The voice of the void

by Jr. John W. Campbell

The long years had dwindled to less than two centuries before there came a man who solved the problem of a refinement of the vibration control. It is as impossible for me to describe the machines of that day as it would be for a blind man to describe red to another. It is a thing inconceivable to each. But it was done—only to find that the shock of the journey killed all living creatures. And then, ten short years before the sun at last faded forever, the last bridge was crossed. A man in a space ship was projected from a laboratory on Earth to a point near Venus. All the System watched that demonstration through the news machines.

Long since they had decided where they would go. Now that they could travel with almost infinite speed, they chose a goal that would be safe to life for aeons to come. BETELGUESE! It was their goal now.

And now out in space the great sending station was constructed. The ship to be sent was put in position before it; the scanner viewed it; and the signal for each atom and each molecule followed each other in swift flight on the train of light waves that was their wire. One billion miles from Betelguese the ship would be re-integrated from the energy sent along the beam of the phase-velocity sender.

And now, in the observatory of Hal Jus, the greatest men of the system had gathered to watch those men far out in space. With them had been sent another machine to be operated by one man, a miniature phase-velocity sender that could, if necessary, send the ship back. This was to be stationed in space, going in an orbit about the mighty star.

Now, above the soft whirr of the news-casters focussed on the great screen, there came an audible sigh of excitement, as there flickered on the great screen a dim gray image, blurred and indistinct. Well it might be. Sent on the phase-velocity projector across the universe, it was bringing them the scene within the recreated ship—suddenly the great screen was filled with a brightly lighted scene, and through the sound pick-up came a subdued hum of the mighty engines in the power room. Through the windows of the ship they could see a brilliant shaft of bluish light pouring over the floor. Out through the main pilot's window they saw the blazing field of stars—and there they saw one dim red one, barely discernible. Probably if they had been there they could not have seen it. Only the super-sensitiveness of the machine made it visible—their sun as it looked millenniums ago! For the light had been traveling slowly for thousands of years to reach the distance their machine had reached in less than an hour.

The men had been anesthetized before the process began, and now they lay in deep sleep. The automatic controls were running the ship, taking complete charge of it.

Strange those men would seem to us. They were under four feet in height, with great barrel chests, long arms and short legs. The dying planets had scant atmosphere, and economy advised a low pressure of the precious gases, lest too much diffusion take place; and Mercury, the smallest planet, put a distinct limit to the pressure. They journeyed from one planet to the other so frequently that an equal pressure on each was almost a requisite. The long arms ended in slender, delicate fingers that were the most perfect tools ever developed. And the toes, too, had become highly prehensile. The many machines that man had built had required all his directing powers. The feet had at first been used only to push pedals, but gradually there came other purposes. Those members could be so useful!

The head was not much larger than ours, but the high, straight forehead seemed much larger on the small man. The brain was deeply creased, the convolutions so complex that, without increasing the size greatly, the surface had been multiplied many times. And it is the surface area that counts. Their large eyes seemed to hold a gentle benignity that would so transcend us as to leave us contented to watch only; still, there was in them a fire of ambition, of hope and of adventure. But we can no more hope to understand their personality than a child of a few days can understand us.

But now the men in the car out in space were stirring; consciousness was returning. The Commander approached the view plate now.

"Sir, I wish to report a successful trip. Betelguese is within one billion miles. One man has died, but the ship's doctor will have him around shortly, as his body temperature is still above 95. We will head for the nearest planet, connecting you now with the outside view plate."