Birthplace

of Creation

A Captain Future Novelet by EDMOND HAMILTON

In their final adventure the Futuremen are called on to

save the Universe itself from a madman's destructive whim!

CHAPTER I

Citadel of the Futuremen

ARRAND watched the face of the

Moon grow larger in the forward

port of his small cruiser. A white and

terrible face, he thought. A death's-head

with meteor-gnawed bones and gaping

crater-wounds, bleak and cruel and very

silent, watching him come and thinking

secret boding thoughts about him. A

feeling of sickness grew in him.

"I am a fool and soon I will probably be

a dead fool," he said to himself.

He was not a brave man. He was very

fond of living and he did not think of death

at all as a thing to be dared and laughed at.

The knowledge that he was likely to die

there on the Moon gave him qualms of

physical anguish that made him look as

white and hollow as the stony face that

watched him through the port. And yet he

did not turn back. There was something in

Garrand that was stronger than his fear.

His hands trembled, but they held the

cruiser grimly on its course.

The stark plains and mountain ranges

took size and shape, the lonely mountains

of the Moon that looked on nothing and the

plains where nothing stirred, not even the

smallest wind or whirl of dust. Men had

gone out to other worlds and other stars.

They had ranged far across space, founding

colonies on asteroids and cities on the

shores of alien seas. But they left the

deathly airless Moon alone. They had

looked at it once and gone away. There

were only four who made the Moon their

home--and not all of those four where

men.

Tycho Crater widened out below the

little ship. Licking dry lips metallic with

the taste of fear, Garrand consulted a map,

drawn carefully to scale and showing in

that desolation one intricate diagram of a

man-made structure. There were ominous

gaps in that diagram and Garrand was

painfully aware of them. He made his

calculations and set his ship down well

beyond the outer periphery of defenses

marked on the chart.

His landing was a clumsy nervous one.

White pumice-dust burst upward around

the hull and settled slowly back again.

Garrand cut his jets and sat for a moment

looking out across Tycho, all ringed

around in the distance with cliffs and spires

and pinnacles of blasted rock that glittered

in the light. There was no sign of the

structure indicated on the chart. It was all

below ground. Even its observatory dome

was set flush, reflecting the Sun's

unsoftened glare no more than the

surrounding plain.

RESENTLY Garrand rose, moving

with the stiff reluctance of a man

going to the gallows. He checked over the

bulky shapes of a considerable mass of

equipment. His examination was minute

and he made one or two readjustments.

Then he struggled into a pressure-suit and

opened the airlock. The air went out with a

whistling rush and after that there was no

sound, only the utter silence of a world that

has heard nothing since it was made.

Working in that vacuum Garrand

carried out a light hand-sledge and set it in

the dust. Then he brought out the bulky

pieces of equipment and loaded them onto

it. He was able to do this alone because of

the weak gravitation and when he was

through he was able for the same reason to

tow the sledge behind him.

He set off across the crater. The glare

was intense. Sweat gathered on him and

ran in slow trickles down his face. He

suffered in the heavy armor, setting one

weighted boot before the other, with the

little puffs of dust rising and falling back at

every step, hauling the sledge behind him.

And fear grew steadily in him as he went

on.

He knew--all the System knew--that

the four who lived here were not here now,

that they were far away on a distant

troubled world. But their formidable name

and presence seemed to haunt this lifeless

sphere and he was walking now into the

teeth of the deadly defenses they had left

behind them.

"They can be beaten," he told himself,

sweating. "I've got to beat them."

He studied his map again. He knew

exactly how far he had come from the ship.

Leaving himself a wide margin of safety he

activated the detector-mechanism on the

sledge. The helmet of his pressure-suit was

fitted with ultra-sensitive hearing devices

that had nothing to do with sonic waves

but translated sub-electronic impulses from

the detector into audible sound-signals.

He stood still, listening intently. But the

detector said nothing and he went on, very

slowly now and cautiously, across the dead

waste until his footsteps in the dust

approached the line of that outer circle on

the map. Then the detector spoke with a

faint small clicking.

Garrand stopped. He bent over the panel

of the mechanism, a jumble of dials,

sorters, frequency-indicators and pattern-

indicators. Above them a red pip burned in

a ground-glass field. His heart hammered

hard and he reached hastily for a black

oblong bulk beside the detector.

He thought, "I'm still far enough away

so that the blast won't be lethal if this

doesn't work."

The thought was comforting but

unconvincing. He forced his hand to

steady, to pick up the four-pronged plugs

and insert them, one by one in the proper

order, into the side of the detector. Then he

dropped behind the sledge and waited.

The black oblong hummed. He could

feel it humming where his shoulder

touched the metal of the sledge. It was

designed to pick up its readings from the

detector, to formulate them, adjust itself

automatically to the indicated pattern and

frequency, to broadcast an electronic

barrier that would blank out the impulse-

receptivity of the hidden trap's sensor-unit.

That was its purpose. It should work. But if

it did not . . .

He waited, the muscles of his belly

knotted tight. There was no flash or tremor

of a blast. After he had counted slowly to a

hundred he got up again and looked. The

red pip had faded from the ground-glass

screen. There was a white one in place of

it.

Garrand watched that white pip as

though it were the face of his patron saint,

hauling the sledge on slowly through that

outer circle and through the ones beyond it

that were only guessed at. Three times

more the urgent clicking sounded in his

ears and the dials and pointers changed--

and three times the pip faded from red to

white and Garrand was still alive when he

reached the metal valve door set into the

floor of the crater.

The controls of that door were plainly in

sight but he did not touch them. Instead he

hauled a portable scanner off the sledge

and used it to examine the intimate

molecular structure of the metal and all its

control connections. By this means he

found the particular bolt-head that was a

switch and turned it, immobilizing a

certain device set to catch an unknowing

intruder as soon as he opened the valve.

Within minutes after that Garrand had

the door open and was standing at the head

of a steep flight of steps, going down. His

heart was still thudding away and he felt

weak in the knees--but he was filled with

exultation and a great pride. Few other

men, he thought, perhaps none, could have

penetrated safely to the very threshold of

this most impregnable of all places in the

Solar System.

He did not relax his caution. A large

mass of equipment went with him down

the dark stairway, including the scanner.

The valve closed automatically behind him

and below in a small chamber he waited

until pressure had build up and another

door automatically opened. He found

nothing more of menace except a system of

alarm bells, which he put out of

commission--not because there was

anyone to hear them but because he knew

there would be recorders and he wanted no

signs, audible or visible, of his visit.

HE recorders themselves were

relatively easy to detect. With an

instrument brought for the purpose he

blanked off their relay systems and went

on across the great circular central

chamber with the glassite dome through

which the sunlight poured. He peered with

a scientist's fascinated wonder at the

laboratory apparatus of various sorts in that

and the smaller chambers which opened

off it until he came to what of all things he

was looking for--the heavy locked door of

a vault, sunk deep in the lunar rock.

Garrand worked for a long time over

that door. The silence was beginning to get

to him and the uneasy knowledge that he

was where he had no right to be. He began

to listen for the voices and the steps of

those who might come in and find him.

They were far away and Garrand knew

that he was safe.

But he was not a criminal by habit and

now that the challenge to his skill was past

he began to feel increasingly guilty and

unclean. Personal belongings accused him,

an open book, a pair of boots, beds and

chests and clothing. If it had been merely a

laboratory he would not have minded so

much--but it was also a dwelling place

and he felt like a common thief.

HAT feeling was forgotten when he

entered the vault. There were many

things in that vast lunar cavern, but

Garrand had no more than a passing glance

for any of them except the massive file-

racks where the recorded data which

related to voyages were spooled and kept.

Under the clear light that had come on

of itself with the opening of the door

Garrand searched the racks, puzzling out

the intricate filing system. He had taken off

his helmet. His hands shook visibly and his

breathing was loud and irregular but these

were only secondary manifestations.

His mind, faced with a difficult problem

to solve, slipped by long habit into

calculating-machine efficiency and it was

not long before he found what he wanted.

He took the spool in his two hands, as

tenderly as though it were made of the

delicate stuff of dreams and apt to shatter

at a breath. He carried it to the large table

that stood by the racks and fed the end of

the tape into a reader. His face had grown

pale and quite rigid except that his mouth

twitched a little at the corners. He set up

his last piece of equipment beside the

reader, a photosonic recorder used to make

copies of a master spool, synchronized

them and then closed the switches.

The two spools unwound, one giving,

the other receiving, and Garrand remained

motionless over the viewer, seeing visions

beyond price and listening to the voices

that spoke of cosmic secrets. When the

spool was finished it was a long time

before he moved. His eyes were still busy

with their visions and they were strangely

dull and shining all at once, shining and far

away.

T last he shook himself and laughed,

small gasping sound that might well

have been a sob. He replaced the original

in the rack and put the second spool into a

special pouch on his belt. In the vault he

left everything exactly as he had found it

and when he came out again onto the

Moon's surface he reset the hidden trigger

that guarded the outer door.

As he had penetrated the defences on

the plain, so he went back through them

again, in a double agony lest now, when he

had the thing he had taken such incredible

chances for, he should blunder and be

killed. The shadows of the crater edge

were crawling toward him, sharp and

black. The last premonitory clicking of the

detector, the last fading of the warning pip

from red to white and he was safe, running

toward the ship into the knife-edged

darkness of the shadow.

Long before night came Garrand was

gone, plunging across the narrow gulf to

Earth. He did not know how to give vent to

the wildness of his exultation, so he held it

in but it burned in his face and eyes.

"Tomorrow," he said aloud to himself,

over and over. "Tomorrow we'll be on our

way." He laughed, addressing someone

who was not present. "You said I couldn't

do it, Herrick. You said I couldn't!"

Behind him the darkening face of the

Moon looked after him.

CHAPTER II

Cosmic Secret

OUR came home to the Moon after

many days. Four, of whom only one

was an ordinary man.

Curt Newton, the man--Otho, the

android or artificial man who was human

in everything but origin--Grag, the

towering metal man or intelligent robot--

and Simon Wright, he who had once been

a man but whose brain only now lived on

in a strange mechanical body.

Their ship came down like a

thunderbolt of metal from the sky. The

camouflaged doors of an underground

hangar opened silently to receive it and

closed as silently.

Into the great circular room beneath the

observatory dome the four Futuremen

came. Curt Newton paused by the wall to

activate the recorder panel. It showed

blank. It always showed blank.

He sat down slowly, a tall man with red

hair and a bronzed face that looked now

very tired.

"Do you think our work out there will

stick, Simon?" he asked.

He addressed the small square metal

case hovering on motor-beams before him,

its strange "face" of lens-eyes turned

toward him. The serum-case, in which

Simon Wright's brain lived its life.

"I am confident," said Simon with his

precise articulation of metallic artificial

accents, "that there will be no more trouble

between Uranus Mines and the natives."

Curt frowned and sighed. "I hope so.

When will they learn how to deal with

planetary primitives?"

Grag spoke up loudly. He was standing,

a seven-foot giant of metal, with his head

turned and his photoelectric eyes staring

intently across the big room.

"Curt, someone's been here," his great

voice boomed.

"No. I checked the recorders," Newton

said without turning.

"I don't care," Grag persisted. "That

chair by the vault door has been moved. I

was the last one out when we left and I

remember exactly where it stood. It's been

moved a good three inches."

Otho burst into laughter. "Listen to Old

Hawkeye. Three inches!" The android, so

perfectly human in appearance that only

something bright and strange lurking in his

green eyes betrayed an inner difference,

went on mockingly, "Are you sure it's not

two and a half inches ?"

Grag began to protest angrily in his

foghorn voice. Curt swung around irritably

to silence them. But Simon Wright said

gravely, "Wait, Curtis. You know that the

constitution of Grag's metal brain makes

his memory absolutely photographic. If he

says the chair has been moved it has been

moved."

"But the recorders?"

"They could have been blanked, you

know. It's theoretically possible."

"Only theoretically--" Curt began and

then he stopped and swore. "Blast you,

Grag! Why did you have to raise a doubt in

my mind? Now I'll have to take down the

recorders to check them and that's the

devil and all of a job."

Irritation riding him, he went out of the

big room and came back with tools. He

scowled at Grag. "You'd better be right!"

Simon and Otho helped him in the

delicate work of disassembling the

recorders. They examined both the

microfilm and the interior relay circuits bit

by bit.

Curt's irritation left him suddenly. He

looked sharply at the others. He had found

it--the minute blurred line where the film

had started to roll and been arrested. The

relay circuits were a fraction of a decimal

out of synchronization now.

Otho whistled softly. "Blanked!" he

said. "And so beautifully done--nothing

fused or blown out, the derangement so

small that you'd never notice it unless you

were searching for it."

"So I was right?" Grag boomed

triumphantly. "I knew I was right. When I

see a thing that's changed I--"

"Shut up," Curt Newton told him. He

looked, puzzled, at Simon. "No criminal

did this--no ordinary criminal. The job of

blanking these relays required tremendous

scientific ability."

Simon brooded, hovering. "That's

obvious. Only an expert in sub-electronics

would be capable. But that seems

incongruous. Why would a top scientist

come prowling in here like a common

thief?"

Curt turned. "Grag, will you see if

anything else has been moved or taken?"

The metal giant started stalking through

the rooms. Curt remained silent and

thoughtful, the frown on his tanned face

deepening.

Grag came back. "No. Nothing else has

been tampered with."

"Yet it was," Curt said slowly. He

looked again at Simon. "I've been thinking.

An expert in sub-electronics . . . Do you

remember the nuclear physics man down at

New York Tech whom we met at

Government Center a few months ago?"

"Garris? Garrand--some name like

that? I remember. A nice little man."

"Yes, I thought so too--very eager

about his work. But I remember now he

asked me a question--"

URT broke off suddenly. He went

rapidly across the big room, unlocked

the vault door and inside the silent lunar

cavern he went straight to the files.

Simon had followed him. And when

Simon saw the spool that Curt drew from

the file his lens-eyes turned to Curt's face

with a startled swiftness.

"Curtis, no! You don't think--"

"It was what he asked me about," Curt

said. "The Birthplace."

The word went echoing solemnly back

and forth around the cold rock walls. And

Curt stared at Simon, not really seeing him,

seeing uncanny awesome things that lived

in memory, and a strange look came into

his face--a strange look indeed for the

man Curt Newton. A look of fear.

Simon said, "How could he know of the

Birthplace?"

That word had never been spoken to

anyone. They hardly spoke it even among

themselves. Such a secret was not for the

knowledge nor the use of men and they

had guarded it more carefully than the sum

total of all other knowledge they

possessed. Now the very sound of that

name brought Grag and Otho to the door

and wrought a sudden tension that filled

the cavern with a waiting stillness.

Curt said heavily, "He connected the

theoretical possibility with the work we did

on Mercury. He's a brilliant man, Simon--

too brilliant."

"Perhaps," said Grag, "he only looked

for the secret and couldn't find it. After all,

our filing system . . ."

Curt shook his head. "If he could get in

here he could find what he wanted." He

examined the spool. "He could make a

copy of this and there would be no way of

telling that it had been done."

He stood motionless for a moment

longer and no one spoke. Otho studied his

face and shot one quick bright glance at

Simon. Simon moved uneasily on his

gliding force-beams.

Curt replaced the spool and turned.

"We've got to find out about this man.

We'll go to New York, at once."

Very soon thereafter the Comet rose

from the dark gap of the hangar-mouth and

shot away toward the great green globe of

Earth.

Not much later, at headquarters of the

Planet Police in New York, old marshal

Ezra Gurney stared at Curt Newton in

blank amazement.

"Garrand?" he said. "But he's a

reputable man, a scientist!"

"Nevertheless," said Curt grimly, "I

want all the information you can get and

fast."

Simon spoke. "This is urgent, Ezra. We

cannot afford delay."

The grizzled old spaceman glanced from

one to the other, and then to Otho.

"Something really bad, eh? All right, I'll

do what I can."

He went out of the office. Otho leaned

against the wall and remained motionless,

watching Curt. Simon hovered near the

desk. Neither one of them was afflicted

with nerves. Curt moved restlessly about,

brooding, his hands touching things and

putting them down again in wire-taut

gestures. The intricate multichron on the

wall whirred softly and the minutes slid

away, on Earth, on Mars, on the far-flung

worlds of the System. No one spoke and

Ezra did not come back.

Simon said at last, "It would take time,

even for Ezra."

"Time!" said Curt. "If Garrand has the

secret we have no time."

He paced the small neat room, a man

oppressed with heavy thoughts. The sound

of the door opening brought him whirling

around to face Ezra almost as though he

were facing his executioner.

"Well?"

"Garrand took off from Earth on the

twenty-first," said Ezra. "He flew a ship of

his own, apparently an experimental model

on which he has been working for some

time in company with a man named

Herrick, who is also listed as chief pilot.

Destination, none. Purpose, cosmic ray

research beyond the System. Because of

Garrand's reputation and standing there

was no difficulty about the clearance. That

was all I could get."

"That's enough," said Curt. "More than

enough." His face was bleak and the color

had gone out of it under the tan. He looked

very tired and in a way so strange that Ezra

came up to him and demanded, "What is it,

Curt? What did Garrand take from the

laboratory?"

Curt answered, "He took the secret of

the Birthplace of Matter."

Ezra stared, uncomprehending. "Is that a

secret you can tell me?"

URT said hopelessly, "I can tell you

now. For it's known now to Garrand

and this other man."

"What is it, then?"

"Ezra, it is the secret of creation."

There was a long silence. It was obvious

from Gurney's face that the term was too

large for him to understand. Yet Curt

Newton did not continue as yet. He looked

beyond them and his face was drawn and

haggard.

"We'll have to go back there," he said,

his voice low. "We'll have to. And I hoped

never to go back."

Simon's expressionless eyes were fixed

on him. Otho said loudly, "What's there to

be afraid of? We ran the whirls before.

And as for Garrand and the other one--"

"I am not afraid of them," Curt Newton

said.

"I know," said Simon. "I was the only

one who was with you in the shrine of the

Watchers there. I know what you are afraid

of--yourself."

"I still don't get it," Ezra said. "The

secret of creation? Creation of what?"

"Of the universe, Ezra. Of all the matter

in the universe."

A strange wonder came on Gurney's

timeworn face. He said nothing. He

waited.

"You remember," Curt told him, "when

we came back from our first deep-space

voyage? You remember that right after that

we designed the electron-assembly plants

that they've used ever since to replenish

Mercury's thinning atmosphere? Where do

you think we got the knowledge to do that,

to juggle electrons into desired types of

matter on a big scale?"

Gurney's voice was a whisper now.

"You got that knowledge out in deep

space?"

"In deep, deep space, Ezra. Near the

center of our galaxy, amid the thick star-

clusters and nebulae beyond Sagittarius.

There lies the beating heart of our

universe."

He made a gesture. "Back in the

Twentieth Century the scientist Millikan

first guessed the truth. The matter of the

universe constantly melts away into

radiation. Millikan believed that

somewhere in the universe was a place

where radiation was somehow built back

into matter and that the so-called cosmic

rays were the 'birth-cry' of the newborn

matter. The fount of our material universe,

the birthplace of material creation."

Awe was in Ezra's faded old eyes. "And

you found that? And never told--never let

anyone guess--"

"Garrand guessed," Curt said bitterly.

"He connected our work at Mercury with

our mysterious voyage. He tried to learn

what I knew and when I would tell him

nothing he came to the Moon and risked

death to steal our records. And now he's

gone to find it for himself."

Simon Wright said somberly, "He will

only reap disaster if he tries to take it. I

saw what almost happened there to you,

Curtis."

"It's my fault," Curt said harshly. "We

should have left no record. But I could not

quite destroy it." He paused, then went on

rapidly. "We've got to overtake him. What

the other man, Herrick, may have in mind

we can't tell. But Garrand is a fanatical

researcher, who will tamper with the

instruments of the Watchers as I did. He

won't stop where I stopped!"

Ezra jumped to his feet. "I can have

cruisers after him in an hour."

"They couldn't catch him now, Ezra.

The Comet might. We'll have to make

certain preparations and they'll take time.

But even so we may catch him."

He turned, moving swiftly toward the

door as though physical action were a

relief from overpowering tension. Ezra

stopped him. "Curt, wait! Let me go with

you. I should, you know, if it's a case of

catching a lawbreaker."

Newton looked at him. "No, Ezra.

You're only trapped by the lure of this

thing as I was. As I was . . . No."

Simon's metallic voice intervened. "Let

him go with us, Curtis. I think we might

need him--that you might need him."

A look passed between them. Then,

silently, Curt nodded.

Back to the Moon, with five instead of

four, went the Comet on wings of flame.

In the hours that followed, the closed

hangar-doors in silent Tycho gave no hint

of the desperate rushed activity beneath.

But less than twenty-four hours after its

return from Uranus the ship left the Moon

a second time. It went out through the

planetary orbits like a flying prisoner

breaking out through bars, poised for a

moment beyond Pluto to shift into a new

kind of motion, then was gone into the

outer darkness.

CHAPTER III

The Birthplace

HE Comet was a fleck, a mote, a tiny

gleam of man-made light falling into

infinity. Behind it, lost somewhere along

the farthest shores of a lightless sea, lay

Earth and Sol and the outposts of familiar

stars. Ahead was the great wilderness of

Sagittarius, the teeming star-jungle that to

the eye seemed crowded thick with

burning Suns and nebulae.

The five within the ship where silent.

Four were busy with the memories they

had of the time they had come this way

before, with the knowledge of what was

still to be encountered. One, Ezra Gurney,

could find no words to speak. He was a

veteran spaceman. He had been a veteran

when Curt Newton was born. He knew the

Solar System from Pluto to Mercury and

back again and he knew how the naked

undimmed stars could shine.

But this was different--this voyaging of

deepest space, this pursuing of the fleets

and navies of the stars to their own harbor,

this going in among them. In a way Ezra

Gurney was afraid. No man, not even Curt

Newton, could look at that flaming sky

ahead and not be a little afraid.

The Comet had come into the region of

the great clusters. Mighty hives of gathered

Suns blazed and swarmed, rolling across

space and time, carrying after them

sweeping trains of scattered stars. Between

and beyond the clusters and their trailing

star-streams shone the glowing clouds of

nebulae, banners of light flung out for a

million miles across the firmament, ablaze

with the glow of drowned and captured

Suns. And beyond them all--the nebulae,

the clusters and the stars--there showed

the black brooding lightless immensity of a

cloud of cosmic dust.

The soul of Ezra Gurney shook within

him. Men had no business here in this

battleground of angry gods. Men? But was

he here with men?

"One-point-four degrees zenith," came

the metallic voice of Simon Wright from

where he hovered above a bulky

instrument.

"Check," Curt Newton said and moved

controls slightly. Then he asked, "Dust?"

"Definitely higher than average

interstellar density now," Otho reported,

from his own place at the wide instrument

panel. "It'll thicken fast as we approach the

main cloud."

Ezra looked at them--at the square,

hovering metal case of the living brain, at

the lithe eager android peering forward

into the abyss with burning green eyes, at

the giant imperturbable metal bulk of the

robot.

Not men, no! He was out here in the

great deeps, rushing toward the mightiest

secret of infinity, with creatures unhuman,

with--

Curt turned, and smiled briefly and

wearily at him. And the clamoring panic in

Ezra was suddenly gone. Why, these were

his oldest staunchest friends, unshakably

loyal and true.

He drew a long breath. "I don't mind

telling you that it's nearly got me down."

"You've got worse coming," Curt said

uncomfortingly. "We'll hit the main cloud

soon."

"The cloud?"

"The great cloud of cosmic dust that

surrounds the Birthplace. That dust is born

from the Birthplace--and flows out in

mighty tides through our hole universe."

"To be born into new worlds?"

"Yes. Weizsacker fathomed that part of

the cycle, long ago in the nineteen forties

when he formulated his theory of the

gathering of the cosmic dust into new

planets."

Before them now rose a wall of Suns,

glaring like cyclopean furnaces as the

Comet seemingly crawled toward them.

Almost it seemed that they could hear the

clang and thunder of cosmic forges as their

tiny craft approached and went between

the flaming giants.

White and wild flared a far-flung nebula

to the left beyond that rampart of stars. But

ahead there gloomed farther still the black

cloud that now seemed eating up the

universe with jaws of darkness as they

steadily approached it.

"No sign of any other ship outside the

cloud," Otho reported coolly. "Our

detectors won't range inside it, of course."

"They had too big a start," Curt said

broodingly. "Two many days. Garrand and

the other must already have been on the

world of the Watchers for some time."

"Unless the whirls wrecked them,"

Otho suggested.

"Wishful thinking," Curt said. "We ran

the whirls and so could they."

Simon said, "Curtis, you will not go

into the shrine of the Watchers again?"

Curt Newton did not look at him. "I'll

have to if that's where Garrand is."

"You don't have to, Curtis. We three

could go."

OW, Curt looked at Simon, his

tanned face set and unreadable. "You

don't trust me with the power of the

Watchers?"

"You know what that power almost did

to you before. It is for you to say."

Curt looked ahead and said doggedly, "I

am not afraid and I will go in there after

him."

Ezra Gurney, puzzled by the tension

between them, asked, "Who are the

Watchers?"

"They have been dead for ages," Curt

said slowly. "But long ago they penetrated

the Birthplace and conquered its secret and

set up instruments to wield its powers. It's

why we have come. Garrand must not use

those instruments."

"Nobody must use them," said Simon.

Curt said nothing to that.

Gurney, looking ahead, saw the black

cloud widening out across the starry

universe like a great tide of doom, steadily

blotting out the stars. A fitting cosmic

shroud for the greatest of cosmic secrets,

he thought. Its fringes engulfed bright stars

that shone wanly through the dimness like

dying eyes.

"This dust," said Simon, "is newborn

matter, spawned by the Birthplace and

pumped outward by pressure of radiation

to flow out to the whole universe."

"And the--the secret itself--is inside?"

"Yes."

There was no moment when the Comet

plunged suddenly within the cloud. Rather

the dust thickened steadily until all about

the flying ship was a deepening haze,

deepest and darkest ahead but drawing

more and more veils behind them so that

the stars back there shone like smothered

witch-fires.

The ship began to tremble as it

encountered flowing spatial currents of

denser dust. Struts and girders protested

with slight creakings and then more loudly.

They strapped into the recoil-chairs at

Curt's orders.

"Here it comes," said Grag in loud

complaint. "I remember last time almost

every bone in my body was broken."

Otho laughed. He started a caustic retort

but had no time to voice it.

To Gurney the Comet seemed suddenly

to have crashed. The tell-tales on the panel

went crazy and the recoil-chairs screamed

in outrage as the ship was batted through

the haze by unseen giant hands.

There was nothing they could do but

hang on. There was nothing even for Curt

to do. The automatic pilot and stabilizers

had to do it all now or they were finished.

The mechanisms functioned staunchly.

Again and again they snatched the buffeted

little ship out of raging eddies of dust-

currents and hurled it forward again. Now

the whole hull was creaking and groaning

from constantly changing stresses and the

hiss of dust against its plates became a

rising and falling roar.

Ezra Gurney felt a quaking dread. He

had already seen too much, had come too

far. Now he felt that a universe become

sentient and hostile was wrathfully

repelling them from its hidden heart, from

its supreme secret.

The Comet fought forward, relentlessly

impelled by its own mechanical brains,

until the dust began to thin. It tore onward,

still buffeted by swirling currents and

drenched by radiation. And now, ahead,

Ezra saw a vast hazy space inside the

denser blackness of the cloud. And far

away in this inner space, looming in vague

gigantic splendor . . .

"Good God!" said Ezra Gurney and it

was a prayer. "Then that--that . . ." Curt

Newton's eyes were alight with a strange

glow. "Yes--the Birthplace."

The hazy space within the denser cloud

was vast. And at its center bulked and

gleamed and shifted an enigmatic glory--a

colossal spinning spiral of white radiance.

Its whirling arms spanned millions of miles

and it uttered cosmic lightnings of

radiation that lanced out through the haze.

Beating heart of the universe, fiery

womb that spawned the stuff of worlds,

awesome epicenter of cosmos! Cloaked

and shrouded by the dense black cloud of

its own making, safe behind its ramparts of

terrible whirlpools and the wild tide-runs

of untamed matter fresh from creation, it

flamed across its millions of miles of

space, shaped like a spiral nebula,

spinning, whirling, sending forth its seed to

the farthest corners of the galaxy.

And to Ezra Gurney, cowering in his

seat and staring at that far-off misty glory,

it seemed that the eyes of men were not

meant to see nor their minds to

comprehend this shining Birthplace.

"Surely," he whispered, "surely we're not

going into that!"

Curt Newton nodded. He had still that

strange look in his eyes, a look almost

mystic, as though he could see beyond the

wonder and the glory of the Birthplace to

its innermost secret heart and glimpse there

the hidden laws by which it worked and

carried out its destiny.

"Yes," said Curt, "we're going in." He

leaned forward over the controls, his face

bathed in the misty radiance so that it

seemed not his familiar face at all but the

countenance of a being half godlike with

the strange light flickering in his eyes.

"You see how it is, Ezra?" he asked.

"How it spins like a great centrifuge,

sucking in the spent energy of Suns and

whirling it in currents of incalculable

strength until, in some utterly undreamable

way, the energy coagulates into electrons

and protons which are thrown off in never-

ending streams from the rim of the vortex.

"They form the shining haze that fills

this hollow around the Birthplace. Then,

farther out, they unite to form the atoms of

cosmic dust. The pressure of radiation

forces them on across the galaxy. And out

of them new worlds are made."

Ezra Gurney shivered. He did not speak.

"Curtis!" Simon's voice was loud with a

kind of warning and Curt Newton started,

leaning back in his seat and turning again

to the controls of the Comet. His face had

tightened and his eyes were veiled.

ND the ship sped on across that vast

hollow in the heart of the dark cloud.

And swift as its flight was it seemed only

to creep slowly, slowly, toward the misty

wheel of radiance. Pale witch-fires danced

along its hull, growing brighter until the

metal was enwrapped in veils of flame,

tenuous, cold and having about them an

eerie quality of life. The Comet was

double-shielded against the radiation but

even so Ezra Gurney could feel the echoes

of that terrible force in his own flesh.

The flaming arms of the Birthplace

reached wider and wider across space. The

radiance deepened, became a supernal

brilliance that seared the flinching

eyeballs. The ship began to be shaken now

and again by subtle tremors as the farthest

edges of out-thrown currents touched it

and passed by.

Ezra shut his teeth hard to keep from

screaming. He had been driven once too

close to the Sun and he had looked hard

into the depths of the atomic furnace that

was about to swallow him. He had not then

known one tenth of the fear that he knew

now.

Slitting his eyes against the glare he

could make out the central sphere from

which the spiral arms curved out, a

gigantic vortex of flaming force, the

wheel-hub of the galaxy. The Comet was

plunging straight toward it and there was

nothing he could do to stop it, nothing . . .

Curt sent the ship driving in between

two of the sweeping arms. Tidal-waves,

torrents of energy picked them up and

flung them, a leaf in the cosmic millrace,

toward the grip of a curving arm that

burned and seethed with all the ultimate

fires of hell. And Curt fought the controls

and tore away again, heading in, heading

in. . .

The central sphere of force loomed up

like a wall of flame higher than all the

skies of space, and then they were in it.

It was as though a million Suns had

exploded. The force and fire took the

Comet and whirled it tumbling away

through a blind and terrible violence. Ezra

sagged half-conscious in his seat and he

thought that he had come a long, long way

to die. No ship, no body, could live for

long in this.

The forces of the cosmic centrifuge

would tear their substance, powder it to

atoms and then still down into the fine raw

stuff of atoms, send it out to join with the

black dust, to begin the timeless pilgrimage

across the empty spaces, to be built at last

into the foundations of some new world to

circle an alien Sun. Human, robot and

android, they would all be one in the end.

The Comet crashed suddenly clear of

that hellish tempest of light and force into

quiet space. Into a space enclosed by the

spinning central sphere of the Birthplace

itself, a calm at the very center of cosmic

storm.

Dazzled, half-stunned, Ezra heard

Simon saying, "In here at the center is only

one world--the world of the Watchers,

where--"

Curt Newton, leaning forward,

interrupted with a strange low cry.

"Simon, look! Look! There are other

worlds here now--worlds and Suns and--"

His voice seemed strangled by a surprise

and terror too great for utterance.

Ezra strained desperately to regain use

of his dazzled eyes. As they began to clear

he too peered tautly forward. At first what

he saw did not seem so terrifying. Here, in

the wide calm space at the heart of the

Birthplace, there was a cluster of Suns and

planets.

Ruby Suns, flaring like new blood,

green and white and somber smoky-gold

Suns! Planets and moons that circled the

changing Suns in sweeping trains,

themselves ever changing! Comets that

shot in living light between the worlds,

meteor swarms rushing and wheeling, an

astronomical phantasmagoria enclosed

within this comparatively little space!

"You said there were no worlds but one

here," Ezra began, bewildered.

"There were none." Curt's face was

deathly, and something in it struck at

Ezra's heart. "There were none but that

little blue world--that alone."

Ezra glimpsed it at the center of the

strange, close-packed cluster--a little blue

planet that was a geometrically perfect

sphere.

"The powers of the Watchers are

there--the instruments by which they

could tap the Birthplace itself," Curt was

saying hoarsely. "And Garrand has been

there with those instruments for days."

A comprehension so monstrous that his

mind recoiled from it came to Ezra

Gurney. "You mean that Garrand . . ."

He could not finish, could not say it. It

was not a thing that could be said in any

sane universe.

Curt Newton said it. "Garrand by

tapping the Birthplace, has created the

Suns and worlds and comets and meteors

of that cluster. He has fallen victim to the

old allurement, the strongest in the

universe."

"As you almost fell victim once!"

Simon Wright warned.

"Can a man make worlds?" Ezra felt

shaken and sick inside. "Curt, no--this

thing--"

"One who can harness the Birthplace

can create at will !" Curt exclaimed. "And

the instruments of the Watchers do harness

it!"

A kind of madness had come over him.

Under his hands the Comet leaped forward

at terrible speed. Ezra heard him talking,

whether to the others or himself he never

knew.

"There is a balance of forces--always a

balance! It cannot be tampered with too

much. The Watchers left a warning, a plain

and dreadful warning."

The ship rushed forward toward the

distant small blue world, careening wildly

through the unholy stars and worlds and

comets whose creation had blasphemed

against the natural universe.

CHAPTER IV

Power of the Watchers

HE blue world shimmered in the light

of the monstrous aurora, a perfect

jewel, with no height of mountain nor

roughness of natural growth to mar its

symmetry. Its surface showed a gloss that

made Ezra think of porcelain or the deep

gleam of polished lapis.

"The Watchers made it long ago," said

Curt. "They made it out of the forces of the

Birthplace and it was their outpost in this

universe, where they studied the secrets of

creation. There exists a city . . ."

The Comet sped low across the curving

plain. For a time there was nothing but the

blank expanse of blue--what was it, glass

or rock or jewel-stone or some substance

new in the universe? Above them the little

suns with their planets wheeled and shone,

laced about with the fire of comets, and

above those again was the golden sky of

the Birthplace. Curt's face, bent forward

toward the blue horizon, was intense and

pale and somehow alien.

"There it is!" cried Otho, and Curt

nodded. Ahead there were the tips of

slender spires flashing in the light and a

gleam and glow of faceted surfaces that

made a web of radiance like the aura

sometimes seen in dreams. The spires

lifted into graceful height, shaped

themselves into the form of a city.

Walls of the same translucent blue

enclosed the towers and in the center,

rising high above them all, there was a

citadel, a cathedral-form as massive and as

delicate as the castles that sometimes stand

upon the tops of clouds on Earth. And it

was dead, the blue and graceful city. The

walls, the streets, the flying arches that

spanned the upper levels of the towers, all

were silent and deserted.

"Garrand's ship," said Curt and Ezra

saw it on the plain before the city, an ugly

dark intruder on this world that had not

been made for men.

Curt set the Comet down beside it.

There was air on this planet, for the

Watchers had been oxygen-breathers even

though they were not human. The lock of

Garrand's ship stood open but there was no

life nor movement that Curt could see.

"It seems deserted," he said, "but we'd

better make sure."

Ezra roused himself. He went out with

the others and somehow the mere act of

moving and the possibility of facing a

human and comprehensible danger was a

relief, almost a pleasure. He walked beside

Curt with Otho beyond him. Their boots

slipped and rang on the glassy surface.

Apart from that there was no sound. The

city brooded and was still.

They went through the open airlock into

the other ship. There did not seem to be

anything to fear, but they moved with the

caution of long habit. Ezra found that he

was waiting, hoping for action, for attack.

He needed some escape valve for the

terrors that had grown within him during

this flight into the heart of the universe.

But the narrow corridors were empty and

nothing stirred behind the bulkhead doors.

Then, in the main cabin, they found a

man.

He was sitting on the padded bench

formed by the tops of the lockers along one

wall. He did not move when they came in

except to lift his head and look at them. He

was a big man, of a breed that Ezra Gurney

knew very well, having fought them all his

life across the Solar System. But the

hardness had gone out of him now. The

strong lines of his face had sagged and

softened and his eyes held only

hopelessness and fear. He had been

drinking but he was not drunk.

"You're too late," he said. "Way too

late."

Curt went and stood before him.

"You're Herrick," he said. "Are you

alone?"

"Oh, yes," said Herrick. "I'm alone.

There were Sperry and Forbin but they're

dead now." Herrick had not shaved for

some time. The black stubble on his jaw

was flecked with white. He ran his hand

across it and his fingers trembled. "I

wouldn't be here now," he said, "but I

couldn't run the whirls alone. I couldn't

take this ship clear back to Earth alone. I

couldn't do anything but sit and wait."

Curt said, "Where's Garrand?"

Herrick laughed. It was not pleasant

laughter. "You know where he is. Go in

and get him. Make him come out. That's

how Sperry and Forbin died, trying to

make him. I don't know why I'm alive

myself. I don't know if I want to be alive

after what I've seen."

E GOT up. It was hard for him to

rise, hard to stand. It was as though

fear had eaten the bones away inside him,

dissolved the strength from his muscles,

leaving him only a hulk, a receptacle for

terror. His eyes burned at them.

"You know me," he said. "You know

my kind. You can guess why I came with

Garrand to get the secret of the Birthplace,

what I was going to do with it afterward. I

didn't figure Garrand would get in my way.

I needed his brains, all right, but there

would come a time when I wouldn't need

them anymore." He made a gesture, as of

brushing away an insect with his hand.

"As easy as that." He began to laugh again

and it was more weeping than laughter.

"Stop it!" said Curt and Herrick stopped

quite obediently. He looked at Curt as

though a thought had just come to him,

creeping through the fear-webs that

shrouded his brain.

"You can get me out of here," he said.

There was no threat in his voice, only

pleading, the voice of a man caught in

quicksand and crying for release. "It's no

use going after Garrand. He'll die in there

anyway. He won't eat or sleep, he's gone

beyond those things, but whatever he

thinks he is he's human and he'll die. Just

go! Take me aboard your ship and go!"

"No," said Curt.

Herrick sat down again on the bench.

"No," he whispered. "You wouldn't.

You're as mad as he is."

Simon said, "Curtis . . ."

He had remained in the shadowy

background, listening, but now he came

forward and spoke and Curt turned on him.

"No!" he said again. "I can't go away

and leave a madman there to play with the

forces of the Birthplace till he dies!"

Simon was silent for a time and then he

said slowly, "There is truth in what you say

but only part of it. And I am sorry,

Curtis--for I am no more proof against this

madness than you. Even less, perhaps, than

you.

"I shall stay out here with Grag to guard

the ships and Herrick." His lens-like eyes

turned upon Ezra Gurney. "I think that

you, of all of us, will resist the lure most

strongly. You are like Herrick, a man of

your hands--and Herrick, who came to

steal the secret, felt only terror when he

found it."

He said no more but Ezra knew what he

meant. Simon was giving Curt Newton into

his hands to save him from some

destruction which Ezra did not understand.

There was a coldness around Ezra's heart

and a sickness in his belly and in his mind

a great wish that he had never left Earth.

Curt said to Herrick, "Go to my ship and

wait. When we leave you'll go with us."

Herrick shook his head. His eyes lifted

slowly to Curt Newton's and dropped

again. He said, "You'll never leave."

Ezra left the ship with Curt and Otho

and he was sorry that Herrick had said

those last three words.

They walked again across the ringing

glassy plain, this time toward the city wall

and the tall gateway that was in it. The

leaves of the portal stood open and there

was a look about them as though they had

not been touched or closed for more ages

than Ezra could think about. He and Otho

passed through them, following Curt.

Beyond, at a little distance, were two dark

statues facing each other across the way.

Ezra looked at them and caught his breath

in sharply.

"The Watchers?" he whispered. "Where

they like that? But what were they then?"

Otho said, "They came from another

universe. Simon thought they must have

been liquescent from the formless structure

of their bodies."

Out of each amorphous figure stared

two round yellow eyes, full of light from

the glowing sky and uncannily lifelike.

Ezra shuddered and hurried by, glancing as

he did so at the strangely inscribed letters

upon the bases of the statues. He assumed

that that was the warning Curt had referred

to and he did not want to enquire too

closely into it.

"Go quietly," Curt said. "Two men have

already died here. We want to get as close

to Garrand as we can before he knows

we're here."

"Where is he?" demanded Ezra for the

city was utterly dead and still. Curt pointed

to the citadel.

"In there."

They made their way as silently as they

could along the blue translucent street.

High above them the slender spires made

soft bell-notes where the wind touched

them and the crystal spans thrummed like

muted harps. And the shimmering castle

loomed close before them and the strange

stars sparkled in the golden sky. Ezra

Gurney was afraid.

There was a portal, tall and simply

made, with an unknown symbol cut above

it. They passed it, treading softly, and

stood within a vast cathedral vault that

soared upward until the tops of the walls

were lost in a golden haze and Ezra

realized that it was open to the sky.

The floor was of the same blue

substance as the city and in the center of it,

under the open vault, was a massive

oblong block almost like a gigantic altar

except that its top was set with hundreds of

little, shining keys. Beside this block stood

Garrand. He was not looking at it nor at the

two men and the android who had entered.

He was looking upward into that distant

sky and through the opening Ezra could

see the glittering of stars. Garrand was

smiling.

Curt Newton walked out across the

floor.

"Don't came any closer," said Garrand

mildly. "Just where you are--that's close

enough."

Curt stopped. Otho had begun to edge

away along the curve of the wall very

slowly, like a drifting shadow. Ezra stood a

little behind Curt and to one side.

ARRAND turned toward them and

for the first time Ezra saw his face

quite clearly. Unshaven and deathly white,

its cheeks and temples sunken with hunger

and exhaustion, its eyes dark and burning,

there was a beauty about it that had never

been there before, something sublime and

glorious and calm, as a sea is calm or a

frozen river, with the potentials of

destruction sleeping in it. And Ezra

understood the danger that Simon had

spoken of in regard to Curt. He understood

now what the power that was here could do

to a man.

"So, after all, you followed me,"

Garrand said. "Well, it doesn't matter

now." He stepped behind the block that

was like an altar, so that it was between

him and Curt.

Curt said quietly, "You must leave here,

Garrand. You'll have to leave some time,

you know. You're only human."

"Am I?" Garrand laughed. His hand

lightly caressed the bank of little shining

keys. "Am I? I was once. I was a little

physicist who thought adding to scientific

knowledge supremely important and I stole

and risked my life to come here for more

knowledge." His eyes lit up. "I came

searching for a scientific secret and I found

the source of godhead!"

"So now, because you've tampered with

the Watcher's powers and tapped the

Birthplace, you're a god?" Curt's tone was

ironic but Ezra could see the sweat

standing out on his forehead.

Garrand took no offence. He was

armored by an egocentric emotion so great

that he merely smiled wearily and said,

"You can go now--all of you. I dislike

chattering. I dislike it so much that I will

quite willingly call destruction in here to

engulf you unless you go."

His fingers had ceased straying, had

come to rest on certain keys. Ezra Gurney

felt a slow freezing of his flesh. He

whispered hoarsely, "You'll have to kill

him, Curt."

He knew the swiftness with which

Newton could draw and fire the weapon at

his belt. But Curt made no move.

"Can I fire into that bank of controls?"

Curt muttered. "Otho's speed is our only

chance."

He flung up his hand, his fingers

crooked. He said loudly, "Garrand, I warn

you--"

His gesture had been both a feint to

draw attention, a signal. A signal that sent

Otho lunging toward the oblong altar.

The phenomenal swiftness of the

android, the reaction speed of nerves and

muscles that were not human, made Otho's

movement almost blurring to the eye. But

Garrand saw and with a low cry he pressed

the keys.

To Ezra, in the next moment, the air

around them seemed suddenly charged

with power. The golden haze spun about

him, darkened, thickened, all in a

heartbeat. He felt the imminent

materialization of an agency of destruction

drawn from the great matrix of force about

them.

He glimpsed through the thickening

haze Otho pulling Garrand back from the

altar. He saw Curt leaping in, his face

desperate and raising the depressed keys.

And Ezra felt the half-materialized

shadowy force around him melting back

into nothingness. "What--" he stammered,

still standing frozen.

"Death," said Curt. "As to the form of it

who knows but Garrand? Anyway, it's over

now." His voice was unsteady and his

hands shook on the keys. He looked down.

Garrand had gone limp in Otho's arms.

Ezra thought at first that he was dead and

then he saw the shallow breathing, the faint

twitching of the mouth.

"Hunger and exhaustion," said Curt.

"Strain. He was already at the end of his

rope. Get him back to the ship, Otho, and

have Simon take care of him."

Otho lifted the unconscious man

without effort but he did not yet move

away. "Aren't you coming, Curt?"

"Not yet." He glanced upward through

the opening at the brilliant stars that

swarmed where no stars ought to be. "I

can't leave this imbalance at the heart of

the Birthplace. The Watchers were careful

about that. They built their one small

planet at the exact center of stress, where it

wouldn't upset anything. But those

creations of Garrand's--I don't dare leave

them here, Otho."

Still Otho did not move and Curt said,

"Go on, Otho. Garrand needs help."

LOWLY and reluctantly the android

turned and as he did so he looked at

Ezra, a look of warning, a pleading look.

Then, he went out, carrying Garrand.

Curt Newton bent over the keys. "I

haven't forgotten," he whispered to

himself. "How could anyone ever forget ?"

He touched the gleaming keys, not

pressing them, just touching them lightly

and feeling the power that was in them, the

unimaginable control of matter.

Ezra said hoarsely, "What are you

going to do?"

Curt looked upward to where the little

suns swam in the golden haze, the little

suns that could create havoc in this cosmic

womb where only the seed of matter

belonged.

"Watch," he said. "I am going to

dissolve what Garrand created."

Ezra watched. Slowly, carefully, Curt

pressed a certain pattern on the keys and

around a ruby star waves and bands of

golden force began to flicker like faint

auroras. They grew and strengthened and

became streams of raw electrons, pouring

their substance into the little Sun.

Ezra shielded his eyes, but not soon

enough. The star had become a nova, but

without the second, the collapsed stage of

novas. The fury of electronic force

launched upon it from outside in this

universal vortex of such forces had swept

away each fragment of the exploding

atoms to return them to the parent cloud.

The ruby star had ceased to exist and its

worlds had vanished with it.

Swifter now, more surely, Curt's hands

flashed across the keys. And Ezra Gurney

cowered beside the altar, blinded, stunned,

shaken by the savage explosions of far-

distant matter, riven and burst apart.

How long he crouched there while the

great lights flared in the sky and the

cosmic hammers beat he never knew. But

there came a time when everything was

still and he looked up and saw Curt

standing there with his hands motionless

on the keys and his head strained back so

that he could search the farthest reaches of

the sky.

He spoke and Curt did not answer. He

touched him and spoke again, and it was

like speaking to a statue except that under

his fingers he could feel the subtle tremors

of Curt's hard flesh, the taut quivering.

"Curt!" he cried out. And Curt very

slowly lowered his head and looked at him

with a kind of amazement in his eyes, as

though he had forgotten Ezra Gurney.

"Is it finished, Curt?"

"Yes. It's finished."

"Then come away."

Newton's gaze, the unfamiliar gaze that

did not see small things like men but

looked on larger distances, slipped away to

the banks of keys and upward to the sky

again.

"In a moment," he said. "In just a

moment."

Two red bars burned across the bones

of his cheeks and the rest of his face was

like marble. Ezra saw in it the beginning of

the exaltation, the terrible beauty that had

marked the face of Garrand. Curt smiled

and the sinews of his hands moved

delicately as he stroked his fingers across

the keys.

"The worlds that I could make," he

whispered. "Garrand was only a little man.

I could create things he never dreamed of."

"Curt!" cried Ezra in a panic. "Come

away!" But his voice was swallowed up in

dreams and Curt whispered very softly, "I

wouldn't keep them. I would dissolve them

afterward. But I could create . . ."

His fingers were forming a pattern on

the keys. Ezra looked down at his gnarled

old hands and knew that they were not

strong enough. He looked at his gun and

knew that he could not use it in any way.

Searching desperately for a way to pierce

through the dreams he cried, "Could you

create another Earth?"

For awhile he was not sure that Curt had

heard him, not sure but that he was beyond

hearing. Then a vaguely startled look came

into Curt's eyes and he said, "What?"

"Could you create another Earth, Curt?

Could you put the mountains and the seas

together and build the cities and fill them

with men and women and the voices of

children? Could you create another Otho or

Grag or Simon?"

Curt slowly looked down at his fingers,

curved and hungry on the waiting keys,

and a kind of horror flashed across his

face. He snatched his hands away and spun

around, turning his back to the altar. He

looked sick, and shamed, but the dreams

were no longer shadowing his face, and

Ezra began to breathe again.

"Thanks, Ezra," he said hoarsely. "Now

let's go. Let's go, while I can."

HE black cloud lay behind them and

the Comet fled away from it like a

frightened thing, back through the great

blazing clusters of Suns that had now no

terrors for them. Curt Newton sat silently

at the controls and his face was so

brooding that Ezra Gurney did not venture

to speak.

Ezra looked ahead because he did not

want to look back into the main cabin. He

knew that what Simon was doing there was

perfectly harmless and utterly necessary

but there was something so uncanny about

it that he did not want to see it being done.

He had looked in once and seen Simon

hovering over the strange projector that

Grag and Otho had rigged above the heads

of the drugged unconscious Garrand and

Herrick. He had come away from there

quickly.

He sat unspeaking beside Curt,

watching the great clusters wheel slowly

past them until at last Simon Wright came

gliding into the control-room.

"It is done," said Simon. "Garrand and

Herrick will not wake for many hours.

When they do they won't remember."

Curt looked at him. "You're sure that

you expunged every memory of the Birth-

place?"

"Absolutely sure. I used the scanner to

block every memory-path on that subject--

and checked by questioning them

hypnotically. They know nothing of the

Birthplace. You'll have to have a story

ready for them."

Curt nodded. "We picked them up out

here in deep space when their ship cracked

up in cosmic ray research. That fits the

circumstances--they'll never doubt it."

Ezra shivered a little. Even now the

blocking of part of a man's memories, the

taking away forever of a bit of his

experience, seemed an eerie thing to do.

Curt Newton saw his shiver and

understood it. He said, "It doesn't harm

them, Ezra--and it's necessary."

"Very necessary, if the secret of the

Birthplace is not to get out again," said

Simon.

There was a little silence among them

and the ship crawled on and on through the

cosmic glare and gloom. Ezra saw that the

somber shadow on Newton's face

deepened as he looked out through the

wilderness of Suns and nebulae toward the

far, far spark of Sol.

"But someday," Curt said slowly,

"someday not too far in the future, many

men will be pushing out through these

spaces. They'll find the Birthplace sooner

or later. And then what?"

Simon said, "We will not be here when

that happens."

"But they'll do it. And what will happen

when they do?"

Simon had no answer for that nor had

Ezra Gurney. And Curt spoke again, his

voice heavy with foreboding.

"I have sometimes thought that life,

human life, intelligent life, is merely a

deadly agent by which a stellar system

achieves its own doom in a cosmic cycle

far vaster and stranger than anyone has

dreamed. For see--stars and planets are

born from primal nothingness and they

cool and the cooling worlds spawn life and

life grows to ever higher levels of

intelligence and power until . . ."

There was an ironical twist to Curt's lips

as he paused and then went on ". . . until

the life of that world becomes intelligent

enough to tap the energies of the cosmos!

When that happens is it inevitable that

fallible mortals should use those energies

so disastrously that they finally destroy

their own worlds and stars? Are life and

intelligence merely a lethal seed planted in

each universe, a seed that must inevitably

destroy that universe?"

Simon said slowly, "That is a terrible

thought, Curtis. But I deny its inevitability.

Long ago the Watchers found the

Birthplace, yet they did not try to use its

powers."

"We are not like the Watchers, we

men," Curt said bitterly. "You saw what it

did to Garrand and to me."

"I know," said Simon. "But perhaps

men will be as wise as the Watchers were

by the time they find the Birthplace.

Perhaps they too will then be powerful

enough to renounce power. We can only

hope."