Lernin, for his part, was searching for nothing but greater speed.
They met on the docks, where Lernin, biting the end off a cigar and leading the way to a region where smoking was permitted. said: “And you, my friend, seem concerned. Not. certainly, about the progress of our ocean liner?”
“I am concerned,” said Raph, gravely, “about the reports I have received of the expedition testing the age of the rocks.”
“Oh-And you are unhappy about it?”
“Unhappy!” exploded Raph. “Have you seen them?”
“I have received a copy. I have looked at it. I have even read parts of it. But I have had little time and most of it bounced off. Will you please enlighten me?”
“Certainly. In the last several months, three of the regions I have indicated as being fossiliferous have been tested. The first region was in the area of East Harbor Grouping itself. Another was in the Pacific Bay Grouping, and a third in the Central Lakes Grouping. I purposely asked that those be done first because they are the richest areas and because they are widely separated. Do you know, for instance, what age they tell me the rocks upon which we stand are?”
“Two billion years, I think, is the oldest figure I noticed.”
“And that’s the figure for the oldest rocks-the basic igneous stratum of basalt. The upper strata, however-the recent sedimentary layers containing dozens of fossils of Primate Primeval-how old do you think these are supposed to be? Five-hundred-trillion-years! How is that? Do you understand?”
“Trillion?” Lernin squinted upwards and shook his head. “That’s strange.”
“I’ll add to it. The Pacific Coast Grouping is one hundred trillion years old-so I am told-and Central Lakes almost eighty trillion years old.”
Lernin said: “And the other measurements? The ones that did not involve your strata?”
“That is the most peculiar thing of all. Most of the chosen investigations were carried on in strata that were not particularly fossiliferous. They had their own criteria of choice based on geological reasoning-and they got consistent results-one million to two billion years depending upon the depth and geological history of the particular region tested. Only my areas give these strange and impossible vagaries.”
And Lernin said, “But what do the geologists say about all this? Call there be some error?”
“Undoubtedly. But they have fifty decent, reasonable measurements. For themselves, they have proved the method and are happy. There are three anomalies, to be sure, but they view them with equanimity as involving some unknown factors. I don’t see it that way. These three measurements mean everything.” Raph interrupted himself fiercely: “How sure are you that radioactivity is an absolute constant?”
“Sure? Can one ever be sure? Nothing we know of so far affects it, and such is likewise the definite testimony of our Eekahs. Besides, my friend, if you are implying that radioactivity was more extensive in the past than in the present, why only in your fossil regions? Why not everywhere?”
“Why, indeed? It’s another aspect of a problem which is growing more important daily. Consider. We have regions which show a past of abnormal radioactivity. We have regions which show abnormal fossil frequencies. Why should these regions coincide, Lernin?”
“One obvious answer suggests itself, my friend. If your Primate Primeval existed at a time when certain regions were highly radioactive, certain individuals would wander into them and die. Radioactive radiation is deadly in excess, of course. Radioactivity and fossils, there you are…
“Why not other creatures,” demanded Raph. “Only Primate Primeval occurs in excess, and he was intelligent. He would not be trapped by dangerous radiation.”
“Perhaps he was not intelligent. That is, after all, only your theory and not a proven fact.”
“Certainly, then, he was more intelligent than his small-brained contemporaries…
“Perhaps not even that. You romanticize too much.”
“Perhaps I do.” Raph spoke in half a whisper. “It seems to me that I can conjure up visions of a great civilization of a million years back-or more. A great power; a great intelligence-that has vanished completely, except for the tiny whispers of ossified bones which retain that huge cavity in which a brain once existed, and a bony five-fingered hand curving into slender signs of manipulative skill-with an opposing thumb. They must have been intelligent.”
“Then, what killed them?” Lernin shrugged: “Several million species of living things have survived. “
Raph looked up, half in anger: “I cannot accompany your group, Lernin, on a Voluntary basis. To go to the other world would be useful, yes, if I could engage in my own studies. For your purposes, it can be only a Community Job to me. I cannot give my heart to it.”
But Lernin’s jaw was set: “That arrangement would not be fair. There are many of us, my friend, who are sacrificing our own interests. If we all placed them first and investigated the other world in terms of our own particular provincialisms only, our great purpose would be destroyed. My friend, there is not one of our men that we can spare. We must all work as if our lives depended on our instant solution of the Eekah problem, which, believe me, it does.”
Raph’s jaws twisted in distaste. “On your side, you have a vague apprehension of these weak, stupid little creatures. On my side I have a definite problem of great intellectual attraction to myself. And between the two I can see no connection-no possible connection at all.”
“Nor can I. But listen to me a moment. A small group of our most trusted men returned last week from a visit to the other world. It was not official, as ours will be. It made no contacts. It was a frank piece of espionage, which I am telling you about now. I ask your discretion on the matter.”
“Naturally.”
“Our men possessed themselves of Eekah event-sheets.”
“Pardon me?”
“It is a created name to describe the objects. Printed records are issued daily in the various centers of Eekah population of events and occurrences of the day, and what passes for literary efforts as well.”
Raph was momentarily interested: “It strikes me as an excellent idea.”
“Yes, in its essence. The Eekah notion of interesting events, however, appears to consist entirely of antisocial events. However, leave that be. My point is that the existence of the Americas is well-known there these days-and it is universally spoken of as a ‘new land of opportunity.’ The various divisions of Eekahs eye it with a universal desire. The Eekahs are many, they are crowded, their economy is irrational. They want new land, and that is what this is to them-new and empty land.”
“Not empty,” pointed out Raph, mildly.
“Empty to them,” insisted Lernin terribly. “That is the vast danger. Lands occupied by Gurrows are to them empty and they mean to take it, all the more so since they have often enough striven to take the lands of one another.”
Raph shrugged: “Even so, they-”
“Yes. They are weak and stupid. You said that, and so they are. But only singly. They will unite for a purpose. To be sure, they will fall apart when the purpose is done-but momentarily they will join and become strong, which we perhaps cannot do, witness yourself. And their weapons of war have been keened in the fire of conflict. Their flying machines, for instance, are superb war weapons.”
“But we have duplicated it-”
“In quantity? We have also duplicated their chemical explosives, but only in the laboratory, and their firing tubes and armored vehicles, but only in experimental plants. And yet there is more-something developed within the last five years, for our own Eekahs know nothing about it.”
“And what is that?”
“We don’t know. Their event-sheets speak of it-the names applied to it mean nothing to us-but the context implies the terror of it, even on the part of these kill-mad Eekahs. There seems no evidence that it has been used, or that all the Eekah groups have it-but it is used as a supreme threat. It will perhaps be clearer to you when all the evidence is presented once our voyage is under way.”