destiny. Henceforward Man and his little compatriots throughout the vast gulfs of space would no longer be mere pawns in the grim tide of cosmic forces. Henceforward life would rule these forces, bend them to its will, put them to work, change them, shift them about.
Life was an accident. There was little doubt of that. Something that wasn't exactly planned. Something that had crept in, like a malignant disease in the ordered mechanism of the universe. The universe was hostile to life.
The depths of space were too cold for life, most of the condensed matter too hot for life, space was traversed by radiations inimical to life. But life was triumphant. In the end, the universe would not destroy it… it would rule the universe.
His mind went back to the day Herb had sighted that tiny flash of reflected light in the telescopic screen, back to the finding of the girl in the space shell. And before him seemed to unreel the chain of events that had led up to this moment. If Caroline Martin had not been condemned to space, if she had not known the secret of suspended animation, if that suspended animation had not failed to suspend thought, if Herb had not seen the flash that revealed the presence of the shell, if he, himself, had been unable to revive the girl, if Kingsley had not been curious about why cosmic rays should form a definite pattern…
And in that chain of happenings he seemed to see the hand of something greater than just happenstance. What was it the old man back on Old Earth had said? Something about a great dreamer creating stages and peopling them with actors.
'No energy indications,' said the Engineer. 'We have definitely ended the menace. The other universe has contracted beyond the danger point. We are saved. I am so very happy.”
He faced them. 'And so very grateful, too,' he said. 'Forget it,' said Herb. 'It was our neck as well as yours.”
Chapter Eighteen
Herb polished the last chicken bone methodically and sighed. 'That's the best meal I ever ate,' he said.
They sat at the table in the apartment the Engineers had arranged for them.
It had escaped the general destruction of the Hellhound attack, although the tower above it had been obliterated by a hydrogen bomb.
Gary filled his wineglass again and leaned back in his chair.
'I guess our job is done here,' he said. 'Maybe we'll be going home in just a little while.”
'Home?' asked Caroline. 'You mean the Earth?”
Gary nodded.
'I have almost forgotten the Earth,' she said. 'It has been so long since I have seen the Earth. I suppose it has changed a great deal since I saw it last.”
'Perhaps it has,' Gary told her, 'although there are some things that never change. The smell of fresh-plowed fields and the scent of hayfields at harvest time and the beauty of trees against the skyline at evening.”
'Just a poet,' said Herb. 'Just a blasted poet.”
'Maybe there will be things I won't recognize,' said Caroline. 'Things that will be so different.”
'I'll show you the Earth,' said Gary. 'I'll set you straight on everything.”
'What bothers me,' declared Kingsley, 'are those people from the other universe. It's just like letting undesirable elements come in under our immigration schedule on Earth. You can't tell what sort of people they are.
They might be life forms that are inimical to us.”
'Or,' suggested Caroline, 'they might be possessors of great scientific accomplishments and a higher culture. They might add much to this universe.”
'There isn't much danger from them,' said Gary. 'The Engineers are taking care of them. They're keeping them cooped up in the hypersphere they used to cross interspace until suitable places for their settlement can be found. The Engineers will keep an eye on them.”
Metallic feet grated on the floor and Engineer 1824 came across the room toward the table.
He stopped before the table and folded his arms across his chest.
'Everything is all right?' he asked. 'The food is good and you are comfortable.”
'I'll say we are,' said Herb.
'We are glad,' said the Engineer. 'We have tried so hard to make it easy for you. We are grateful that you came. Without you we never would have saved the universe. We never would have gone to Old Earth to find the secret of the energy, because we are not driven by restless imagination…
an imagination that will not let one rest until all has been explained.”
'We did what we could,' rumbled Kingsley. 'But all of the credit goes to Caroline. She was the one who worked out the mathematics for the creation of the hypersphere. She is the only one of us who would have been able to understand the equations relating to the energy and the inter-space.”
'You are right,' said the Engineer, 'and we thank Caroline especially. But the rest of you had your part to do and did it. It has made us very proud.”
'Proud,' thought Gary. 'Why should he be proud of anything we've done?”
The Engineer caught his thought.
'You ask why we should be proud,' he said, 'and I shall tell you why. We have watched and studied you closely since you came, debating whether you should be told what there is to tell. Under different circumstances we probably would allow you to depart without a word, but we have decided that you should know.”
'Know what?' thundered Kingsley.
The rest of them were silent, waiting.
'You are aware of how your solar system came into being?' asked the Engineer.
'Sure,' said Kingsley. 'There was a dynamic encounter between two stars.
Our Sun and an invader. About three billion years ago.”
'That invader,' said the Engineer, 'was the Sun of my people, a sun upon whose planets they had built a great civilization. My people knew well in advance that the collision would take place. Our astronomers discovered it first and after that our physicists and other scientists worked unceasingly in a futile effort either to avert the collision or to save what could be salvaged of our civilization when the encounter came. But century after century passed, with the two stars swinging closer and closer together.
There seemed no chance to save anything. We knew that the planets would be destroyed when the first giant tide from your Sun lashed out into space, that the resultant explosion would instantly destroy all life, that more than likely some of the planets would be totally destroyed.
'Our astronomers told us that our Sun would pass within two million miles of your star, that it would grip and drag far out in space some of the molten mass which your Sun would eject. In such a case we could see but little hope for the continuance of our civilization.”
His thoughts broke off, but no one said a word. All eyes were staring at the impassive metal face of the Engineer, waiting for him to continue.
'Finally, knowing that all their efforts were hopeless, my people constructed vast spaceships. Spaceships designed for living, for spending many years in space. And long before the collision occurred these ships were launched, carrying select groups of our civilization. Representative groups. Men of different sciences, with many records of our civilization.”
'The Ark,' said Caroline, breathlessly. 'The old story of the Ark.”
'I do not understand,' said the Engineer.
'It doesn't matter,' Caroline said. 'Please go on.”
'From far out in space my people watched the two stars sweep past each other,' said the Engineer. 'It was as if the very heavens had exploded.
Great tongues of gas and molten matter speared out into space for millions of miles. They saw their own Sun drag a great mass of this stellar material for billions of miles out into space, strewing fragments of it en route.
They saw the gradual formation of the matter around your Sun and then, in time, they lost sight of it, for they
