-do? I could….”

“You don’t need to do anything. It makes a charming contrast to your modern dress, plaits longer than your skirt. Let it stay!”

“I obey you, my Veter!” Veda whispered the magic words that made his heart beat faster and brought colour to his pale cheeks.

Hundreds of people were making their way unhurriedly to the ship. Many of them smiled to Veda or greeted her with a raised hand, much more frequently than they did Darr Veter or Renn Bose.

“You’re very popular, Veda,” said Renn Bose, “is that due to your work as a historian or to your notorious beauty?”

“Neither one nor the other. I mix with a lot of people both in my work and in my social engagements. You and Veter, you either hide in the depths of a laboratory or go away alone for some terribly straining night work. You do more for mankind and much more important things than I do but it is all one-sided and not for the side that is nearer the heart. Chara Nandi and Evda Nahl are much more widely known than I am.”

“Again a reproach to our technical civilization?” asked Darr Veter, jokingly.

“Not to ours but to the leftovers of former fatal mistakes. Twenty thousand years ago our troglodyte ancestors knew that art and the development of sensations connected with it were no less important to society than science.”

“In respect of relations between people?” asked the physicist, with interest.

“Exactly.”

“There was an ancient sage who said that the most difficult thing on earth is to preserve joy!” Darr Veter put in. “Look, here comes another of Veda’s loyal allies!”

Mven Mass, with a light, swinging tread, was coming straight towards them, his huge black figure attracting considerable attention.

“Chara’s dance is over!” Veda guessed, “soon we’ll see the crew of Lebed.’“

“If I were them I’d come over here on foot and as slowly as possible,” said Darr Veter, suddenly.

“You’re getting excited,” said Veda taking him by the arm.

“Naturally. For me it’s painful to think that they’re going away for ever and that I’ll never see that ship again. There’s something inside me that protests against that inescapable doom, perhaps because there are people in the ship that are dear to me!”

“That’s probably not the reason,” said Mven Mass as he joined them. His sharp ears had caught Darr Veter’s words. “It’s the inevitable protest of man against implacable time.”

“Autumn sorrow?” asked Renn Bose, with just a shade of irony as he smiled at his friend with his eyes.

“Have you noticed that it is the most energetic, vivacious people with the strongest feelings who mostly like the sad autumn of the temperate zones?” objected Mven Mass patting the physicist on the shoulder in a friendly way.

“That’s true enough,” exclaimed Veda.

“A very ancient observation.”

“Darr Veter, are you there on the field? Darr Veter, are you there on the field? You are wanted on the televisophone of the central building by Junius Antus. Junius Antus is calling you on the TVP of the central building.”

Renn Bose started and straightened up.

“May I go with you, Veter?”

“Go along in my place. It doesn’t matter much to you if you miss the take-off. Junius Antus likes showing things in the old way, the direct reception and not the recording; in that respect he is in complete agreement with Mven Mass.”

The cosmoport possessed a powerful TVP receiver and a hemispherical screen. Renn Bose entered the quiet round room. The operator on duty pressed a button and pointed to a side screen where the excited Junius Antus appeared immediately. He looked closely at the physicist and, realizing why Darr Veter had not come, nodded to Bose.

“I also intended watching the take-off but at the moment there is an explorer-reception going on in the former direction in the 62/77 range. Take the directed ray funnel and focus it on the observatory. I’ll send a vector ray across the Mediterranean to El Homra. Pick it up on the tubular fan and switch on the hemispherical screen.” Junius Antus looked away for a moment and then added, “Hurry up!”

The scientist, experienced in Cosmic reception, did all that had been ordered within two minutes. In the depths of the hemispherical screen a gigantic galaxy appeared which both scientists recognized as the Andromeda Nebula, or M 31, long known to mankind.

In the outer turn of its spiral, the one nearest the onlookers, and almost in the very centre of the lentil-shaped disc of the enormous galaxy, a tiny light appeared. There a whole system of stars branched off, looking like a thin hair although it was probably a huge sleeve of the galaxy a hundred parsecs in length. The light began to grow and the hair became bigger, while the galaxy disappeared beyond the field of vision. A stream of red and yellow stars stretched across the screen. The light changed into a little circle that gleamed at the end of the star stream. On the edge of the stream there was a prominent orange star, spectral class K, and around it the barely perceptible dots of planets were revolving. A disc of light was placed over one of them, completely covering it. Suddenly it all began to whirl round in red curves with sparks flying out of them. Renn Bose closed his eyes.

“That’s a rupture,” said Junius Antus from the side screen. “I’ve shown you a memory machine recording of what we observed last month. Now I’m going to switch on to a direct reception.”

Sparks and dark-red lines were still whirling round on the screen.

“What a peculiar phenomenon!” exclaimed the physicist. “How do you explain that ‘rupture,’ as you call it?”

“I’ll tell you later. The transmission is beginning again. But what is it you think strange?”

“The red spectrum of the rupture. In the Andromeda spectrum there is a violet bias, in other words, it should be drawing closer to us.”

“The rupture has nothing to do with Andromeda, it is a local phenomenon!”

“Do you think it accidental that their transmitting station is placed on the very edge of the galaxy, in a zone that is even farther removed from the centre than the zone of the Sun in our Galaxy?”

Junius Antus cast a sceptical glance at Renn Bose. “You’re prepared to start a discussion at any moment, forgetting that you’re talking with the Andromeda Nebula at a distance of 45 parsecs!”

“Yes, yes,” muttered the embarrassed Renn Bose, “that is, at a distance of a million and a half light years. This communication was transmitted fifteen thousand centuries ago.”

“What we’re looking at now was sent out long before the Ice Age and the appearance of man on Earth!” Junius Antus had become more amicable.

The red lines slowed down their movements, the screen went dark and then lit up again. A dully lit plain could scarcely be discerned in the twilight with mushroom-shaped structures dotted here and there. Near the front a gigantic (judging by the extent of the plain) blue circle with an obviously metallic surface gleamed coldly. One above the other two huge discs, convex on both sides, hung directly over the centre of the blue circle. No… they were not hanging but were slowly rising higher and higher. The plain vanished and only one of the discs remained on the screen; it was more convex below than above and there were crudely spiral ribs on both sides.

“Is it they… is it they?” exclaimed both scientists, almost together, thinking of the perfect similarity of this image with the photographs and drawings of the spiral disc the 37th Cosmic Expedition had found on the planet of the iron star.

Another whirl of red lines and the screen went dead. Renn Bose waited, afraid to take his eyes off the screen for even a second. The first human eye to see something of the life and thoughts of another galaxy! The screen, however, did not show any further signs of life. Junius Antus spoke from the side-screen of the TVP.

“The transmission has broken off. We cannot wait any longer because we are using too much of Earth’s power resources. The whole planet will be astounded. We must ask the Economic Council for reception hours outside the regular programme at intervals more frequent than at present, but that will only be possible in a year’s time, after so much has been spent on the dispatch of Lebed. Now we know that the spaceship on the black planet is from there. If Erg Noor had not found it we should never have understood what we have seen.”

“And that disc came from there? How long did it fly?” asked Renn Bose, as though talking to himself.

“It has been flying dead for about two million years through the space that divides our two galaxies,” answered Junius Antus, sternly, from the screen. “It flew until it found refuge on the planet of star T. Those spaceships are apparently built to land automatically despite the fact that for thousands and thousands of years no living hand has touched their mechanism.”

“Perhaps they live a long time?”

“But not millions of years, that would contradict the laws of thermodynamics,” answered Junius Antus, coldly. “Even though it is of enormous size the spiral disc could not contain a whole planet of people… or intelligences. As yet our two galaxies cannot reach each other, cannot exchange messages….”

“They will,” declared Renn Bose, confidently, said good-bye to Junius Antus and returned to the cosmoport whence the spaceship Lebed had just flown off.

Darr Veter, Veda Kong, Chara and Mven Mass stood somewhat apart from the two long rows of people who had come to see the ship off. All heads were turned in the direction of the central building. Noiselessly a wide platform swept past them accompanied by waving hands and shouts of greeting, something that people only permitted themselves in public on very special occasions. The twenty-two members of Lebed’s crew were on the platform.

The vehicle drew up against Lebed. At the tall retractable lift stood a number of people in white overalls, the twenty members of the ground crew, mostly engineers working at the cosmoport: all of them had tired, drawn faces. During the past twenty-four hours they had checked all the expedition’s equipment once more and had tested the reliability of the ship with the tensor apparatus.

In accordance with a custom that had been introduced with the first Cosmic expeditions the Chairman of the Commission reported to Erg Noor who had again been appointed commander of the spaceship and of the expedition to Achernar. Other members of the commission placed their insignia on a bronze plate bearing their portraits which was handed to Erg Noor; after this they moved away to one side and those who had come to bid farewell to the crew surged round the ship. The people drew up in front of the travellers, permitting their relatives to reach the small platform of the lift that was still vacant. Cinema cameramen recorded every gesture of the parting crew, a last memory of them to be left on Earth.

Erg Noor noticed Veda Kong when she was still some distance away: he thrust the bronze certificate into his wide astronaut’s belt and hurried to the young woman.

“It’s good of you to have come, Veda!”

“How could I not come!”

“For me you are a symbol of Earth and my past youth!”

“Nisa’s youth is with you for ever!”

“I won’t say I’m not sorry about anything because it wouldn’t be true. I’m sorry, first of all, for Nisa, my companions and myself…. The loss is too great. On this last time on the planet I’ve learned to love Earth in a new way, more strongly, simply and unconditionally.”

“But you’re going, nevertheless. Erg?”

“I must. If I were to refuse I should lose Earth as well as the Cosmos.”

“The greater the love the greater the deed.”

“You’ve always understood me perfectly, Veda. Here’s Nisa. I’ve just been admitting nostalgia to Veda.”

The girl with the shock of red curls lowered her eyelashes: she had grown thinner and looked like a boy.

“I never thought it would be so hard. You’re all of you so good… so pure… so beautiful… to leave you, to tear one’s body away from Mother Earth….” The astronavigator’s voice trembled. Veda instinctively drew the girl towards her, whispering the mysterious words of feminine comfort.

“In nine minutes the hatches will be closed,” said Erg in a soundless voice, his eyes fixed on Veda.

“It’s a long time yet!” exclaimed Nisa simply and with tears in her voice.

Veda, Erg, Veter and Mven Mass like others present were surprised and grieved that they could find no words to say. There was nothing with which to express their feelings in face of a magnificent deed that was to be performed for the sake of those who did not yet exist and who would come many years later. Those who were leaving and those who were staying behind knew everything. What more could be said?

What wishes, jokes or promises could affect the hearts of people who were leaving Earth for ever to plunge into the void of the Cosmos?

Man’s second system of signals proved to be imperfect and gave way to the third. Profound glances expressing passionate feelings that could not be transmitted verbally were met in tense silence or were engaged in making the most of El Homra’s wretched landscape.

“Time!” came Erg Noor’s metallic voice like the snap of a herdsman’s whip — the people hurried to board their ship. Veda, sobbing quite openly, pressed Nisa tightly. For a few seconds the two women stood cheek to cheek, their eyes tightly closed while the men exchanged parting glances and handshakes. The lift had already taken eight of the astronauts into the black oval of the hatch. Erg Noor took Nisa by the hand and whispered something to her. The girl blushed, broke away and ran to the spaceship. She turned round before stepping into the lift and met the big eyes of an unusually pale Chara.

“May I give you a kiss, Chara?” she asked in a loud voice.

Chara did not answer but jumped on to the lift platform, trembling all over, put her arms round the girl astronaut, then, without a single word, jumped down again and ran away.

Erg Noor and Nisa went up together.

The crowd stood motionless as the lift stopped for a moment opposite the black hatch in the brightly illuminated hull of Lebed and two figures, a tall man and a graceful girl, stood side by side receiving Earth’s last greetings.

Veda Kong clenched her fists and Darr Veter could hear her joints cracking.

Erg Noor and Nisa disappeared. An oval door of the same grey colour as the hull moved out of the black opening. A second later the most discerning eye could not have detected the place where there had been an opening in the steep flanks of the huge hull.

There was something human about the spaceship standing vertically on its landing struts. The impression was, perhaps, created by the round globe of the nose, surmounted by a pointed cap and gleaming with signal lights that looked like eyes. Or perhaps it was the ribbed bulkheads of the central, storage part of the ship that had the appearance of the pauldrons of a knight’s armour. The spaceship stood on its struts as though it were a giant standing on straddled legs, contemptuously and arrogantly peering over the heads of the crowd.

The first take-off signals sounded ominously. As though by magic, wide self-propelled platforms appeared beside the ship to take away the people. The tripods of the TVP and the floodlights crawled away from the ship, too, but they kept their lenses and their rays fixed on it. The grey hull of Lebed seemed to fade away and diminish in size. Evil-looking red lights glowed in the ship’s “head,” the signal that the crew were ready to start. The vibration of its powerful motors made the earth tremble as the spaceship began to turn on its landing struts to get direction for the take-off. The platforms with the people seeing the ship off moved farther and farther away until they were to the leeward of the safety line that gleamed phosphorescent in the darkness. Here the people jumped down from the platforms and the latter went back for the others.

“They’ll never see us again, or our sky, either, will they?” asked Chara, turning to Mven Mass, who bent low over her.

“No, unless it’s in a stereotelescope.”

Green lights flashed up under the ship’s keel. The radio beacon turned furiously on the tower of the central building sending out warnings of the giant ship’s take-off in all directions.

“The spaceship is being ordered away!” a metal voice of tremendous power shouted so suddenly that Chara shuddered and clung tight to Mven Mass. “Everybody inside the danger circle raise your hands above your heads. Raise your hands above your heads or you will be killed! Raise your hands above your heads, or…” the automaton continued shouting while searchlights raked the field to make sure that nobody was left inside the danger line.

There was nobody there and the searchlights went out. The robot screamed again and, it seemed to Chara, more furiously than before.

“After the bell rings turn your backs to the ship and shut your eyes. Keep them shut until the second bell rings. Turn your backs to the ship and shut your eyes!” howled the automaton with alarm and menace.

“It’s frightening!” whispered Veda Kong to her companion. Darr Veter calmly took from his belt half masks with dark glasses rolled up into a tube, put one mask on Veda and the other on his own head. He just had time to fasten the buckles when a huge, high-pitched bell rang out, swaying back and forth under the roof of the signal tower.

The ringing stopped and the grasshoppers, indifferent to everything, could be plainly heard.

Suddenly the spaceship gave a howl that penetrated right to the marrow of a man’s bones and its lights went out. Once, twice, three times, four times the howl swept across that dark plain and the more impressionable people standing there felt that the ship itself was crying with sorrow at the departure.

The howl broke off as suddenly as it had started. A wall of indescribably bright light shot up round the ship. Everything else in the world ceased to exist for a moment except that Cosmic fire. The tower of fire changed to a column, stretched out longer and thinner until it became a dazzlingly bright line of fire. The bell rang for the second time and as the people turned round they saw an empty plain on which was a huge patch of red-hot soil. There was a big star high up in the sky — the spaceship Lebed was moving away from Earth.

The people wandered slowly back to the electrobuses, looking at the sky and then at the place where the ship had taken off, a place that had suddenly become as lifeless as if the Hammada El Homra had returned, the desert that had been the terror of travellers in days gone by.

Well-known stars gleamed on the southern horizon. All eyes were turned to the point where the bright blue star Achernar burned in the sky. Lebed would reach that star after a journey of eighty-four years at a speed of 800 million kilometres an hour. For us, on Earth, it would be eighty-four years but for Lebed it would be forty-seven. Perhaps they would find a new world, just as beautiful and joyous, in the green rays of the zirconium sun.

Darr Veter and Veda Kong overtook Chara Nandi and Mven Mass. The African was answering the girl’s questions.

“No, it is not sorrow but a great and sad pride — such are my feelings today. Pride because we rise ever higher above our planet and merge with the Cosmos, sorrow because our beloved Earth is becoming so small. Long, long ago the Mayas, the red-skinned people of Central America, left behind them a proud and sad inscription. I gave it to Erg Noor and he’ll have it written up in the library-laboratory of Lebed.”

The African looked round and noticed that friends who had caught up with them were listening, too. He continued in a louder voice:

“Thou who will later show thy face here! If thy mind can think thou wilt ask, ‘‘Who were they?” Ask the dawn, ask the forest, ask the waves, ask the storm, ask love. Ask the earth, the earth of suffering and the earth beloved. Who are we? We are the Earth!’ I too am Earth through and through!” added Mven Mass.

Renn Bose came running up to meet them, panting for breath. The friends surrounded the physicist who told them in a few words the unprecedented news — the first contact between two gigantic stellar islands.

“I hoped to get here before the take-off,” said Renn Bose, sadly, “to tell Erg Noor about it. While he was still on the black planet he realized that the spiral disc had come from a far distant world, a completely alien world, and that the strange ship had been flying for a long time in the Cosmos.”

“Will Erg Noor never know that the spiral disc has come from such tremendous depths of the Universe, that it has come from another galaxy, from the Andromeda Nebula?” asked Veda. “What a pity that he did not hear today’s reception!”

“He’ll hear about it!” said Darr Veter, with confidence. “We’ll ask the Council to sanction power for a special transmission. I’ll call the spaceship through Satellite 36. Lebed will be within range of our transmitters for another nineteen hours!”