The Seed of Evil

“Within the Earth, space itself is compressed in proportion to density. What from the surface looks like an inch, might really be a thousand miles. The Earth’s radius is the same at all levels—we shrink as we enter denser matter, so it always looks the same. There’s always the same distance to go.”

His eyes grew dull, then glazed. As he died, I laid him down.

And I am in command of the Interstice. I lost no time in taking what little action was necessary. The hull is sealed, all internal hatches have been closed and the lights dimmed to conserve power. The propulsors are set for greatest economy and speed: our prime concern is to maintain the polariser field for a long, steady drop towards the centre. Our power plant is theoretically inexhaustible—but the space within the Earth may be as great as the entire solar system for all we know.

I do not think, now, that there is any mode of travel more sinister than that of a ship moving through solid matter. The deeper we sink, the greater is my awareness of the thousands of miles of rock over our heads, the more intense is the feeling of oppression. My conscience burdens me. It was I who persuaded Captain Joule to embark on the dive, and as I sit in the semi-darkness of this steel hull, I cannot help but think that I have persuaded my companions into Hell itself.

The ship is a shambles. Men lie in utter silence throughout her length, the seismo-beams no longer manned. We have all accepted the idea that we will not survive this voyage.

This is the story. Now I sit down to write it, so that those who find our ship when she finally emerges on the other side of the world—the polarisers will automatically be inactivated at that moment—may know of the nature of the Earth’s interior. …

According to the farmer who claimed to have witnessed the event, the ship had come out of the hillside, then slithered twenty feet before coming to rest against an outcropping of rock.

Bain could readily see the truth of the latter part of the story from the broken saplings which marked the vessel’s path, but the first part strained his imagination, specially as there was no sign of a break in the turf. He was a specialist in ancient civilisations, and since he could find not one familiar detail in the vessel whose five-hundred-foot bulk loomed over him, he inclined to the view that it came from a different direction altogether.

“It must be a spaceship,” he said to the metallurgist who had come with the team from Sydney. “It couldn’t be anything else. That farmer was lying, or mistaken.”

The metallurgist nodded. “I would think so too,” he replied, “but I can’t imagine why it should be so old. Look at the way it sags all over the place! Know what that is? Metal fatigue. Yet some of the alloys I don’t recognise!”

Bain flicked through the metal-leaved book they had taken from the control room. For him, it provided almost irrefutable proof that the ship was from the stars: it appeared to be some sort of log, but its weird script bore absolutely no resemblance to any Earthly language, ancient or modern.

“We’ll never find a Rosetta Stone for this,” he thought. It saddened him to think that the account would never be translated.

At that moment Professor Wilson levered himself out of a hatch from inside the vessel and came over to them excitedly. “It’s a spaceship all right,” he said. “There’s an instrument in there that measures distance in terms of electromagnetic frequencies. Any physicist could read it from here to Andromeda.

“Do you know what distance that meter clocked before it ran out? Nearly eleven light-years!”

Man in Transit

My name is Untuar Murti, and having spent all my life in airplanes, apart from short intervals of hours and minutes, I am better qualified than most to judge the state of the world. True, my experience of it is slight; but that is all to the good: it means that my understanding has not been attenuated or compromised by too close an involvement in life.

This paper comprises, if you like, my last will and testament—not that I hope that anyone will find time to read it. As to myself: “Murti” was my father’s family name, while “Untuar” has no meaning or derivation but was invented by my father on the principle that it should lack any history or connection with anything else. That, he claimed, was most descriptive of my situation and thus the perfect name for his first, and only child. Let me add that the bitterness which tinged his attitude is not shared by me: the life into which one is born is naturally accepted without rancour, and I have known no other.