"Laurence Manning - The Living Galaxy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Manning Laurence)

difficulty. This would have been the total distribution of humanity but for three prehistoric inventions that
occurred among the ancients who inhabited the "Earth" planet. Let us examine these.
First came the release of atomic power, the first freeing of humanity from the necessity of using its
manpower. The early engines and motors were, presumably, crude and dangerous but the result of the
invention was, nevertheless, to enable power to be used to the limit of the raw material available in the
planets. It rendered trips from one planet to another possible on a practical scale, instead of being
gigantic adventures that could be afforded only once a century.
Second, arising out of the first, was atomic synthesis. This was observed as a phenomenon in the
exhaust tubes of atomic rocket motors and it was found that the product could be controlled if the
exhausts were surrounded by heavy induction magnets turned on and off with very high frequency. The
"Earth" was now freed of its last need for labor. Food, metals, fabrics could be produced at will by
atomic power using any handy raw materialтАФrock and water being, of course, most common.
Now the "Earth" was deserted by thousands of explorers who settled down on the five remaining
planets of the original solar system. These were not habitable without artificial air and heat, but the two
great inventions mentioned above had solved all difficulties. One planet called "Mercury" was so near the
sun of that system that it called for cooling and not until millions of years later was this perfected. The
ability to reduce the heat of a body in isolated space is nowadays a mere technical commonplaceтАФyet it
involves transforming heat into energy and energy into matter.
We have, then, a human race existing on the planets of one star. The life of a man lasted little more
than one century. For this reason, exploration of other stars came slowly, for a whole lifetime was used
up in the mere trip. Had it not been for the third great invention, the human race might still have lived and
died in one tiny corner of one universe. This invention was the rejuvenating operation which we all
undergo every hundred years today. It came slowly and was not perfected without accident and many
deaths. In principle, it is simpleтАФbeing the familiar law of biology that hybridizing renews the youth of
two aged parent races. The difficulty lay in its practice, for to hybridize the thousands of different cell
types in the human body called for skill and technique then unknown. The result, historically, was to
permit the long trips of exploration and colonization which in a few million years spread mankind over the
planets of the "First Universe" and, subsequently, throughout all the universes and galaxies in space.
Of late, this steady, peaceful expansion has slowed down. The reason is that few new planets remain.
In every direction we have spread to the very edge of matter and have come to a stop. For "space" as
we know it is finite and its "curvature" that ancient men so brilliantly argued has been actually found and
studied by us. As the very outermost planets grow more thickly populated and as further studies and
observations are reported, we shall, perhaps, know more than now. What actually constitutes this end of
matter is still a mystery. The action of light and electricity is warped and bent there and so far, the only
data available is due to the work of Bzonn, the chief actor in this lesson. His trip beyond space occupied
a period of fifteen million years and since one of the results was to prevent the destruction of the human
race before it had spread outside of the stars of the "First Universe," he may be called the most important
character in history.
Just at the time when the human race was engrossed in possibilities of new exploration in distant
galaxies and universes, with thousands of huge rocket-ships under construction, astronomers reported in
alarm a violent "shift to the red" in one area of the sky. As all of you have had toy spectroscopes, you
know what this means. Over an area ten degrees of arc across, the star background seemed to be flying
apart at terrific speedтАФhundreds of times faster than anything ever observed. As the centuries passed, it
was seen that a void was being created where once stars had been. A great black empty area thrust its
way down toward the First Universe which then contained all the human race. It was like a vast cone,
point down, and in it there appeared to be nothingтАФabsolutely nothing. Beyond it the blank space
extended to infinity and not even the most powerful telescopes showed any trace of distant stars.
As the years passed, it was seen that the cone's point would at its present rate touch the First
Universe in a few more millions of years. Yet what action could be taken? Most scientists were resigned
to the role of mere observers. Not so Bzonn!