The Long Voyage - Carl Richard Jacobi

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Long Voyage by Carl Richard Jacoby. When we published
Carl Jacoby's last story, we had no assurance he would
be with us so soon again. For when a uniquely
gifted science fantasy writer becomes radioactive on the entertainment meter

(00:20):
and goes voyaging into the unknown, he may be gone
from the world we know for as long as yesterday's tomorrow.
But Carl Jacoby has not only returned, almost with the
speed of light, he has brought with him shining new
nuggets of wonder and surmise. The Long Voyage by Carl Jacoby.

(00:41):
The secret lay hidden at the end of nine Landings,
and Medusa Dark was one man's search for it in
the strangest journey ever made. A soft, gentle rain began
to fall as we emerged from the dark woods and
came out on to the shore. There it was, the sea,
stretching as far as the eye could reach, gray and

(01:03):
sullen and flecked with green, white froth. The blue hens
or trees crowding close to the water's edge were bent backward,
as if frightened by the bleakness before them. The sand
visible under the clear patches of water, was a bleached white,
like the exposed surface of a huge bone. We stood

(01:25):
there a moment in silence. Then Mason cleared his throat huskily.
Well here goes, he said, We'll soon see if we
have any friends about. He unslung the packsack from his shoulders,
removed its protective outer shield, and began to assemble the
organic surveyor, an egg shaped ball of white carponium secured

(01:50):
to a segmented forty foot rod. While Brandt and I
raised the rod with the aid of an electric fulcrumb,
Mason carefully played his control cabinet on a piece of
outcropping rock and made a last adjustment. The moment had come.
Even above the sound of the sea, you could hear

(02:11):
the strained breathing of the men. Only Navigator Norris appeared unconcerned.
He stood there calmly, smoking his pipe, his keen blue
eyes squinting against the biting wind. Mason switched on the speaker.
Its high frequency scream rose deafeningly above us and was
torn away in unsteady gusts. He began to turn its

(02:34):
center dial, at first a quarter circle and then all
the way to the final backstop of the calibration. All
that resulted was a continuation of that mournful ollilation, like
a wail out of eternity. Mason tried again, with stiff wrists.
He tuned while perspiration stood out on his forehead and

(02:58):
the rest of us crowded close. It's no use, he said.
This pick up failure proves there isn't a vestige of
animal life on Stragella, on this hemisphere of the planet,
at least. Navigator Norris took his pipe from his mouth
and nodded. His face was expressionless. There was no indication

(03:19):
in the man's voice that he had suffered another great disappointment,
his sixth in less than a year. We'll go back now,
he said, and we'll try again. There must be some
planet in the system that's inhabited, but it's going to
be hard to tell the women. Mason let the surveyor
rod down with a crash. I could see the anger

(03:42):
and resentment that was gathering in his eyes. Mason was
the youngest of our party and the leader of the
antagonistic group that was slowly but steadily undermining the authority
of the navigator. This was our seventh exploratory trip after
our sixth life landing. Since entering the field of the

(04:02):
sun Ponthus Ponthus, with its sixteen equal sized planets, each
with a single satellite. First there had been Cholora, then
in swift succession, Jama Tenethon, Mokro, and R nine, and
now Stragella. Strange names of strange worlds revolving about a

(04:26):
strange star. It was navigator Norris who told us the
names of these planets and traced the positions on a
chart for us. He alone of our group, was familiar
with astrogation and cosmography. He alone had sailed the spaceways
in the days before the automatic pilots were installed and

(04:47):
locked and sealed on every ship. A handsome man in
his fortieth year, he stood six feet three, with broad
shoulders and a powerful frame. His eyes were the eyes
of a scholar, dreamy yet alive with depth and penetration.
I had never seen him lose his temper, and he
governed our company with an iron hand. He was not perfect,

(05:10):
of course, like all earthmen, he had his faults. Months
before he had joined with that famed Martian scientist Ganneth
Clay to invent that all use material indure it, the
formula for which had been stolen, and which therefore had
never appeared on the commercial market. Noras would talk about

(05:31):
that for hours. If you inadvertently started him on the subject,
a queer glint would enter his eyes, and he would
dig around in his pocket for a chunk of the
black substance. Did I ever show you a piece of this,
he would say. Look at it carefully, Notice the smooth,
grainless texture, hard and yet not brittle. You wouldn't think

(05:54):
that it was formed in a gaseous state, then changed
to a liquid, and finally to a clay like material
that could be worked with ease. A thousand years after
your body has returned to dust, that piece of indurate
will still exist, unchanged, unworn. Erosion will have little effect
upon it. Beside it, granite still are nothing. If only

(06:17):
I had the formula. But he had only half the formula,
the half he himself had developed. The other part was
locked in the brain of Ganneth Clay, and Ganneth Clay
had disappeared. What had become of him was a mystery.
Noris perhaps had felt the loss more than any one,
and he had offered the major part of his savings

(06:40):
as a reward for information leading to the scientists whereabouts.
Our party, eighteen couples and navigator Norris, had gathered together
and subsequently left Earth in answer to a curious advertisement
that had appeared in the Sunday edition of The London Times.
Wanted a group of married men and women, young, courageous, educated,

(07:05):
tired of political and social restrictions, interested in extraterrestrial colonization,
financial resources, no qualification. After we had been weeded out, interviewed,
and rigorously questioned, Norris had taken us into the hangar,
waved a hand toward the Marie Gallant and explained the details.

(07:27):
The Marie Gallant was a cruiser type ship, stripped down
to essentials to maintain speed, but equipped with the latest
of everything. For a short run to Venus, for which
it was originally built. It would accommodate a passenger list
of ninety, but Norris wasn't interested in that kind of run.

(07:48):
He had knocked out bulkheads, reconverted music room and ball
room into living quarters. He had closed and sealed all
observation ports so that only in the bridge cutting could
once see into space. We shall travel beyond the orbit
of the Sun, he said. There will be no turning
back for the search for a new world, a new

(08:10):
life is not a task for cowards. Aside to me,
he said, you're to be the physician of this party, Bagley,
So I'm going to tell you what to expect when
we take off. We're going to have some mighty sick
passengers aboard. Then, what do you mean, sir, I said,
He pointed with his pipe toward the stern of the vessel.

(08:34):
See that, well, call it a booster. Ganneth Clay designed
it just before he disappeared, using the last lot of
indurate in existence. It will increase our take off speed
by five times, and it will probably have a bad
effect on the passengers. So we had left Earth a
night from a field out in Essex, without orders, without

(08:56):
Clarence papers, without an automatic pilot check, eighteen couples and
one navigator, destination unknown. If the Interstellar Council had known
what Norris was up to, it would have been a
case for the Space Time Commission of that long initial
lap of our voyage. Perhaps the less said the better,

(09:19):
As always is the case, when monotony begins to wear
away the veneer of civilization character quirks came to the surface.
Cliques formed among the passengers, and gossip and personalities became
matters of pre eminent importance. Rising to the foreground. Out
of our thirty six came Fielding Mason, Tall, taciturn and handsome,

(09:41):
with a keen intellect and a sense of values remarkable
in so young a man. Mason was a graduate of Montape,
the French outgrowth of Saint Cyr, but he had majored
in military tactics, psychology, and sociology, and knew nothing at
all about astrogation or even element astronomy. He too was

(10:02):
a man of good breeding and refinement. Nevertheless, conflict began
to develop between him and Navigator Norris. That conflict began
the day we landed on Cholora. Noras stepped out of
the airlock into the cold, thin air, glanced briefly about him,
and faced the eighteen men assembled. We'll divide into three groups,

(10:24):
he said, Each group to carry an organic surveyor and
take a different direction. Each group will so regulate its
marching as to be back here without fail an hour
before darkness sets in. If you find no sign of
animal life, then we will take off again immediately on
your return. Mason paused half way in the act of

(10:47):
strapping on his packsack. What's that got to do with it,
he demanded. There's vegetation here, that's all that seems to
be necessary. Norris lit his pipe. If you find no
signs of animal life, we will take off immediately on
your return, he said, as if he hadn't heard. But

(11:07):
the strangeness of Cholora tempered bad feelings. Then the blue
hents or trees were actually not trees at all, but
a huge cat tail like growth, the stalks of which
were quite transparent. In between the stalks grew curious cabbage
like plants that changed from red to yellow as an
intruder approached, and back to red again after he had passed.

(11:32):
Rock outcroppings were everywhere, but all were eroded and in
places polished smooth as glass. There was a strange kind
of dust that acted as though endowed with life. It
quivered when trod upon, and the outline of our footsteps
slowly rose into the air, so that looking back, I

(11:52):
could see our trail floating behind us in irregular layers.
Above us, the star that was the planet Sun shone
bright but faintly red, as if it were in the
first stages of dyeing. The air, though then was fit
to breathe, and we found it unnecessary to wear spacesuits.

(12:13):
We marched down the corridors of hints or trees until
we came to an open spot, a kind of glade,
and that was the first time Mason tuned his organic
surveyor and received absolutely nothing. There was no animal life
on Cholora. Within an hour we had blasted off again.

(12:34):
The forward impact delivered by the Ganeth clay booster was terrific,
and nausea and vertigo struck us all simultaneously. But again
with all ports and observation shields sealed shut, Noris held
the secret of our destination. On July twenty second, the
ship gave that sickening lurch and came once again to

(12:56):
a standstill. Same procedure as before, Norris said, stepping out
of the airlock. Those of you who desire to have
their wives accompany you may do so. Mason, you'll make
a final correlation on the organic surveyors. If there is
no trace of animal life, return here before dark. Once

(13:16):
our group was out of side of the ship, Mason
threw down his pack sack, sat down on a boulder,
and lighted a cigarette. Bagley, He said to me, has
the old man gone loco? I think not, I said, frowning.
He's one of the most evenly balanced persons I know.
Then he's hiding something. Mason said, whales. Should he be

(13:38):
so concerned with finding animal life? You know the answer
to that. I said, We're here to colonize, to start
a new life. We can't very well do that on
a desert. That's poppycock, Mason replied, flinging away his cigarette.
When the Albertson expedition first landed on Mars, there was

(13:58):
no animal life on the red planet. Now look at it.
Same thing was true when Breslauer first settled Pluto. The
colonies there got along. I tell you, Norris has got
something up his sleeve, and I don't like it. Later,
after Mason had taken his negative surveyor reading the Flame
of Trouble reached the end of its views, Norris had

(14:21):
given orders to return to the Marie Gallant, and the
rest of us were suddenly making ready to start the
back trail. Mason, however, deliberately seized his pick and began
chopping a hole in the rock surface preparatory, apparently to
erecting his plastic tent. We'll make temporary camp here, he said, calmly, Brandt,

(14:43):
you can go back to the ship and bring back
the rest of the women. He turned and smiled sardonically
at Navigator Norris. Norris quietly knocked the ashes from his
pipe and placed it in his pocket. He strode forward,
took the pick for Mason's hands, and flung it away.
Then he seized Mason by the coat, whipped him around,

(15:05):
and drove his fists hard against the younger man's jaw.
When you signed on for this voyage, you'll agreed to
obey my orders, he said, not raising his voice. You'll
do just that. Mason picked himself up, and there was
an ugly glint in his eyes. He could have smashed
Norris to a pulp, and none knew it better than

(15:27):
the navigator. For a brief instant, the younger man swayed
there on the balls of his feet, fists clench. Then
he let his hands drop and walked over and began
to put on his packsack. But I had seen Mason's face,
and I knew he had not given in as easily
as it appeared. Meanwhile, he began to circulate among the passengers,

(15:49):
making no offers, yet suddenly enlisting backers for a policy,
the significance of which grew on me slowly. It was mutiny.
He was plodding, and his personal charm and magnetism he
had little trouble in winning over converts. I came upon
him arguing before a group of the women one day,

(16:09):
among them his own wife, a Stell. He was standing
close to her. We have clothing and equipment and food concentrate,
Mason said, enough to last two generations. We have brains
and intelligence, and we certainly should be able to establish
ourselves without the aid of other vertebrate forms of life Cholora, Jama, Tenethon,

(16:33):
Mokrel R nine, and Stragala. We could have settled on
any one of those planets, and apparently we should have,
for conditions have grown steadily worse at each landing. But
always the answer is no, because Noris says we must
go on until we find animal life. He cleared his
throat and gazed at the feminine faces before him. Go

(16:54):
Where what makes Norris so sure he'll find life on
any planet in this system? And incidentally, where in the
cosmos is this system one of the women. A tall
blonde stirred uneasily. What do you mean, she said, I
mean we don't know if our last landing was on

(17:14):
Stragella or Cholora. I mean we don't know where we
are or where we're going, and I don't think Norris
does either. We're lost. That was in August. By the
last of September, we had landed on two more planets,
to which Norris gave the simple names of R twelve
and R fourteen. Each had crude forms of vegetable life,

(17:38):
represented principally by the blue hence or trees, but in
neither case did the organic surveyor reveal the slightest traces
of animal life. There was, however, a considerable difference in
physical appearance between R twelve and R fourteen, and for
a time that fact excited Norris tremendously. Up to then,

(18:02):
each successive planet, although similar in size, had exhibited signs
of greater age than its predecessor. But on R twelve
there were definite manifestations of younger geologic development. Several pieces
of shale lay exposed under a fold of igneous rock.
Two of those pieces contained fossils of highly developed ganoids

(18:26):
similar to those found on Venus. They were perfectly preserved.
It meant that animal life had existed on R twelve,
even if it didn't now. It meant that R twelve,
though a much older planet than Earth, was still younger
than Stragella or the Rust. For a while, Norris was
almost beside himself. He cut out rock samples and carried

(18:49):
them back to the ship. He personally supervised the tuning
of the surveyors, and when he finally gave orders to
take off, he was almost friendly to Mason, where as
before his attitude toward him had been one of cold aloofness.
But when we reached R fourteen, our eighth landing, all

(19:10):
that passed for our fourteen was old again, older than
any of the others. And then on October sixteenth, Mason
opened the door of the locked cabin. It happened quite
by accident. One of the aralium thoxide conduits broke in
the Marieka lance central passageway, and the resulting explosion grounded

(19:32):
the central feed lines of the instrument equipment in a trice.
The passageway was a sheet of flame, rapidly filling with
smoke from burning insulation. Norris, of course was in the
bridge cutting with locked doors between us and him, and
now with the wiring burned through, there was no way
of signaling him he was wanted for an emergency. In

(19:55):
his absence, Mason took command. That passageway ran the full
length of the ship. Midway down, it was the door
leading to the women's lounge. The explosion had jammed that
door shut, and smoke was pouring forth from under the sill.
All at once. One of the women rushed forward to
announce hysterically that Mason's wife, Estelle, was in the lounge.

(20:19):
Adjoining the lounge was a small cabin, which, since the
beginning of our voyage had remained locked. Norris had given
strict orders that that cabin was not to be disturbed.
We all had taken it as a matter of course
that it contained various kinds of precision instruments. Now, however,
Mason realized that the only way into the lounge was

(20:42):
by way of that locked cabin. If he used a
heat blaster on the lounge door, there was no telling
what would happen to the woman inside. He ripped the
emergency blaster from its wall mounting pressed to the magnetic
latch of the sealed cabin door and pressed the stud.
An instant later, he was leading his frightened wife Estelle

(21:03):
out through the smoke. The fire was quickly extinguished after that,
and the wiring spliced. Then, when the others had drifted off,
Mason called Brandt and me aside. We've been wondering for
a long time what happened to Ganneth Clay, the Martian
inventor who worked with Norris to invent inder it. He said,

(21:24):
very quietly, well, we don't need to wonder any more.
He's in there. Brandt and I stepped forward over the
sill and drew up short. Ganneth Clay was there all right,
but he would never trouble himself about making a voyage
and a lot cabin. His rigid body was encased in
a transparent block of amber colored solid effects, the after

(21:48):
death preservative used by all Martians. Both of us recognized
his still features at once, and in addition, his name tattoo,
required by Martian law, was clearly visible on his left
forearm for a brief instant. The discovery stunned us Clay
Dead Clay, whose IQ had become a measuring guide for

(22:11):
the entire system, whose Martian had held more ordinary horse sense,
in addition to radical postulations on theoretical physics, than anyone
on the planets. It was impossible, And what was the
significance of his body on Norris's ship? Why had Norris
kept its presence a secret? And why had he given

(22:32):
out the story of Clay's disappearance. Mason's face was as
cold as ice. Come with me, you two, he said,
We're going to get the answer to this right now.
We went along the passage to the circular staircase. We
climbed the steps, passing through the scuttle, and came to
the door of the bridge cutting. Mason drew the bar

(22:55):
and we passed in. Norris was bent over the chart table.
He looked up sharply at the sound of our steps.
What is the meaning of this intrusion? He said. It
didn't take Mason long to explain. When he had finished,
he stood there jos set, eyes smoldering. Norris paled. Then

(23:15):
quickly he got control of himself, and his old bland
smile returned. I expected you to blunder into Clay's body
one of these days, he said. The explanation is quite simple.
Clay had been ill for many months, and he knew
his time was up. His one desire in life was
to go on this expedition with me, and he made

(23:37):
me promise to bury him at the sight of our
new colony. The pact was between him and me, and
I've followed it to the letter, telling no one. Mason's
lips curled and a sneer. And just what makes you
think we're going to believe that story? He demanded, Norris
lit a cigar. It's entirely immaterial to me whether you

(24:00):
believe it or not. But the story was believed, especially
by the women to whom the Romantic angle appealed. And
Mason's embryonic mutiny died without being born, and the Marie
Gallant sailed on through uncharted space toward her ninth and
last landing. As the days dragged by and no word

(24:21):
came from the bridge cutting restlessness began to grow amongst us.
Rumor succeeded Romor, each story wilder and more incredible than
the rest. Then, just as the tension had mounted to
fever pitch, there came the sickening lurch and grinding vibration
of another landing. Noris dispensed with his usual talk before

(24:43):
marching out from the ship. After testing the atmosphere with
the ozonometer, he passed out the heat pistols and distributed
the various instruments for computing radioactivity and cosmic radiation. This
is the planet in Nizar, he said, shortly largest in
the field of the sun. Ponthus you will make your

(25:05):
survey as one group this time. I will remain here.
He stood, watching us as we marched off down the
cliff side. Then the blue hints or trees rose up
to swallow him from view. Mason swung along at the
head of our column, eyes bright, a figure of aggressive action.

(25:25):
We had gone but a hundred yards when it became
apparent that as a planet, Nizar was entirely different from
its predecessors. There was considerable topsoil, and here grew a tall,
reed shaped plant that gave off varying chords of sound
when the wind blew. It was as if we were
progressing through the nave of a mighty church with a

(25:46):
muted organ. In the distance. There was animal life too,
a strange lizard like bird that rose up in flocks
ahead of us and flew screaming overhead. I don't exactly
like it badly, he said, there's something unwholesome about this planet.
The evolution is obviously in an early state of development,

(26:07):
but I get the impression that it has gone backward,
that the planet is really old and has reverted to
its earlier life. Above us, the sky was heavily overcast,
and a tenuous white mist rising up from the hintsword
trees formed curious shapes and designs. In the distance. I
could hear this washing of waves on a beach. Suddenly

(26:30):
Mason stopped. Look. He said, below us stretched the shore
of a great sea. But it was the structure rising
up from that shore that drew a sharp exclamation from me.
Shaped in a rough ellipse, yet mounted high toward a
common point, was a large building of multiple hues and colors.

(26:52):
The upper portion was eroded to crumbling ruins, the lower
parts studded with many bas reliefs and triangular doorways. Let's go,
Mason said, breaking out into a fast sloping run. The
building was farther away than we had thought, but when
we finally came up to it, we saw that it

(27:13):
was even more of a ruin than it had at
first appeared. It was only a shell with but two walls,
standing alone and forlorn. Whatever race had lived here, they
had come and gone. We prowled about the ruins for
more than an hour. The carvings on the walls were
in the form of geometric designs and cabbalistic symbols, giving

(27:35):
no clue to the city's former occupant's identity. And then
Mason found the stairs leading to the lower crips. He
switched on his auto flash and led the way down cautiously.
Level one, level two, three. We descended lower and lower. Here,
water from the nearby sea oozed in little rivulets that

(27:58):
glittered in the light of the flash. We emerged at
length on a wide underground plaisance, a kind of amphitheater
with tier on tier of seats surrounding it and extending
back into the shadows. Judging from what I have seen,
Mason said, I would say that the race that built
this place had reached approximately a grade C five of

(28:22):
civilization according to the Mochart's scale. This apparently was their
council chamber. What are those rectangular stone blocks? Depending from
the ceiling, I said, Mason turned the light beam upward.
I don't know, he said, but my guess is that
they are burial vaults. Perhaps the creatures were ornithoid. Away

(28:47):
from the flash, the floor of the plaisants appeared to
be a great mirror that caught our reflections and distorted
them fantastically and horribly. We saw then that it was
a form of living mold, composed of millions of tiny plants,
each with an eye like iris at its center. Those
eyes seemed to be watching us, and as we strode forward,

(29:09):
a great sigh rose up, as if in resentment at
our intrusion. There was a small triangular dais in the
center of the chamber, and in the middle of it
stood an irregular black object. As we drew nearer, I
saw that it had been carved roughly in the shape
of this central building, and that it was in a

(29:30):
perfect state of preservation. Mason walked around this carving several times,
examining it curiously. Odd he said, it looks to be
an object of religious veneration. But I never heard before
of a race worshiping a replica of their own living quarters.
Suddenly his voice died off. He bent closer to the

(29:52):
black stone, studying it in the light of the powerful autoflash.
He got a small magnified glass out of his pocket
and focused it on one of the miniature bought reliefs
midway toward the top of the stone. Unfastening his geologic
hammer from his belt, he managed, with a sharp swinging

(30:13):
blow to break off a small protruding piece. He drew
in his breath sharply, and I saw his face go pale.
I stared at him in alarm. What's wrong, I asked.
He motioned that I follow, and led the way silently
past the others toward the stair shaft. Climbing to the

(30:33):
top level was a heart pounding task, but Mason almost
ran up those steps. At the surface, he leaned against
a pillar, his lips quivering spasmodically. Tell me I'm saying badley,
he said, huskily. Or rather, don't say anything until we've
seen Norris. Come on, We've got to see Norris all

(30:54):
the way back to the Marie Gallant. I sought to
soothe him, but he was a man possessed. He rushed
up the ship's gangway, burst into central quarters, and drew
up before Navigator Norris like a runner, stopping at the tape.
You damn lying hypocrite, he yelled. Norris looked at him
in his quiet way. Take it easy, Mason, he said,

(31:16):
sit down and explain yourself. But Mason didn't sit down.
He thrust his hand in his pocket, pulled out the
piece of black stone he had chipped off the image
in the cavern, and handed it to Norris. Take a
look at that, he demanded. Norris took the stone, glanced
at it, and laid it down on his desk. His

(31:36):
face was emotionless. I expected this sooner or later, he said, yes,
it's indur it all right? Is that what you want
me to say? There was a dangerous, fanatical glint in
Mason's eyes. Now, with a sudden, quick motion, he pulled
out his heat pistol. So you tricked us, he snarled. Why.

(32:00):
I want to know why. I stepped forward and seized
Mason's gun hand. Don't be a fool, I said. It
can't be that important. Mason threw back his head and
burst into an hysterical peal of laughter. Important, he cried.
Tell him how important it is, Norris, tell him quietly.

(32:23):
The navigator filled and lighted his pipe. I'm afraid Mason
is right, he said, I did trick you, not purposely, however,
and in the beginning I had no intention of telling
anything but the truth. Actually, we're here because of a
dead man's vengeance. Norris took his pipe from his lips

(32:44):
and starred at it absently. You'll remember that Ganneth Clay,
the Martian, and I worked together to invent Indurate. But
whereas I was interested in the commercial aspects of that product,
Clay was absorbed only in the experimental angle of it.
He had some crazy idea that it should not be

(33:04):
given to the general public at once, but rather should
be allocated for the first few years to a select
group of scientific organizations. You see, indur it was such
a departure from all known materials that Ganneth Clay feared
it would be utilized for military purposes. I took him
for a dreamer and a fool. Actually he was neither.

(33:27):
How was I to know that his keen penetrating brain
had seen through my motive to get control of all
commercial marketing of Induran. I had laid my plans carefully,
and I had expected to reap a nice harvest. Clay
must have been aware of my innermost thoughts, but martian like,
he said nothing. Norris paused to wet his lips and

(33:49):
lean against the dusk. I didn't kill Ganneth Clay, he continued,
though I suppose in a court of law I would
be judged responsible for his death. The manufacture of indur
It required some ticklish work. As you know, we produced
our halves of the formula separately. Physical contact with my
half over a long period of time would prove fatal.

(34:13):
I knew, and I simply neglected to so inform Ganneth Clay.
But his ultimate death was a boomerang. With Clay gone,
I could find no trace of his half of the formula.
I was almost beside myself for a time. Then I
thought of something. Clay had once said that the secret
of his half of the formula lay in himself, a

(34:35):
vague statement, to say the least, But I took the
words at their face value and gambled that he meant
them literally, that is, that his body itself contained the formula.
I tried everything X ray, chemical analysis of the skin.
I even removed the cranial cap and examined the brain microscopically,

(34:57):
all without result. Meanwhile, the l were beginning to direct
their suspicions toward me in the matter of Clay's disappearance.
You know the rest. It was necessary that I leave
Earth at once and go beyond our system, beyond the
jurisdiction of the planetary police. So I arranged this voyage
with a sufficient complement of passengers to lessen the danger

(35:20):
and hardship of a new life on a new world.
I was still positive, however, that Clay's secret lay in
his dead body. I took that body along, encased in
the Martian preservative solidifix. It was my idea that I
could continue my examination once we were safe on a
strange planet. But I had reckoned without Ganeth Clay. What

(35:45):
do you mean, I said slowly. I said Clay was
no fool, but I didn't know that. With Martian stoicism,
he suspected the worst and took his own ironic means
of combating it. He is the last lot of inder.
It to make that booster, a device which he said
would increase our take off speed. He mounted it on

(36:08):
the Marie Gallant Mason. That device was no booster. It
was a time machine, so devised as to catapult the
ship not into outer space, but into the space time continuum.
It was a mechanism designed to throw the Marie Gallant
forward into the future. A cloud of fear began to

(36:30):
well over me. What do you mean, I said again,
Navigator Norris paced around his desk. I mean that the
Marie Gallant has not once left Earth, has not in
fact left the spot of its moorings, but has merely
gone forward in time. I mean that the nine landings

(36:52):
we made were not stops on some other planets, but
halting stages of a journey into the future. Had a
bomb shell burst over my head, the effect could have
been no greater. Cold perspiration began to ooze out on
my forehead. In a flash, I saw the significance of
the entire situation. That was why Noris had been so

(37:14):
insistent that we always returned to the ship before dark.
He didn't want us to see the night sky and
the constellations there, for fear we would guess the truth.
That was why he had never permitted any of us
in the bridge cutty, and why he had kept all
ports and observation shields closed. But the names of the

(37:35):
planets Chlora, Stragella and the others, and the positions on
the chart, I objected, Noris smiled grimly. All words created
out of my imagination. Like the rest of you, I
knew nothing of the true action of the booster. It
was only gradually that truth dawned on me. But by

(37:56):
the time we had made our first landing, I had guessed.
That was why I demanded we always take organic surveyor readings.
I knew we had traveled far into future time, far
beyond the life period of man on Earth, but I
wasn't sure how far we had gone, and I lived
with a hope that Clay's booster might reverse itself and

(38:17):
start carrying us backwards down the centuries. For a long time,
I stood there in silence, a thousand mad speculations racing
through my mind. How about that piece of endure it,
I said at length. It was chipped off an image
in the ruins of a great building a mile or
so from here, an image, repeated Norris. A faint glow

(38:41):
of interest slowly rose in his eyes. Then it died.
I don't know, he said. It would seem to presuppose
that the formula, both parts of it, was known by Clay,
and that he left it for posterity to discover. All
this time Mason had been standing there, eyes smoldering lips,
an ugly line. Now, abruptly he took a step forward.

(39:05):
I've wanted to return this for a long time, he said.
He doubled back his arm and brought his fists smashing
into Norris's jaw. The navigator's head snapped backward. He gave
a low groan and slumped to the floor. And that
is where, by all logic this tale should end. But
as you may have guessed, there is an anticlimax, what

(39:27):
story tellers call a happy conclusion. Mason Brandt and I
worked and worked alone on the theory that the secret
of the endured formula would be the answer to our
return down the time trail. We removed the body of
ganneth Clay from its solid effects envelope and treated it
with every chemical process we knew. By sheer luck, the

(39:50):
fortieth trial worked, a paste of carbo genethon mixed with
the crushed seeds of the Martian iron flower was spread
over Clay's chins an abdomen, and there in easily decipherable
code was not only the formula, but the working principles
of the ship's booster, or rather time catapult. After that,

(40:14):
it was a simple matter to reverse the principle and
throw us backward in the time stream. We are heading
back as I write these lines. If they reach print
and you read them, it will mean our escape was successful,
and that we return to our proper slot in the
epilogue of human events. There remains, however, one matter to

(40:34):
trouble me. Navigator Norris. I like the man. I like
him tremendously in spite of his cold blooded confession and
past record. He must be punished, of course, but I
for one, would hate to see him given the death penalty.
It is a serious problem. End of The Long Voyage

(41:00):
by Carl Richard Jacobi