1,000-Year Voyage (4 page)

“You don't ask much,” Rigilus commented drily. “You should know that for many years now we have been at work trying to find out how to create synthetic life, but all our endeavours came to nothing. I think you are wasting your time in hoping for a life of a thousand years.”

“I never waste my time in talking about anything which is not capable of realisation,” Merva replied deliberately, “hear me out while I tell you my plan.

“There exists in every normal human being up to the age of about ten a tremendous life energy. You should be aware of that from the findings of scientists of as far back as nearly a hundred years ago. It was a Russian scientist whose name I forget who first made the discovery whilst engaged upon a complicated operation which demanded the transplanting of a young heart into an old body.”

“Yes, I am quite informed upon such experiments,” Rigilus assented, his brow clouding somewhat.

“Very well then. Why should that experiment be lost in the medical annals of the past when we can turn it to such advantage? There never was a more desperate need for all the medical and scientific skill we can bring into use. As I understood it the transplanting of the young heart into the old body was just a straightforward operation. What really emerged from that experiment was the fact that this Russian scientist was able to positively prove that from a young body there emanates a form of energy totally different from that of a body that is adolescent or mature.

“Anyway, he found there was enough of the energy to cause a reaction upon the electrical instruments he was using. The later treatise he wrote showed that the energy was not confined to that one particular body but exists in all young ones up to approximately the age of ten years from the moment of birth.”

“Well,” Rigilus enquired, still puzzled. “How does that affect us in our particular case?”

“It helps us in this way. Since that energy is available it must surely be capable of transmission from one body to the other—in other words a kind of energy blood transfusion, if you know what I mean. If blood can be transferred from one person to another by mechanical means, then I'm perfectly sure that energy can be transferred from one person to another by
electrical
means.

“What I am suggesting is this: when the children of our colleagues have reached the age of about five years they should be capable of giving forth all the young and vital energy which we require. Between now and that time we have plenty of opportunity to build the necessary electrical equipment which should be able to absorb and store that bodily energy which can afterwards be transferred to us. By that I mean you and me. That should have the effect of counterbalancing the incessant breakdown of cells and loss of energy which is the ultimate cause of old age and death.”

“Your plan,” Rigilus said, after a moment or two's reflection, “has all the brilliance which I have come to expect from you. Have you, however, thought what will happen if we withdraw from them vital energy? It is more than possible that they will die because of it. Nature put that energy there for a reason and its removal might bring about their death.”

“Would that matter?” Merva asked, shrugging.

“I think it would,” Rigilus retorted. “I don't wish to see the death of our children. I understood that they were to be brought into being for the sole purpose of carrying on the plan of vengeance upon which we are both agreed.”

“I am not talking about
our
children,” Merva retorted; “I said the children of our colleagues, which is a very different thing. They don't concern us; they are merely the offspring of those who have proved disloyal to us when it comes to the execution of a scheme of revenge. My original idea was to inculcate into them the plan of vengeance against Earth, but how much better it will be if we ourselves can carry out that plan a thousand years hence.

“Use the children for energy purposes only, destroy the parents who will be bound to raise objections and finally it will leave only you and me, Rigilus, given almost eternal life—and most certainly life which will last for a thousand years—and if there are others besides us they will be our own children who will be wholly in agreement with our plans. If they are
not
in agreement then they must be eliminated.”

“Evidently,” Rigilus remarked with a wistful smile, “I was right when I said you regarded children as nothing more than cogs in a machine and if the whole machine does not function perfectly because some of those cogs are not suitable, they must be destroyed. That is what it amounts to, isn't it?”

“Entirely,” Merva assented. “At least, the scheme is a good one; you must admit that.”

“Yes, I admit it,” Rigilus conceded, sighing. “The only thing I am wondering about is if the chance to live a thousand years would be appreciated. For myself even though only a matter of months have gone by since we left the Earth I am already completely wearied with the monotony of this space journeying. The very thought of a thousand years of it makes me feel inclined to open the airlock at this very moment and fling myself into the void.”

“That,” Merva said, with a contemptuous smile, “is nothing else but defeatism, and I am surprised that a man of your rugged strength should even contemplate it Rigilus. Let us have no more of it: let us concentrate instead upon the scientific possibilities of the idea that I have put forward. Let us use all the resources of this great laboratory here for the creation of the necessary electrical equipment to absorb life energy. There will come a time when the first children will begin to appear amongst us and from that moment onwards our plan will start to move slowly but inevitably towards its climax.”

Rigilus nodded assent because there as nothing else he could do, though inwardly he did not agree with Merva's almost horrifying conception of absorption of life energy; he was on the other hand the creator of the original scheme of vengeance and therefore he certainly could not back out at this juncture. Later there might come a chance to turn Merva from her chosen course but right at this moment there was nothing else Rigilus could do but fall in with her wishes.

“Have you any preconceived ideas on what kind of equipment we ought to construct?” he enquired.

“Certainly I have; in fact, more than that, I have blueprints. Here, see them for yourself….”

Rigilus stood watching in some surprise as from the pocket of her silken one-piece garment Merva took a folded sheet of graph paper and spread it out on the bench.

Rigilus studied it, noting immediately the immense attention to scientific details that had always been Merva's strong point.

“Since at the moment there are no children aboard,” she said after a moment or two, “we have no means of determining the amount of energy they give off. You will see from this apparatus here that I have allowed for that and have constructed it very much on the principle of one of the ordinary power-absorbers used in our laboratories back on Earth. The energy is picked up by this magnetic brush system and is then stored up as potential for release when required. I'm absolutely convinced that such an appartus ought to work admirably.”

Of this, as far as Rigilus could see, there was very little doubt, so without any more hesitation he began to gather together all the materials for the actual construction of the machine that Merva had designed.

During this time they saw but little of their old colleagues, except at the generally accepted meal times. A system of shifts and reliefs had of course been arranged so that somebody or other was always moving about the ship constantly on guard in case of the arrival of some sudden meteorite which might cause irreparable disaster to the ship, or on the other hand there might be some form of cosmic life which would make itself apparent and would need destroying. For, although the party aboard the ship—with the exception of Rigilus and Merva—knew that they would never see a planet again, they still did not wish to die prematurely through the advent of the unexpected. Hence the constant guard against the possibility of sudden disaster.... But nothing ever happened.

In this time the Earthly Solar System had become so remote that it had disappeared altogether and the Sun was little better than a pinpoint star in far off infinity. Ahead, the enormous galaxies of the Universe never seemed to come any nearer so stupendous was their distance away. The ship flew on and on, consuming hardly any power since it was still maintaining the same velocity it had achieved when the engine was cut off.

And so the circumscribed little world flew onwards, carrying with it ten souls who were entirely, or almost entirely, content with their lot and looking forward to the arrival of their children ere very long, and two others who were plotting and planning to defeat the ravages of time that they might live a thousand years. In the passage of months Rigilus had had to a great extent come round to Merva's way of thinking in regard to this and the interest of building and testing the equipment for life energy had to a great extent alleviated the crushing sense of monotony which had been ruling him. For this reason, if for none other, he was very much the man of action he had been when ruler of the Earth and the Solar System.

But if either Rigilus or Merva imagined that their scientific or constructional work had entirely escaped the notice of their colleagues they were quite mistaken. The ever-watchful Randos, who was more or less considered to be the self-appointed leader of those outside Rigilus and Merva, had more often than not asked himself what the strange device was in the laboratory upon which Rigilus and Merva spent so much time.

Neither of them were aware that whilst they had been absent during their sleeping periods Randos had made it his business to very carefully examine the apparatus until he had arrived at a very definite conclusion as to its purpose. He could not be absolutely certain that it was intended for the storage of life-energy, but being a scientist of fair ability he could at least form a theory. Nor did he consider that it was out of place for him to question Rigilus and Merva outright.

He did so in the most casual manner, arriving in the laboratory one morning—‘morning' being entirely governed by the chronometer, since in space there was nothing but eternal night and starshine. Both Rigilus and | Merva were at work upon the apparatus in question when Randos presented himself, and they could tell immediately from the grimness of his expression something of extreme moment was on his mind.

“I assume,” he asked, as Rigilus and Merva looked at him in surprise, “that no regulation has been made to prevent me or anybody eke entering this laboratory?”

“No regulation at all,” Rigilus assented; “you are quite welcome my friend. Naturally you must have something with which to pass the time.”

“It's not a matter of that,” Randos looked about him quickly. “I have my own particular hobbies with which I am able to while away the endless hours…. It just so happens that I am particularly interested in that apparatus upon which you and your wife are engaged.”

“What concern is it of yours?” Merva asked him shortly, staring at him with her wide green eyes.

“It is my concern because I cannot possibly see any reason for building an electrical apparatus when we have around us every kind of equipment we can possibly need.”

“In other words,” Merva asked, “just plain curiosity, is that it?”

“Frankly, yes.” Randos looked at her squarely. “I am not an absolute novice in understanding scientific equipment and it is perfectly obvious that equipment is intended for the absorption of energy. At first I thought that perhaps you were intending to absorb cosmic energy, the only type of energy in existence in this far flung quarter of space. Certainly it could not be solar energy that you are intending to tamper with. Then when I came to study the apparatus more closely I could see that it was not built for absorbing the immense voltage which cosmic energy would take; that suggests to me that there is only one other form of energy that it could be intended to deal with—Life energy.”

Rigilus came forward slowly. “From the sound of things, my friend, you have spent quite a lot of time in this laboratory when my wife and I have not been present.”

“Is there any particular law against that?”

“No; but I would appreciate it if you would confine yourself to your own particular hobbies and leave the activities of my wife and myself alone.”

“That I am quite prepared to do, but I cannot help but feel from the urgent resentment which has suddenly come into your manner that you are both engaged upon some kind of apparatus which does not bode very well for the rest of us.”

“Stop being so ridiculous,” Merva answered, coldly.

“Is there any reason,” Randos asked, ignoring her and looking straight at Rigilus, “why this apparatus you are working on cannot be explained to the rest of us? Why has it been kept a secret for so long? It is obviously an equipment of very extreme intricacy, and since it is intended for life energy, there can only be one set of human beings for whom it is intended—children. Life energy, according to the researches of past scientists, and indeed our own laboratory technicians, does not exist in any individual after the age of ten years. Could it be,” Randos asked deliberately, his mouth hardening, “that you are aiming at some particularly ingenious scientific trick which will only reveal itself when our children are born?”

“I do not propose to answer any questions,” Rigilus said, curtly, “and I would be glad if you will leave us immediately!”

Randos smiled rather tautly, inclined his head and departed. The moment he had gone Merva turned quickly, her eyes glittering as she looked at Rigilus.

“That man is dangerous, Rigilus. He knows far too much. You must take the necessary steps to have him silenced. We underestimated his capabilities as a scientific analyst, and evidently he knows as much about life energies as we do. He is liable to spread any sort of story amongst the others and once that happens we can expect trouble, and the only way we can defeat trouble is to smash it halfway.”