A Thousand Ages Read online

  A THOUSAND AGES

  D. E. Ellis

  1961

  A DIGIT BOOK

  Digit Books are published by Brown, Watson, Ltd.

  Digit House, Harlesden Road, London, N.W.10

  Chapter 1

  The lieutenant fought to move his limbs. He was conscious of cramp, a wicked cramp that seized all his muscles and forced him to move, curling up in agony. He became aware of hands helping him, rubbing his legs, easing, soothing … Voices anxiously murmuring. His eyes became free of the weights holding them closed—and Thane Arnot was awake again.

  “It’s worked!” The doctor, Grant Courton, had a difficult task to restrain his jubilation.

  “Right to the day, almost,” affirmed Thursfield, having been gazing at the clock, set amongst countless other instruments in the control room.

  Arnot rose stiffly and went to see for himself. The clock registered four years, forty-eight days, five hours and ten minutes—Earth time. In relation to their lives in the starship, Earth time had no meaning, but it was useful to know just how many Earth years were passing. Although a complicated universal time had been worked out, men still preferred, whenever possible, to base their calculations on the artificiality of Earth time.

  “Wait till Mac wakes up and hears the good news—then, oh, boy, let’s celebrate!” Navigator Bruce Kenton felt in need of some kind of celebration. The effects of their long sleep were not easily thrown off, and it would be some days before the stiffness was overcome by adequate food. Nevertheless, as the doctor remarked late, the bodies of seven men forming the crew showed remarkably few signs of malnutrition.

  “What a pity Mac is the last to wake up; he’ll be mad as hell,” remarked Urik Wormald. The engineer was a dour individual, who normally had very little to say.

  The doctor was already examining Kelvin MacCullum carefully, but after some time he came back into the main cabin. His face was grave. “There’s no way of being absolutely certain at the moment, but I think he’s dead!”

  The rest of the crew stared back, aghast. It was unthinkable that Mac, their leader, the mainstay of the expedition, was no longer with them. All thoughts of celebration disappeared.

  “Of course, I may be wrong— suspended animation is very like death.”

  Arnot broke the helpless silence. “We ought to be checking our position, Grant will look after Mac.” There was a new authority in his voice and bearing, and a quietness of self-reliance. Although he, too, felt shocked at the thought Mac might be dead, he was well prepared, and realised Mac would have expected him to carry on.

  As the checking proceeded, Arnot grew more and more uneasy. The billions of miles they had travelled were registered correctly, the fuel consumption agreed with the figures. In fact, in every way the ship seemed to have behaved perfectly.

  The starradar gave foundation to his forebodings, it had charted the passing of a frightening number of stars, whereas thy should now be approaching the nearest. This equipment had been specially evolved to assist with the special problems of interstellar travel. In the air, or on the seas of Earth, or even during interplanetary travel the stars had a fixed relationship to the solar system. In order to find their way between stars, it was necessary to have instruments to record, not only the stars passed, but the changing pattern of stars in relation to the ship. Thus, the ship’s starradar worked in conjunction with a visual 3-D panorama. Stars too small or too far away, to be actually filmed or seen, were recorded on this moving map.

  “That star we’re approaching seems to be Altair!” gasped Kenton, peering over Arnot’s shoulder.

  “What’s this?” interrupted James Thursfield, former university tutor of mathematics, and now, by reason of his abilities as a statistician and also his long friendship with Kevin MacCullum, co-navigator of the star-ship, Unisphere. “Altair’s sixteen light years from our solar system.”

  “See for yourself,” answered the lieutenant, moving aside. Thursfield gazed at the evidence, trying to rationalise the facts. “Relativity.” he murmured.

  Bruce Kenton laughed, a trifle unsteadily. “That theory was disproved a hundred years ago.”

  “How else can we have travelled the distance of ninety-six billion miles in the time, using exactly the same amount of fuel it would have taken to reach Proxima Centauri? Theories have seemed proved or disproved before now—there is always some clever person turning up in the world, anxious to prove himself more of a genius than his predecessors. Often they succeed until someone is successful in experimenting practically with the theory.”

  “What’s to be done now?” asked Kenton.

  The lieutenant had already been rapidly reviewing the situation. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t carry on and follow the plans we had for approaching Proxima Centauri. If conditions are suitable, we may land on one or more planets—if Altair has any planets. Limiting our time of exploration to six months …” Arnot broke off suddenly as he realised he might appear to be usurping MacCullum’s authority.

  The doctor chose that moment to return. They knew from his expression he had bad news. “I’m afraid he is dead. Slight decomposition has just begin to set in. The effects of the drug wore off several hours ago. Until then, it helped to preserve the body, but there’s no doubt about it now. He was old, although he appeared to be still in the prime of life. Even modern science can’t preserve a life beyond its allotted span, although it enables us to keep active to the very end. My injection probably hastened the end for him, I’m sorry. He was a wonderful man.”

  Bruce Kenton felt numb with grief. The scientist had given him his chance to qualify as a navigator. Now he wished he had been a little more appreciative and a little less irresponsible.

  Although Thursfield was also hard hit by the loss of his old friend, he tried to comfort the doctor: “He wouldn’t blame you, Grant. He would have been thrilled to find his star-ship had travelled so far. It would have been impossible without your drug. We should have all gone mad, cooped up, in this small space over four years.”

  “Wherever he is, I’m sure he knows and would want us to carry on with his work.” Thane Arnot added words of comfort. He left them alone with their grief for a short time, until the urgency of the situation demanded that he should put them to work, plotting a new course. They accepted him as their new commander, without question.

  Days of calculations, checking and rechecking, observations and more and more figures followed. This mostly fell to the lot of Thursfield and Kenton, giving them little time to dwell on their loss. Thane did what he could to lighten the load, and was pleased to see that, in spite of the general depression that hung over the ship, everyone was backing him up.

  “It cost a mint of money to get us here, so we must do something to justify it,” Thursfield observed, agreeing with Thane that the best thing was to carry on in the way he had suggested earlier.

  “Justify it!” howled Bruce. “We’ve proved that it’s possible to travel at speeds approaching that of light, that the theory of relativity is not a theory after all. It’s now a fact; that the body can survive after four years of suspended animation. And you say we must do something to justify our journey!”

  “You wouldn’t like to think you had gone through all that, only to turn back when we are so near another star, would you now?” parried Thane, with a smile.

  Bruce had to admit the truth presented to him, and it was obvious the rest of the crew wished to carry on.

  Four more days passed before they approached the star, now definitely established as Altair, near enough to see it through an observation panels with the naked eye. The telescope had already revealed it as a bluish-white dwarf star, with a luminosity nine times that of Earth’s sun. The star charts listed it as a star of the first
magnitude, when measuring its apparent brightness as seen from Earth. It was still a tremendous distance away and appeared no larger than the solar sun seen from the orbit of its furthermost planet, Pluto.

  During this time, Kevin MacCullum’s mortal remains were consigned to space. Arnot read the burial service while the others remained in respectful silence. With the departure of the body, some of the sadness left them. They turned their attention anew to the task they had undertaken.

  “It looks as though we shall have to forgo the pleasure of exploring any planets. Altair doesn’t appear to have any,” observed Courton.

  “The starradar should have picked them up by now,” Arnot admitted. “There’s just a chance there may be one pursuing its orbit on the opposite side of the sun.”

  It was; an enormous solitary planet about twice the size of Jupiter, following a lonely course over seven hundred million miles from its sun. In relation to Earth planetary system, that distance would have given it an orbit just inside that of Saturn. Unlike Saturn, however, this planet received as much heat from its sun as Venus did from Sol, such was Altair’s greater size.

  “Well, we can’t land on that,” laughed Kenton. “We couldn’t move a finger against Jupiter’s gravity, let alone this!”

  “No. But, if I’m not mistaken, like Jupiter, this planet has quite a lot of moons,” replied Arnot, calmly. He was watching minute specks appearing on the screen as he spoke.

  As they travelled nearer they mapped fifteen moons of varying sizes, but only three were worth consideration. One of these, the seventh appeared to be approximately the size of Earth.

  “Let’s give them names,” suggested Kenton.

  “Yes—how about Kevin for the planet in memory of MacCallum?” chimed in Courton.

  “Wait. Aren’t we being rather hasty? There may be inhabitants who already have names for them,” interrupted Dunstable. Gordon Dunstable had once been a clergyman and carried a rather vague appointment in the Unisphere. Skilled in psychology and with a fair knowledge of anthropology in languages, it was his job to consider the best way to approach any intelligent life they might discover. As it was a position he might never have to fulfil, he had also made himself useful as a kind of odd-job man around the ship. Suffering agonies of doubts, he had found it impossible to follow his former calling.

  “Considering man has already given names to all the stars he has discovered in the Universe, and also to the planets and satellites of his own system, without consulting any possible occupants. I don’t suppose it will hurt to name this hitherto undiscovered planet Kevin,” observed Thursfield dryly.

  “It’s usually the custom to give them classical names,” said Kenton, doubtfully.

  “If you can think of any that haven’t already been used you’re welcome to try,” laughed Arnot. “Personally I think Mac is as entitled to a planet named after him as any of those mythical gods and goddesses. We should never have discovered it at all if he hadn’t been responsible for the Unisphere.”

  So the planet was named Kevin, and the moon they were approaching became known as Demeter, more in accordance with tradition.

  At first, it seemed that the whole of the satellite was covered by water; then they picked out small land masses in the vast ocean. The largest was about the size of Australia, but the majority were no bigger than England. They counted one hundred and twenty-five by the time they had circled the globe, but observations were greatly interrupted by the clouds. Such land as they could clearly observe was covered by dense, green, vegetation.

  “How about it?” asked Arnot of Thursfield, as he approached wit the results of his physical calculations. “Do we land if there is a suitable open space?”

  Thursfield answered hesitantly: “Well, we can … but it won’t be very comfortable. The density of this world is much greater than Earth’s, so although it is about the same size, the force of gravity will be greater. We will weight at least half as much again as we did on Earth.”

  “That will make it rather difficult to move about; but, with our fuel, we won’t have to worry about the higher escape velocity required, when we wish to take off again. Are there any other reasons why we shouldn’t land?”

  “Not insurmountable ones, apart from the difficulty of finding a suitable landing place. The instruments report that oxygen is present in greater quantities than on Earth, together with many lighter gases which are not retainable by Earth’s atmosphere. Nothing harmful thought. The big snag is—the extreme climatic conditions.

  “As the satellite circles its planet, it is completely shielded from the sun for part or its journey. If it were like Mars, possessing only a thin atmosphere, those seas would freeze and melt again as it passed round and I doubt if any vegetation would exist, let alone animal life. However, its heavy atmosphere and clouds give it a heat-retaining blanket, and also shield it from the worst of the sun’s heat. As it is, the climate varies between something approaching tropical heat and almost the freezing cold of the Arctic circle, in a matter of three weeks.”

  “The vegetation must be remarkably hardy. It will be worth while landing just to collect specimens to take back to Earth,” breathed Arnot, somewhat awestruck in spite of his experience of the planets of the solar system. This was something entirely new.

  “One other thing,” continued Thursfield. “Such conditions tend to produce severe storms. Indeed, it has been possible to see disturbances even in the short while we have been circling the satellite.”

  Thane turned to the others, who had been listening in silence. “There seems to be a certain amount of danger involved, so I’ll put it to the vote. Do we make some attempt to explore Demeter, or shall we investigate the other two satellites first?”

  The thought it over. Bruce was the fist to speak: The same conditions will probably prevail to a greater or lesser extent on the other two. They will both have to pass round the cold side of the planet, so they will have extremes of temperature and storms. The force of gravity may be comfortably less. But, if so, the atmosphere, if at all breathable, will probably be thinner and the extremes of temperature more noticeable. Of course we have our insulated suits, but I vote we try this one first. It will be nice to stretch our legs, even if it’s only for a short while.”

  “Bruce is right, we come to explore strange worlds and can’t expect Earth-like conditions on them. The other satellites may be worse,” agreed Courton. The others expressed themselves in favour of Demeter. The excitement mounted as a search was made for a space clear enough to land.

  The Unisphere having reduced speed sufficiently, Arnot pressed a button and small, swept-back wings sprouted towards the rear portion of the ship. At the height and speed they had been propelled, it was impossible to pick out any breaks in the vegetation, particularly with their view heavily obscured by the clouds. Now, with the wings giving them some support they were able to cut their speed, and skimming at near to the surface of the planet as they dared, it was difficult to pick out and area of more than a few miles at a time.

  At last, when passing once more over the only large land mass the satellite possessed, they discovered what appeared to be a rarity on Demeter—a large, flat, green expanse. It covered an area of about five miles and was backed by another unique feature, a range of mountains. They were very minor ones, to be sure, but extending over at least a third of the width of the continent.

  “That’s it!” shouted Arnot, with great satisfaction. “We will have some protection from the storms there. If we land about the centre we shall have plenty of warning of any other dangers. We can always blast off if things get too hot.”

  “Suits me,” chuckled Kenton. “Those forests look as though they might harbour too many bogey men.”

  There being no necessity to conserve fuel with the Unisphere, the ship was turned ready for landing on her tail, and the wings retracted—although she was quite capable of landing as an airplane. It was obviously not wise to risk the latter course on unexplored territory, which might be
full of irregularities unobserved from the air. A tail landing also presented the best position for a quick take-off in an emergency.

  Slowly, the Unisphere settled towards the ground.

  Arnot had his eyes fixed firmly on the dials which would tell accurately, down to the last inch, how much further he had to go, and also indicate any obstruction in the immediate landing area.

  One hundred feet, ninety …

  Suddenly, he was aware of several things at the same time; shouts from the rest of the crew, clouds obscuring the observation panels, and instruments completely haywire. According to the dials, the ground, which should be steadily getting nearer, appeared to remain the same distance away, then to fluctuate up and down. He became aware of Kenton shouting to him to blast off. His instincts worked quicker than his brain and, immediately, he turned the jets to take-off power. The urgency in Kenton’s call led him to use four times the usual power; but, even so, the still seemed to be moving downward …

  Then suddenly they were knocked flat.

  Chapter 2

  Arnot, seated at the controls, was pressed back into his seat as the acceleration took effect. He fought to raise his arm to cut the power as soon as they were clear. Inch by inch, his hand clawed towards the control and, with a final effort, he made it. The pressure eased and, feeling weak and lifeless, he sprawled in his seat for a moment or two. Then he pulled himself together and put the ship back into orbit round the satellite, now hundreds of miles below.

  The rest of the crew presented a sorry sight. Thursfield and Wormald appeared to be unconscious; Kenton was just sitting up holding his head; Grant Courton and Gordon Dunstable were pulling themselves to their feet with blood streaming from their noses.

  “What was it?” asked Thane, still rather shaken at the narrow escape.

  “I couldn’t see clearly through the mist that rose so suddenly, but the ground appeared to be quaking,” answered Courton, who had been gazing out of an observation panel at the time of the incident.