Never in his life had Ardath stood on a world's surface. The others had told him of Kyria, and on the pictorial library screens he had seen views of green and sunset lands that were agonizingly beautiful. Inevitably Ardath had come to fear the black immensity of the starlit void, to hate its cold, eternal changelessness. He had dreamed of walking on grassy, rolling plains…
That would come, for he knew Theron had been right. Cycads and ferns would grow where Ardath now stood. Amphibiae would come out of the waters and evolve, slowly of course, but with inexorable certainty. He could afford to wait.
First, though, he needed power. The great atomic engine of the ship was useless, exhausted.
Atomic power resembled dynamite in that it needed some outside source of energy to get it started. Dynamite required a percussion cap. The engine of the golden ship needed power. Solar energy? Lenses were required. Besides, the cloudblanket was an insurmountable handicap, filtering out most of the necessary rays. Coal? It would not exist here for ages.
A tremble shook the ground, and Ardath nodded thoughtfully. There was power below the power of seething lava, enormous pressures, and heat that could melt solid rock. Could it be harnessed?
Steam… a geyser! That would provide the necessary energy to start the atomic motor. After that, anything would be possible.
With a single regretful glance at the dead Theron, Ardath set out to explore the savage new world.
For two days and nights he hunted, growing haggard and weary. At last he found an area of lava streams, shuddering rock, and geysers. Steam feathered up into the humid air, and to the north a red glow brightened the gray sky.
Ardath stood for a while, watching. His quest was ended. Long weeks of arduous work still lay ahead, but now he had no doubt of ultimate success. The steam demons would set the atomic motor into the operation. After that, he could rip ores from the ground and find chemicals. But after that?
The ship must be made spaceworthy again, though not for another long voyage. Such a course would be fruitless. Of all the planets the Kyrians had visited, only this world was capable of supporting life.
As yet, mere cells of blind, insensate protoplasm swarmed in the sullen seas, but those cells would develop. Evolution would work upon them. Perhaps in a million years human beings, intelligent creatures, would walk this world. Then, one day, a super-mentality would be born, and Ardath would find that kindred mind. He would take that mental giant into the future, in search of a suitable mate. After dozens of generations there would arise a civilization that would rival that of Kyria—his home planet now utterly destroyed without trace.
Time passed as Ardath worked. He blasted out a grave for Theron on the shore where the old Kyrian had died. He repaired the golden craft. Tirelessly he toiled.
Five months later, the repaired space ship rose, carrying its single passenger. Through the atmosphere it fled. It settled into an orbit, became a second, infinitesimal moon revolving around the mother planet.
Within it Ardath's robot machinery began to operate. A ray beamed out, touching and bathing the man's form, which was stretched on a low couch.
Slowly consciousness left Ardath. The atomic structure of his body was subtly altered. Electrons slowed in their orbits. Since they emitted no quanta, Ardath's energy was frozen in the utter motionlessness of stasis. Neither alive nor dead, he slept.
The ray clicked off. When Ardath wakened, he would see a different world older and stranger. Perhaps it would even be peopled by intelligent beings.
Silently the space ship swept on. Far beneath it a planet; shuddered in the titanic grip of dying fires. The rains poured down, eroding, endless. The tides flowed and ebbed. Always the cloud veil shrouded the world that was to be called Earth. Amid the shattering thunder of deluges, new lands rose and continents were formed.
Life, blind, hungry and groping, crawled up on the beaches, where it basked for a time in the dim sunlight.
CHAPTER II
Youth
On August 7, 1924, an eight-year-old boy caused a panic in a Des Moines theater.
His name was Stephen Court He had been born to a theatrical family of mediocre talent—the Crazy Courts, they were billed. The act was a combination of gags, dances and humorous songs. Stephen traveled with his parents on tour, when they played one-night stands and small vaudeville circuits. In 1924, vaudeville had not yet been killed by the films. It was the beginning of the Jazz Age.
Stephen was so remarkably intelligent, even as a child, that he was soon incorporated into the act as a "mental wizard." He wore a miniature cap and gown, and was introduced by his parents at the end of their turn.
"Any date—ask him any historical date, my friends, and he will answer! The gentleman in the third row. What do you want to know?"
And Stephen would answer accurately. When did Columbus discover America? When was the Magna Charta signed? When was the Battle of Hastings? When was Lafayette born?
"Mathematical questions? You, there—"
Stephen would answer. Mathematics was no riddle for him, nor algebra. The value of pi? He knew it. Formulas and equations slipped glibly from his tongue. He stood on the stage in the spotlight, his small face impassive, a small, dark-haired child with curiously luminous brown eyes, and answered all questions.
He read omnivorously every book he could manage to obtain. He was coldly unemotional, which distressed his mother, and he hid his thoughts well.
Then, on that August night, his Me suddenly changed.
The act was almost over. The audience was applauding wildly. The Courts stood on each side of the boy, bowing. And Stephen stood motionless, his strange, glowing eyes staring out into the gloom of the theater.
"Take your bows, kid," Court hissed from the side of his mouth.
But the boy didn't answer. There was an odd tensity in his rigid posture. His expressionless face seemed strained. Only in his eyes was there life, and a terrible fire.
In the theater, a whisper grew to a murmur and the applause died. Then the murmur swelled to a restrained roar, until someone screamed:
"Fire!"
Court glanced around quickly. He could see no signs of smoke or flame. But he made a quick gesture, and the orchestra leader struck up a tune. Hastily the man and woman went into a routine tap dance.
"Steve!" Court said urgently. "Join in!"
But Stephen just stood there, and through the theater the roar rose to individual screams of panic. The audience no longer watched the stage. They sprang up and fought then-way to the exits, cursing, pushing, crowding.
Nothing could stop it. By sheer luck no one was killed. But in ten minutes the theater was empty—and there had been no sign of a fire.
In his dressing room, Court looked queerly at his son.
"What was wrong with you tonight, kid?" he asked, as he removed greasepaint from his face with cold cream.
"Nothing," Stephen said abstractedly.
"Something funny about the whole thing. There wasn't any fire."
Stephen sat on a chair, his legs swinging idly.
"That magician we played with last week—" he began.
"Yeah?"
"I got some ideas from him."
"Well?" his father urged.
"I watched him when he hypnotized a man from the audience. That's all it was. I hypnotized the entire audience tonight."
"Oh, cut it out," Court said, grinning.
"It's true! The conditions were right. Everyone's attention was focused on me. I made them think there was a fire."