Chapter I: Foreword

1 FREEDOM IN TIME AND SPACE
2 "THIS COULD DESTROY THE UNIVERSE"
3 EXPLORERS INTO INFINITY
4 THE WATCHERS
5 THE RETURN
6 THE FLIGHT INTO TIME, SIZE AND SPACE
7 "A SINGLE STARLIT NIGHT--AN ETERNITY"
8 THE ENCOUNTER IN THE FOREST GLADE
9 "DWINDLING GIANTS FROM LARGENESS UNFATHOMABLE"
10 THE SOLITARY VOYAGER
11 BRAVE LITTLE BEACON STRIVING TO PIERCE INFINITY

_FOREWORD_

_Some of my present readers will doubtless remember "The Girl in the Golden Atom." When I wrote that book of the realm of infinite smallness there was in my mind its logical converse, the realm of the infinitely large. The one a complement to the other. And so I offer "Explorers Into Infinity," in no sense as a sequel to "The Girl in the Golden Atom," for fictionally they have no connection, but rather as its companion story._

_You will find here a complete theory of the material universe as I conceive it may perhaps really be. To my own imagination--and I think very likely to your own--it is difficult to conceive of an infinite distance beyond the stars--empty Space stretching out forever. Nor is Einstein more satisfying to me, rather less so, for out beyond the Einstein system of curved Space must lie something or nothing. It is the nothingness which puzzles me. I have tried vainly to imagine a realm, infinitely large, of unending nothingness. Time is equally puzzling. I can conceive of eventful eons lying ahead of us; but rob that time of its future events and I flounder. To me at least, the conception of Time with nothing ever happening anywhere is impossible. To me also, an event presupposes the existence of something; and so, in my effort to imagine the infinitely large--Space illimitable, Time unending--I am forced to conceive what must fill that Space, what must happen to create that time._

_You may call this tale fantastic, weird, bizarre. Doubtless it is. But with our most powerful microscopes reaching inward so tiny a distance to see no end in infinite smallness; our greatest telescopes groping futilely out into largeness unending to our vision, what is left but our imagination? And that, at least, we can send winging into the infinite!_

_I would not have you fear from this foreword that my story may be some pedantic, heavily technical exposition. It is not; for it is fiction only--a romance with which to entertain you; an effort, by using fictional methods, to reduce theories purely imaginative into concrete form with as great a degree of plausibility as may be. It is this only I desire: to carry you with me as you read; to make plausible this flight of our imaginations momentarily set free from the tiny everyday universe which is all we have physically to envisage._

RAY CUMMINGS.

_CHAPTER 1_

FREEDOM IN TIME AND SPACE

I was busy with the Martian mail which had just arrived when the message from Brett Gryce reached me. I did not apprehend that there was anything of secrecy about it, since he was using the open air; yet there was in his voice a note of tenseness and his summons was urgent.

"I can't come, Brett, until I get through the mail." I was rushed, and in a mood of ill-temper at the universe in general.

"When will that be?" he demanded.

"I don't know. It's accursedly large. Most of it seems to call for radio distribution--these Martians are always in a hurry."

"Come when you can," he said quietly.

"Tonight?"

"Yes--tonight. No matter how late--I must see you, Frank."

"I'll come," I said, and cut him off.

It was long past trinight, with dawn beginning to brighten the sky beyond the masonry of lower Great-New York, when I had disposed of those miserable Martian dispatches. The Gryces lived in the Southern Pennsylvania area. My aerocar was at hand. I had rather planned to use it; but I was tired and in no mood for effort. I decided to take the pneumatic, since there was a branch--little traveled, it is true--which would drop me within some twenty kilometers of the Gryce home.

They gave me an individual cylinder, with a bed if I cared to sleep. I did not. I lay there wondering what Brett could want of me; pleased also that I would see Francine--dear little Frannie. . . .

Occasionally I would call the Director ahead. They are sometimes careless in the switching of special individual cylinders; and I had no wish to pass the branch and find myself bringing up at some gulf terminal with half the morning getting back. Once I called Brett. He would meet me with his aero at the end of the branch when I arrived. He, too, reminded the Director. A surly sort of fellow; the Gryces had already reported him to the General Traffic Staff of Great-London.

I was not misdirected, however; but it was broad daylight when I emerged to find Brett impatiently awaiting me. And in a few minutes more we were landing at the aero-stage beside the Gryce home.

It was a simple enough place--for all Dr. Gryce's reputed wealth. An estate of a few kilometers, set in a heavy grove of trees with a high metallic wall about it. The granite house itself was small, unpretentious. There were few outbuildings; one a large rectangular affair which vaguely I understood was a workshop. I had never been in it. I knew old Dr. Gryce was interested in science; in his day he had materially advanced civilization with several fundamental devices. But what--if anything--he might be doing now, I had no idea.

Brett would tell me nothing beyond the fact that his father had suggested they send for me. But he seemed excited, tense. Dr. Gryce greeted me with his familiar kindliness. Though I did not see as much of this family as I would like (my business with the Interplanetary Mails was wholly underpaid and miserably confining), yet I counted the Gryces among my closest friends.

Dr. Gryce said, "We are very glad to see you, Frank. Come outside. Frannie is preparing breakfast."

His manner was grave and quiet as always. But there was about him also an air of tenseness; and an aspect of apprehension. And it struck me, a sort of weary, resigned depression which suddenly made his years sit more heavily upon him. He was a man of some eighty odd; and though for him no more than twenty or thirty years of life could be anticipated, I had never considered him really old. He was small, slight of frame, but erect, sturdy and vigorous. A smooth-shaven face with no more lines upon it than a keen intellect and a character once wholly forceful would engrave. And a mass of snow-white shaggy hair to make his head appear preternaturally large.

He seemed old now, however, with that sense of depression hanging upon him. And an indefinable aspect of fear.

I must allot a word to picture the three children of Dr. Gryce, motherless since childhood. Brett was now twenty-eight--three years older than myself, and physically my opposite. I am short, slender and rather dark. And--so they tell me--not too even of temper. Brett was a blond young giant. Crisp, wavy blond hair, blue eyes and the strong-featured, ruddy face of a handsome athlete. But not too handsome, for there was upon him no consciousness of his essentially masculine beauty. He was wonderfully good-natured. His was a ready, hearty laugh. He looked at life often from the humorous viewpoint. But he had also a touch of his father's grave dignity; and a keen intellect and a soberness of thought and reason far beyond his years.

The two other children--Martynn and Francine--were twins, now just seventeen. Alike, physically and temperamentally, as children of a birth traditionally should be. Slim and rather small--Martynn about my height; Francine somewhat shorter. Both blue-eyed, with blond hair. Francine's hair was long-waving tresses which she wore generally in plaits over her shoulders; Martynn's was short and curly. They were rather alike of feature; a delicacy of mold which gave to Martynn a girlishness. But not an effeminacy, for he was a young daredevil; and his sister hardly a lesser one. In childhood and adolescence an impish spirit of deviltry had always seemed to possess these twins; a spirit of mischief which had made them a great trial to their father. It had turned, now that they were nearing maturity, into an apparent desire for reckless adventure--the product of abounding health, and bubbling, irrepressible good nature. They adored each other; were constantly together, with youthful escapades threatening limb and life and complete disaster, out of which they would emerge or be extricated with dauntless spirits unperturbed.

The greater maturity of womanhood at seventeen had brought to Frannie moments of gentleness, sweetness and a simple dignity. But they were brief moments, and no more than a word or look from her twin was needed to dispel them. Martt himself was without a vestige of dignity. But they were no fools, these twins. They could, upon strict necessity, give sober, intelligent thought to any problem at hand (Martynn had won honors at the Great-London University); but of sober, matured action they were incapable. Fearless--unreasonably fearless. But irresistible, likable, and apparently quite capable of being restrained. A word from Dr. Gryce, or from Brett--and to a lesser extent from me who had known them from childhood--brought instant though often very temporary obedience. They considered themselves quite grown up now. In truth, at seventeen, Frannie was to my eyes a really beautiful young woman.