“Yes.”
“If you’d gone any further, you wouldn’t be here now to remember it. That force is bloody real.”
“I was told,” I said, “that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light.”
“That’s true. Nothing does. In theory the world’s circumference is infinitely long and moves at infinite speed. But there is, or there is considered to be, a point where matter ceases to exist, and serves as an effective circumference. That point is where the spinning of the world imparts a velocity on the matter equivalent to the speed of light.”
“So it’s not infinite.”
“Not quite. But bloody big. Look at the sun.”
“I have,” I said. “Often.”
“That’s the same. If it wasn’t spinning it would be, literally, infinitely large.”
I said: “Even so, in theory it is that large. How can there be room for more than one object of infinite size?”
“There’s an answer to that. You won’t like it.”
“Try me.”
“Go to the library, and find one of the astronomical books. It doesn’t matter which. They’re all Earth planet books, so they all have the same assumptions. If we were now on Earth planet we would be living in a universe of infinite size, which would be occupied by a number of large, but finite, bodies. Here the inverse is the rule: we live in a large but finite universe, occupied by a number of bodies of infinite size.”
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“I know,” said Blayne. “I said you wouldn’t like it.”
“Where are we?”
“No one knows.”
“Where is Earth planet?”
“No one knows that either.”
I said: “Down past something strange happened. I was with three girls. As we went south, their bodies changed. They—”
“Did you see anyone up future?”
“No, we… we kept away from the villages.”
“North of optimum the local people change physically. They become very tall and thin. The further north we travel, the more the physical factors change.”
“I’ve only been about fifteen miles north.”
“Then you probably wouldn’t have noticed anything peculiar. Further than thirty-five miles north of optimum, it’s very strange.”
Later, I said: “Why does the ground move?”
“I’m not sure,” said Blayne.
“Is anyone?”
“No.”
“Where is it moving to?”
“More to the point,” said Blayne, “where is it moving from?”
“Do you know?”
“Destaine said that the movement of the ground was cyclic. Fle says in his Directive that the ground is actually stationary at the north pole. Further south, it is moving very slowly towards the equator. The nearer it approaches to the equator the faster it moves, both angularly, because of the rotation, and linearly. At the furthest extreme it is moving in two directions at once at infinite speed.”
I stared at him. “But—”
“Wait… it’s not finished. The world has a southern part too. If the world was a sphere it would be called a hemisphere, but Destaine adopted it for convenience. In the southern hemisphere, the opposite is true. That is, the ground moves from the equator towards the south pole, steadily decelerating. At the south pole it is stationary again.”
“You still haven’t said where the ground moves from.”
“Destaine suggested that north and south poles were identical. In other words, once any point on the ground reaches the south pole it reappears at the north pole.”
“That’s impossible!”
“Not according to Destaine. He says that the world is shaped like a solid hyperbola; that is, all limits are infinite. If you can imagine that, the limits adopt the characteristics of their opposite value. An infinite negative becomes an infinite positive, and vice versa.”
“Are you quoting him verbatim?”
“I think so. But you should read the original.”
“I intend to,” I said.
Before Blayne left the city to go north, we agreed that when the crisis outside the city was settled we would ride together.
Alone once more, I read through the copy of Destaine’s Directive that Blayne obtained for me from Clausewitz.
It consisted of several pages of closely printed text, much of which would have been incomprehensible to me had I read it when I had first ventured outside the city. Now, with my own ideas and experiences, and with what Blayne had said, it served only to confirm. I saw some of the sense of the guild system: the experience had laid the way to understanding.
There was a lot of theoretical mathematics, interspersed with profuse calculations, at which I glanced only briefly. Of more interest was what appeared to be a hurried journal, and some sections caught my eye:
We are a long way from Earth. Our home planet is one I doubt we shall ever see again, but if we are to survive here we must maintain ourselves as a microcosm of Earth. We are in desolation and isolation. All around us is a hostile world that daily threatens our survival. As long as our buildings remain, so long shall man survive in this place. Protection and preservation of our home is paramount.
Later he wrote:
I have measured the rate of regression at one tenth of a statute mile in a period of twenty-three hours and forty-seven minutes. Although this southwards drift is slow it is relentless; the establishment shall therefore be moved at least one mile in every ten day period.
Nothing must stand in the way. We have already encountered one river, and it was crossed at great hazard. Doubtless we shall encounter further obstacles in the days and miles ahead, and by then we must be ready. We must concentrate on finding some indigenous materials that can be stored permanently within the buildings for later use as construction materials. A bridge should not be too difficult to build if we have enough warning.
Sturner has been forward and warns of a marshy region some miles ahead. Already we have sent other teams to north-east and northwest to determine the extent of this marsh. If it is not too wide we can deviate from due north for a time, and make up the difference later.
Following this entry were two pages of the theory Blayne had tried to explain to me. I read it through twice, and each time it made slightly better sense. I left it and read on. Destaine wrote:
Chen has provided the inventory of fissionable materials I requested. All of it waste! With the translat generator, no more need! Said nothing to L. I enjoy the arguments with him… why curtail them now? Future generations will be warm!
Today’s outside temperature: — 23°C. Still we move north.
Later:
Trouble with one of the caterpillar tracks. T. has advised me to authorize stripping them. Says that Sturner reports from the north that he has found what appears to be the remains of a railway line. Some incredible scheme to run the establishment along the tracks somehow. T. says it would work O.K.
Later:
Decided to create a guild system. Pleasant archaism that everyone approves. A way of structuring the organization without drastically changing the way the place is run, but I think it might impose a form to the establishment that will survive us all.
Caterpillar-track stripping proceeding well. Has caused a long delay. Hope we can catch up.
Natasha gave birth today: boy.
Doctor S. gave me some more pills. Says I’m working too hard, and have to rest. Later, maybe.
Towards the end of the Directive, a more didactic tone emerged:
What I have written here shall be privy only to those who venture outside; no need for those inside the establishment to be reminded of our dreadful prospects. We are organized enough: we have sufficient mechanical power and human initiative to maintain us safely in this world for ever more. Those who follow must learn the hard way of what will happen if we fail to exploit either our power or our initiative, and this knowledge will suffice to keep both working to the maximum.