Ivan Yefremov - Andromeda (A Space-Age Tale)

“Did you wear a crown?”

“Oh, yes, and such a crown!” Veda’s finger drew in the air the outline of a wide circle with teeth round it in the shape of clover leaves.

“Shall I see it?”

“This very day. I’ll ask them to show you the film.”

Darr Veter was going to ask who the “they” were but Veda was already greeting the serious-looking physicist who was smiling naively but whole-heartedly.

“Where are the heroes of Achernar?” asked Renn Bose looking at the spaceship that stood in splendid isolation.

“Over there!” Veda pointed to a tent-shaped building of milk-coloured glass and outside girders of lattice-work — the main hall of the cosmoport.

“Let’s go there, then.”

“We’re not wanted there,” said Veda, firmly. “They are watching Earth’s farewell to them. Let’s go to Lebed.”

The men followed her advice.

As she walked beside Darr Veter she asked softly:

“Do I look too absurd in this old-fashioned hair-do? I could….”

“You don’t need to do anything. It makes a charming contrast to your modern dress, plaits longer than your skirt. Let it stay!”

“I obey you, my Veter!” Veda whispered the magic words that made his heart beat faster and brought colour to his pale cheeks.

Hundreds of people were making their way unhurriedly to the ship. Many of them smiled to Veda or greeted her with a raised hand, much more frequently than they did Darr Veter or Renn Bose.

“You’re very popular, Veda,” said Renn Bose, “is that due to your work as a historian or to your notorious beauty?”

“Neither one nor the other. I mix with a lot of people both in my work and in my social engagements. You and Veter, you either hide in the depths of a laboratory or go away alone for some terribly straining night work. You do more for mankind and much more important things than I do but it is all one-sided and not for the side that is nearer the heart. Chara Nandi and Evda Nahl are much more widely known than I am.”

“Again a reproach to our technical civilization?” asked Darr Veter, jokingly.

“Not to ours but to the leftovers of former fatal mistakes. Twenty thousand years ago our troglodyte ancestors knew that art and the development of sensations connected with it were no less important to society than science.”

“In respect of relations between people?” asked the physicist, with interest.

“Exactly.”

“There was an ancient sage who said that the most difficult thing on earth is to preserve joy!” Darr Veter put in. “Look, here comes another of Veda’s loyal allies!”

Mven Mass, with a light, swinging tread, was coming straight towards them, his huge black figure attracting considerable attention.

“Chara’s dance is over!” Veda guessed, “soon we’ll see the crew of Lebed.’“

“If I were them I’d come over here on foot and as slowly as possible,” said Darr Veter, suddenly.

“You’re getting excited,” said Veda taking him by the arm.

“Naturally. For me it’s painful to think that they’re going away for ever and that I’ll never see that ship again. There’s something inside me that protests against that inescapable doom, perhaps because there are people in the ship that are dear to me!”

“That’s probably not the reason,” said Mven Mass as he joined them. His sharp ears had caught Darr Veter’s words. “It’s the inevitable protest of man against implacable time.”

“Autumn sorrow?” asked Renn Bose, with just a shade of irony as he smiled at his friend with his eyes.

“Have you noticed that it is the most energetic, vivacious people with the strongest feelings who mostly like the sad autumn of the temperate zones?” objected Mven Mass patting the physicist on the shoulder in a friendly way.

“That’s true enough,” exclaimed Veda.

“A very ancient observation.”

“Darr Veter, are you there on the field? Darr Veter, are you there on the field? You are wanted on the televisophone of the central building by Junius Antus. Junius Antus is calling you on the TVP of the central building.”

Renn Bose started and straightened up.

“May I go with you, Veter?”

“Go along in my place. It doesn’t matter much to you if you miss the take-off. Junius Antus likes showing things in the old way, the direct reception and not the recording; in that respect he is in complete agreement with Mven Mass.”

The cosmoport possessed a powerful TVP receiver and a hemispherical screen. Renn Bose entered the quiet round room. The operator on duty pressed a button and pointed to a side screen where the excited Junius Antus appeared immediately. He looked closely at the physicist and, realizing why Darr Veter had not come, nodded to Bose.

“I also intended watching the take-off but at the moment there is an explorer-reception going on in the former direction in the 62/77 range. Take the directed ray funnel and focus it on the observatory. I’ll send a vector ray across the Mediterranean to El Homra. Pick it up on the tubular fan and switch on the hemispherical screen.” Junius Antus looked away for a moment and then added, “Hurry up!”

The scientist, experienced in Cosmic reception, did all that had been ordered within two minutes. In the depths of the hemispherical screen a gigantic galaxy appeared which both scientists recognized as the Andromeda Nebula, or M 31, long known to mankind.

In the outer turn of its spiral, the one nearest the onlookers, and almost in the very centre of the lentil-shaped disc of the enormous galaxy, a tiny light appeared. There a whole system of stars branched off, looking like a thin hair although it was probably a huge sleeve of the galaxy a hundred parsecs in length. The light began to grow and the hair became bigger, while the galaxy disappeared beyond the field of vision. A stream of red and yellow stars stretched across the screen. The light changed into a little circle that gleamed at the end of the star stream. On the edge of the stream there was a prominent orange star, spectral class K, and around it the barely perceptible dots of planets were revolving. A disc of light was placed over one of them, completely covering it. Suddenly it all began to whirl round in red curves with sparks flying out of them. Renn Bose closed his eyes.

“That’s a rupture,” said Junius Antus from the side screen. “I’ve shown you a memory machine recording of what we observed last month. Now I’m going to switch on to a direct reception.”

Sparks and dark-red lines were still whirling round on the screen.

“What a peculiar phenomenon!” exclaimed the physicist. “How do you explain that ‘rupture,’ as you call it?”

“I’ll tell you later. The transmission is beginning again. But what is it you think strange?”

“The red spectrum of the rupture. In the Andromeda spectrum there is a violet bias, in other words, it should be drawing closer to us.”

“The rupture has nothing to do with Andromeda, it is a local phenomenon!”

“Do you think it accidental that their transmitting station is placed on the very edge of the galaxy, in a zone that is even farther removed from the centre than the zone of the Sun in our Galaxy?”

Junius Antus cast a sceptical glance at Renn Bose. “You’re prepared to start a discussion at any moment, forgetting that you’re talking with the Andromeda Nebula at a distance of 45 parsecs!”

“Yes, yes,” muttered the embarrassed Renn Bose, “that is, at a distance of a million and a half light years. This communication was transmitted fifteen thousand centuries ago.”

“What we’re looking at now was sent out long before the Ice Age and the appearance of man on Earth!” Junius Antus had become more amicable.