is often the case with scientific things, Mexone observed. “A catalyst, for instance.”
Abna nodded. “Quite so. Therefore we shall have to use Stage Five, as we’ll call it, and trust to luck that it repeats the effect.”
“You don’t intend to project yourself with no more to go on that that, surely?” the Amazon protested; and with a smile Abna shook his head.
“No. Last time the power was beyond control. This lime we have a time unit fixed which will make for a reversal of the process when we require it. I propose to send a preset movie camera that will begin to operate when Stage Five has reached maximum power. And I’m going to do it right now.”
The others watched as he placed the already adjusted movie camera in position, directly in line with the machine’s main power outlet—which resembled a fantastic snout of lenses. Only the lenses were not glass: they were of a transparent substance specially devised to allow free passage of radiation.
“Here we go,” Abna murmured, and depressed the power switch.
Instantly there was a deep humming from the machine, and a vivid display of internal pyrotechnics, visible through the transparent inspection window—then things began to happen. The cine-camera became hazed with an irregular ball of orange-colored light. It did not last long. It expanded rapidly, the camera becoming transparent as it did so. Finally there was a brief tremoring of the air from underlying shock waves, and with that the orange glow vanished, and the camera, too.
Abna turned and grinned. “One perfectly good camera should now be in ultra-space,” he said. “Photographing whatever happens to be in the field of view. It’ll come back automatically in ten minutes.”
He was right. When the time had elapsed, there was a sudden reappearance of the orange haze and in it there appeared the camera, gradually taking on density. Abna waited until the process was complete and then he switched off. Going over to the camera, he picked it up and examined it eagerly. It was unharmed—not even scratched—and had made its ten-minute recording.
“Everything all right?” the Amazon asked.
“Perfect.” Abna connected the camera to a viewing screen, and then switched off the lights. In silence they sat watching the cine-recording, each busy with speculations.
The ultra-space transition evidently commenced in the void itself—or at any rate that was where the cine-camera had started to pick things up. There was a view of completely unfamiliar stars, certainly not belonging to the Milky Way, and a vision of a planet comparatively near. Wrapped in cloud, it gave no clue as to what lay on its surface.
“Doesn’t tell us much,” the Amazon said, sitting back in her chair and musing. “Looks the same as any other world to me, even if it is in another space. What gave you the idea that things went backwards?”
“I sensed it,” Abna said, switching off. “Can’t you understand that at that time—brief though it was—I was almost exalted? I knew of the strangeness of the planet, and was convinced of it. I’ll swear it was not an illusion. I glimpsed people, too.”
There was silence for a moment, then Mexone made a comment.
“Just as well that camera didn’t actually hit the planet. It would have been either burned up or smashed to bits, at that speed. The time ran out at just the right moment.”
Abna nodded, then looked seriously at the faces turned toward him,
“We haven’t learned much, beyond the fact that I was right,” he said. “Do we have a look at this world, or not?”
“Naturally!” the Amazon said promptly. “Any planet that has a puzzle attached to it is right for us. You two think the same?”
Viona and Mexone nodded promptly. Though they did not say so, they were becoming increasingly bored with the sameness of everything.
“Very well then,” Abna said. “Let’s make our arrangements and get started. We’ll have to adjust the Probability Machine so that its influence incorporates the whole vessel. That way we ought to get projected into this other space.”
The Amazon, Viona, and Mexone took their places on the wall couches and made themselves ready for the takeoff.
“Ready?” Abna inquired, and at the murmurs of assent he engaged the ship’s drive. Instantly the Ultra’s huge mass rose swiftly from the desolate plain and swept upwards to the murky clouds. In seconds of time the clouds were left behind and there appeared the infinite darkness of space with its endless parade of gleaming stars.
CHAPTER TWO
BACKWARDS LIFE
Motionless, Abna kept his attention on the chronometer, marking the disappearing seconds of the five minutes he had fixed. As the fourth minute was reached, he glanced at the three in their pressure beds.
“I don’t know exactly what will happen when the Probability Machine operates,” he said, “but from my own experience I’ll guarantee that it won’t be pleasant—so steel yourselves.”
Fifteen seconds later the Probability Machine took over, and the four were instantly aware of the fact.… It was a distressing, anguishing experience, this turning aside into a new space, yet in many ways it was identical to the sensation the four had experienced many times in the past—a twisting and turning of body, nerve, and mentality, a sense of enormous extension and strain as atoms and molecules were torn out of their normal tracks and reformed.… Then, at last, a dead calm.
Slowly the Amazon got control of herself again, levered herself out of the pressure couch, and crossed over to where Abna was gazing through the observation window. He was breathing heavily as the result of his experiences.
“That’s the planet—over there,” he said.
Then Viona and Mexone came over to the window and joined Abna and the Amazon in gazing outside. The mystery world with its clouds of vapors was perhaps fifteen million miles away, as large as a rather small moon seen from Earth.
“Have you noticed, Dad, that that planet isn’t an isolated one?” Viona asked. “It’s one of six planets—a complete system. And that blue-white star for a sun.”
“I had no time to notice things like that,” Abna responded. “It doesn’t particularly matter now. I do know that planet is our main objective.”
So, presently, moving at high velocity, they reached the outer edge of the planet’s atmosphere. Abna leveled the Ultra out so as to be parallel with the cloud belts, and thus began a swift circumnavigation of the globe, slackening speed and dropping lower all the time…until finally the Ultra was beneath the cloud banks and skimming over a flat plain, mainly composed of sand with outcroppings of vegetation and rock here and there.
“Not very impressive,” the Amazon commented, staring below. “The sort of thing one might see if one happened to glimpse the Sahara on first visiting Earth.”
“There’s something over there, on the edge of the desert,” Viona said quickly, gazing into distance. “I may be crazy, but it looks to me like a town.”
“We can do two things,” Abna said. “One is land in this jungle and go back on foot to the town: the other is to
