The energy will rush into our universes in ever-increasing floods.
Unloosed, uncontrollable energy. It will increase the mass energy in each universe, will give each a greater mass…”
Kingsley leaped to his feet, tipping over a coffee cup, staining the table cloth.
"Increase the mass!" he shouted. "But…”
Then he sat down again, sagged down, a strangely beaten man.
"Of course that would destroy us," he mumbled. "Presence of mass is the only cause for the bending of space. An empty universe would have no space curvature. In utter nothingness there would be no condition such as we call space. Totally devoid of mass, space would be entirely uncurved, would be a straight line and would have no real existence. The more mass there is, the tighter space is curved. The more mass there is, the less space there is for it to occupy."- "Flood the universe with energy from inter-space," the Engineer agreed, "and space begins curving back, faster and faster, tighter and tighter, crowding the matter it does contain into smaller space. We would have a contracting rather than an expanding universe.”
"Throw enough of that new energy into the universe," Kingsley rumbled excitedly, "and it would be more like an implosion than anything else.
Space would rush together. All life would be destroyed, galaxies would be wiped out. Existent mass would be compacted into a tiny area. It might even be destroyed if the contraction was so fast that it crushed the galaxies in upon each other. At the best, the universe would have to start all over again.”
"It would start over again," said the Engineer. "There would be enough new energy absorbed by the universe for just such an occurrence as you have foreseen. The entire universe would revert to original chaos.”
"And me without my life insurance paid," said Herb. Gary snarled at him across the table.