He could still communicate—that lava carried sound perfectly. However, he did not do so intelligently; all his students heard was a series of endlessly repeated warnings to keep clear of empty spaces—to avoid all dealings with the Force—to leave this neighborhood and to let him die, but be sure to carry the warning to the rest of the world—in short, little but hysteria. Had Derrell not been so upset, he would have seen the way out in a moment; but he can hardly be blamed for being perturbed. A man suddenly finding himself imbedded completely in a block of concrete, yet somehow still living and breathing and able to speak, might have had some inkling of the scientist’s emotions; but at least a man could vaguely imagine such a situation in advance. No member of Derrell’s race could have foreseen any detail of what had happened to him.
Fortunately, the students for the most part remained calm; and it was one of these who saw the solution. Derrell was restored to something like a state of reason when tiny pebbles of limestone began to fall near, and sometimes into his body. It was a long, long, job; but at last the dwellers of the rock completed the task which the ocean had failed to perform a hundred million years before, and the cavern was full of limestone. Even now travel was not easy—the space between particles was too large, and Derrell had acquired a strong antipathy to open spaces; but travel was at least possible, and at long last he found himself once more in habitable, negotiable, comfortable rock outside that terrible cavern. For a long time he rested; and when finally he spoke, it was with conviction.
“Whatever we may learn of that force in the future, certainly no one can ever doubt its reality. I hope none of you ever feel it. Those of you who were over that cave releasing rocks that enabled me to escape were taking a chance worse than that ever faced by soldier or explorer; believe me when I say I am grateful.
“One point we have learned, besides the mere existence of the force: it is not always perpendicular to the Void boundary.” A faint flicker of surprise manifested itself among the listeners, but stilled at once as they perceived that the scientist was right—the boundary was extremely irregular where it passed nearest this region; projections of rock reached out into the Void at frequent intervals sometimes for more than a mile. There was no single direction that could be said to be perpendicular to it.
“That leaves two principal possibilities. One is that the force is directed at least somewhat at random, and the ocean has collected in specific localities because of that fact. If that is so, then the Pentong project is useless; the new ocean will simply add to the old, and cover no more Earth. The other main possibility would seem to be that the force does not extend into the Void at all; and in that case we have no idea at all what will happen, except that the magma we bring up will probably spread over the boundary as it always has. We cannot even guess what the melted ocean will do.
“It seems to me a very ill-advised plan, to divert as much effort as this project would demand from our defense, when we cannot even be moderately sure of success. I think I will go to the nearest city to express my opinion—there is still too much risk from the tribes of Asia to take any chances. Has anyone a different opinion, or a better plan?”
“One thing might be done first.” It was Taless, one of most self-confident of the group. “It seems almost as bad to halt the project for ignorance as to waste effort from the same cause. I would strongly recommend that we learn something about the force beyond the boundary before we express opinions to any City Leaders. At the most, let us advise delaying, not canceling, the project until some data on that matter can be obtained.”
“And how would you secure this data?”
“I do not know; but we have a team of presumably competent researchers here. I certainly would not regard such investigation as hopeless, without at least some effort being made.”
“The data would have to be extremely precise, and sufficient in amount to be completely convincing; the matter is vitally important for the future of our people everywhere.”