DIY History | Transcribe | Hevelin Fanzines | Fantascience Digest, v. 2, issue 4, May-June 1939

Transcribe
Translate

Fantascience Digest, v. 2, issue 4, May-June 1939

Page 9

FANTASCIENCE DIGEST           Page 9

   I asked him what he meant.

   "Surely," he said, "you've been puzzling over the phenomenon we've experienced from the 12th day of June, 2149  A.D. to---" here he paused, casting a glance at the papers he'd placed on my desk, "to NOW."

   I stared at him.

   "You knew; I knew what the report of those two men you sent out would be, even before they left the ship."

   I nodded, asked him how all this could be.

   "You remember that black-out period we struck the first day out?" he asked. "Well this is only hypothetical, of course, but I believe we struck what is known to students of advances astrophysics as a Time current. As we know now, time, in itself, is not continuous—or rather I should say, uniform."

   "Proof of this exists in the corrections, by modern astronomers, of hundreds of stars' distances from our solar system. For instance, Canopus in the southern sky was thought, only as far back as 1973, to be 650 light years from the earth, when, by its light passing through a deverse time current, it was doubled back on itself, giving a result of only 1/60th its actual distance.

   "Hence in light's case, so too in ours. For there are in places, isolated currents of ether moving at a velocity vastly different from that of the commonly thought of cosmos. What is to prevent an object striking this current to pass into the stream's particular time level, all other factors remaining unchanged?"

   As the scientist's voice had been painting a picture of our condition, I had been desperately trying to remember everything I'd ever read or heard of the Lorentz transformations. The formula: measured from systems at rest; system shrinkage in relation to conception, kept just out of my mental reach. Gronburg must have seen my trouble. He put his hand on my shoulder.

   "In other words, Forest," he called me by name; a thing he'd never done before, "this ship and everyone on it has been transported into the here-to-for far-removed future. A future in which conditions have become unsuited for the support of life, as we know it, at least." I wondered if Gronburg knew of the thing I had seen pressed against the port that first terrible night and used this remark to qualify its existance in his own mind.

   Before he could go on there was a dull crash in the corridor outside my room. Gronburg reached the door first, opened it. My sub-commander, Edwards, lay in the patch of light from my room, a look of terror on his mutilated face. The shadows had claimed another victim.

   (No date). Night by night, day by day, that foul death stalks us. Out of the original two hundred and twenty of us, there now remains but thirty.

   The fates treated us to a bitter jest. At midnight the alarm bells began ringing over the entire ship, arousing passengers and crew, bringing them on the run to the control room. The officer on watch told us he'd seen a rocket trail against the western sky. For a moment I saw hope light thirty haggard faces, then die as Gronburg's cold voice came

Saving...

FANTASCIENCE DIGEST Page 9 I asked him what he meant. "Surely," he said, "you've been puzzling over the phenomenon we've experienced from the 12th day of June, 2149 A.D. to---" here he paused, casting a glance at the papers he'd placed on my desk, "to NOW." I stared at him. "You knew; I knew what the report of those two men you sent out would be, even before they left the ship." I nodded, asked him how all this could be. "You remember that black-out period we struck the first day out?" he asked. "Well this is only hypothetical, of course, but I believe we struck what is known to students of advances astrophysics as a Time current. As we know now, time, in itself, is not continuous—or rather I should say, uniform." "Proof of this exists in the corrections, by modern astronomers, of hundreds of stars' distances from our solar system. For instance, Canopus in the southern sky was thought, only as far back as 1973, to be 650 light years from the earth, when, by its light passing through a deverse time current, it was doubled back on itself, giving a result of only 1/60th its actual distance. "Hence in light's case, so too in ours. For there are in places, isolated currents of ether moving at a velocity vastly different from that of the commonly thought of cosmos. What is to prevent an object striking this current to pass into the stream's particular time level, all other factors remaining unchanged?" As the scientist's voice had been painting a picture of our condition, I had been desperately trying to remember everything I'd ever read or heard of the Lorentz transformations. The formula: measured from systems at rest; system shrinkage in relation to conception, kept just out of my mental reach. Gronburg must have seen my trouble. He put his hand on my shoulder. "In other words, Forest," he called me by name; a thing he'd never done before, "this ship and everyone on it has been transported into the here-to-for far-removed future. A future in which conditions have become unsuited for the support of life, as we know it, at least." I wondered if Gronburg knew of the thing I had seen pressed against the port that first terrible night and used this remark to qualify its existance in his own mind. Before he could go on there was a dull crash in the corridor outside my room. Gronburg reached the door first, opened it. My sub-commander, Edwards, lay in the patch of light from my room, a look of terror on his mutilated face. The shadows had claimed another victim. (No date). Night by night, day by day, that foul death stalks us. Out of the original two hundred and twenty of us, there now remains but thirty. The fates treated us to a bitter jest. At midnight the alarm bells began ringing over the entire ship, arousing passengers and crew, bringing them on the run to the control room. The officer on watch told us he'd seen a rocket trail against the western sky. For a moment I saw hope light thirty haggard faces, then die as Gronburg's cold voice came