The Voice of the Void
By John W. Campbell, Jr.
Author of "The Metal Horde," "Piracy Preferred," etc.
Illustrated by WESSO
The science of astronomy concerns itself with the great and the small. The distances in the stellar world are inconceivable by man—so much so that the astronomer's unit of measurement is the light year. And within the suns of space, the ultimate smallest units of matter figure—the molecule is broken up and the smaller atom is formed, only to be disintegrated into electrons and protons. Energy and mass enter into the strange cycle. Our young author, who has already become a favorite with readers of scientific fiction, has woven a captivating romance out of the world of ultra-physics—captivating in its adventurousness as well as in its science.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Amazing Stories Quarterly Summer 1930.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Perhaps you or I would have hesitated to call him human, this strange small man. He seemed lost in the great dim-lighted observatory. On all sides of the room panels of some polished black material glistened in the ruddy light, and on all their great surfaces were instruments and faintly glowing screens. High above the smooth floor a great transparent roof was flung in a half-glimpsed arch, glasslike it was, but the lack of beams told of a strength and toughness no glass ever knew. Through it came every vibration that struck it, infra-light or ultra-light. Now in its center there glowed a great mass of lambent red flame, the dying sun. To Hal Jus, astronomer, the room was flooded with the light of the noon-day sun. The dull red glow that gave even his pale face a ruddy glow was to him pure white. But then Hal Jus could see heat, and to him blue light was a scientific term for a thing beyond human vision.
Ten billion years had wrought strange changes in the human race. For ten thousand thousand millenniums they had lived on the planets of the solar system, but now the mighty sun was dying. There had been no decadence in this race, through all their history had come a constant fight with a persistent enemy, Nature. But it was a kindly enemy, for the contest had constantly developed man to meet the new emergencies.
Ten thousand years ago the sun had grown too cool to supply heat enough for man; it was no longer possible to live on the frozen planets, and the two greatest of them had been hurled across the system to feed the dying fires. Jupiter and Saturn had been sacrificed. Neptune and Uranus had long since escaped from the weakened clutches of the vanishing sun, and now of the family of original wheeling planets, only four were left: Mars, Earth, Venus and Mercury. And now again the fires of the system were dying too low. One and a half million tons of matter must be destroyed every second in that titanic furnace to supply a comfortable amount of heat. In our day three million tons of matter vanish every second, to be poured out as a mighty flood of heat and light that sweeps across the depths of space to us. The inner planets had been drawn far closer to the parent body, but even these heroic measures were failing.