while his frightened brain racked and racked again its scatteredfund of knowledge for an answer to the new problem.
But at last, the narcosis of cellular exhaustion completely overcamehim and he slept.
When he awoke, he was chilled and hungry. The ship had passed into theshadow of Luna and its bulkheads no longer conducted heat to theconvecting air envelope inside from the outer plates, generally warmedby solar radiations. It took him sometime to get warm again.
He pondered anew his predicament. It would be useless to plead forhelp to the Terran space authorities. All interplanetary flights hadbeen grounded since the Asiatics had scattered the epidemic over thewestern world only to have it re-invade their own borders; all thenational governments were fighting rebellion and plaguesimultaneously, and most important of all as far as Dollard wasconcerned, he had effectively outlawed himself from the jurisdictionof all governments by his acts of murder and his treason in fleeingTerra. No, there could be no help from the officials of earth.
Not in present years anyhow, he thought. But, wait! Suppose this plagueshould ultimately die out or be conquered. Then, wouldn't space travel beresumed? If not by the human race, by its successor--whichever race orspecies, if such could happen, that mutated successfully enough to producea plague resistant strain and then evolved a rational brain.
Civilizations rose and toppled in cycles, he knew. Sometime in thenear future or even the far future, another civilization would emergeon Terra and another race would conquer the stars.
But what value was that to him, if he would die in a few days fromlack of oxygen?
No, if he were to be rescued, it had to be soon. By the Venusiancolonists? No hope lay there, either. The second planet was an infantworld, and its people--even if they succeeded in making space travelcommon--would be apt to avoid the Earth-Luna system like the--
He choked: There was no other word for it:--like the plague....
Again, he was conscious of his brief chill. It aroused some elusiveconnection in his brain with a piece of information he had nearlyforgotten. What was it? Cerebration set in, as he sought to pin downthe clue he wanted.... He felt his body chilling....
_Chilling_, he thought. That was it, _deep freezing_.
What cold was colder than the eternal absolute zero of outer space?Where could a person find temperatures lower than those in thecelestial icebox that extended everywhere around him? Just outside hisport window lurked enough chill to keep his body intact for a millionyears!
And in a million years, who knew what cultures would learn to pilotvessels through space and come his way to revive him? Possibly aliencultures whom his superior genius for organizing would enable him todominate. Already, the contemplation of such a possibility renderedthe prospect so alluring he wondered why he was holding back. Why notstep out of the airlock immediately?
* * * * *
It was calm reasoning that deterred him, the realization that if hisscheme for survival were to meet success, he would have to lay hisplans deep enough to meet every contingent possibility.
Two things became immediately apparent as essential: (1) He would haveto adopt a method of self-freezing that would assure instantaneouscessation of his life activities without injuring his body cells byconverting the water to ice. (2) He would have to leave behind him anexplanation of what he had done and sufficient directions concerninghis revivification that he would not be restored so slowly as to alterhis molecular structure, a turn of affairs which would in fact makehim unalterably dead long before he approached normal body warmth.
Now, thoroughly aroused by the possibility of escaping total death,Edwin Dollard fought his way back through the damaged compartments tothe tuberoom. Here were vats of liquid helium, used in Collins enginesto refrigerate the volatile rocket fuel. The helium, Dollard knew, wasin turn kept super-cool by contact with magnetic salts, mostly ironammonium sulphate, the magnetic field being generated by the ship'sauxiliary dynamos when in operation, the ship's batteries at othertimes.
But if one were to open all ports or hatches, allowing the atmosphereto escape, the absolute zero space would infiltrate the ship'sinterior making it unnecessary for either the helium to cool the fuel,or the salts to cool the helium. All would probably approach a stateof absolute heat death. And the body of a man, immersed in the heliumvat, would be preserved for eternity!
Dollard laughed. He would defy Garth yet!
He spent the following day in the most efficient of preparations.Moving about the ship, he posted complete directions for his recoveryin as many languages as he knew. Then, he drew with painstaking care aseries of diagrams that repeated the information in pictograph form.Finally he recorded directions on sound tape and hooked the reproducerto an electron eye so it would commence to play the moment the vesselwas entered.
This task completed, he set about to prepare his own body. It wasimperative that the suspension take place so speedily that none of theanimal heat was retained. For this purpose, he imbibed a heavy amountof alcohol which served to flush his capillaries and distributecalories more equally through his system.
Next, he gathered wiring and rigged up a remote-control board thatwould enable him to open the ship's hatches from sanctuary inside thetuberoom. When finally ready, he stood by the helium vats, opened aswitch on the jerry-built board and listened to the vessel'satmospheric envelope swoosh out in the passages just beyond the sealedtuberoom hatch.
Now, the only air remaining inside the craft was that in the tuberoomitself.
At that moment, the ship circling the mother planet entered the shadowof Terra and chilled perceptibly in the absence of radiated sunlight.
Dollard stripped to his skin. His lips were blue and his limbs weretrembling, despite their cushion of fat. He pressed the last buttonand the pressure inside the room commenced to drop. He stood by thelargest vat until all the oxygen was gone, except that remaining inhis lungs. The outer hatch swung open, admitting the penetrating coldof complete vacuum.
The trapped industrialist exhaled his breath, counted three and divedinto the tank.
His body sank and the atoms of helium temporarily left their randomstate with the influx of heat, but returned quickly as the magneticfield took up the slack, vaporizing the ammonium salts. All was quietagain--
The human brain and the secondary laws of thermodynamics had combinedto thwart the will of a relentless universe.
Edwin Dollard, financial genius and murderer in his time, had enteredinto a state of suspended animation from which only an equalintelligence could ever awaken him.
* * * * *
The planets and their satellites revolved in their orbits foruncounted centuries, until even the fixed stars shifted and formed newconstellations. During this long almost interminable period, noman-made vessels disturbed the equilibrium between the worlds; noman-made radiations penetrated the empty spaces of the solar system. Awanderer from Procyon or Sirius, entering the neighborhood of Sol,might well have suspected he had found nine lifeless spheres pursuinga futile and purposeless course about their flaming parent.
So immutable however are the laws of celestial mechanics, once setinto operation, that Dollard's ship varied not a centimeter in itselliptical path during those endless dragging years.
But organic life, by its very definition, is highly viable, highlypersistent; it is capable of protracted existence in such diverseenvironments as the imbedded hearts of meteors or the currents ofbriny polar seas. It is likewise capable of infinite modificationsunder stress, such as glacial flow, cessation of moisture, loss ofsunlight ... or, the rampant onslaught of bacterial disease.
Hardiest of all forms of life, as proved in the last days of thereptilian age, are the carnivorous mammalian orders; these members aregenerally the most adaptable, intelligent and ubiquitous of livingtypes. And by their conquest of their stubborn environment, they haveproven themselves equally the fiercest.
Thus, it was not surprising that eventually the
derelict spacesbetween the inner planet of Sol were once again the scene of traffic;not bristling traffic perhaps, but sufficient to present concreteproof a new intelligent race had developed on Terra.
Nor was it anymore surprising to Edwin Dollard, when Dollard awoke,aroused from his long sleep--and conscious in the passage of time ofno more than a second's absence from the world of sense andlight--that this life should have found him.
He awoke, aware of stinging pain in his eyelids and the jabbing of athousand needles below the surface of his skin. A glaring white bulb,suspended in an ice-blue ceiling, dug into his pupils with relentlessintensity.
A voice, couched in a low-throated growl, spoke just above his ear inan unintelligible language. A second voice, farther away, answeredwith a guttural purring.
Dollard slowly revolved his field of vision until it rested upon thefirst creature who had spoken. His eyes made out a man-like apparitionin a white smock buttoned to a metal harness, a tall lithe figurewhose curiously pointed face regarded him with unblinking interest.
"You