The Other Side of the Sky Page 8

  ‘Run your finger around it now,’ he said quietly.

  Brayldon did not do so: he could see the old man’s meaning.

  ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘You no longer have two separate surfaces. It now forms a single continuous sheet – a one-sided surface – something that at first sight seems utterly impossible.’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Grayle very softly. ‘I thought you would understand. A one-sided surface. Perhaps you realise now why this symbol of the twisted loop is so common in the ancient religions, though its meaning has been completely lost. Of course, it is no more than a crude and simple analogy – an example in two dimensions of what must really occur in three. But it is as near as our minds can ever get to the truth.’

  There was a long, brooding silence. Then Grayle sighed deeply and turned to Brayldon as if he could still see his face.

  ‘Why did you come back before Shervane?’ he asked, though he knew the answer well enough.

  ‘We had to do it,’ said Brayldon sadly, ‘but I did not wish to see my work destroyed.’

  Grayle nodded in sympathy.

  ‘I understand,’ he said.

  Shervane ran his eye up the long flight of steps on which no feet would ever tread again. He felt few regrets: he had striven, and no one could have done more. Such victory as was possible had been his.

  Slowly he raised his hand and gave the signal. The Wall swallowed the explosion as it had absorbed all other sounds, but the unhurried grace with which the long tiers of masonry curtsied and fell was something he would remember all his life. For a moment he had a sudden, inexpressibly poignant vision of another stairway, watched by another Shervane, falling in identical ruins on the far side of the Wall.

  But that, he realised, was a foolish thought: for none knew better than he that the Wall possessed no other side.

  Security Check

  First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1957

  Collected in The Other Side of the Sky

  It is often said that in our age of assembly lines and mass production there’s no room for the individual craftsman, the artist in wood or metal who made so many of the treasures of the past. Like most generalisations, this simply isn’t true. He’s rarer now, of course, but he’s certainly not extinct. He has often had to change his vocation, but in his modest way he still flourishes. Even on the island of Manhattan he may be found, if you know where to look for him. Where rents are low and fire regulations unheard of, his minute, cluttered workshops may be discovered in the basements of apartment houses or in the upper storeys of derelict shops. He may no longer make violins or cuckoo clocks or music boxes, but the skills he uses are the same as they always were, and no two objects he creates are ever identical. He is not contemptuous of mechanisation: you will find several electric hand tools under the debris on his bench. He has moved with the times: he will always be around, the universal odd-job man who is never aware of it when he makes an immortal work of art.

  Hans Muller’s workshop consisted of a large room at the back of a deserted warehouse, no more than a vigorous stone’s throw from the Queensborough Bridge. Most of the building had been boarded up awaiting demolition, and sooner or later Hans would have to move. The only entrance was across a weed-covered yard used as a parking place during the day, and much frequented by the local juvenile delinquents at night. They had never given Hans any trouble, for he knew better than to cooperate with the police when they made their periodic inquiries. The police fully appreciated his delicate position and did not press matters, so Hans was on good terms with everybody. Being a peaceable citizen, that suited him very well.

  The work on which Hans was now engaged would have deeply puzzled his Bavarian ancestors. Indeed, ten years ago it would have puzzled Hans himself. And it had all started because a bankrupt client had given him a TV set in payment for services rendered …

  Hans had accepted the offer reluctantly, not because he was old-fashioned and disapproved of TV, but simply because he couldn’t imagine where he would find time to look at the darned thing. Still, he thought, at least I can always sell it for fifty dollars. But before I do that, let’s see what the programmes are like …

  His hand had gone out to the switch: the screen had filled with moving shapes – and, like millions of men before him, Hans was lost. He entered a world he had not known existed – a world of battling spaceships, of exotic planets and strange races – the world, in fact, of Captain Zipp, Commander of the Space Legion.

  Only when the tedious recital of the virtues of Crunche, the Wonder Cereal, had given way to an almost equally tedious boxing match between two muscle-bound characters who seemed to have signed a nonaggression pact, did the magic fade. Hans was a simple man. He had always been fond of fairy tales – and this was the modern fairy tale, with trimmings of which the Grimm Brothers had never dreamed. So Hans did not sell his TV set.

  It was some weeks before the initial naïve, uncritical enjoyment wore off. The first thing that began to annoy Hans was the furniture and general décor in the world of the future. He was, as has been indicated, an artist – and he refused to believe that in a hundred years taste would have deteriorated as badly as the Crunche sponsors seemed to imagine.

  He also thought very little of the weapons that Captain Zipp and his opponents used. It was true that Hans did not pretend to understand the principles upon which the portable proton disintegrator was based, but however it worked, there was certainly no reason why it should be that clumsy. The clothes, the spaceship interiors – they just weren’t convincing. How did he know? He had always possessed a highly developed sense of the fitness of things, and it could still operate even in this novel field.

  We have said that Hans was a simple man. He was also a shrewd one, and he had heard that there was money in TV. So he sat down and began to draw.

  Even if the producer of Captain Zipp had not lost patience with his set designer, Hans Muller’s ideas would certainly have made him sit up and take notice. There was an authenticity and realism about them that made them quite outstanding. They were completely free from the element of phonyness that had begun to upset even Captain Zipp’s most juvenile followers. Hans was hired on the spot.

  He made his own conditions, however. What he was doing he did largely for love, notwithstanding the fact that it was earning him more money than anything he had ever done before in his life. He would take no assistants, and would remain in his little workshop. All that he wanted to do was to produce the prototypes, the basic designs. The mass production could be done somewhere else – he was a craftsman, not a factory.

  The arrangement had worked well. Over the last six months Captain Zipp had been transformed and was now the despair of all the rival space operas. This, his viewers thought, was not just a serial about the future. It was the future – there was no argument about it. Even the actors seemed to have been inspired by their new surroundings: off the set, they sometimes behaved like twentieth-century time travellers stranded in the Victorian Age, indignant because they no longer had access to the gadgets that had always been part of their lives.

  But Hans knew nothing about this. He toiled happily away, refusing to see anyone except the producer, doing all his business over the telephone – and watching the final result to ensure that his ideas had not been mutilated. The only sign of his connection with the slightly fantastic world of commercial TV was a crate of Crunche in one corner of the workshop. He had sampled one mouthful of this present from the grateful sponsor and had then remembered thankfully that, after all, he was not paid to eat the stuff.

  He was working late one Sunday evening, putting the final touches to a new design for a space helmet, when he suddenly realised that he was no longer alone. Slowly he turned from the workbench and faced the door. It had been locked – how could it have been opened so silently? There were two men standing beside it, motionless, watching him. Hans felt his heart trying to climb into his gullet, and summoned up what courage he cou
ld to challenge them. At least, he felt thankfully, he had little money here. Then he wondered if, after all, this was a good thing. They might be annoyed …

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘What are you doing here?’

  One of the men moved toward him while the other remained watching alertly from the door. They were both wearing very new overcoats, with hats low down on their heads so that Hans could not see their faces. They were too well dressed, he decided, to be ordinary holdup men.

  ‘There’s no need to be alarmed, Mr Muller,’ replied the nearer man, reading his thoughts without difficulty. ‘This isn’t a holdup. It’s official. We’re from – Security.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  The other reached into a portfolio he had been carrying beneath his coat, and pulled out a sheaf of photographs. He riffled through them until he had found the one he wanted.

  ‘You’ve given us quite a headache, Mr Muller. It’s taken us two weeks to find you – your employers were so secretive. No doubt they were anxious to hide you from their rivals. However, here we are and I’d like you to answer some questions.’

  ‘I’m not a spy!’ answered Hans indignantly as the meaning of the words penetrated. ‘You can’t do this! I’m a loyal American citizen!’

  The other ignored the outburst. He handed over the photograph.

  ‘Do you recognise this?’ he said.

  ‘Yes. It’s the inside of Captain Zipp’s spaceship.’

  ‘And you designed it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Another photograph came out of the file.

  ‘And what about this?’

  ‘That’s the Martian city of Paldar, as seen from the air.’

  ‘Your own idea?’

  ‘Certainly,’ Hans replied, now too indignant to be cautious.

  ‘And this?’

  ‘Oh, the proton gun. I was quite proud of that.’

  ‘Tell me, Mr Muller – are these all your own ideas?’

  ‘Yes, I don’t steal from other people.’

  His questioner turned to his companion and spoke for a few minutes in a voice too low for Hans to hear. They seemed to reach agreement on some point, and the conference was over before Hans could make his intended grab at the telephone.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ continued the intruder. ‘But there has been a serious leak. It may be – uh – accidental, even unconscious, but that does not affect the issue. We will have to investigate you. Please come with us.’

  There was such power and authority in the stranger’s voice that Hans began to climb into his overcoat without a murmur. Somehow, he no longer doubted his visitors’ credentials and never thought of asking for any proof. He was worried, but not yet seriously alarmed. Of course, it was obvious what had happened. He remembered hearing about a science fiction writer during the war who had described the atom bomb with disconcerting accuracy. When so much secret research was going on, such accidents were bound to occur. He wondered just what it was he had given away.

  At the doorway, he looked back into his workshop and at the men who were following him.

  ‘It’s all a ridiculous mistake,’ he said. ‘If I did show anything secret in the programme, it was just a coincidence. I’ve never done anything to annoy the FBI.’

  It was then that the second man spoke at last, in very bad English and with a most peculiar accent.

  ‘What is the FBI?’ he asked.

  But Hans didn’t hear him. He had just seen the spaceship.

  No Morning After

  First published in Time to Come, ed. August Derleth, 1954

  Collected in The Other Side of the Sky

  ‘But this is terrible!’ said the Supreme Scientist. ‘Surely there is something we can do!’

  ‘Yes, Your Cognisance, but it will be extremely difficult. The planet is more than five hundred light-years away, and it is very hard to maintain contact. However, we believe we can establish a bridgehead. Unfortunately, that is not the only problem. So far, we have been quite unable to communicate with these beings. Their telepathic powers are exceedingly rudimentary – perhaps even nonexistent. And if we cannot talk to them, there is no way in which we can help.’

  There was a long mental silence while the Supreme Scientist analysed the situation and arrived, as he always did, at the correct answer.

  ‘Any intelligent race must have some telepathic individuals,’ he mused. ‘We must send out hundreds of observers, tuned to catch the first hint of stray thought. When you find a single responsive mind, concentrate all your efforts upon it. We must get our message through.’

  ‘Very good, Your Cognisance. It shall be done.’

  Across the abyss, across the gulf which light itself took half a thousand years to span, the questing intellects of the planet Thaar sent out their tendrils of thought, searching desperately for a single human being whose mind could perceive their presence. And as luck would have it, they encountered William Cross.

  At least they thought it was luck at the time, though later they were not so sure. In any case, they had little choice. The combination of circumstances that opened Bill’s mind to them lasted only for seconds, and was not likely to occur again this side of eternity.

  There were three ingredients in the miracle: it is hard to say if one was more important than another. The first was the accident of position. A flask of water, when sunlight falls upon it, can act as a crude lens, concentrating the light into a small area. On an immeasurably larger scale, the dense core of the Earth was coverging the waves that came from Thaar. In the ordinary way, the radiations of thought are unaffected by matter – they pass through it as effortlessly as light through glass. But there is rather a lot of matter in a planet, and the whole Earth was acting as a gigantic lens. As it turned, it was carrying Bill through its focus, where the feeble thought impulses from Thaar were concentrated a hundredfold.

  Yet millions of other men were equally well placed: they received no message. But they were not rocket engineers: they had not spent years thinking and dreaming of space until it had become part of their very being.

  And they were not, as Bill was, blind drunk, teetering on the last knife-edge of consciousness, trying to escape from reality into the world of dreams, where there were no disappointments and setbacks.

  Of course, he could see the Army’s point of view. ‘You are paid, Dr Cross,’ General Potter had pointed out with unnecessary emphasis, ‘to design missiles, not – ah – spaceships. What you do in your spare time is your own concern, but I must ask you not to use the facilities of the establishment for your hobby. From now on, all projects for the computing section will have to be cleared by me. That is all.’

  They couldn’t sack him, of course: he was too important. But he was not sure that he wanted to stay. He was not really sure of anything except that the job had backfired on him, and that Brenda had finally gone off with Johnny Gardner – putting events in their order of importance.

  Wavering slightly, Bill cupped his chin in his hands and stared at the whitewashed brick wall on the other side of the table. The only attempt at ornamentation was a calendar from Lockheed and a glossy six-by-eight from Aerojet showing L’il Abner Mark I making a boosted take-off. Bill gazed morosely at the spot midway between the two pictures, and emptied his mind of thought. The barriers went down….

  At that moment, the massed intellects of Thaar gave a soundless cry of triumph, and the wall in front of Bill slowly dissolved into a swirling mist. He appeared to be looking down a tunnel that stretched to infinity. As a matter of fact, he was.

  Bill studied the phenomenon with mild interest. It had a certain novelty, but was not up to the standard of previous hallucinations. And when the voice started to speak in his mind, he let it ramble on for some time before he did anything about it. Even when drunk, he had an old-fashioned prejudice against starting conversations with himself.

  ‘Bill,’ the voice began, ‘listen carefully. We have had great difficulty in contacting you, and this is extremely
important.’

  Bill doubted this on general principles. Nothing was important any more.

  ‘We are speaking to you from a very distant planet,’ continued the voice in a tone of urgent friendliness. ‘You are the only human being we have been able to contact, so you must understand what we are saying.’

  Bill felt mildly worried, though in an impersonal sort of way, since it was now rather hard to focus on his own problems. How serious was it, he wondered, when you started to hear voices? Well, it was best not to get excited. You can take it or leave it, Dr Cross, he told himself. Let’s take it until it gets to be a nuisance.

  ‘OK,’ he answered with bored indifference. ‘Go right ahead and talk to me. I won’t mind as long as it’s interesting.’

  There was a pause. Then the voice continued, in a slightly worried fashion.

  ‘We don’t quite understand. Our message isn’t merely interesting. It’s vital to your entire race, and you must notify your government immediately.’

  ‘I’m waiting,’ said Bill. ‘It helps to pass the time.’

  Five hundred light-years away, the Thaarns conferred hastily among themselves. Something seemed to be wrong, but they could not decide precisely what. There was no doubt that they had established contact, yet this was not the sort of reaction they had expected. Well, they could only proceed and hope for the best.

  ‘Listen, Bill,’ they continued. ‘Our scientists have just discovered that your sun is about to explode. It will happen three days from now – seventy-four hours, to be exact. Nothing can stop it. But there’s no need to be alarmed. We can save you, if you’ll do what we say.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Bill. This hallucination was ingenious.

  ‘We can create what we call a bridge – it’s a kind of tunnel through space, like the one you’re looking into now. The theory is far too complicated to explain, even to one of your mathematicians.’