“It doesn’t look to me as if the Cloud would welcome such a question. It looks as if it’s withdrawn in a huff,” remarked Marlowe.
But Marlowe was wrong, as they learned two or three days later. A surprising message was received saying that the Cloud would start moving away from the Sun in about ten days’ time.
“It’s incredible,” said Leicester to Parkinson and Kingsley. “Previously the Cloud seems to have been quite certain that it was staying for at least fifty years and perhaps for more than a hundred.” Parkinson was worried.
“I must say it’s a grim prospect for us now. Once the Cloud has quit we’re finished. There isn’t a court of law in the world that would support us. How long can we expect to maintain communication with the Cloud?”
“Oh, so far as the strengths of transmitters are concerned, we could keep in touch for twenty years or more, even if the Cloud accelerates to a pretty high speed. But according to the Cloud’s last message we shan’t be able to maintain contact at all while it’s accelerating. It seems as if electrical conditions will be pretty chaotic in its outer parts. There’ll be far too much electrical “noise” for communication to be possible. So we can’t expect to get any messages across until the accelerating process stops, and that may take several years.”
“Heavens, Leicester, you mean that we’ve got ten days more, and then we can do nothing for a number of years?”
“That’s right.”
Parkinson groaned.
“Then we’re finished. What can we do?”
Kingsley spoke for the first time.
“Nothing much probably. But at least we can find out why the Cloud has decided to push off. It seems to have changed its mind pretty drastically and there must be some strong reason for that. It ought to be worth trying to find out what it is. Let’s see what it’s got to say.”
“Maybe we won’t get any reply at all,” said Leicester gloomily.
But they did get a reply:
“The answer to your question is difficult for me to explain since it seems to involve a realm of experience about which neither I nor you know anything. On previous occasions we have not discussed the nature of human religious beliefs. I found these highly illogical, and as I gathered that you did too, there seemed no point in raising the subject. By and large, conventional religion, as many humans accept it, is illogical in its attempt to conceive of entities lying outside the Universe. Since the Universe comprises everything, it is evident that nothing can lie outside it. The idea of a “god” creating the Universe is a mechanistic absurdity clearly derived from the making of machines by men. I take it that we are in agreement about all this.
“Yet many mysterious questions remain. Probably you have wondered whether a larger-scale intelligence than your own exists. Now you know that it does. In a like fashion I ponder on the existence of a larger-scale intelligence than myself. There is none within the Galaxy, and none within other galaxies so far as I am yet aware. Yet there is strong evidence, I feel, that such an intelligence does play an overwhelming part in our existence. Otherwise how is it decided how matter shall behave? How are your laws of physics determined? Why those laws and no others?
“These problems are of outstanding difficulty, so difficult that I have not been able to solve them. What is clear however is that such an intelligence, if it exists, cannot be spatially or temporally limited in any way.
“Although I say these problems are of extreme difficulty there is evidence that they can be solved. Some two thousand million years ago one of us claimed to have reached a solution.
“A transmission was sent out making this claim, but before the solution itself was broadcast the transmission came to an abrupt end. Attempts were made to re-establish contact with the individual concerned, but the attempts were not successful. Nor could any physical trace of the individual be found.
“The same pattern of events occurred again about four hundred million years ago. I remember it well, for it happened soon after my own birth. I remember receiving a triumphant message to say that a solution to the deep problems had been found. I waited with “bated breath”, as you would say, for the solutions, but once again none came. Nor again was any trace found of the individual concerned.
“This same sequence of events has just been repeated for a third time. It happens that the one who claimed the great discovery was situated only a little more than two light years from here. I am his nearest neighbour and it is therefore necessary for me to proceed to the scene without delay. This is the reason for my departure.”
Kingsley picked up a microphone.
“What can you hope to discover when you reach the scene of whatever it is that has happened? We take it that you are possessed of an ample reserve of food?”
The reply came:
“Thank you for your concern. I do possess a reserve of food chemicals. It is not ample, but it should be sufficient, provided I travel at maximum speed. I have considered the possibility of delaying my departure for a number of years, but I do not think this justified in the circumstances. As regards what I hope to find, I hope to be able to settle an old controversy. It has been argued, not I think very plausibly, that these singular occurrences arise from an abnormal neurological condition followed by suicide. It is not unknown for a suicide to take the form of a vast nuclear explosion causing an entire disintegration of the individual. If this should have happened, then the failures to discover material traces of the individuals in these strange cases could be explained.
“In the present instance it ought to be possible for me to put this theory to a decisive test, for the incident, whatever it may be, has occurred so near by that I can reach the scene in only two or three hundred years. This is so short a time that the debris from the explosion, if there has been an explosion, should not have entirely dispersed by then.”
At the end of this message Kingsley looked round the lab.
“Now, chaps, this is probably one of our last chances to ask questions. Suppose we make a list of them. Any suggestions?”
“Well, what can have happened to these johnnies, if they haven’t committed suicide? Ask it if it’s got any ideas on that,” said Leicester.
“And we’d also like to know whether it’s going to leave the solar system in such a way as not to harm the Earth,” remarked Parkinson.
Marlowe nodded.
“That’s right. There seem to be three possible troubles:
1. That we get a blast from one of those gas bullets when the Cloud starts to accelerate.
2. That we get mixed up with the Cloud and get our atmosphere ripped off.
3. That we get roasted by too much heat, either from too much reflection of sunlight from the surface of the Cloud, as we had in the great heat, or from the energy liberated in the acceleration process.”
“Right-ho then. Let’s put these questions.”
The Cloud’s reply was more reassuring over Marlowe’s questions than they had expected.
“I have these points actively in mind,” it said. “I am intending to provide a screen to protect the Earth during the early stages of the acceleration, which will be a great deal more violent than the deceleration that occurred when I came in. Without this screen you would be so severely scorched that all life on the Earth would undoubtedly be destroyed. It will, however, be necessary for the screening material to move across the Sun, the light from which will be cut off for perhaps a fortnight; but this, I imagine, will not cause any permanent harm. In the later stages of my retreat there will be a certain amount of reflected sunlight, but this extra heat will not be so great as it must have been at the time of my arrival.
“It is difficult to give an answer to your other question that would be intelligible to you in the present state of your science. Crudely expressed, it seems as if there may be inherent limitations of a physical nature to the type of information that can be exchanged between intelligences. The suspicion is that an absolute bar exists to the communication of information relating to the deep problems. It seems as if any intelligence that attempts to pass on such information gets itself swallowed up in space, that is, space closes about it in such a fashion that no communication of any sort with other individuals of a similar hierarchy is possible.”
“Do you understand that, Chris?’ said Leicester.
“No, I don’t. But there’s another question that I want to ask.”
