1,000-Year Voyage (14 page)

If only he could remember what it was he was going to do before starting back on his journey to Earth. He knew that something in the plan had referred to the forward jets of the machine instead of the rear ones and yet….

Yes, of course, that was it! He must use the forward jets before the rear ones so that the recoiling power would thrust him away from Alpha Centauri instead of towards it. If he left the rear ones in full commission his sudden onward surge would force the vessel straight towards that mighty field of gravitation being generated by colossal Alpha.

In that case then it meant a quick reversal in the matter of the switches he was just about to operate. He reached out towards the maze of controls then hesitated again.

For the second time his memory was a complete blank upon which controls he ought to move. This business of memory-slipping was troubling him considerably. He had noticed it quite a deal before descending into the deep sleep and now that he had recovered from it the fault seemed to be even more apparent. Which was the switch that he ought to pull? For the life of him he could not remember!

If it came to that why did he need to return to Earth at all? Looking dazedly out of the window he could see that there were quite a few planets revolving around Alpha at respectable distances, and since many of them had cloud belts he assumed that they had an atmosphere. Whether it was of the type that would suit his form of life he did not know.

Yes, why was he returning to Earth? Here again was the insidious, baffling problem! He had completely forgotten why all this immense expenditure of energy was to be used. The scheme of vengeance upon which he had been engaged for so many years, towards which every one of his energies and mental capabilities had been directed, had vanished from his mind like mist.

He was a man alone in the void and did not know why, was even finding it difficult to realise why he was in the void alone at all.

And being in this condition, with his memory slipping he could not possibly conceive the reason for his peculiar mental blackout. It was in truth the effect of the incessant saturations of cosmic rays that he had absorbed while building his mighty generators for the cause of vengeance.

Far too often had he ignored the immense danger of the position in which he had stood, and instead of mortifying his flesh the cosmic radiations had affected his brain insofar that the powers of memory and remembrance were being totally destroyed.

So Exodus sat at the switchboard, his lower lip beginning to form an imbecilic droop, and his eyes dark pools of wonder as he strove frantically to piece together the missing places in his memory.

He was little more than a scientific god with amnesia. He no longer knew the why or the wherefore. Then a subconscious stirring gave him a brief instant of clarity and he remembered that he had a lever to pull.

He pulled it just at the moment that the atomic power plant reached absolute peak voltage—and that was where he made his mistake. Instead of giving the power to the frontal rockets he had given it to the rear rockets, and with a mighty jolt the space machine suddenly darted off in a direction diagonal to that in which he had been travelling.

This diagonal thrust immediately carried it in the direction of Alpha Centauri and the incredible effulgence of that mighty star blazed through the front window as Exodus turned in horror and closed his eyes against the fiendish glare.

He closed them only for a moment and then jumped to his feet beating his massive fist against the edge of the control board.

“What is it that I have to
remember
? What am I doing
here
? I am here for a purpose but I cannot remember what it is! I have been flung out into this mighty void and I do not know why! What kind of a fool am I that I cannot recall a single iota of the plan which I had in mind...?”

He waited, feeling that perhaps some miracle would grant him sufficient clarity of mind, if only for a moment, to understand the portent of the situation in which he stood. But no such miracle was granted: if anything the obfuscation of his mind deepened even more and became a dark sombre pool in which not a single recollection stirred.

The great control room of the space machine was still filled with that great drowning tide of brilliance. He could feel himself being dragged down to the floor under the incessantly accelerating force of the space machine and the stupendous drag of Alpha itself.

He was forced to his knees. He could only see the mighty bulk of Alpha ahead of him. He had not even the wit nor the sense to realise that the space machine was now irresistibly chained by that stupendous gravitation and no power in the universe could save that great liner from being devoured forever in that liquid hell of flame and fire....

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

British writer
John Russell Fearn
was born near Manchester, England, in 1908. As a child he devoured the science fiction of Wells and Verne, and was a voracious reader of the Boys' Story Papers. He was also fascinated by the cinema, and first broke into print in 1931 with a series of articles in
Film Weekly
.

He then quickly sold his first novel,
The Intelligence Gigantic
, to the American magazine,
Amazing Stories
. Over the next 15 years, writing under several pseudonyms, Fearn became one of the most prolific contributors to all of the leading US science fiction pulps, including such legendary publications as
Astounding Stories
,
Startling Stories
,
Thrilling Wonder Stories
, and
Weird Tales
.

During the late 1940s he diversified into writing novels for the UK market, and also created his famous superwoman character, The Golden Amazon, for the prestigious Canadian magazine, the Toronto
Star Weekly
. In the early 1950s in the UK, his 52 novels as “Vargo Statten” were bestsellers, most notably his novelization of the film,
Creature from the Black Lagoon
.

Apart from science fiction, he had equal success with westerns, romances, and detective fiction, writing an amazing total of 180 novels—most of them in a period of just 10 years—before his early death in 1960. His work has been translated into nine languages, and continues to be reprinted and read worldwide.

ALSO BY
JOHN RUSSELL FEARN

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