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  Amazing Stories

  October-November 1931

  Vol. 6, Nos. 7-8

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  Jerry eBooks

  January 2020

  Part I

  The Stone from

  the Green Star

  ACCORDING to James Mackaye, in a book recently published, which he calls “The Dynamic Universe,” all matter is only a form of radiation or vibratory energy and gravitation is an effect of radiation. This theory is, as far as we know, not yet generally accepted. If it is found to be correct—and it is not impossible—then remarkable progress in the fields of travel and invention might follow as a matter of course. If some of Mr. Williamson’s hypotheses seem to be in direct contradiction to certain accepted theories, we must not forget that eminent scientists are always discovering “facts” which seem to be in direct contradiction to theories accepted as facts for many years. But this is not a scientific treatise—it is scientific fiction par excellence.

  Author’s Note

  THE material for this story came into my hands in a very remarkable way. One morning in the fall of 1930, I found a curious object on my library table—a little box of some dully polished, black substance, about a foot long, eight inches wide, and four inches in thickness. It is wonderfully made. The sides of it glow with the rich light of the dull, soft polish. On the top is a small design—representing, apparently, the leaf and bloom of some strange plant—formed with tiny, gleaming stones, emerald green, sapphire blue and ruby red. And the cover rolls back; the jet-black, glistening material of the box being quite flexible. Its mechanism, though very ingenious, is astonishingly simple. The hasp is covered by a blue, cut stone, apparently a sapphire, glowing with deep, living azure fires.

  Within the box I found several hundred sheets of a thin, stiff, flexible material. Its surface is like polished ivory. It is light and flexible as paper, indestructible as chromium steel. Each sheet is covered on each side with handwriting, in dark green ink.

  I was astonished to see that this script was in the unmistakable angular hand of an old acquaintance of mine, one Richard Smith.

  Dick Smith was a friend of mine at college, though we were never intimate. He was an athlete and a hero; I, a scientific and literary grind. He was known and admired by every student; while I walked unnoticed down the halls. Our slight acquaintance was accidental, being due to the chance that we had been thrown together in the laboratory section of Physics, 203. He read my first published story, “The Metal Man”; and, as all loyal friends do, said he liked it, and urged me to “keep it up.”

  Dick was by no means a man of brawn alone. Notwithstanding the fact that ninety per cent of his waking hours were consumed by athletic and social activities, he made marks in classes that were the despair of many who did little but study.

  It was several years since I had heard from him. The last I had known, he had shipped for China on a Standard Oil tanker, out to find adventure. To judge from this story, he succeeded.

  Regarding the material on which his notes were written, and the jet-black case which contained them, they seem to be of substances new to chemical science. They will not burn or fuse at any temperature to which I have been able to subject them. They are not affected by any of the common acids or bases. In short, they are indestructible by any physical or chemical means at my command.

  The little case contained another remarkable object, wrapped in a little square of soft pink stuff that is somewhat like fine tissue paper, and somewhat like thin but closely woven silk.

  The object is a statuette of Richard Smith, about three inches tall. In the nude, it is marvelously executed, revealing his superb figure to wonderful advantage. In detail, its perfection is complete, microscopic. What the material of it may be, I cannot say, but it is colored with every hue of life. It is astoundingly lifelike; I can almost see a twinkling gleam of humor in the dark blue eyes.

  Richard Smith’s manuscript does not form a finished story. Rather, it consists of nearly three hundred thousand words of notes and scattered observations, mostly in loose diary form. It is invaluable, of course, from the scientific point of view; and I have arranged to have it brought out, complete, in book form. The proofs have already reached me, and it will be issued in a few months, under the publisher’s title, “A Vision of Futurity.”

  But, while the manuscript contains a tremendous and thrilling story, it is not suitable for magazine publication. For one thing, it is about five times too long. For another, it is full of scientific matter that, while immensely valuable, of course, is rather too involved for an idle evening’s reading. Then, since the repetition of the personal pronoun, “I,” is apt to make an unpleasant impression upon the reader, it has seemed best to tell the story in the third person.

  Aside from these and merely editorial changes, the story stands as Richard Smith wrote it.

  I say Richard Smith wrote it. I, for one, am convinced that he did. He sailed for the East on a Standard Oil tanker. He vanished from the ship, as I have recently discovered, during heavy weather. It is recorded in the log that he fell overboard. If this story is not true, Dick is dead. And how could, a dead man write a manuscript of three hundred thousand words, fictitious or otherwise?

  I have seen enough of Smith’s handwriting, in the reports he used to write of our physics experiments, so that I cannot mistake it. The black case, the writing material, and the statuette are to me evidently the products of another civilization.

  Finally there comes the question of how the little box with its interesting contents arrived on my library table. Of course, a practical joker would have no difficulty in placing it there without my knowledge. But few practical jokes involve the synthesizing of compounds new to science, and the writing of a few hundred thousand words of manuscript—particularly, this sort of manuscript.

  But the question of the story’s truth is one that should greatly interest only the scientific students, who, it is hoped, will eagerly await the publication of Smith’s complete manuscript in “A Vision of Futurity.” For the fiction reader knows that the truth of a story is no sure index of its interest.

  A story is interesting only as. it shows the struggles of real human people in thrilling situations; only as it makes the reader feel the hopes and fears, the loves and hates, of living characters. And many stories that are fiction seem more real and more true than many stories that are fact.

  So, even the reader, who feels that a hoax has been perpetrated upon me, may get some pleasure out of this. I feel certain that the story is true; I think it a glorious vision of the future of humanity. But that question is for the scientist, not for the lay reader.

  In conclusion, I hope my note has bored no one, and I hope that Dick Smith’s story may give every reader a few pleasant hours.

  JACK WILLIAMSON

  CHAPTER I

  The Flaming Vortex

  “DEAR Mr. Williamson,” the first paragraph of Richard Smith’s manuscript may be W quoted, “you will likely be surprised to find B J these notes on your table, where Thon Ahrora tells me she can put them. As maybe you can tell by the handwriting, I am your old friend, Dick Smith—you remember Physics, 203 at college. You might inform my maiden aunt, Petunia Smith, that I am not dead, as very likely has been reported. In a way, however, it is as if I were dead, and gone to heaven. That is, I am in a very wonderful place, and I cannot come back. I wouldn’t return, if I could, however. Getting these notes through is going to tax the
resources of Thon Ahrora, I think. I am sending them to you, since you are the only literary man I know. I don’t know if anybody will believe them. If not, they might give you a boost in the story-writing business.”

  That is enough for a sample of Smith’s style. It is neither colorful nor brilliant. Few non-scientific readers would care to wade through a thick book of rather slangy and ungrammatical narrative, even for such a marvelous story as his. I am sure my condensed version will be a welcome work.

  Smith begins his narrative with the night of his disappearance from this world. The tanker was heavily laden with oil from the Richmond refineries, four days out of the Golden Gate. It lacked only a few minutes of midnight. The clear, moonless sky was thickly studded with glittering stars; but a tempestuous wind was blowing. The tanker was wallowing through heavy seas that washed over her deck amidships.

  Smith, on some errand—what it was, he did not state—had started down the raised bridge or walk over the waist of the tanker, between the forecastle and the quarterdeck.

  A streak of luminosity appeared suddenly in the air before him. A sort of blue gleam, he says, as if a bucket of blue fire had been upset a few feet in front of him, above his head. As he stopped to stare in wonder, this pillar of azure radiance began to spin, steadily increasing in brilliance.

  It became a thick, whirling bar of cold, sapphire light, ten feet high. Its brilliance was very considerable, lighting the deck below, with the green, foaming seas occasionally surging over it. Dick stepped back a little, but fascinated wonder held him from farther retreat.

  After a moment, subtle, fleeting gleams of other colors appeared outside the spinning bar of blue flame—woven circles of green and red. They were evanescent, flickering, waxing and waning. But rapidly they increased in number and brilliance, until the pillar of sapphire light was shrouded in a mist of rainbow color, in a shimmering mantle flushed with brilliant, living gleams.

  It was the most beautiful and the most wonderful thing that Richard Smith had ever seen. Absorbed, fascinated by the polychromatic miracle, he forgot to wonder at its weird strangeness.

  It was a straight, upright bar of cold blue fire, spinning at a tremendous rate. About it a flashing, wonderful envelope, woven of rings of fairy light, vivid green and flaming crimson, whirling, shimmering, alive with a thousand elfin gleams.

  A wondrous vortex of fire, of color.

  For minutes, perhaps—Smith took no note of the time—it hung there before him, growing steadily brilliant, until the sea flashed back its iridescence.

  Then it exploded!

  Smith is not sure just how it happened. Perhaps he was drawn into the vortex of light by a sudden attracting force. Or perhaps it abruptly expanded, enclosing him in its spinning rings of coruscating fire.

  He felt the planking of the walk go from beneath him. For a moment, it seemed that he was falling through an infinity filled with flame, falling through shimmering clouds of soft sunset crimson, and cool jade green, through narrow, lancing rays of chill, intense sapphire light, among huge and dully glowing moons of orange and hot ruby radiance.

  Then the lights were abruptly gone from about him.

  A hard, cool surface was beneath him; he lay on his side upon it, at full length. Raising his head, he found himself upon a huge table or platform, of a substance that looked like polished jet. At one end was a dome of red fire, deep and intense—he felt that it was just at the limit of the visible spectrum. It was as if a fountain of ruby fire jetted from an orifice at the level of the table, rising two feet high, to fall back in a spreading, motionless dome. It did not move, yet there must have been an imperceptible flicker or vibration about it, for he felt that it was unstable, a dome of pure, vibrant energy.

  A similar dome of fire was above his head, at the other end of the great table. But it was deep, dark violet, pure and intense—almost ultraviolet. An unstable dome of shimmering blue fire.

  His glance went upward. Far above was a lofty ceiling, of a cool green, soft and luminous. He lay in a vast, six-sided room. The six walls seemed to curve smoothly in, far above, to form the ceiling; the six panels met at a point in the center. Walls and roof were finished in the light, restful shade of luminous green.

  Abruptly, a soft, interrogative voice spoke behind him. Rather startled, he flung himself over to face it; he had supposed himself alone. First he saw only the empty floor of the vast, hexagonal room—floor of a smooth substance, unbroken by crack or joint, of a dark, rich, red-brown color. Still dazed, and somewhat alarmed, he struggled to his knees on the long black table.

  THEN he saw two persons. They stood attentively at the upper end of the low table or platform, near the wondrous glowing dome of intense violet fire. An old man, and a young woman or girl.

  Dick stared at them.

  Both seemed singularly attractive in person. While they were only of average height, they stood very straight, and seemed in radiant, robust health. Their heads were well formed, the features even and cleanly cut, almost Caucasian. The bodies of both, he noted, were well developed, strong and lithe.

  The old man was blind. A sort of green shade hid his eyes; and he stood with a hand lightly on the arm of the girl. A magnificent mane of white hair, worn rather long, fell almost to his shoulders. He was clad only in a simple garment of dark green stuff, which seemed light and soft as silk. It hung from the left shoulder, was loosely gathered about his waist, and fell to the middle of his thighs. His arms, his right shoulder, his feet and the lower part of his legs were bare. His skin, even on his face, was evidently quite hairless, and of a healthy pinkish hue.

  His figure was straight and erect; he seemed in excellent health. The power of a strong mind and an invincible will fairly radiated from him. Strength and nobility of mind and character were deeply written in the lines upon his high forehead and about his firmly closed mouth. Yet the mark of age was upon him. His robust constitution and his iron will were unmistakably already hot in the battle with the weariness, the weakness, and the dim mental vision of old age.

  The girl, on the other hand, was the very personification of youth and vigor. Only a little shorter than the old man, her figure was trimly muscular, beautifully moulded, strength and grace united in it. A wealth of brown hair, free, fell to her shoulders in soft ringlets, naturally curling. Gleaming russet fires ran through it. Like the old man, she wore only a slight, silken garment, supported by a broad strap over her left shoulder, and falling to her knees. It was of a rich, glowing blue, with little azure gleams shimmering across it. Strong, smoothly rounded arms and legs, dainty feet and small, but capable hands, all exposed to view, were aglow with J the ruddy hue of life, darkened a little with a healthy tan.

  But it was her face that caught Dick’s eyes and held them—the smooth, wide brow beneath the glistening „ brown ringlets—the regular, even features—the strength of the mouth, and its humorous quirk—the eyes, deep blue and sparkling, alight with life and wit and understanding.

  For five minutes, perhaps, Smith sat there looking at them. He had, as yet, no idea what the wondrous vortex of flame had done for him; but he knew that it was something marvelous indeed. He had no idea where he was. Desperately, he cudgeled his brains for a clue to the puzzle. He could think of no part of the earth to which it might be that he had been miraculously transported. The great, green-walled room in which he found himself, the strange table with the domes of red and violet flame at its ends, the beautiful, strangely clad persons beside him—they seemed not to belong to any part of the world he knew.

  The most plausible theory seemed to be that he was dreaming. But his impression of his surroundings was too real and too vivid to be any part of a dream. He felt able to think clearly, which a dreamer is never able to do. And he devoutly hoped that his vision was real—especially the lovely girl who stood silently beside him appraising him with keen, twinkling blue eyes.

  “Where am I?” he blurted out suddenly.

  The aged blind man turned his head a little
, as if listening intently. The girl voiced an interrogative word, in a soft low voice, with rising inflection. Both seemed listening, and Dick tried again.

  “Where—am—I?” he asked, speaking slowly, and distinctly as he could. “Where—is—this? What—is—the—name—of—this—place?”

  Comprehension dawned suddenly in the girl’s eyes. She nodded and smiled at Dick—almost upsetting him—and turned to the old man. They exchanged a few words, in a soft liquid speech, that, it seemed to Dick, they spoke with jumbling rapidity. Then she turned to Dick again, and spoke a few sounds in her low, rich voice, repeating them several times.

  “Yo ar-r-ah en Bardon,” is the way they sounded, approximately.

  “You are in Bardon,” the meaning flashed quite suddenly upon Dick.

  English was spoken here—but it was English so greatly changed that he could hardly recognize it. Then he was amazed at the change. Later, when he came to know where he was, he was amazed that English should have survived as a distinct tongue at all.

  For two hours they continued the conversation thus begun. It would be interesting to know more of the details, but Smith, who devotes so much space to scientific matters, lets us see no more of it. We only know some of the things he learned—that he was among a people who spoke an English so much altered that it was not English at all—and spoke it as an archaic tongue, no longer in common use. That he had been brought to this place, Bardon, by the knowledge and skill of the aged blind man, who was the father of the lovely girl with whom he talked—that the black table upon which he sat, with its domes of violet and crimson flame, had been the means of bringing him here, and that the old man was named Midos Ken, and the girl, Thon Ahrora.

  After about two hours—and Smith only guessed at the length of the interval—the conversation was interrupted. A deep, booming bell-note rang from one of the smooth, glowing green walls, ringing majestically in the high vault of the ceiling. As it throbbed into silence, the two beside Dick faced each other—apprehension shadowing the gleam of humor in the girl’s eyes, a fierce desire to read her feelings making her father forget his blindness for the moment.