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Read Ebook: Dr. Kometevsky's Day by Leiber Fritz Stone David Illustrator
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Ebook has 37 lines and 4852 words, and 1 pages
e and telepathic race because they insist on maintaining a degree of mental privacy. They flee in great boats or ships of some sort. They are pursued on such a scale that there is no hiding place for them anywhere in the universe. In some manner they successfully camouflage their ships. Eons pass and their still-fanatical pursuers do not penetrate their secret. Then, suddenly, they are detected."
Edmund waited. "Do you see what I'm driving at?" he asked hoarsely.
He could tell from their looks that the others did, but couldn't bring themselves to put it into words.
"I suppose it's the time-scale and the value-scale that are so hard for us to accept," he said softly. "Much more, even, than the size-scale. The thought that there are creatures in the Universe to whom the whole career of Man--in fact, the whole career of life--is no more than a few thousand or hundred thousand years. And to whom Man is no more than a minor stage property--a trifling part of a clever job of camouflage."
This time he went on, "Fantasy writers have at times hinted all sorts of odd things about the Earth--that it might even be a kind of single living creature, or honeycombed with inhabited caverns, and so on. But I don't know that any of them have ever suggested that the Earth, together with all the planets and moons of the Solar System, might be...."
In a whisper, Frieda finished for him, "... a camouflaged fleet of gigantic spherical spaceships."
At that familiar, yet dreadly unfamiliar voice, all four of them swung toward the inner door. Dotty was standing there, a sleep-stupefied little girl with a blanket caught up around her and dragging behind. Their own daughter. But in her eyes was a look from which they cringed.
She said, "I am a creature somewhat older than what your geologists call the Archeozoic Era. I am speaking to you through a number of telepathically sensitive individuals among your kind. In each case my thoughts suit themselves to your level of comprehension. I inhabit the disguised and jetless spaceship which is your Earth."
Celeste swayed a step forward. "Baby...." she implored.
Dotty went on, without giving her a glance, "It is true that we planted the seeds of life on some of these planets simply as part of our camouflage, just as we gave them a suitable environment for each. And it is true that now we must let most of that life be destroyed. Our hiding place has been discovered, our pursuers are upon us, and we must make one last effort to escape or do battle, since we firmly believe that the principle of mental privacy to which we have devoted our existence is perhaps the greatest good in the whole Universe.
"But it is not true that we look with contempt upon you. Our whole race is deeply devoted to life, wherever it may come into being, and it is our rule never to interfere with its development. That was one of the reasons we made life a part of our camouflage--it would make our pursuers reluctant to examine these planets too closely.
"Yes, we have always cherished you and watched your evolution with interest from our hidden lairs. We may even unconsciously have shaped your development in certain ways, trying constantly to educate you away from war and finally succeeding--which may have given the betraying clue to our pursuers.
"Your planets must be burst asunder--this particular planet in the area of the Pacific--so that we may have our last chance to escape. Even if we did not move, our pursuers would destroy you with us. We cannot invite you inside our ships--not for lack of space, but because you could never survive the vast accelerations to which you would be subjected. You would, you see, need very special accommodations, of which we have enough only for a few.
"Those few we will take with us, as the seed from which a new human race may--if we ourselves somehow survive--be born."
Rosalind and Ivan stared dumbly at each other across the egg-shaped silver room, without apparent entrance or exit, in which they were sprawled. But their thoughts were no longer of thirty-odd mile journeys down through solid earth, or of how cool it was after the heat of the passage, or of how grotesque it was to be trapped here, the fragment of a marriage. They were both listening to the voice that spoke inside their minds.
"In a few minutes your bodies will be separated into layers one atom thick, capable of being shelved or stored in such a way as to endure almost infinite accelerations. Single cells will cover acres of space. But do not be alarmed. The process will be painless and each particle will be catalogued for future assembly. Your consciousness will endure throughout the process."
She looked at Ivan and knew he was thinking the same thing.
Up in the committee room, the other Wolvers slumped around the table. Only little Dotty sat straight and staring, speechless and unanswering, quite beyond their reach, like a telephone off the hook and with the connection open, but no voice from the other end.
They had just switched off the TV after listening to a confused medley of denials, prayers, Kometevskyite chatterings, and a few astonishingly realistic comments on the possibility of survival.
These last pointed out that, on the side of the Earth opposite the Pacific, the convulsions would come slowly when the entombed spaceship burst forth--provided, as seemed the case, that it moved without jets or reaction.
It would be as if the Earth's vast core simply vanished. Gravity would diminish abruptly to a fraction of its former value. The empty envelope of rock and water and air would slowly fall together, though at the same time the air would begin to escape from the debris because there would no longer be the mass required to hold it.
However, there might be definite chances of temporary and even prolonged survival for individuals in strong, hermetically sealed structures, such as submarines and spaceships. The few spaceships on Earth were reported to have blasted off, or be preparing to leave, with as many passengers as could be carried.
But most persons, apparently, could not contemplate action of any sort. They could only sit and think, like the Wolvers.
Dotty's face was losing its blank expression, becoming intent and alarmed.
They leaned forward, clutching hands, watching the little face as though it were a television screen. Celeste had the wild feeling that she was listening to a communique from a war so unthinkably vast and violent, between opponents so astronomically huge and nearly immortal, that she felt like no more than a reasoning ameba ... and then realized with an explosive urge to laugh that that was exactly the situation.
Frieda collapsed to a chair, trembling between laughter and hysterical weeping. Theodor looked as blank as Dotty had while waiting for words to speak. Edmund sprang to the picture window, Celeste toward the TV set.
Climbing shakily out of the chair, Frieda stumbled to the picture window and peered out beside Edmund. She saw lights bobbing along the paths with a wild excitement.
On the TV screen, Celeste watched two brightly lit ships spinning in the sky--whether human spaceships or Phobos and Deimos come to help Earth rejoice, she couldn't tell.
Dotty spoke again, the joy in her strange voice forcing them to turn. "And you, dear children, creatures of our camouflage, we welcome you--whatever your future career on these planets or like ones--into the society of enlightened worlds! You need not feel small and alone and helpless ever again, for we shall always be with you!"
The outer door opened. Ivan and Rosalind reeled in, drunkenly smiling, arm in arm.
"Like rockets," Rosalind blurted happily. "We came through the durasphere and solid rock ... shot up right to the surface."
"They didn't have to take us along," Ivan added with a bleary grin. "But you know that already, don't you? They're too good to let you live in fear, so they must have told you by now."
"Yes, we know," said Theodor. "They must be almost godlike in their goodness. I feel ... calm."
Edmund nodded soberly. "Calmer than I ever felt before. It's knowing, I suppose, that--well, we're not alone."
Dotty blinked and looked around and smiled at them all with a wholly little-girl smile.
"Oh, Mummy," she said, and it was impossible to tell whether she spoke to Frieda or Rosalind or Celeste, "I've just had the funniest dream."
"No, darling," said Rosalind gently, "it's we who had the dream. We've just awakened."
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