The Expert Dreamers (1962) Anthology by Frederik Pohl (ed.)

Author:Frederik Pohl (ed.) [Pohl, Frederik]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci-Fi Collection
Publisher: Avon
Published: 1962-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

The Milky Way was a glowing arch spanning the heavens like the gateway to infinity. Below along the coastline the lights of a score of towns sparkled in the evening breeze. Slater drew back the sleeve of his coat revealing the illuminated dial of his wrist watch.

“Nine o’clock,” he announced. “Time for the end of the world.” He glanced over the peaceful landscape. “Well, everything seems to be intact so far. No signs of coming loose at the seams yet.”

He shifted his gaze to the northeast where the Andromeda Nebula was a dim spot of light with the features of a human face barely visible in the background.

“Hm-m-m. Mrs. Thompson is barely fifth magnitude tonight/’ he observed. “In another week she’ll have faded from sight entirely. Gone but not forgotten.”

Rea shifted his position against the iron railing upon which he was leaning. “You said once there were a dozen ways of explaining a face in the sky. So far I haven’t heard a single one.”

“Of course I was exaggerating/’ said Slater. “Three or four would have been more like it.”

“The chief difficulty I should say in framing a suitable theory is that great masses of matter like Andromeda don’t seem to fit into the universe in the first place. There they are dotted all over the sky except where they’re blocked out along the Milky Way. Long ago Sir James Jeans remarked that the external galaxies seem like singular points where matter is being poured into our universe from some entirely extraneous spatial dimension. More recently Gold and Bondi have shown that if our laws of physics are to retain any meaning then we are forced to the conclusion that matter is being created continually in space, at the rate of one hydrogen atom per cubic meter every three hundred thousand years. Not enough to make us feel cramped very soon. They call it the ‘perfect cosmological principle.’ Naturally they don’t mean that matter is really being created. What they mean is that matter is somehow being intruded into our space from outside.”

He waved his hand in the general direction of Andromeda. “In local regions of space it may be possible for matter to be created at a much faster rate. In Mrs. Thompson’s case something must have got badly out of control. There was rage in heaven—a celestial crack-up—and we got a glimpse of a sight we were never intended to see. It was as simple as that.”

“But that fat face in the sky!” Rea cried impatiently. “Don’t tell me seriously that you ever expect to fit that into any rational theory.”

“I often wonder if theoretical physics can ever really explain anything/’ said Slater soberly. “In the last analysis, I wonder if theoretical physics can ever do more than merely describe?”

He stood for a minute looking moodily down at the lights of the towns along the coastline. When he spoke again it was in a different voice from the bantering tone he usually employed.

“People are forever asking for explanations.

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