"It is one of the most vexing riddles of our science," said one Gaylen.
"Well, that is a phenomenon closely allied with the force of which we spoke. The particles of the gases— " and he droned on, trying to explain the incomprehensible to the Gaylens. Gaynor could not stand still while speaking—a habit acquired in the lecture rooms of half-a-dozen universities, he had to walk back and forth. He did so now, but completed just one lap. For, as he, still talking, turned
He saw the Prototype quietly, and as if by magic, vanish!
Somehow, surely inadvertently, possibly in trying to produce a sample of radioactive matter in the condensers, Jocelyn had allowed the ship to be dragged out of this good universe once more by the awful force of protomagnetism.
III. Nova!
The Gaylens looked about blankly. "What happened?" asked one of them dumbly.
"She started the ship!" choked Gaynor. "She's gone. God knows where or how!"
"Surely she can be traced," said Gooper sympathetically.
"How? There's no such thing as a tracer for the Prototype—it might be anywhere and anytime, in any dimension or frame of the cosmos."
Clair nodded numb affirmation.
One of the Gaylens coughed. "Then this is probably the best time to tell you ..." he paused.
"Tell us what?" snapped Gaynor eagerly.
"Well—that you would be just as well off, in a way, if you were with your companion."
"I don't understand," said Gaynor, losing attention once more to the question of the whereabouts of Jocelyn and the Prototype.
"This planet will soon be unsuited to your temperament and physique," explained the Gaylen carefully.
"Stop beating around the bush," interjected Clair fiercely. "What's the secret?"
Gooper took over. "What he means," he said, "is that now we should tell you what we have successfully concealed from you for the duration of your stay—not wishing to inhibit your pleasure at again attaining security. In short ... our sun is about to become a nova. Within a matter of days, as we calculate it, and this planet will be well within the orbit of the expanding photosphere."
Gaynor actually reeled with the shocking impact that the words carried.
"But you— " he said inarticulately. "What will happen to you?"
Gooper smiled. "Our bodies will perish."
"But what will happen to your civilization? Why— " he was struck by a sudden thought— "why did you have us make a record for you—who is going to use it after the nova comes?"
"We are not unprepared," said Gooper. "Don't ask questions for a few seconds—come downstairs with me."
En masse they descended, walking into a large, bare room. Gooper proudly indicated a sort of pen in the center.
"Behold!"
Gaynor looked over the little fence, and recoiled at the horrors within. "What are they?" he gasped. For he was looking at a dozen or more small things that were at once slimy and calcined—like lizards, save that lizards were at least symmetrical. That was little to say of any animal, but certainly no more could be said of lizards, and not even that of these creatures. Blankly, he wondered how they could have evolved to their present fantastic condition.
One of the Gaylens pressed a floor-stud, and transparent shields slowly rose to curve about and cover the pen completely.
"That area," said Gooper, "is now a refractory furnace of the highest type, able to reproduce the conditions that will obtain on this planet when the nova occurs. Watch carefully."
Gaynor, in spite of himself, bent over the furnace as it slowly heated up. He shielded his eyes as electric currents went into play and made the floor within the pen white hot—and more. And still the lizard-like creatures crawled sluggishly around the sizzling floor, seemingly completely unaffected by the heat!
Tongues of burning gas leaped out from the shield, and the air became a blazing inferno within the little confine of the pen. Obviously the shield was an insulator of the highest type, and yet it slowly reddened, and Gaynor backed cautiously away from it, still observing the creatures.
"Watch!" cried Gooper tensely, pointing to one of the creatures. It, completely oblivious to the heat, was fumbling with a small pellet of something on the floor—possibly food, Gaynor thought as he tried to make out, through the glare and burning gases, just what Gooper wanted him to observe. Then Gaynor noticed, and thought he was going mad. The thing picked up the pellet—it was food, of a sort, apparently—and put it in its mouth. And the organs with which it picked the pellet up were hands—tiny, glassy-scaled, perfectly formed human hands.
"Enough," said Gooper. And slowly the gas flame died down and the floor cooled. They retreated into the next room, and Gaynor faced his hosts in baffled wonder.
"Now will you tell me what was the purpose of that demonstration?" he demanded.
"No doubt you wondered about the evolution of those creatures," said a Gaylen obliquely. "It should soothe you to know that they're not natural—what with surgical manipulation of the embryos and even the ova of a species of lizard, we produced them artificially. You noted two great features—complete resistance to heat, and a perfect pair of hands—more than perfect, in fact, because they have two thumbs apiece, which your hands and ours don't."
"Yes," said Clair, "I noticed them. And a nasty shock they gave me, too. What are they for?"
"Well, you should have guessed—the nova is the reason. We've known it was coming for quite a while—more than a thousand years. And so long ago the cornerstone was laid for the edifice which you have just seen."
"If there is one thing more than another I hate about you Gaylens—outside of your habit of keeping facts like the approach of a nova from us—it's your longwindedness," said Clair angrily. "I want to know just what those hellish horned toads have to do with the nova."
The Gaylen coughed delicately. "A third feature of the creatures which could not be displayed to you is that their brains—note that I say nothing about their minds—their brains are fully as large, proportionately, and as well-developed, as ours and yours."
"And," Gooper interjected, "we have a gadget invented by my great grandfather, Parapsychic Transposition, which allows us to transfer mentalities between any two living things with brain-indices of higher rating than plus six.... Do you begin to follow?"
"I think so," said Gaynor slowly. "But get on!"
"So, when the nova bursts, we shall—all the Gaylens shall—each have his mind and memories and—I think your word for it is psyche— transferred into the body of one of those little animals. And—our civilization, though no longer human, perhaps, will go on."
Clair gasped. "What an idea!"
"Our only chance of survival."
Clair collapsed onto a seat. "Ye gods!" he cried accusingly. "And you didn't tell us before!"
"We thought you could leave at any moment—and, if not, there are more of the lizard-hosts than are necessary."
Clair thought of the things he had seen in the pen, reviewing their better points, trying to shut out the memory of their utter, blasphemous hideousness. He looked at Gaynor, obviously thinking the same thoughts. The look was enough. "Speaking for my partner and myself," he said to the Gaylens, "the answer is no. The flattest and most determined no you ever heard in your born days."
"Very well," said Gooper quietly. "Whatever you wish. But—the nova will be on us in a week."
IV. The Archetype
"How's chances, Pavel?" asked Clair grimly, looking about their borrowed lab.