The microwave receiver was so jammed with messages that there was no communication at all. None could be understood when all arrived at once. Burke had to send a message to Earth in code, specifying a new and secret wavelength, before it became possible to have a two–way contact with Earth. But the messages continued to come out, every one clamoring for something else of benefit to itself alone.
Chapter 7
In the beginning there was nothing at all, and then things were created, and the wonder of created things was very great. When men became, they marveled at the richness and the beauty about them, and their lives were filled with astonishment at the myriads of things in the air and on the earth and in the sea. For many centuries they were busy taking note of all the created things that were. They forgot that there was such a condition as emptiness.
But there were six people in a certain solar system who really knew what emptiness amounted to. Five of them were in a fortress which was an asteroid and a mystery. One was in a small, crude object which floated steadily out from Earth. This one's name was Nikolai. The rest of it does not matter. He had been born in a small village in the Urals, and as a little boy he played games with mud and reeds and sticks and dogs and other little boys. As a growing youth he dutifully stuffed his head with things out of books, and some seemed to him rational and marvelous, and some did not make much sense but were believed by everybody. And who was he to go against the wise comrades who ran the government and protected the people from wars and famines and the schemes of villainous capitalists?
As a young man he was considered promising. If he had been interested in such matters, he might have had a moderately successful career in politics, as politics was practised in his nation. But he liked things. Real things.
When he was a student in the university he kept a canary in his lodgings. He loved it very much. There was a girl, too, about whom he dreamed splendidly. But there was a need for school teachers in Bessarabia, and she went there to teach. She wept when she left him. After that Nikolai studied with something of desperation, trying to forget her because he could not have her.
He thought of such past events as he drifted outward from Earth. He was the passenger, he was the crew of the manned space–probe his government had prepared to go out and investigate strange signals coming from emptiness. He was a volunteer, of course. It was a great honor to be accepted, and for a while he'd almost forgotten the girl who was teaching school in Bessarabia. But that was a long time ago, now. At first he'd liked to remember the take–off, when brisk, matter–of–fact men tucked him in his acceleration–chair and left him, and he lay staring upward in dead silence—save for the ticking of an insanely emotionless clock—until there was a roar to end all roars and a shock to crush anything made of flesh and bones, and then a terrible, horrible feeling of weight that kept on and on until he lost consciousness.
He could remember all this, if he chose. He had a distinct recollection of coming back to life, and of struggling to send off the signal which would say that he had survived the take–off. There were telemetering devices which reported what information was desired about the bands and belts of deadly radiation which surrounded the planet Earth. But Nikolai reported by voice, because that was evidence that he had passed through those murderous places unharmed. And his probe went on and on outward, away from the Earth and the sun.
He received messages from Earth. Tinny voices assured him that his launching had gone well. His nation was proud of him. Enormous rewards awaited him on his return. Meanwhile—The tinny voices instructed him in what he was to say for them to record and broadcast to all the world in his honor.
He said it, with the Earth a small crescent–shaped bit of brightness behind him. He drifted on. The crescent which was Earth grew smaller and smaller as days went by. He took due care of the instruments of his space–vehicle. He made sure that the air apparatus behaved properly. He disposed of wastes. From time to time he reported, by voice, information which automatic devices had long since given in greater detail and with superior accuracy.
And he thought more and more about the girl—teaching school in Bessarabia—and his canary, which had died. Days went by. He was informed that it was time for him to make contact with a drone fuel–rocket sent on before him. He watched the instruments which would point out where it was.
He found it, and with small auxiliary rockets he made careful tiny blastings which guided his vehicle to contact with it. The complex machinery for refueling took effect. Presently he cast off the emptied drone, aimed very, very carefully and blasted outward once more. The shock was worse than that on Earth, and he knew nothing for a long, long time. He was horribly weak when he regained consciousness. He mentioned it in his reports. There was no comment on the fact in the replies he received from Earth.
He continued to float away from the sun. It became impossible to pick out Earth among the stars. The sun was smaller than he remembered. There was nothing to be seen anywhere but stars and more stars and the dwindling disk of the sun that used to rise and set but now remained stationary, shrinking.
So Nikolai came to know emptiness. There were points of light which were stars. They were illimitable distances away. In between was emptiness. He had no sensation of movement. Save that as days went by the sun grew smaller, there was no change in anything. All was emptiness. If his vehicle floated like this for ten thousand times ten thousand years, the stars would appear no nearer. If he got out and ran upon nothingness to get back to where he could see Earth again, he would have to run for centuries, and generations would die and nations fall before he caught the least glimmer of that thin crescent which was his home.
If he shouted, no man would ever hear, because emptiness does not carry sound. If he died, there was no earth into which his body could be lowered. If he lived, there was nowhere he could stand upright and breathe clean air and feel solidity beneath his feet. He had a destination, to be sure, but he did not really believe that he would ever reach it, nor did he imagine he would ever return. Now he dismissed it from his thoughts.
He found that he was feverish, and he mentioned it when the tinny voices talked urgently to him. He guessed, without emotion, that he had not passed through the deadly radiation–belts around Earth unburned. He had been assured that he would pass through them so swiftly that they would be quite harmless. Now he knew that this was a mistake. His body obeyed him only sluggishly. He was dying of deep–seated radiation burns. But he felt nothing.
Voices waked him to insist that he make contact with another fuel–drone. He exhausted himself as he dutifully obeyed commands. He was clumsy. He was feeble. But he managed a second refueling. And even as he performed the highly technical operation with seemingly detached and reluctant hands, he thought of a schoolteacher in Bessarabia.
Before he fired the new fuel which would send him onward at what would be more than escape velocity, he almost humorously—yet quite humorlessly—reviewed his life. He considered that he might have no later opportunity to do so. There were three things he had done which no man had done before him. He had loved a certain small canary, and he remembered it distinctly. He had loved a certain girl, and in his weakened and dying state he could see her much more clearly than the grubby interior of the space–probe. And the third thing—
He had to cast about in his mind to remember what it was. His hand poised upon the rocket–firing key, he debated. Ah, yes! The third thing was that he had learned what emptiness was.