Читать книгу The Central Intelligence: The Golden Amazon Saga, Book Seven - John Russell Fearn - Страница 7

CHAPTER TWO

ERROR OF JUDGMENT

This was a command that the Amazon and Viona promptly obeyed. Both of them knew the astounding mental feats Abna could perform when necessary, but always he needed time beforehand in which to map out his plan of action. So as he sat brooding, looking very much like Rodin’s statue of the ‘Thinker’, the two women took it upon themselves to watch the giant figure of Sefner Quorne as he worked on the shattered Ultra. It so hap­pened, however, that everything was patterned on such a gargantuan scale they could not determine what Quorne was doing. Finally, they gave up the attempt, driven away chiefly by the stunning noise created by the shifting of metal plates.… Only one factor seemed to emerge from the chaos: by degrees Sefner Quorne was using the Ultra’s many machine tools to repair the heavy damage that had been wrought.

Abna, for his part, was hardly aware of what was going on around him. So completely was he able to detach his mind from immediate events, he was already oblivious to them. Instead, he was mentally exploring formula after formula, integrating the complex weavings of spatial mathematics necessary to bring about a return to the ordinary Universe—or at least the Uni­verse that he, the Amazon, and Viona understood.

And, in assimilating the mathematical currents, he started for himself the longest mental analysis he had ever undertaken. Hour after hour he sat as though petrified, his eyes closed, his body so detached from his thought he neither experienced cramp, nor needed nourishment. Now and again the Amazon and Viona looked at him, then at each other, but they kept quiet. Once, when hunger and thirst became too much for them, they explored the mighty ruins of the Ultra, avoiding Quorne’s titanic feet, and from the shattered food compartments removed a few crumbs that, for them, were as satisfying as full-sized loaves. For liquid they stood under one of the broken water vents and allowed the fluid to drop into their mouths.

A week passed and worry, for the two women, was at its height, when at last Abna stirred and looked at them. He might only have been thinking for a few seconds for he said calmly: “Yes, we can get back.”

“Will it be difficult?” the Amazon questioned.

“For me, yes; for you two, no. I shall be obliged to carry you along under my own mental impulse, for neither of you have the intelligence required to work alone.”

The Amazon did not say anything, but her beautiful face hardened a little. Then she relaxed again; knowing only too well her limitations, when Abna exerted his full powers.

“You’ll be hungry by now,” Viona said. “We got a few crumbs from the Ultra and—”

“Thanks, my dear, but I’m not hungry.” Abna gave her a mystical smile. “Feasting upon intelligence wipes out all material sensations and desires.… Ah, I observe Quorne is progressing with the Ultra! It even looks to be taking on its former shape.”

“It is,” the Amazon replied. “He seems to have about restored it. If we ever get back home we’ll have to build another Ultra.”

“We’ll get home all right,” Abna promised. “And we’ll start now. Come and sit beside me, both of you.”

The two women sat as directed, and he laid one hand on each of theirs.

“All you have to do is submit passively to my thoughts,” he explained. “They will presently control your minds, much in the manner of hypno­tism, though this is actually a very different thing. Do not mentally struggle in any way: by degrees you will lose consciousness of your bodies, just as if you were under an anaesthe­tic, but you will be aware through mental currents of everything that is happening about you. Just leave me to guide everything. It is a supreme test of mind over matter. Now, are you ready?”

“Ready!” both women assented together, and closed their eyes.

They knew there was nothing fantastic about what Abna intended doing. On numberless occasions in the past he had revealed himself the absolute master of material conditions, so there was no reason why he should not re­veal the same power again.

And, suddenly, the overwhelming force of his concentration made it­self felt. Though their eyes were shut, the two women saw quite clearly, presumably through his own focused mind-forces. The barren little world was already flying away from them in a soundless rush of speed. They were in space, unaware of their bodies, unaware of anything except a deep peace and ir­resistible velocity.

By all scientific standards they were, the Amazon judged, moving faster than light—which was quite possible, she realized, since thought is not limited to the velocity measurements of normal radiations. And, since the minds were traveling, so were the bodies. On and on, faster and faster, through soundless emptiness.

Upon the Amazon and Viona there presently settled a dreamy content­ment such as they had never experi­enced in their lives before. They felt entirely secure, embraced as they were in the grip of Abna’s stupendous and yet tender mentality. And he himself, with all the courage that he had al­ways displayed, concentrated further and further, deeper and deeper, using now every mental trick he could think of to overcome the huge mathematical and spatial distances involved.

The atomic universe fell away like dream shadows. Stars and nebulae gyrated. Vast un­relieved blackness swept in, in the midst of which there was only that eternal conviction of stupendous vel­ocity. Then, very gradually, it began to slacken. The feeling of well-being wore off. The Amazon and Viona both realized that they had bodies again, that they were breathing with diffi­culty, and that they were lying on their backs on something extremely hard.

They opened their eyes.

At first they had the impression they were still upon the barren world. There was the same rocky, friendless plain. But here similarity ended. The sky was black, not blue—and it was not black because it was night, for a vast sun was lying bisected by the jagged horizon. A sun red and dull and swollen, from which life was ob­viously dying away.

The atmosphere was viciously thin and cold, making it an effort to draw breath. Three normal human beings would probably have suffocated or frozen, but because the trio who now staggered to their feet had superhuman resistance, they managed to sur­vive, and look about them, and wonder.

Their impression on every side was one of infinite loneliness. Not a living thing anywhere. And out of the north a howling wind came suddenly, bring­ing with it small spears of icy snow. Then it cleared again and the relent­less stars were blazing as before.

“What—what’s happened?” Viona asked, baffled. “Where are we, father? Did we make the trip back, or didn’t we?”

“We made it all right.” Abna was looking about him. “But I suppose I can be forgiven for not exactly timing the point of our arrival. It’s pretty clear what has occurred. We’ve come back to Earth, but at a period in its remote future, instead of when civili­zation was at its height, which was the time we departed from.”

The Amazon said: “Yes, the last days of Earth. The planet is motion­less with one face to the sun, slowed down at last by incessant tidal friction. The air is dying out. Even the sun is waning. And all civilization is long since crumbled into dust. We’ve come back, Abna, but to a dead world.”

“Yes,” he said simply.

The women did not question him.

“Yes,” Abna repeated quietly. “I’m sorry. Very inaccurate of me.”’

“It’s done,” the Amazon said, “and we have to get out of it. I assume that since you succeeded in lifting us out of that alien universe via atomic space, you can also overcome this present error of judgment? We certainly can’t stay here. The cold is too intense and the air too thin. And we have no food.… For a while we can survive, perhaps, but in the end—”

Abna nodded. “Obviously, we can­not stay,” he confirmed. “I must meditate again.”

“At least we’ve ditched Quorne at last,” Viona remarked to her mother. “He’s in another plane of matter, and I doubt if he’ll ever have the brains to get back.”

“I wish I could be sure of that,” the Amazon muttered. “Of Quorne we can never be sure until he is destroyed.”

“True, but there is a way of keeping him within our grasp—literally,” Abna remarked.

The two women turned in surprise. They had thought he was concentrat­ing, but apparently he had finished this task, for he was coming over to them.

The Amazon caught at his arm.

“Well, can it be done?”

“You mean get back to our own time? It means working contrary to accumulation—which is advancing time—and I’m not able to do it. You cannot move backwards in Time.”

Viona said: “We can’t stay here!”

Her father shrugged. “Afraid we’ll have to until we can think of some­thing else. We might mentally create shelter and food for ourselves: that wouldn’t be too difficult. After all, I did create an entire city on Saturn.”

“That isn’t the point,” the Amazon insisted. “I don’t doubt you could create a city here if you wanted, but what good would it be to us without the company of others? Without the means to explore; without natural things around us?”