Mven Mass then switched the projector over to the galaxy NGK 4594 in the Virgo Constellation; this galaxy, also visible in its equatorial plane, had always interested him. It stood at a distance of ten million parsecs from Earth and resembled a thick lentil of burning stellar material wrapped in a layer of luminescent gas. A thick black line, a condensation of dark material, cut the lentil along its equator. The galaxy looked like a mysterious lantern shining out of an enormous abyss.
What worlds were hidden there, in a galaxy whose total radiation was brighter than that of other galaxies and averaged that of an F class star? Were there any mighty inhabited planets there? Was thought there also grappling with the mysteries of nature?
The fact that the huge clusters of stars did not answer made Mven Mass clench his fists. He realized the terrific distances involved — light from the galaxy he was looking at travelled thirty-two million years to reach Earth. Sixty-four million years would be required to exchange information!
Mven Mass selected another reel and on the screen there appeared a big, bright, round patch of light amongst dispersed, faint stars. An irregular black strip cut the patch in two, making the brightly gleaming fiery masses on either side of it still brighter by contrast and thickening towards its ends and overshadowing an extensive field of the burning gas that formed a ring round the bright patch. This was a picture of colliding galaxies in the Cygnus Constellation that had been obtained by the most remarkably ingenious technical set-ups. This collision of giant galaxies, each equal in size to our Galaxy or to the Andromeda Nebula, had long been known as a source of radio emanation, probably the most powerful in the part of the Universe that we could probe. Rapidly moving gas streams of colossal size set up electromagnetic fields of such inconceivable power that they sent out news of the titanic catastrophe to all ends of the Universe. Matter itself sent out this alarm signal from a radio station with a power of a quintillion megawatts. So great was the distance to the galaxies, however, that the picture on the screen showed its state millions of years before. The present state of these two galaxies, passing one through the other, will be known on Earth such a long time after that we cannot say whether terrestrial man will continue to exist so unimaginably long.
Mven Mass jumped up and leaned on the table with both hands so hard that the joints cracked.
Transmission periods of millions of years, covering tens of thousands of human generations and which actually amount to that “never” that is killing to scientific thought, could disappear at the wave of a magic wand — Renn Bose’s discovery and their joint experiment!
Inconceivably distant points of the Universe would be within reach!
Astronomers in ancient days believed the galaxies to be moving apart. The light that reached terrestrial telescopes from distant stellar islands had been changed, light oscillations had lengthened, turning to red waves. This reddening of the light was taken as evidence that the galaxies were receding from the observer. People in the past were accustomed to a direct, one-sided conception of phenomena and they created the theory of a Universe that was moving apart or exploding, not realizing that they saw only one side of the magnificent process of destruction and creation. It was this one aspect — dispersion and destruction, that is, the transition of energy to a lower level in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics — that was conceivable to us and was recorded by instruments constructed to sharpen our senses. The other aspect — accumulation, concentration and creation — was outside man’s concepts because life acquired its strength from energy diffused by the stars, the suns, and our conception of the surrounding Universe took shape on the basis of this. Man’s mighty brain, however, penetrated even into the hidden processes of the creation of worlds and of our Universe. But in those distant times it still seemed that the greater the distance to a galaxy the greater the speed of its motion away from the terrestrial observer. As man penetrated farther into outer space he found galaxies with velocities close to that of light. The end of the visible Universe was the point where galaxies seemed to have reached that velocity although actually no light from them could have reached us and we should not have seen them….
We now know why the light from these galaxies is red. As is usually the case in science there proved to be more than one cause — it is not only due to their recession from us. The only light that reaches us from distant stellar islands is that radiated by their brightest centres. These huge masses of matter are encircled by annular electromagnetic fields that strongly affect light rays, not only by their intensity but also on account of the area they cover; they gradually slow down the light waves until they become longer red waves. In very ancient times astronomers knew that light from very dense stars turns red, the spectral lines shifting towards the red end, so that the star seems to be receding like, for example, the second component of Sirius, the white dwarf Sirius B. The farther away the galaxy, the more centralized is the radiation that reaches us and the stronger the concentration at the red end of the spectrum.
During a very long journey through space light waves, on the other hand, are “shaken up” and the light quanta lose part of their energy. This phenomenon has now been studied — the red waves may also be fatigued “old” waves of ordinary light. Even light waves that penetrate everywhere “grow old” from their journey over tremendous distances. What hope had man of overcoming such distances unless he attack gravitation itself by means of its opposite, following Renn Bose’s calculations?
His anxiety was fading away! He was doing the right thing by carrying out the unprecedented experiment!
Mven Mass, as usual, went out on the observatory veran-dah and began walking swiftly up and down. The distant galaxies still shone in his tired eyes, galaxies that sent waves of red light to Earth like signals calling for help, like appeals to the all-conquering thought of man. Mven Mass laughed softly and confidently. These red rays would become as familiar to man as those at the Fete of the Flaming Bowls that had wrapped Chara Nandi’s body in the red light of life — Chara, who had appeared to him unexpectedly as the copper daughter of Epsilon Tucanae, the girl of his impossible dreams.
And he would direct Renn Bose’s vector precisely at Epsilon Tucanae, not merely in the hope of seeing that wonderful world, but also in honour of her, of its terrestrial representative!
CHAPTER NINE
A THIRD CYCLE SCHOOL
Third Cycle School No. 410 was situated in Southern Ireland. Broad fields, vineyards and oak groves ran down the slopes of the green hills to the very sea. Veda Kong and Evda Nahl arrived when the children were still in class; they walked along a corridor running round class- rooms on the perimeter of a circular building. The day was dull with a drizzle of rain so that all classes were being held indoors instead of out in the open as was more usual.
Veda Kong felt like a schoolgirl again as she crept up to listen at the entrances to the classrooms which, as in the majority of schools, were without doors and shut off by overlapping projecting walls. Evda Nahl joined in the game and the two women peeped into class after class in an attempt to find Evda’s daughter and remain unnoticed themselves.
In the first classroom they saw a drawing in blue chalk covering the whole length of one walclass="underline" it showed a vector that was encircled by a spiral unfolding along it. Two sections of the spiral were encircled by transverse ellipses in which a system of rectangular coordinates was inscribed.