Venus, two of the moons of Jupiter, and recently it has been broadcast that messages are being received from outside our solar system, communications from interstellar space! Is that true?”
“It is,” replied La Rue. “During the past six months my worthy colleague, Jules Nichol, and I have received messages (some of them not very intelligible) from two planets that revolve around one of the nearer suns. These messages have required years to reach us, although they travel at an inconceivable rate of speed.”
“How do you manage to carry on intelligent communication? Surely the languages must be very strange,” said the thoroughly interested Shipley.
“We begin all intercourse through the principles of mathematics,” replied the Frenchman with a smile, “for by those exact principles God’s universe is controlled. Those rules never fail. You know the principles of mathematics were discovered by man, not invented by him. This, then, is the basis of our code, always, and it never fails to bring intelligent responses from other planets whose inhabitants have arrived at an understanding equal to or surpassing that of ourselves. It is not a stretch of imagination to believe that we may some day receive a message from somewhere in space that was sent out millions of years ago, and likewise we can comprehend the possibility of messages which we are now sending into the all-pervading ether, reaching some remote world eons in the future.”
“It is indeed a fascinating subject,” mused Henry Shipley, “but mine has an equal attraction. While you reach out among the stars, I delve down amid the protons and electrons. And who, my dear fellow, in this day of scientific advancement, can say that they are not identical except for size? Planets revolve about their suns, electrons around their protons; the infinite, the infinitesimal! What distinguishes them?”
The older man leaned forward, a white hand clutching the cluttered desk.
“What distinguishes them, you ask?” he muttered hoarsely. “This and this alone: time, the fourth dimension!”
The two men gazed at one another in profound silence, then La Rue continued, his voice once more back to normal: “You said a moment ago that my planetary systems and your atoms were identical except for one thing—the fourth dimension. In my supra-world of infinite bigness our sun, one million times as big as this Earth, gigantic Jupiter, and all the other planets in our little system, would seem as small as an atom, a thing invisible even in the most powerful microscope. Your infra-world would be like a single atom with electrons revolving around it, compared to our solar system, sun and planets. I believe the invisible atom is another universe with its central sun and revolving planets, and there also exists a supra-universe in which our sun, the Earth, and all the planets are only an atom. But the fourth dimension!”
La Rue picked up a minute speck of dust from the table and regarded it a moment in silence, then he went on: “Who knows but that this tiny particle of matter which I hold may contain a universe in that infra-world, and that during our conversation eons may have passed to the possible inhabitants of the planets therein? So we come to the fact that time is the fourth dimension. Let me read you what a scientist of an earlier day has written, a man who was so far ahead of his time that he was wholly unappreciated:
“‘If you lived on a planet infinitesimally small, or infinitely big, you would not know the difference. Time and space are, after all, purely relative. If at midnight tonight, all things, including ourselves and our measuring instruments, were reduced in size one thousand times, we should be left quite unaware of any such change.’
“But I wish to read you a message which I received at my radio station on the Eiffel Tower at Paris.”
La Rue produced a paper from a pocket and read the following radiogram from Mars:
“‘A most horrible catastrophe is befalling us. We are leaving the solar system! The sun grows daily smaller. Soon we shall be plunged in eternal gloom. The cold is becoming unbearable!’”
When the Frenchman had finished reading he continued addressing the physicist: “A few astronomers are aware of the departure of Mars from the system, but are keeping it from the public temporarily. What do you think of this whole business, Shipley?”
“The phenomenon is quite clear,” the latter replied. “Some intelligent beings in this vaster cosmos or supra-universe, in which we are but a molecule, have begun an experiment which is a common one in chemistry, an experiment in which one or two electrons in each atom are torn away, resulting, as you already know, in the formation of a new element. Their experiment will cause a rearrangement in our universe.”
“Yes,” smiled La Rue significantly, “every time we perform a similar experiment, millions of planets leave their suns in that next smaller cosmos or infra-world. But why isn’t it commoner even around us?”
“That is where the time element comes in,” answered his friend. “Think of the rarity of such an experiment upon a particular molecule or group of molecules, and you will plainly see why it has never happened in all the eons of time that our universe has passed through.”
There was a moment’s silence as both men realized their human inability to grasp even a vague conception of the idea of relativity. This silence was broken by the foreigner, who spoke in eager accents: “Will you not, my friend, return with me to Paris? And together at my radio station we will listen to the messages from the truant Mars.”
II.
The radio station of La Rue was the most interesting place Shipley had ever visited. Here were perfected instruments of television. An observer from this tower could both see and hear any place on the globe. As yet, seeing beyond our Earth had not been scientifically perfected.
La Rue had been eager to hear from his assistants any further messages from Mars. These could have been forwarded to him when he was in the States, but he preferred to wait until his return to his beloved station. There was nothing startlingly new in any of the communications. All showed despair regarding the Martians’ ability to survive, with their rare atmosphere, the cold of outer space. As the planet retreated and was lost to view even by the most powerful telescopes, the messages grew fainter, and finally ceased altogether.
By this time alarm had spread beyond scientific circles. Every serious-minded being upon the globe sought for a plausible explanation of the phenomenon.
“Now is the time for your revelation,” urged La Rue. “Tell the world what you told me.”
But the world at large did not approve of Henry Shipley’s theory. People did not arrive at any unanimous decision. The opinion was prevalent that Mars had become so wicked and had come so near to fathoming the Creator’s secrets, that it was banished into outer darkness as a punishment.
“Its fate should,” they said, “prove a warning to Earth.”
The scientists smiled at this interpretation. As a body of enlightened and religious men they knew that God does not object to His Truth being known, that only by a knowledge of the Truth can we become fully conscious of His will concerning us.
The frivolous, pleasure-seeking, self-centered world soon forgot the fate of the ruddy planet, and then—but that is my story!
III.
It was five months to the day after the radios had first broadcast the startling news that Mars was no longer revolving around the sun that I, James Griffin, sat at breakfast with my wife and two children, Eleanor and Jimmy, Jr. I am not and never have been an astronomical man. Mundane affairs have always kept me too busy for stargazing, so it is not to be wondered at that the news of Mars’ departure
