Arthur Clarke - No Morning After

But this is terrible! said the Supreme Scientist. Surely there is something we can do!

Yes, Your Cognizance, but it will be extremely difficult. The planet is more than five hundred light-years away, and it is very hard to maintain contact. However, we believe we can establish a bridgehead. Unfortunately, that is not the only problem. So far, we have been quite unable to communicate with these beings. Their telepathic powers are exceedingly rudimentaryperhaps even nonexistent. And if we cannot talk to them, there is no way in which we can help.

There was a long mental silence while the Supreme Scientist analysed the situation and arrived, as he always did, at the correct answer.

Any intelligent race must have some telepathic individuals, he mused. We must send out hundreds of observers, tuned to catch the first hint of stray thought. When you find a single responsive mind, concentrate all your efforts upon it. We must get our message through.

Very good, Your Cognizance. It shall be done.

Across the abyss, across the gulf which light itself took half a thousand years to span, the questing intellects of the planet Thaar sent out their tendrils of thought, searching desperately for a single human being whose mind could perceive their presence. And as luck would have it, they encountered William Cross.

At least, they thought it was luck at the time, though later they were not so sure. In any case, they had little choice. The combination of circumstances that opened Bills mind to them lasted only for seconds, and was not likely to occur again this side of eternity.

There were three ingredients in the miracle: it is hard to say if one was more important than another. The first was the accident of position. A flask of water, when sunlight falls upon it, can act as a crude lens, concentrating the light into a small area. On an immeasurably larger scale, the dense core of the Earth was converging the waves that came from Thaar. In the ordinary way, the radiations of thought are unaffected by matterthey pass through it as effortlessly as light through glass. But there is rather a lot of matter in a planet, and the whole Earth was acting as a gigantic lens. As it turned, it was carrying Bill through its focus, where the feeble thought impulses from Thaar were concentrated a hundredfold.

Yet millions of other men were equally well placed: they received no message. But they were not rocket engineers: they had not spent years thinking and dreaming of space until it had become part of their very being.

And they were not, as Bill was, blind drunk, teetering on the last knife-edge of consciousness, trying to escape from reality into the world of dreams, where there were no disappointments and setbacks.

Of course, he could see the Armys point of view. You are paid, Dr Cross, General Potter had pointed out with unnecessary emphasis, to design missiles, notahspaceships.

What you do in your spare time is your own concern, but I must ask you not to use the facilities of the establishment for your hobby. From now on, all projects for the computing section will have to be cleared by me. That is all.

They couldnt sack him, of course: he was too important. But he was not sure that he wanted to stay. He was not really sure of anything except that the job had back-fired on him, and that Brenda had finally gone off with Johnny Gardnerputting events in their order of importance.

Wavering slightly, Bill cupped his chin in his hands and stared at the whitewashed brick wall on the other side of the table. The only attempt at ornamentation was a calendar from Lockheed and a glossy six-by-eight from Aerojet showing Lil Abner Mark I making a boosted take-off. Bill gazed morosely at a spot midway between the two pictures, and emptied his mind of thought. The barriers went down

At that moment, the massed intellects of Thaar gave a soundless cry of triumph, and the wall in front of Bill slowly dissolved into a swirling mist. He appeared to be looking down a tunnel that stretched to infinity. As a matter of fact, he was.

Bill studied the phenomenon with mild interest. It had a certain novelty, but was not up to the standard of previous hallucinations. And when the voice started to speak in his mind, he let it ramble on for some time before he did anything about it. Even when drunk, he had an old-fashioned prejudice against starting conversations with himself.

Bill, the voice began, listen carefully. We have had great difficulty in contacting you, and this is extremely important.

Bill doubted this on general principles. Nothing was important any more.

We are speaking to you from a very distant planet, continued the voice in a tone of urgent friendliness. You are the only human being we have been able to contact, so you must understand what we are saying.

Bill felt mildly worried, though in an impersonal sort of way, since it was now rather hard to focus on his own problems. How serious was it, he wondered, when you started to hear voices? Well, it was best not to get excited. You can take it or leave it, Dr Cross, he told himself. Lets take it until it gets to be a nuisance.

O.K., he answered with bored indifference. Go right ahead and talk to me. I wont mind as long as its interesting.

There was a pause. Then the voice continued, in a slightly worried fashion.

We dont quite understand. Our message isnt merely interesting. Its vital to your entire race, and you must notify your government immediately.

Im waiting, said Bill. It helps to pass the time.

Five hundred light-years away, the Thaams conferred hastily among themselves. Something seemed to be wrong, but they could not decide precisely what. There was no doubt that they had established contact, yet this was not the sort of reaction they had expected. Well, they could only proceed and hope for the best.

Listen, Bill, they continued. Our scientists have just discovered that your sun is about to explode. It will happen three days from nowseventy-four hours, to be exact. Nothing can stop it. But theres no need to be alarmed. We can save you, if youll do what we say.

Go on, said Bill. This hallucination was ingenious.

We can create what we call a bridgeits a kind of tunnel through space, like the one youre looking into now. The theory is far too complicated to explain, even to one of your mathematicians.

Hold on a minute! protested Bill. I am a mathematician, and a darn good one, even when Im sober. And Ive read all about this kind of thing in the science-fiction magazines. I presume youre talking about some kind of short cut through a higher dimension of space. Thats old stuffpre-Einstein.

A sensation of distinct surprise seeped into Bills mind.

We had no idea you were so advanced scientifically, said the Thaarns. But we havent time to talk about the theory. All that matters is thisif you were to step into that opening in front of you, youd find yourself instantly on another planet. Its a short cut, as you saidin this case through the thirty-seventh dimension.

And it leads to your world?

Oh noyou couldnt live here. But there are plenty of planets like Earth in the universe, and weve found one that will suit you. Well establish bridgeheads like this all over Earth, so your people will only have to walk through them to be saved. Of course, theyll have to start building up civilization again when they reach their new homes, but its their only hope. You have to pass on this message, and tell them what to do.

I can just see them listening to me, said Bill. Why dont you go and talk to the president?

Because yours was the only mind we were able to contact. Others seemed closed to us: we dont understand why.

I could tell you, said Bill, looking at the nearly empty bottle in front of him. He was certainly getting his moneys worth. What a remarkable thing the human mind was! Of course, there was nothing at all original in this dialogue: it was easy to see where the ideas came from. Only last week hed been reading a story about the end of the world, and all this wishful thinking about bridges and tunnels through space was pretty obvious compensation for anyone whod spent five years wrestling with recalcitrant rockets.