Journey Into Space (14 page)

“Yes, Jet,” I told him, “we did.”

“Do it again, Mitch,” said Jet.

Mitch kicked the thing for the third time. “Ha,” he said, “heard it myself then. It definitely came through the radio.” “But how could it?” asked Lemmy.

“There’s only one explanation,” said Jet. “That thing itself or something inside it
is
a radio; a transmitter of some kind. It transmitted Mitch’s kicks and our sets picked them up.”

“Hey, Jet,” said Mitch, “I’m going to walk round this thing.”

“No,” I begged him, “it will take you out of range of the televiewer.”

“Oh, it won’t take a couple of minutes,” he said, “I’ll keep talking, so you’ll know I’m still here.”

“No, Mitch,” said Jet.

He ignored the order. “Here I go, walking round.”

“Mitch, will you listen to me?”

“Now on the western side. No different here and no way in from this side either that I can see.”

Mitch was completely lost to view by this time. “Now on the southern side. Hey . . .”

“What is it?” said Jet anxiously.

“There’s one thing about this ship that’s the same as ours.” “What’s that?” asked Jet.

“A retractable ladder, and right now the rungs are extended. It’s almost like an invitation to go in.”

“Never mind that,” said Jet, “keep walking. Just go round.”

Mitch didn’t reply. The next moment his head appeared over the side of the ship near the door. Jet saw him.

“For God’s sake, be careful, Mitch--what are you doing?”

“Just taking a look at things, that’s all. Don’t think there’s anything here to be scared of. Say, I can see right down into this thing now--right down into the cabin.”

Jet’s curiosity overcame his caution. “What’s in there?” he said.

“Nothing,” said Mitch slowly.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. Just a circular cabin, flat floor, plain walls and a ladder leading out of it. I’m going in.” “Oh no,” said Lemmy.

We looked at each other helplessly as we heard Mitch’s footsteps descending the ladder inside, echoing over our personal radios.

“Well,” he said suddenly, “I’m in, and it’s not so empty as I thought.”

“How do you mean?” asked Jet.

“Well, the walls seem to be made of octagonal-shaped panels, and there are two rows of buttons at the top of one of them.”

“Leave them alone, don’t touch them.” “I’m not that crazy. Beats me where the crew can be-- if it ever had a crew.”

“How else could it get here?” “Could be remote controlled.”

“Yes, I suppose it could, but who by and where from?”

“Search me. Meanwhile I think I’ll search this cabin. Perhaps this is just the airlock or something and the crew’s quarters are further inside. Maybe under the floor.”

If Mitch said anything more we didn’t hear it, because at that moment everything was drowned by the space ‘music’ we had heard so often before. Lemmy grew more agitated than ever. “Oh no, Doc,” he said, “listen; it’s here again.”

“Jet--Jet,” I called. But he couldn’t have heard us for he made no reply. As always when this weird music was around, parts of the ship ceased to function.

“What about Mitch inside that thing?” said Lemmy fearfully. “What’s happening to him?”

I called him. “Hullo, Mitch--hullo. Can you hear me? Hullo.” But, as with Jet, I got no answer. I could see Jet standing near the crater, looking up towards the cabin of the ship. He was waving his arms as if trying to communicate something to us. Then he moved closer to the rim and slowly and carefully began to descend its wall. As suddenly as it had begun, the noise stopped. Hoping the radio would be working again I gave Mitch another call.

I got no reply but discovered that Jet at least could hear me for he, too, was now trying to contact Mitch. “Hullo, Mitch, are you all right? Can you hear us?”

“Why on earth did he have to go in that thing?” said Lemmy.

“And why doesn’t he answer us?” I asked.

“Hullo, Mitch,” said Jet once again.

“Hullo, Jet, what’s the panic?” Mitch replied.

“Didn’t you hear us calling you?” said Jet. “Didn’t you hear that music?” put in Lemmy. Mitch’s voice sounded strange, as though he were speaking from a long distance. “It’s nothing to be scared of.”

“Eh?” said Lemmy.

“I said it’s nothing to be scared of.”

“That’s what I thought you said.”

“None of us is going to be hurt. This ship is just different from ours, that’s all. Run on an entirely different principle.”

“Mitch,” said Jet, “what on earth are you talking about?”

“It’s all so simple.”

“Mitch, either come out of there or I’ll come in myself and pull you out.”

“No, Jet, don’t,” said Lemmy.

“That would be asking for trouble,” said Mitch firmly.

“What do you mean?”

“Stay where you are. Don’t attempt to move any closer.”

“What’s gotten into him, Jet?” I said.

“I don’t know, Doc,” came Jet’s worried reply. “Is the recorder going?”

“Of course it is.”.

“Then watch it closely. Make sure you take down every word he says.”

Mitch’s voice continued. “This ship is from another world. Millions of miles away. Hundreds of light years. It’s from the other side of the universe.”

“But that’s impossible,” said Jet. “For anything to travel that far would take thousands of years.”

“Television would seem impossible to an ancient Egyptian.”

“I’m not an ancient Egyptian,” said Jet angrily.

“You’re right. Prehistoric man would be a better description.”

“Mitch, what’s the matter with you?”

“Time, that’s the secret. Journeys through time. Leave here--whoosh. Next moment you pop up a thousand years from now, or back a couple of thousand.”

“Mitch, for heaven’s sake, what’s this all about?”

“Can you explain a geometrical problem to a monkey? You’ll just have to take my word for it.”

“He’s crackers,” said Lemmy. “Whatever happened to him in there has sent him clean off his rocker.”

“Mitch,” said Jet firmly, “listen to me.”

“No, you listen to me. What are you doing here? Where are you from?”

“Doc,” Jet appealed, “what can we do?”

“Keep talking to him, Jet,” I said. “Keep talking-- humour him.”

“Well,” came Mitch’s voice, “are you going to answer my question?”

“We’re from the Earth,” said Jet as pleasantly as he could, “but you know that.”

“At first we thought you might be, then we decided you must be from some other planet.”

“Huh?”

“Is that a surprise? That there are other people in the Universe besides yourself.”

“Well, I suppose it’s possible.”

“Possible? Life is universal. It crops up wherever it’s given the slightest chance. Did you think your tiny planet was unique? There are millions of stars and planetary systems. Millions of planets teeming with life.”

“He must be crackers,” broke in Lemmy.

“Quiet,” I said, “he can hear every word you say.”

“You find all this hard to believe, don’t you?”

“It’s not that, Mitch,” said Jet, “but this is so unlike you.”

“Now you’re beginning to understand.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Why do you interrupt the peace of your sister planet? What is your business here?”

“Oh, surveying, photographing, the establishment of a lunar base--in time.”

“Not in time, Jet. You haven’t conquered that yet.”

“How do you mean?” Jet sounded desperate.

“You’ve got a lot to learn. Already you’re tearing your own planet to pieces, destroying it, and now you mean to do the same here. Isn’t that your intention?”

“If there are minerals here of use to us,” said Jet defensively. “I expect other men will come up from Earth and dig them out. If our civilization is to progress we need fuel, metal, radio-active materials and the Moon appears to have great stores of them. Supplies on Earth can’t last forever.”

There was a slight pause before Mitch replied. “One day you will find that they can.” “What?” said Jet.

“Just watch your step, Earthmen. There are things out here on the fringe of space you don’t comprehend, can’t understand, will never understand, that no beings in a three-dimensional world can ever hope to understand.”

‘Three-dimensional? You mean there is another dimension?”

Mitch never replied to the last question. The music came on again and, almost at once, faded out. Before I could open my mouth to call Mitch again, his voice came through the intercommunication speaker.

“I can’t understand it,” he said quite normally now. “I don’t understand it at all.”

“Hello, Mitch. Mitch,” said Jet.

“Hello, Jet,” said Mitch. “It’s no good, it’s beyond me.”

“What is?”

“All these panels and buttons. There don’t seem to be any doors, nothing. If there is a way further into this ship it’s absolutely undetectable.”

“Mitch,” said Jet firmly, “come out of there.”

“Come out?” said Mitch, “but I’ve only just this second got in.”

“Come out? do you hear?”

“But I can’t leave now. Oh!” It was the first time I had ever heard Mitch sound scared. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know. But I’m getting out and damn quick.”

“Here he comes, Jet,” I said, as Mitch’s head appeared through the door of the dome.

He was in such a panic that instead of going round and descending by the ladder, he risked his neck and his suit by jumping down into the crater. And then, having landed safely, began clambering up the crater’s wall as fast as he could.

“Mitch, be careful,” called Jet, “don’t run.”

He took no notice, but on reaching the rim grabbed Jet’s outstretched hand and pulled himself up to ground level. We could hear Mitch’s breathing as he said, “Good Lord, Jet, that thing’s alive.”

“Alive,” said Jet, “how do you mean?”

“Well, I don’t know. I can’t explain. It began to vibrate.”

“Is that all?”

“It’s enough, isn’t it?”

A movement on the televiewer screen caught my eye. “Look, Mitch,” I cried, “the door--it’s closed.”

“I told you, it’s alive,” he said grimly. “I got out just in time.”

“Let’s get back into Luna,” said Jet, “before we all go crazy.”

Less than ten minutes later they were safely inside. “Now,” said Jet, “let’s get this straight. What were you talking about in that ship, Mitch?”

Mitch looked blank.

“Doc,” said Jet, “you recorded everything, didn’t you?” “Sure, Jet.”

“Then play it back; let Mitch hear it.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” said Mitch. “Is this some kind of a joke?”

“Here it comes,” I told him, and as I switched on the recorder Mitch’s voice came out of the loudspeaker.

“Good Lord,” he exclaimed, “is that me?”

“It’s your voice, isn’t it?” asked Jet.

“Yes, but I never said any of those things. I wasn’t in that ship long enough to say the half of that.”

“But you were, Mitch. And the recorder is proof of it.”

“Then let me hear it for myself.”

We all listened intently as the strange conversation unfolded once more. It made no more sense to me than it had done in the first place; to Mitch neither, apparently, for as we reached the end of the piece and I switched off the machine, he passed his hand across his face in bewilderment.

“Well?” asked Jet.

“It’s fantastic,” said Mitch hollowly. “It’s unbelievable. What does it all mean?”

“I wish I knew,” replied Jet. “But that music we’ve been hearing, the failure of the ship to work, and now this must all be connected in some way. It’s as though whoever controls that ship has either been trying to contact us, or put us out of action.”

“Contact us?” said Mitch. “You mean using me as a medium or something--oh, it’s impossible. Who are
they
anyway? Where do they come from?”

“The other side of the Universe,” Lemmy reminded him, “according to you or, should I say, your voice.”

“And the only way they could do that,” said Jet slowly, would be to travel through time. Yes,” he went on, his voice filled with wonder, “that could be it--time travellers.”

“Time travellers?” queried a puzzled Lemmy. “What’s he talking about, Doc?”

“Well,” I said, “it’s been known for years that the only way to get to the really distant stars is to travel through Time, but I don’t see. . .”

“What was it your voice said, Mitch?” continued Jet excitedly, “ ‘you haven’t conquered Time yet’. But they have, don’t you see? They must have done.”

Lemmy was completely at sea. “Then why couldn’t they have arrived a hundred years from now or a hundred years ago?” he demanded. “Why pick on the very time we land here?”

“And,” I pointed out, “even if we accept that theory, why should they try to scare us off and put our ship out of action?”

“Maybe they were as surprised to see us as we were to see them. Maybe just as scared, too.”

“Eh?” interrupted Lemmy, “them afraid of us?” “Why not?” asked Jet.

“Look,” said Lemmy, very puzzled, “if they can travel through Time, whatever that means, they must be vastly superior to us in every way.”

“Lemmy,” asked Jet, “can you fly and find your own way home, instinctively, like a homing pigeon?”

“Do I look as though I can?” retorted Lemmy.

“Well then,” said Jet, “do you consider the homing pigeon superior to you? More intelligent? Just because he can do something you can’t.”

“No, I don’t,” said Lemmy emphatically.

“Well, that’s how it might be. Perhaps whoever made that ship out there can travel in time, not because they are necessarily superior to us, but because that’s the natural way for them to travel. Maybe they couldn’t travel through space if they tried.”

“Yes,” said Lemmy slowly, “I see what you mean--I think.”

“If only we had their secret,” said Mitch. “Think of the things we could do.”

“If only we had the oxygen,” said Lemmy, “think of the time we could stay here. Aren’t we ever going home?”

“Lemmy’s got something there,” I said. “Maybe we’ve stumbled up against something that’s going to rock modern thought to its very foundations. But unless we get word of it back to Earth, and quick, it’s going to be lost forever.”