Dwellers in Darkness: The Golden Amazon Saga, Book Fourteen. John Russell Fearn
Thirteen: World in Reverse
Continuing their cosmic crusade amongst the stars, the Golden Amazon and her companions discover a planet in another space where living beings are being synthetically created. The mystery deepens with the discovery that the synthetic race is evolving backwards! Determined to solve these mysteries, the Crusaders find themselves up against the Mithons, a sadistic alien race led by a being known as the Supreme One. Can the Amazon save the day?
CHAPTER ONE
FLIGHT INTO DARKNESS
Darkness, utter and complete. A darkness so intense it was more than blackness: it was the utter absence of all light. In front, to the rear, on all sides, there was not a star, not a glimmer, not even a luminous smudge—and such a condition, in the midst of the Milky Way, was rather surprising.
The only light in the Universe at the moment was inside the huge spaceship Ultra, moving leisurely through the vacuity. The light, atomic-powered, speared back from polished facia and switches, from banks of instruments and the complicated mass of the power plant. Everywhere inside the ship was drenched in the soft radiance, but outside lay the brittle, deadly dark of the void of space without a single guiding star.
A lone observer, clothed entirely in close-fitting black, stirred at last from before of the giant outlook windows of non-reflective glass. She rose and stretched her arm languidly—a magnificent figure of a woman, perfect in physique, beautiful of face, ageless in years. The fabulous golden Amazon of Earth.
“No end to it yet, apparently,” she commented. “Maybe it’s time we had a meal, then we can look again.”
“Good idea,” replied the giant at the control board, and he put in the automatic pilot and then rose to his feet—a classic god of a man, standing seven feet tall and proportionately broad. Here was Abna, once lord of Jupiter, but now the husband of the Amazon and, with her, joint leader of the quartet known as the Cosmic Crusaders, At the moment the other two members of the quartet—Viona, daughter of Abna and the Amazon, and Mexone, husband of Viona, were in the sleeping quarters, waiting to be alerted if anything unusual showed itself.
But nothing did—or had. All four knew that the Ultra had accidentally wandered into the starless region known on Earth as the ‘Coal Sack’, and since then the great vessel had plunged onwards, and still onwards, into the unknown. It was the first time, in all the wanderings through space and dimensions, that any of the four had arrived in a space where light seemed nonexistent.
“Any ideas about this region we’re in?” Abna asked, striding to the nearest window and peering into the vacuum.
“A few, perhaps, but I don’t know how accurate they are.”
The Amazon crossed to her husband’s side and for a while they stood gazing together. Presently Abna’s great arm stole around the Amazon’s shoulder and he laughed a little.
“What?” the Amazon asked, surprise in her depthless violet eyes.
“Oh, I was only thinking. We travel countless light-centuries, visit all manner of worlds and get lost in all sorts of dimensions, yet now we don’t know where we are! A bit of a comedown for the great scientists, isn’t it? Maybe we should go back to Earth and live a quiet life.”
“A quiet life!” There was utter contempt in the Amazon’s voice. “You know how much use we’d have for that don’t you? Our purpose is to always keep going, to bring the benefits of science to—”
“To the worlds that need them,” Abna finished “Yes, Vi, I know—but we’re not doing that right now. We’ve been going for forty-eight hours at a speed about half that of light, and much though I hate to remind you, the power plant is not inexhaustible.”
The Amazon gave a little start and pulled free of Abna’s grip. With the lithe movements of a panther she hurried over to the power plant and surveyed it. Her brows knitted slightly.
“Not much left is there?” Abna asked, coming to her side.
The Amazon did not answer. She stared at the copper cube in the power plant’s matrix—the copper from the atomic energy of which all motive power and light for the ship was derived. It had originally been nearly two feet square. Now it was shrunken to a quarter of the size.
“I’d better cut the accelerative power to zero,” Abna said. “Then we’ll have just enough reserve to repel us from any foreign bodies that may show up.… We’ve got to have copper from somewhere, and quickly. When that’s gone, we haven’t a scrap.”
The Amazon was about to reply when Viona and Mexone came into the control room, both of them obviously refreshed after long sleep.
“So we’re still going!” Viona exclaimed, looking through the window.
“And only a thimbleful of power left,” the Amazon answered her, grimly. “If this dark space doesn’t present a copper-bearing planet pretty soon, we’re going to be in difficulties.”
The Amazon moved from the power plant, her face troubled. “If only we had a star, or something, on which to fix our attention!”
She turned to the windows again and stared out on the utter blackness. Then presently she looked around as Viona touched her on the shoulder.
“Maybe I’m wrong but—” Viona’s blue eyes were anxious. “Maybe I’m wrong, but are the lights in here getting dimmer? They seem more green than they were. Normally they’re blue-white.”
The Amazon, Abna, and Mexone all gazed around them, then after a moment they looked at each other. They were convinced of one thing: there was nothing wrong with Viona’s eyesight. The lights were changing color, altering even as they watched from green to a pale shade of yellow
“The light spectrum’s altering,” the Amazon said at last “If the next apparent color is orange, then we can be pretty sure that light is sliding down the scale to extinction! But—why?”
Nobody answered her, for the simple reason that there did not seem to be an answer—not yet. And sure enough, with the passage of moments, the lights became a dull orange glow.
“Something, somewhere, is producing a spatial warp,” Abna said deliberately. “That causes the normal wavelength of light to be either extended or contracted, to such an extent that light as such has no meaning to our eyes. And we’re steadily flying to the source of the trouble, which is why our lights are dying. If we keep on going, we may fly beyond the center of the disturbance and find light gradually resuming.…”
He stopped abruptly. The lights gradually dimmed, faded some more, and left the four in the control room like spectral presences. Then even this faded, and darkness came. Absolute. Complete. The overwhelming darkness of outer space.
Complete silence. None of the four moved, nor did they panic. Their nerves were too hardened to break down—but each one of them was sorely, desperately puzzled. They began to assess the position. Hurtling through utter blackness at half the speed of light, unable to read instruments, unable to produce light in any form, they had nothing left to rely on now but the utmost ingenuity and level-headedness.
“You there, Abna?” came the Amazon’s voice presently.
“Still here,” he responded. “Stay where you are and I’ll come to you.”
He moved, lunging into the utter darkness, and abruptly he found the Amazon next to him.
The Amazon felt Abna draw away from her, and for a while there was the sound of his movements and a sound like glass being tapped. After a while he came back to her side.
“Testing the thermometer,” he explained. “Fortunately the degree numbers are raised, so I’ve been able to feel their outlines, and the mercury level actuates a sliding pointer which I’ve also been able to feel.” Pause. “We were at sixty-five Fahrenheit: now we’re at sixty-three. So we’re already beginning to lose heat. Neither heat nor light is being conducted anywhere in the ship. From somewhere, something