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“Ready for you, Gil,” Ambrose called, and at the same moment the tunnel was returned to its former state of darkness. Snook put on his Amplites, creating a spurious blue radiance in which his cigarette end shone with magnified brilliance. He ground it out under his heel and walked back to the arena.

Deep peace of the running wave.

You will be interested to learn, Equal Gil, that although the People’s transportation systems have largely been destroyed, our communications were not affected by the disaster a thousand days ago. The possibility of using electrical phenomena to transmit signals over great distances has been known to us for a long time—and vie have demonstrated the method for purely scientific reasons—but for all general communications we rely on the congruency of self —which you know as telepathy.

In this way, the knowledge you brought me yesterday has already been disseminated to all of the People. The Responders have held communion and given their advice, and a decision has been made. It is contrary to our philosophy to surrender life to the forces of entropy, but we have agreed that we do not want our children’s children to be born into a world which can offer them nothing but death. Accordingly, we will cease to fertilise our females.

It is not difficult for us —a logical consequence of our form of telepathy is voluntary control over the proto-minds of our seedlings. This has given us predetermination of the sex of our offspring, and it also permits us to choose sterility if we so desire.

We have been fortunate—some would say a greater power has ordained it—in that the time remaining to our world is slightly greater than the average lifetime of our individual members. A small proportion of the People will therefore continue to produce children for another four hundred days. It will be the melancholy duty of this final generation to act as caretakers for the rest of us, to oversee our departure from life, and to organise our dwindling resources in such a way that in the last days there will be no starvation, no deprivation) no suffering, no loss of dignity. When the oceans rise again they will bring neither fear nor death -for we shall have gone.

Snook: How can you make a unanimous decision like that in such a short time?

The People are not like human beings. I am not claiming that vie are superior—it can be expected of any telepathic society that reason, which reinforces itself and grows stronger on the universality of truth, will prevail over unreason, which grows less coherent and weaker as its individual proponents are isolated in their own unrealities. The People will act in concent as one, in this final trial, as in the lesser ordeals of the past.

Snook: But how can they accept it so quickly when only two days ago you had no science of astronomy? How do they know that what I told you was true?

I do not know if you will be able to understand the difference in our philosophies, but the only reason we did not have a science of astronomy is that we had no requirement for it. It would have served no purpose. Our physics are not your physics. I have learned, from your store of knowledge, that you have a science of radio astronomy, with instruments which would tell you of the existence of other worlds and other stars even if Earth was permanently covered by cloud—but, although wave phenomena are similar in my universe, such instruments have not been constructed here because we could not have conceived a use for them. However, when we were presented with the evidence of your experience we were quite capable of using it as a foundation and building an appropriate logical edifice. The People were not persuaded by you, or by me. They were persuaded by truth.

Snook: But so quickly!

It is not the speed of acceptance which perplexes you, but the acceptance itself. But do not be deceived into thinking there is no grief. We are neither passive or submissive. The People are not content to bow out of existence. We accept that the vast majority of our race must cease to exist, but as long as a few of us survive our life-wave will be preserved and may grow strong again some day.

Snook: Is that possible? I’ve been told that your world will be totally destroyed—so how will it be possible for any of you to survive?

There is only one way in which we can survive, Equal Oil—and that is by entering your world.

On behalf of the People…and in the name of Life…I am asking your race to make room for us on Earth.

The bright light had been switched on again, transforming the tunnel into a pantomime setting, and the cast of strangers was assembled as before. Snook stared at each in turn, until they had assumed their identities. Murphy was looking at him with a slight frown, but the other men were standing near the light and their attention was focused on a flat rectangular object. It took Snook a few seconds to identify it as the writing pad which Ambrose had given him. Ambrose raised his eyes in a long, level stare.

“What is this, Gil?” he said. “What’s happening here?”

Snook flexed his fingers, trying to orient himself in his own body. “I’m sorry. Felleth must have forgotten to give me the message, or perhaps there wasn’t enough time.”

“I’ve got the message! Look at it!” Ambrose held the pad in front of Snook’s face. The entire top sheet was covered with words and mathematical symbols, laid out in perfectly straight lines as if they had been typed.

Snook touched the block with his fingertips, feeling the faint indentations caused by the pen. “Did I do that?”

“In about thirty seconds flat, old boy,” Helig said. “I tell you, I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve heard of automatic writing, but I never really believed in it till now. I tell you, this is…”

“We can go into that later,” Ambrose cut in. “Gil, do you know what this is?”

Snook swallowed with difficulty, playing for time in which to think. “What does it look like to you?”

“These equations appear to outline a process, using inverse beta-decay, which would transmute antineutrino matter into protons and neutrons,” Ambrose said in a sombre voice. “At first glance it looks like a proposal for transferring objects from the Avernian universe into this one.”

“You’ve almost got it right,” Snook replied, reassured at hearing what might have been his own private fantasy voiced by another human being. “But Felleth wasn’t talking about transferring objects—he wants to send us some of his people.”

Chapter Eleven

They returned to the car in silence, each man in the lonely fortress of his own thoughts, and loaded it with the various items of equipment. On reaching the surface, Snook had not been surprised to note that the sky had clouded over in preparation for the grass rains which would last for approximately two weeks. It was as though the world was trying to model itself on his vision of Avernus, making ready for visitors. He shivered and rubbed his hands together, discovering as he did so that his right hand and forearm were curiously numb and tired. The group got into the car, with Ambrose taking the wheel, and the heavy silence continued until the vehicle had passed out through the gates of the mine enclosure.

“Gil’s phone is out of action,” Ambrose said, turning to Helig. “I suppose the first thing we should do is get you to another one.”

Helig smiled complacently and his eyelids drooped more than was usual. “It isn’t necessary, old boy. I’m accustomed to telephones mysteriously breaking down everywhere I go these days—so I brought a radio transmitter.” He tapped his jacket pocket. “I’ll file my story through a colleague in Matsa. All I need is somewhere to sit in peace for twenty minutes.”