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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/31601-h.zip b/31601-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d69c7a4 --- /dev/null +++ b/31601-h.zip diff --git a/31601-h/31601-h.htm b/31601-h/31601-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc876e2 --- /dev/null +++ b/31601-h/31601-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1335 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of An Empty Bottle, by Mari Wolf + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; background-color: #FFFFFF; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +.tr {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 2em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: dotted black 1px;} + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 25%; + margin-right: 20%; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-right: 0.25em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + + + +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Empty Bottle, by Mari Wolf + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: An Empty Bottle + +Author: Mari Wolf + +Release Date: March 11, 2010 [EBook #31601] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN EMPTY BOTTLE *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="tr"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<p class="center">This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science Fiction September 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p></div> +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="400" height="579" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/image_001.jpg" width="400" height="582" alt="" title="" /> +</div> +<p> </p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><b><i>They wanted to go home—back to the planet they'd known. +But even the stars had changed. Did the fate of all creation +hinge upon an—</i></b></div> + + +<h1> +AN<br /> +EMPTY<br /> +BOTTLE +</h1> +<p> </p> +<h2>By Mari Wolf</h2> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_h.jpg" alt="H" width="38" height="40" /></div> +<p>ugh McCann took the last of the photographic plates out of the +developer and laid them on the table beside the others. Then he picked +up the old star charts—Volume 1, Number 1—maps of space from various +planetary systems within a hundred light years of Sol. He looked +around the observation room at the others.</p> + +<p>"We might as well start checking."</p> + +<p>The men and women around the table nodded. None of them said anything. +Even the muffled conversation from the corridor beyond the observation +room ceased as the people stopped to listen.</p> + +<p>McCann set the charts down and opened them at the first sheet—the +composite map of the stars as seen from Earth. "Don't be too +disappointed if we're wrong," he said.</p> + +<p>Amos Carhill's fists clenched. He leaned across the table. "You still +don't believe we're near Sol, do you? You're getting senile, Hugh! You +know the mathematics of our position as well as anybody."</p> + +<p>"I know the math," Hugh said quietly. "But remember, a lot of our +basics have already proved themselves false this trip. We can't be +sure of anything. Besides, I think I'd remember this planet we're on +if we'd ever been here before. We visited every planetary system +within a hundred light years of Sol the first year."</p> + +<p>Carhill laughed. "What's there to remember about this hunk of rock? +Tiny, airless, mountainless—the most monotonous piece of matter we've +landed on in years."</p> + +<p>Hugh shrugged and turned to the next chart. The others clustered +around him, checking, comparing the chart with the photographic plates +of their position, finding nothing familiar in the star pattern.</p> + +<p>"I still think we would have remembered this planet," Hugh said. "Just +because it <i>is</i> so monotonous. After all, what have we been looking +for, all these years? Life. Other worlds with living forms, other +types of evolution, types adapted to different environments. This +particular planet is less capable of supporting life than our own +Moon."</p> + +<p>Martha Carhill looked up from the charts. Her face was as tense and +strained as her husband's, and the lines about her mouth deeply +etched. "We've got to be near Earth. We've just got to. We've got to +find people again." Her voice broke. "We've been looking for so +long—"</p> + +<p>Hugh McCann sighed. The worry that had been growing in him ever since +they first left the rim of the galaxy and turned homeward deepened +into a nagging fear. He didn't know why he was afraid. He too hoped +that they were near Earth. He almost believed that they would soon be +home. But the others, their reactions—He shook his head.</p> + +<p>They no longer merely hoped. With them, especially with the older, +ones, it was faith, a blind, unreasoning, fanatic faith that their +journey was almost over and they would be on Earth again and pick up +the lives they had left behind fifty-three years before.</p> + +<p>"Look," Amos Carhill said. "Here are our reference points. Here's +Andromeda Galaxy, and the dark nebula, and the arch of our own Milky +Way." He pointed to the places he had named on the plates. "Now we can +check some of these high magnitude reference stars with the charts."</p> + +<p>Hugh let him take the charts and go through them, checking, rejecting. +Carhill was probably right. He'd find Sol soon enough.</p> + +<p>It had been too long for one shipful of people to follow a quest, +especially a hopeless one. For fifty-three years they had scouted the +galaxy, looking for other worlds with life forms. A check on diverging +evolutions, they had called it—uncounted thousands of suns without +planets, bypassed. Thousands of planetary systems, explored, or merely +looked at and rejected. Heavy, cold worlds with methane atmospheres +and lifeless rocks without atmospheres and even earth-sized, +earth-type planets, with oceans and oxygen and warmth. But no life. No +life anywhere.</p> + +<p>That was one of the basics they had lost, years ago—their belief that +life would arise on any planet capable of supporting it.</p> + +<p>"We could take a spectrographic analysis of some of those high +magnitude stars," Carhill said. Then abruptly he straightened, eyes +alight, his hand on the last chart. "We don't need it after all. +Look! There's Sirius, and here it is on the plates. That means Alpha +Centauri must be—"</p> + +<p>He paused. He frowned and ran his hand over the plate to where the +first magnitude star was photographed. "It must be. Alpha Centauri. It +has to be!"</p> + +<p>"Except that it's over five degrees out of position." Hugh looked at +the plate, and then at the chart, and then back at the plate again. +And then he knew what it was that he had feared subconsciously all +along.</p> + +<p>"You're right, Amos," he said slowly. "There's Alpha Centauri—about +twenty light years away. And there's Sirius, and Arcturus and +Betelgeuse and all the others." He pointed them out, one by one, in +their unfamiliar locations on the plates. "But they're all out of +position, in reference to each other."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_h.jpg" alt="H" width="38" height="40" /></div> +<p>e stopped. The others stared back at him, not saying anything. Little +by little the faith began to drain out of their eyes.</p> + +<p>"What does it mean?" Martha Carhill's voice was only a whisper.</p> + +<p>"It means that we discarded one basic too many," Hugh McCann said. +"Relativity. The theory that our subjective time, here on the ship, +would differ from objective time outside."</p> + +<p>"No," Amos Carhill said slowly. "No, it's a mistake. That's all. We +haven't gone into the future. We can't have. It isn't possible that +more time has elapsed outside the ship than—"</p> + +<p>"Why not?" Hugh said softly. "Why not millions of years? We've +exceeded the speed of light, many times."</p> + +<p>"Which disproves that space-time theory in itself!" Carhill shouted.</p> + +<p>"Does it?" Hugh said. "Or does it just mean we never really understood +space-time at all?" He didn't wait for them to answer. He pointed at +the small, far from brilliant, star that lay beyond Alpha Centauri on +the plates. "That's probably Sol. If it is, we can find out the truth +soon enough."</p> + +<p>He looked at their faces and wondered what their reactions would be, +if the truth was what he feared.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The ship throbbed softly, pulsating in the typical vibrations of low +speed drive. In the forward viewscreens the star grew larger. The +people didn't look at it very often. They moved about the corridors of +the ship, much as they usually moved, but quietly. They seemed to be +trying to ignore the star.</p> + +<p>"You can't be sure, Hugh." Nora McCann laid her hand on her husband's +arm.</p> + +<p>"No, of course I can't be sure."</p> + +<p>The door from their quarters into the corridor was open. Several more +people came in—young people who had been born on the ship. They were +talking and laughing.</p> + +<p>"Would it be so hard on the young ones, Hugh? They've never seen the +Earth. They're used to finding nothing but lifeless worlds +everywhere."</p> + +<p>One of the young boys in the hall looked up at the corridor viewscreen +and pointed at the star and then shrugged. The others turned away, not +saying anything, and after a minute they left and the boy followed +them.</p> + +<p>"There's your answer," Hugh McCann said dully. "Earth's a symbol to +them. It's home. It's the place where there are millions more like us. +Sometimes I think it's the only thing that has kept us sane all these +years—the knowledge that there is a world full of people, somewhere, +that we're not alone."</p> + +<p>Her hand found his and he gripped it, almost absently, and then he +looked up at their own small viewscreen. The star was much bigger now. +It was already a definite circle of yellow light.</p> + +<p>A yellow G-type sun, like a thousand others they had approached and +orbited around and left behind them. A yellow sun that could have been +anywhere in the galaxy.</p> + +<p>"Hugh," she said after a moment, "do you really believe that thousands +of years have gone by, outside?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what to believe. I only know what the plates show."</p> + +<p>"That may not even be Sol, up ahead," she said doubtfully. "We may be +in some other part of space altogether, and that's why the charts are +different."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps. But either way we're lost. Lost in space or in time or in +both. What does it matter?"</p> + +<p>"If we're just lost in space it's not so—so irrevocable. We could +still find our way back to Earth, maybe."</p> + +<p>He didn't answer. He looked up at the screen and the circle of light +and his lips tightened. Whatever the truth was, they didn't have long +to wait. They'd be within gravitational range in less than an hour.</p> + +<p>He wondered why he was reacting so differently from the others. He was +just as afraid as they were. He knew that. But he wasn't fighting the +thought that perhaps they had really traveled out of their own time. +He wondered what it was that made him different from the other old +ones, the ones like Carhill who refused even to face the possibility, +who insisted on clinging to their illusions in the face of the +photographic evidence.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_h.jpg" alt="H" width="38" height="40" /></div> +<p>e didn't think that he was a pessimist. And yet, after only three +years of their trip, after only fifty Earthlike but lifeless worlds, +he had been the first to consider the possibility that life was unique +to Earth and that their old theories concerning its spontaneous +emergence from a favorable environment might be wrong.</p> + +<p>Only Nora had agreed with him then. Only Nora could face this +possibility with him now. The two of them were very much alike in +their outlooks. They were both pragmatists.</p> + +<p>But this time there would be no long years during which the others +could slowly shift their opinions, slowly relinquish their old beliefs +and turn to new ones. The yellow sun was too large and urgent in the +screen.</p> + +<p>"Hugh!"</p> + +<p>He turned to the door and saw Amos Carhill standing there, bracing +himself against the corridor wall. There was no color at all in +Carhill's face.</p> + +<p>"Come on up to the control room with me, Hugh. We're going to start +decelerating any minute now."</p> + +<p>Hugh frowned. He would prefer to stay and watch their approach on the +screen, with Nora at his side. He had no duties in the control room. +He was too old to have any part in the actual handling of the ship. +Amos was old, too. But they would be there, all the old ones, looking +through the high powered screens for the first clear glimpse of the +third planet from the sun.</p> + +<p>"All right, Amos." Hugh got up and started for the door.</p> + +<p>"I'll wait here for you, Hugh," Nora said.</p> + +<p>He smiled at her and then followed Carhill out into the crowded +corridor. No one spoke to them. Most of the people they passed were +neither talking, nor paying any attention to anything except the +corridor screens, which they could no longer ignore. The few who were +talking spoke about Earth and how wonderful it would be to get home +again.</p> + +<p>"You're wrong, Hugh," Amos said suddenly.</p> + +<p>"I hope I am."</p> + +<p>The crowd thinned out as they passed into the forward bulkheads. The +only men they saw now were the few young ones on duty. Except for +their set, anxious faces they might have been handling any routine +landing in any routine system.</p> + +<p>The ship quivered for just a second as it shifted over into +deceleration. There was an instant of vertigo and then it was gone and +the ship's gravity felt as normal as ever. Hugh didn't even break +stride at the shift.</p> + +<p>He followed Carhill to the control room doorway and pushed his way in, +taking a place among the others who already clustered about the great +forward screen. The pilot ignored them and worked his controls. The +screen cleared as the ship's deceleration increased. The pilot didn't +look at it. He was a young man. He had never seen the Earth.</p> + +<p>"Look!" Amos Carhill cried triumphantly.</p> + +<p>The screen focused. The selector swung away from the yellow sun and +swept its orbits. The dots that were planets came into focus and out +again. Hugh McCann didn't even need to count them, nor to calculate +their distance from the sun. He knew the system too well to have any +trouble recognizing it.</p> + +<p>The sun was Sol. The third planet was the double dot of Earth and +moon. He realized suddenly that he had more than half expected to see +an empty orbit.</p> + +<p>"It's the Earth all right," Carhill said. "We're home!"</p> + +<p>They were all staring at the double dot, where the selector focused +sharply now. Hugh McCann alone looked past it, at the background of +stars that were strewn in totally unfamiliar patterns across the sky. +He sighed.</p> + +<p>"Look beyond the system," he said.</p> + +<p>They looked. For a long time they stared, none of them speaking, and +then they turned to Hugh, many of them accusingly, as if he himself +had rearranged the stars.</p> + +<p>"How long have we been gone?" Carhill's voice broke.</p> + +<p>Hugh shook his head. The star patterns were too unfamiliar for even a +guess. There was no way of knowing, yet, how long their fifty-three +years had really been.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_c.jpg" alt="C" width="31" height="40" /></div> +<p>arhill shook his head, slowly. He turned back to the screen and +stared at the still featureless dot that was the Earth. "We can't be +the only ones left," he said.</p> + +<p>No one answered him. They were still stunned. They couldn't even +accept, yet, the strange constellations on the screen.</p> + +<p>End of the voyage. Fifty-three years of searching for worlds with +life. And now Earth, under an unfamiliar sky, and quite possibly no +life at all, anywhere, except on the ship.</p> + +<p>"We might as well land," McCann said.</p> + +<p>The ship curved away from the night side of the Earth and crossed +again into the day. They were near enough so that the planetary +features stood out sharply now, even through the dense clouds that +rose off the oceans. But although the continental land masses and the +islands were clearly defined, they were as unrecognizable as the star +constellations had been.</p> + +<p>"That must be North America," Amos Carhill said dully. "It's smaller +than the continent on the night side...."</p> + +<p>"It might be anywhere," Hugh McCann said. "We can't tell. The oceans +look bigger too. There's less land surface."</p> + +<p>He stared down at the topography thousands of miles below them. +Mountains rose jaggedly. There were great plains, and crevasses, and a +rocky, lifeless look everywhere. No soil. No erosion, except from the +wind and the rains.</p> + +<p>"There's no chlorophyll in the spectrum," Haines said. "It seems to +rule out even plant life."</p> + +<p>"I don't understand." Martha Carhill turned away from the screen. +"Everything's so different. But the moon looked just exactly like it +always did."</p> + +<p>"That's because it has no atmosphere," Hugh said. "So there's no +erosion. And no oceans to sweep in over the land. But I imagine that +if we explored it we'd find changes. New craters. Maybe even new +mountains by now."</p> + +<p>"How long has it been?" Carhill whispered. "And even if it's been +millions of years, what happened? Why aren't there any plants? Won't +we find anything?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe there was an atomic war," the pilot said.</p> + +<p>"Maybe." Carhill had thought of that too. Probably all of them had. +"Or maybe the sun novaed."</p> + +<p>No one answered him. The concept of a nova and then of its dying down, +until now the sun was just as it had been when they left, was too +much.</p> + +<p>"The sun looks hotter," Carhill added.</p> + +<p>The ship dropped lower, its preliminary circle of the planet +completed. It settled in for a landing, just as it had done thousands +of times before. And the world below could have been any of a thousand +others.</p> + +<p>They dropped quickly, braking through the atmosphere, riding it down. +The topography came up to meet them and the general features blurred, +leaving details standing out sharply, increasing in sharpness as if +the valleys and mountains below were tiny microscopic crystals under a +rapidly increasing magnification.</p> + +<p>The pilot picked their landing place without difficulty. It was a +typical choice, a spot on the broad shelving plain at the edge of the +ocean. The type of base from which all tests on a planet could be run +quickly, and a report written up, and the files of another world +closed and tagged with a number and entered in one of the great +storage encyclopedias.</p> + +<p>Even to Hugh there was an air of unreality about the landing, as if +this planet wasn't really Earth at all, despite its orbit around the +sun, despite its familiar moon. It looked too much like too many +others.</p> + +<p>The actual landing was over quickly. The ship quivered, jarred +slightly, and then was still, resting on the gravelled plain that had +obviously once been part of the ocean bed. The ocean itself lay only a +few hundred yards away.</p> + +<p>Hugh McCann looked out through the viewscreen, turned to direct vision +now. He stared at the waves swelling against the shore and his sense +of unreality deepened. Even though this was what he had more than half +expected, he couldn't quite accept it, yet.</p> + +<p>"We might as well go out and look around," he said.</p> + +<p>"Air pressure, Earth-norm." Haines began checking off the control +panel by rote. "Composition: oxygen, nitrogen, water vapor—"</p> + +<p>"There's certainly nothing out there that could hurt us," Martha +Carhill snapped. "What could there be?"</p> + +<p>"We might check for radioactivity," Hugh said quietly.</p> + +<p>She turned and stared at him. Her mouth opened and then snapped shut +again.</p> + +<p>"No," Haines said. "There's no radioactivity either. Everything's +clear. We won't need space suits."</p> + +<p>He pressed the button that opened the inner locks.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_c.jpg" alt="C" width="31" height="40" /></div> +<p>arhill glanced over at him and then switched on the communicator, and +the noises from the rest of the ship flooded into the control room. +Everywhere people were milling about. Snatches of talk drifted in, +caught up in the background as various duty officers, reported +clearance on the landing. Most of the background voices were young, +talking too loudly and with too much forced cheerfulness about what +lay outside the ship.</p> + +<p>Hugh sighed, as aware of all the people as if he were out in the +corridors with them. It was the space-born ones who were doing most of +the talking. The children, the young people, the people no longer +young but still born since the voyage started, still looking upon +Earth more as a wonderful legend than as their own place of origin.</p> + +<p>The old ones, those who had left the Earth in their own youth, had the +least of all to say. They knew what was missing outside. The younger +ones couldn't really know. Even the best of the books and the pictures +and the three dimensional movies can give only a superficial idea of +what a living world is like.</p> + +<p>"Hugh." Carhill clutched his arm.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Amos."</p> + +<p>"There must be people, somewhere. There have to be. Our race can't be +dead."</p> + +<p>Hugh McCann looked past him, out at the sky and the clouds of water +vapor that swirled up to obscure the sun. The stars, of course, were +completely hidden in the daylight.</p> + +<p>"If there are any others, Amos, we can be pretty certain they're not +on Earth."</p> + +<p>"They may have left. They may have gone somewhere else."</p> + +<p>"No!" Martha Carhill's face twisted and then went rigid. "There's no +one anywhere. There can't be. It's been too long. You saw the stars, +Amos—the stars—all wrong, every one of them!"</p> + +<p>Her hands came up to her face and she started to cry. Amos crossed +over to her and put his arms around her.</p> + +<p>Hugh McCann watched them for a moment and then he turned and left them +and went out through the locks after the young people. He didn't know +what to think. He wished that they had never turned back to Earth at +all, that they had kept going, circling around the rim of the galaxy +forever.</p> + +<p>He went through the outer lock and then down the ramp to the ground.</p> + +<p>He stood on the Earth again, for the first time since his early youth. +And it was not the same. There was bare rock under his feet and bare +rock all around him, gravel and boulders and even fine grained sand. +But no dust. No dirt. No trace of anything organic or even ever +touched by anything organic.</p> + +<p>He had walked too many worlds like this. Too many bare gray worlds +with bare gray oceans and clouds of vapor swirling up into the warm +air. Too many worlds where there was wind and sound and surf; where +there should have been life, but wasn't.</p> + +<p>This was just another of those worlds. This wasn't Earth. This was +just a lifeless memory of the Earth he had known and loved. For +fifty-three years they had clung to the thought of home, of people +waiting for them, welcoming them back someday. Fifty-three years, and +for how many of those ship-years had Earth lain lifeless like this?</p> + +<p>He looked up at the sky and at all the stars that he couldn't see and +he cursed them all and cursed time itself and then, bitterly, his own +fatuous stupidity.</p> + +<p>The people came out of the ship and walked about on the graveled +plain, alone or in small groups. They had stopped talking. They seemed +too numbed by what they had found to even think, for a while.</p> + +<p>Shock, Hugh McCann thought grimly. First hysteria and tears and loud +unbelief, and now shock. Anything could come next.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_h.jpg" alt="H" width="38" height="40" /></div> +<p>e stood with the warm wind blowing in his face and watched the +people. In the bitter mood that gripped him he was amused by their +reactions. Some of them walked around aimlessly, but most, those who +were active in the various departments, soon started about the routine +business of running tests on planetary conditions. They seemed to +work without thinking, by force of habit, their faces dazed and +uncaring.</p> + +<p>Conditioning, Hugh thought. Starting their reports. The reports that +they know perfectly well no one will ever read.</p> + +<p>He wandered over to where several of the young men were sending up an +atmosphere balloon and jotting down the atmospheric constituents as +recorded by the instruments.</p> + +<p>"How's it going?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Earth-norm. Naturally—" The young man flushed.</p> + +<p>"Temperature's up though. Ninety-three. And a seventy-seven percent +humidity."</p> + +<p>He left them and walked down across the rocks to the ocean's edge. Two +young girls were down there before him, sampling the water, running +both chemical and biological probing tests.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Mr. McCann," the taller girl said dully. "Want our report?"</p> + +<p>"Found anything?" He knew already that there was nothing to find. If +there were life the instruments would have recorded its presence.</p> + +<p>"No. Water temperature eighty-six. Sodium chloride four-fifths Earth +normal." She looked up, surprised. "Why so low?"</p> + +<p>"More water in the ocean, maybe. Or maybe we've had a nova since we +were here last."</p> + +<p>It was getting late, almost sunset. Soon it would be time for the +photographic star-charts to be made. Hugh brought himself up short and +smiled bitterly. He too was in the grip of habit. Still, why not? +Perhaps they could estimate, somehow, how many millions of years had +passed.</p> + +<p>Why? What good would it do them to find out?</p> + +<p>After a while the sun set and a little later the full moon rose, hazy +and indistinct behind the clouds of water vapor. Hugh stared at it, +watched it rise higher until it cleared the horizon, a great bloated +bulk. Then he sighed and shook his head to clear it and started to +work. The clouds were thick. He had to move the screening adjustment +almost to its last notch before the vapor patterns blocked out and the +stars were bright and unwavering and ready to be photographed. He +inserted the first plate and snapped the picture of the stars whose +names he knew but whose patterns were wrong, some subtly, some +blatantly.</p> + +<p>There was something he was overlooking. Some other factor, not taken +into account. He developed the first plates and compared them with the +star charts of Earth as it had been before they left it, and he shook +his head. Whatever the factor was, it eluded him. He went back to +work.</p> + +<p>"Oh, here you are, Hugh."</p> + +<p>He jumped at the sound of Carhill's voice. He had been working almost +completely by habit, slowly swinging the telescope across the sky and +snapping the plates. And trying to think.</p> + +<p>"Why waste time on that?" Carhill added bitterly. "Who's ever going to +see our records now?"</p> + +<p>Behind Carhill, several of the other old ones nodded. Hugh was +surprised that they had managed to come back to the ship without his +hearing them. But of course they had come back in at sundown, as +usual on a routine check, and now they were gathering to compile their +reports. Hugh looked from face to face, wondering if he too was as +numb and dazed and haggard appearing as they were. He probably was.</p> + +<p>"What do you suggest, Amos?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I say there's no use going on," Carhill said flatly. "You've all run +your tests. And what have you found? No fossils. Not even a +single-celled life form in the ocean. No way even to tell how many +millions of years it's been."</p> + +<p>"Maybe it hasn't been so long," Haines said. "Maybe something happened +here fairly recently, and the people all went to some other system—to +one of the Centauri planets, maybe."</p> + +<p>Amos Carhill laughed bitterly. "You can say that in the face of the +evidence? We <i>know</i> that millions of years have passed. Nothing's the +same. Even the tides are three times what they were. It's obvious what +happened. The sun novaed. Novaed and cooled. Do you really believe +that our race has lasted that long, on some nearby system?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_h.jpg" alt="H" width="38" height="40" /></div> +<p>is voice rose. He glared about at the others. He threw back his head +suddenly and laughed, and the laughter echoed and re-echoed off the +steel walls.</p> + +<p>"I say let's die now!" Carhill cried. "There's no use going on. Hugh +was right, as usual. We shouldn't have tried to come back. We've been +fools, all these years, thinking we had a world to come home to."</p> + +<p>The people muttered, crowded closer. They pushed into the observation +room, shoved nearer to it in the outside corridor. They muttered in a +rising note of panic as the numbing shock that gripped them gave way.</p> + +<p>"Why not die here?" Martha Carhill's voice rose shrill above the sound +of her husband's laughter. "We should have died here millions of years +ago!"</p> + +<p>Hugh McCann looked at her and at Amos and at all the others. He +sighed. Why not? Why go on? There was no answer. Even a pragmatist +gave up eventually, when the facts were all against him.</p> + +<p>He glanced down at the reports on the table. All the routine reports, +gathered together into routine form, written up in routine +terminology. Reports on an Earth-type planet that just happened to be +the Earth itself.</p> + +<p>And then, quite suddenly, the obvious, satisfactory answer came to +him. The factors clicked into place, and he wondered why he hadn't +thought of them long ago. He looked up from the reports, at the people +on the verge of panic, and he knew what to say to quiet them. He had +the factors now.</p> + +<p>"No!" he cried. "You're wrong. There's no reason at all to assume that +our race is dead!"</p> + +<p>Amos Carhill stopped laughing and stared at him and the others stared +also and none of them believed him at all.</p> + +<p>"It's simple!" he cried. "Why has so much time passed outside the ship +while to us only fifty-three years have gone by?"</p> + +<p>"Because we traveled too fast," Carhill said flatly. "That's why."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Hugh said softly. "But there's one thing we've been forgetting. +What we did, others could do also. Probably lots of expeditions +started out after we left, all trying for the speed of light."</p> + +<p>They stared at him. Slowly the dazed look died out of their eyes as +they realized what he meant, and what the concept might mean to them. +The concept of other ships, following them out into time. The concept +of other men, also millions of years from the Earth they had left.</p> + +<p>"You mean," Carhill said slowly, "that you believe other people got +caught in the same trap we did—that there may be others <i>in this time +also</i>?"</p> + +<p>Hugh nodded. "Why not? Maybe they colonized some of those Earth-type +planets we checked on. Anyway, we can look for them."</p> + +<p>"No." Carhill shook his head. "If any of them had started after us we +would have crossed their paths already. We never have. We never found +a trace of any other expedition. Even if there is another, even if +there are colonies somewhere, we could spend another fifty years +looking."</p> + +<p>"Well," Martha Carhill whispered. "Why not? It would give us something +to look for."</p> + +<p>Hugh McCann glanced around the circle of faces and saw the new hope +that came into them, the new belief that sprang into existence so +quickly because they wanted to believe. He smiled, somewhat sadly, and +picked up the pile of reports and the photographs he had just +developed. Then he slipped out of the room, through the crowd outside, +away from them and the rising hum of their voices. He didn't need to +say anything more. The ship would go on.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_h1.jpg" alt="H" width="57" height="40" /></div> +<p>ugh, is that you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Nora."</p> + +<p>She was waiting for him in the corridor. She came up to him and smiled +and slipped her arm through his. They walked on together, down the +hall past the last of the people.</p> + +<p>"I heard what you said, Hugh. You convinced them."</p> + +<p>He nodded. "I wonder why it took me so long to think of it."</p> + +<p>The voices died away behind them. They were all alone. They rounded a +corner where a viewscreen picked up the image of the moon, so +familiar, now the only thing that was familiar about this Earth. Nora +shivered.</p> + +<p>"You were very logical, Hugh. But I didn't believe you."</p> + +<p>He glanced around and saw that there was no one near them and that the +communicators in this part of the ship were turned off. Only then did +he answer her.</p> + +<p>"I didn't believe myself, Nora."</p> + +<p>"Tell me."</p> + +<p>"When we're outside."</p> + +<p>They went down the winding ramp that led to the interior of the ship. +It too was deserted now. They left the carpeted, muffled corridors and +their footsteps rang on the steel plates that lay down the middle of +the ship, its heart, where the energy converters were, and the +disposal units, and the plant rooms, and the great glass spheres of +the hydroponics tanks.</p> + +<p>"It's ironic, isn't it?" Nora said slowly. "We left here so long ago, +looking for worlds with life, and we come back to find our own world +dead."</p> + +<p>"It's ironic, all right." He walked along the row of tanks until he +came to the one he was searching for, and then he picked up a glass +cylinder and filled it from the tank.</p> + +<p>"I had to tell them something, Nora. They couldn't have gone on, +otherwise."</p> + +<p>The bottle was full. He stoppered it and then turned away. They +crossed to the nearest lock and he pushed the button that opened it. +They waited a few minutes until the door came open, and then they went +out, down the ramp to the ground, across the slippery rocks. Even +through the clouds there was enough light to see by.</p> + +<p>"It's warm," she said.</p> + +<p>"It always is, now."</p> + +<p>They were approaching the ocean. The surf beat loudly in their ears. +The spray was warm against their faces, almost as warm as the night +wind.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," she said. "You know what really happened, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"I think so. I can't really be sure."</p> + +<p>They paused on the low ledge where he had stood earlier and watched +the girls gather their data for the reports. At their feet the waves +washed up to the edges of the tide pools, eddying into and out of them +softly. The water looked dark and cold, but they knew that it too was +warm.</p> + +<p>"There've been lots of changes, and they all fit a pattern," he said. +"The temperature. The difference in salt content in the water. The +higher tides. Those things could happen for several reasons. But +there's only one explanation for the other changes, the ones I found +on the star charts."</p> + +<p>She waited. The water lapped in and out, reaching almost to where they +stood.</p> + +<p>"The Earth rotates faster now," he said. "And the stars are nearer. +Much nearer than they were."</p> + +<p>"Isn't that impossible?"</p> + +<p>"How do we know? We exceeded the speed of light. Who could say what +continuum that might have put us in? I remember an analogy I read +once, in a layman's book on different theories of space-time. '—The +future and the past, two branches of a hyperbola, each with the speed +of light as its limit—'"</p> + +<p>"You mean," she whispered, "that we're not in the future at all? We're +in the past—the far past—before there was any life on Earth?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_h.jpg" alt="H" width="38" height="40" /></div> +<p>e looked down at the pools of water at their feet, the lifeless water +that according to all their old discarded theories should have been +teeming with life. He nodded slowly and lifted the glass cylinder he +had brought from the ship and stared at it.</p> + +<p>"That bottle," she whispered. "You filled it with bacteria, didn't +you?"</p> + +<p>He nodded again.</p> + +<p>"You're mad, Hugh. You can't mean that <i>that bottle</i> is the origin of +life on Earth! You can't."</p> + +<p>"Maybe this isn't our Earth, Nora. Maybe there are thousands of +continuums and thousands of Earths, all waiting for a ship to land +someday and give them life."</p> + +<p>Slowly he unstoppered the cylinder and knelt down at the water's edge. +For a minute he paused, wondering if there were other continuums or +only this one, wondering just how deep the paradox lay. Then he tipped +the bottle up and poured, and the liquid from the cylinder ran down +into the tide pools and eddied there and was lost in the liquid of the +ocean. He poured until the bottle was empty and all the single-celled +bacteria from the ship's tank mingled with the warm, lifeless waters.</p> + +<p>The water temperatures were the same. Everything was the same, and the +conditions were very favorable and the bacteria would divide and +redivide and keep on dividing for millions of years.</p> + +<p>"We'll hold the ship under light speed," he said. "And in a few +million years we can drop back here and see how evolution is getting +along."</p> + +<p>He stood up and she took his hand and moved closer to him. They were +both shivering, despite the warmth of the air.</p> + +<p>"But how did life originate in the beginning?" she asked suddenly.</p> + +<p>Hugh McCann shook his head in the darkness. "I don't know. We've been +all over the galaxy and haven't found life anywhere. Perhaps it can't +have a natural cause. Perhaps it's always planted. A closed circle +from beginning to end."</p> + +<p>"But something—someone—must have started the circle. Who?"</p> + +<p>He looked down at the empty cylinder that he had dropped at the +water's edge and then he looked out at the ocean, lifeless no longer. +And once again he shook his head.</p> + +<p>"We did, Nora. We're the beginning."</p> + +<p>For a long moment their eyes met and held, and then they turned and +walked away from the ocean, back toward the ship, and the people. And +the moonlight glinted off the empty bottle.</p> + +<h3>THE END</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Empty Bottle, by Mari Wolf + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN EMPTY BOTTLE *** + +***** This file should be named 31601-h.htm or 31601-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/6/0/31601/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: An Empty Bottle + +Author: Mari Wolf + +Release Date: March 11, 2010 [EBook #31601] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN EMPTY BOTTLE *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science Fiction September + 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. + copyright on this publication was renewed. + + + [Illustration] + + + _They wanted to go home--back to the planet they'd known. + But even the stars had changed. Did the fate of all creation + hinge upon an--_ + + + AN + + EMPTY + + BOTTLE + + + By Mari Wolf + + * * * * * + + + + +Hugh McCann took the last of the photographic plates out of the +developer and laid them on the table beside the others. Then he picked +up the old star charts--Volume 1, Number 1--maps of space from various +planetary systems within a hundred light years of Sol. He looked +around the observation room at the others. + +"We might as well start checking." + +The men and women around the table nodded. None of them said anything. +Even the muffled conversation from the corridor beyond the observation +room ceased as the people stopped to listen. + +McCann set the charts down and opened them at the first sheet--the +composite map of the stars as seen from Earth. "Don't be too +disappointed if we're wrong," he said. + +Amos Carhill's fists clenched. He leaned across the table. "You still +don't believe we're near Sol, do you? You're getting senile, Hugh! You +know the mathematics of our position as well as anybody." + +"I know the math," Hugh said quietly. "But remember, a lot of our +basics have already proved themselves false this trip. We can't be +sure of anything. Besides, I think I'd remember this planet we're on +if we'd ever been here before. We visited every planetary system +within a hundred light years of Sol the first year." + +Carhill laughed. "What's there to remember about this hunk of rock? +Tiny, airless, mountainless--the most monotonous piece of matter we've +landed on in years." + +Hugh shrugged and turned to the next chart. The others clustered +around him, checking, comparing the chart with the photographic plates +of their position, finding nothing familiar in the star pattern. + +"I still think we would have remembered this planet," Hugh said. "Just +because it _is_ so monotonous. After all, what have we been looking +for, all these years? Life. Other worlds with living forms, other +types of evolution, types adapted to different environments. This +particular planet is less capable of supporting life than our own +Moon." + +Martha Carhill looked up from the charts. Her face was as tense and +strained as her husband's, and the lines about her mouth deeply +etched. "We've got to be near Earth. We've just got to. We've got to +find people again." Her voice broke. "We've been looking for so +long--" + +Hugh McCann sighed. The worry that had been growing in him ever since +they first left the rim of the galaxy and turned homeward deepened +into a nagging fear. He didn't know why he was afraid. He too hoped +that they were near Earth. He almost believed that they would soon be +home. But the others, their reactions--He shook his head. + +They no longer merely hoped. With them, especially with the older, +ones, it was faith, a blind, unreasoning, fanatic faith that their +journey was almost over and they would be on Earth again and pick up +the lives they had left behind fifty-three years before. + +"Look," Amos Carhill said. "Here are our reference points. Here's +Andromeda Galaxy, and the dark nebula, and the arch of our own Milky +Way." He pointed to the places he had named on the plates. "Now we can +check some of these high magnitude reference stars with the charts." + +Hugh let him take the charts and go through them, checking, rejecting. +Carhill was probably right. He'd find Sol soon enough. + +It had been too long for one shipful of people to follow a quest, +especially a hopeless one. For fifty-three years they had scouted the +galaxy, looking for other worlds with life forms. A check on diverging +evolutions, they had called it--uncounted thousands of suns without +planets, bypassed. Thousands of planetary systems, explored, or merely +looked at and rejected. Heavy, cold worlds with methane atmospheres +and lifeless rocks without atmospheres and even earth-sized, +earth-type planets, with oceans and oxygen and warmth. But no life. No +life anywhere. + +That was one of the basics they had lost, years ago--their belief that +life would arise on any planet capable of supporting it. + +"We could take a spectrographic analysis of some of those high +magnitude stars," Carhill said. Then abruptly he straightened, eyes +alight, his hand on the last chart. "We don't need it after all. +Look! There's Sirius, and here it is on the plates. That means Alpha +Centauri must be--" + +He paused. He frowned and ran his hand over the plate to where the +first magnitude star was photographed. "It must be. Alpha Centauri. It +has to be!" + +"Except that it's over five degrees out of position." Hugh looked at +the plate, and then at the chart, and then back at the plate again. +And then he knew what it was that he had feared subconsciously all +along. + +"You're right, Amos," he said slowly. "There's Alpha Centauri--about +twenty light years away. And there's Sirius, and Arcturus and +Betelgeuse and all the others." He pointed them out, one by one, in +their unfamiliar locations on the plates. "But they're all out of +position, in reference to each other." + + * * * * * + +He stopped. The others stared back at him, not saying anything. Little +by little the faith began to drain out of their eyes. + +"What does it mean?" Martha Carhill's voice was only a whisper. + +"It means that we discarded one basic too many," Hugh McCann said. +"Relativity. The theory that our subjective time, here on the ship, +would differ from objective time outside." + +"No," Amos Carhill said slowly. "No, it's a mistake. That's all. We +haven't gone into the future. We can't have. It isn't possible that +more time has elapsed outside the ship than--" + +"Why not?" Hugh said softly. "Why not millions of years? We've +exceeded the speed of light, many times." + +"Which disproves that space-time theory in itself!" Carhill shouted. + +"Does it?" Hugh said. "Or does it just mean we never really understood +space-time at all?" He didn't wait for them to answer. He pointed at +the small, far from brilliant, star that lay beyond Alpha Centauri on +the plates. "That's probably Sol. If it is, we can find out the truth +soon enough." + +He looked at their faces and wondered what their reactions would be, +if the truth was what he feared. + + * * * * * + +The ship throbbed softly, pulsating in the typical vibrations of low +speed drive. In the forward viewscreens the star grew larger. The +people didn't look at it very often. They moved about the corridors of +the ship, much as they usually moved, but quietly. They seemed to be +trying to ignore the star. + +"You can't be sure, Hugh." Nora McCann laid her hand on her husband's +arm. + +"No, of course I can't be sure." + +The door from their quarters into the corridor was open. Several more +people came in--young people who had been born on the ship. They were +talking and laughing. + +"Would it be so hard on the young ones, Hugh? They've never seen the +Earth. They're used to finding nothing but lifeless worlds +everywhere." + +One of the young boys in the hall looked up at the corridor viewscreen +and pointed at the star and then shrugged. The others turned away, not +saying anything, and after a minute they left and the boy followed +them. + +"There's your answer," Hugh McCann said dully. "Earth's a symbol to +them. It's home. It's the place where there are millions more like us. +Sometimes I think it's the only thing that has kept us sane all these +years--the knowledge that there is a world full of people, somewhere, +that we're not alone." + +Her hand found his and he gripped it, almost absently, and then he +looked up at their own small viewscreen. The star was much bigger now. +It was already a definite circle of yellow light. + +A yellow G-type sun, like a thousand others they had approached and +orbited around and left behind them. A yellow sun that could have been +anywhere in the galaxy. + +"Hugh," she said after a moment, "do you really believe that thousands +of years have gone by, outside?" + +"I don't know what to believe. I only know what the plates show." + +"That may not even be Sol, up ahead," she said doubtfully. "We may be +in some other part of space altogether, and that's why the charts are +different." + +"Perhaps. But either way we're lost. Lost in space or in time or in +both. What does it matter?" + +"If we're just lost in space it's not so--so irrevocable. We could +still find our way back to Earth, maybe." + +He didn't answer. He looked up at the screen and the circle of light +and his lips tightened. Whatever the truth was, they didn't have long +to wait. They'd be within gravitational range in less than an hour. + +He wondered why he was reacting so differently from the others. He was +just as afraid as they were. He knew that. But he wasn't fighting the +thought that perhaps they had really traveled out of their own time. +He wondered what it was that made him different from the other old +ones, the ones like Carhill who refused even to face the possibility, +who insisted on clinging to their illusions in the face of the +photographic evidence. + + * * * * * + +He didn't think that he was a pessimist. And yet, after only three +years of their trip, after only fifty Earthlike but lifeless worlds, +he had been the first to consider the possibility that life was unique +to Earth and that their old theories concerning its spontaneous +emergence from a favorable environment might be wrong. + +Only Nora had agreed with him then. Only Nora could face this +possibility with him now. The two of them were very much alike in +their outlooks. They were both pragmatists. + +But this time there would be no long years during which the others +could slowly shift their opinions, slowly relinquish their old beliefs +and turn to new ones. The yellow sun was too large and urgent in the +screen. + +"Hugh!" + +He turned to the door and saw Amos Carhill standing there, bracing +himself against the corridor wall. There was no color at all in +Carhill's face. + +"Come on up to the control room with me, Hugh. We're going to start +decelerating any minute now." + +Hugh frowned. He would prefer to stay and watch their approach on the +screen, with Nora at his side. He had no duties in the control room. +He was too old to have any part in the actual handling of the ship. +Amos was old, too. But they would be there, all the old ones, looking +through the high powered screens for the first clear glimpse of the +third planet from the sun. + +"All right, Amos." Hugh got up and started for the door. + +"I'll wait here for you, Hugh," Nora said. + +He smiled at her and then followed Carhill out into the crowded +corridor. No one spoke to them. Most of the people they passed were +neither talking, nor paying any attention to anything except the +corridor screens, which they could no longer ignore. The few who were +talking spoke about Earth and how wonderful it would be to get home +again. + +"You're wrong, Hugh," Amos said suddenly. + +"I hope I am." + +The crowd thinned out as they passed into the forward bulkheads. The +only men they saw now were the few young ones on duty. Except for +their set, anxious faces they might have been handling any routine +landing in any routine system. + +The ship quivered for just a second as it shifted over into +deceleration. There was an instant of vertigo and then it was gone and +the ship's gravity felt as normal as ever. Hugh didn't even break +stride at the shift. + +He followed Carhill to the control room doorway and pushed his way in, +taking a place among the others who already clustered about the great +forward screen. The pilot ignored them and worked his controls. The +screen cleared as the ship's deceleration increased. The pilot didn't +look at it. He was a young man. He had never seen the Earth. + +"Look!" Amos Carhill cried triumphantly. + +The screen focused. The selector swung away from the yellow sun and +swept its orbits. The dots that were planets came into focus and out +again. Hugh McCann didn't even need to count them, nor to calculate +their distance from the sun. He knew the system too well to have any +trouble recognizing it. + +The sun was Sol. The third planet was the double dot of Earth and +moon. He realized suddenly that he had more than half expected to see +an empty orbit. + +"It's the Earth all right," Carhill said. "We're home!" + +They were all staring at the double dot, where the selector focused +sharply now. Hugh McCann alone looked past it, at the background of +stars that were strewn in totally unfamiliar patterns across the sky. +He sighed. + +"Look beyond the system," he said. + +They looked. For a long time they stared, none of them speaking, and +then they turned to Hugh, many of them accusingly, as if he himself +had rearranged the stars. + +"How long have we been gone?" Carhill's voice broke. + +Hugh shook his head. The star patterns were too unfamiliar for even a +guess. There was no way of knowing, yet, how long their fifty-three +years had really been. + + * * * * * + +Carhill shook his head, slowly. He turned back to the screen and +stared at the still featureless dot that was the Earth. "We can't be +the only ones left," he said. + +No one answered him. They were still stunned. They couldn't even +accept, yet, the strange constellations on the screen. + +End of the voyage. Fifty-three years of searching for worlds with +life. And now Earth, under an unfamiliar sky, and quite possibly no +life at all, anywhere, except on the ship. + +"We might as well land," McCann said. + +The ship curved away from the night side of the Earth and crossed +again into the day. They were near enough so that the planetary +features stood out sharply now, even through the dense clouds that +rose off the oceans. But although the continental land masses and the +islands were clearly defined, they were as unrecognizable as the star +constellations had been. + +"That must be North America," Amos Carhill said dully. "It's smaller +than the continent on the night side...." + +"It might be anywhere," Hugh McCann said. "We can't tell. The oceans +look bigger too. There's less land surface." + +He stared down at the topography thousands of miles below them. +Mountains rose jaggedly. There were great plains, and crevasses, and a +rocky, lifeless look everywhere. No soil. No erosion, except from the +wind and the rains. + +"There's no chlorophyll in the spectrum," Haines said. "It seems to +rule out even plant life." + +"I don't understand." Martha Carhill turned away from the screen. +"Everything's so different. But the moon looked just exactly like it +always did." + +"That's because it has no atmosphere," Hugh said. "So there's no +erosion. And no oceans to sweep in over the land. But I imagine that +if we explored it we'd find changes. New craters. Maybe even new +mountains by now." + +"How long has it been?" Carhill whispered. "And even if it's been +millions of years, what happened? Why aren't there any plants? Won't +we find anything?" + +"Maybe there was an atomic war," the pilot said. + +"Maybe." Carhill had thought of that too. Probably all of them had. +"Or maybe the sun novaed." + +No one answered him. The concept of a nova and then of its dying down, +until now the sun was just as it had been when they left, was too +much. + +"The sun looks hotter," Carhill added. + +The ship dropped lower, its preliminary circle of the planet +completed. It settled in for a landing, just as it had done thousands +of times before. And the world below could have been any of a thousand +others. + +They dropped quickly, braking through the atmosphere, riding it down. +The topography came up to meet them and the general features blurred, +leaving details standing out sharply, increasing in sharpness as if +the valleys and mountains below were tiny microscopic crystals under a +rapidly increasing magnification. + +The pilot picked their landing place without difficulty. It was a +typical choice, a spot on the broad shelving plain at the edge of the +ocean. The type of base from which all tests on a planet could be run +quickly, and a report written up, and the files of another world +closed and tagged with a number and entered in one of the great +storage encyclopedias. + +Even to Hugh there was an air of unreality about the landing, as if +this planet wasn't really Earth at all, despite its orbit around the +sun, despite its familiar moon. It looked too much like too many +others. + +The actual landing was over quickly. The ship quivered, jarred +slightly, and then was still, resting on the gravelled plain that had +obviously once been part of the ocean bed. The ocean itself lay only a +few hundred yards away. + +Hugh McCann looked out through the viewscreen, turned to direct vision +now. He stared at the waves swelling against the shore and his sense +of unreality deepened. Even though this was what he had more than half +expected, he couldn't quite accept it, yet. + +"We might as well go out and look around," he said. + +"Air pressure, Earth-norm." Haines began checking off the control +panel by rote. "Composition: oxygen, nitrogen, water vapor--" + +"There's certainly nothing out there that could hurt us," Martha +Carhill snapped. "What could there be?" + +"We might check for radioactivity," Hugh said quietly. + +She turned and stared at him. Her mouth opened and then snapped shut +again. + +"No," Haines said. "There's no radioactivity either. Everything's +clear. We won't need space suits." + +He pressed the button that opened the inner locks. + + * * * * * + +Carhill glanced over at him and then switched on the communicator, and +the noises from the rest of the ship flooded into the control room. +Everywhere people were milling about. Snatches of talk drifted in, +caught up in the background as various duty officers, reported +clearance on the landing. Most of the background voices were young, +talking too loudly and with too much forced cheerfulness about what +lay outside the ship. + +Hugh sighed, as aware of all the people as if he were out in the +corridors with them. It was the space-born ones who were doing most of +the talking. The children, the young people, the people no longer +young but still born since the voyage started, still looking upon +Earth more as a wonderful legend than as their own place of origin. + +The old ones, those who had left the Earth in their own youth, had the +least of all to say. They knew what was missing outside. The younger +ones couldn't really know. Even the best of the books and the pictures +and the three dimensional movies can give only a superficial idea of +what a living world is like. + +"Hugh." Carhill clutched his arm. + +"Yes, Amos." + +"There must be people, somewhere. There have to be. Our race can't be +dead." + +Hugh McCann looked past him, out at the sky and the clouds of water +vapor that swirled up to obscure the sun. The stars, of course, were +completely hidden in the daylight. + +"If there are any others, Amos, we can be pretty certain they're not +on Earth." + +"They may have left. They may have gone somewhere else." + +"No!" Martha Carhill's face twisted and then went rigid. "There's no +one anywhere. There can't be. It's been too long. You saw the stars, +Amos--the stars--all wrong, every one of them!" + +Her hands came up to her face and she started to cry. Amos crossed +over to her and put his arms around her. + +Hugh McCann watched them for a moment and then he turned and left them +and went out through the locks after the young people. He didn't know +what to think. He wished that they had never turned back to Earth at +all, that they had kept going, circling around the rim of the galaxy +forever. + +He went through the outer lock and then down the ramp to the ground. + +He stood on the Earth again, for the first time since his early youth. +And it was not the same. There was bare rock under his feet and bare +rock all around him, gravel and boulders and even fine grained sand. +But no dust. No dirt. No trace of anything organic or even ever +touched by anything organic. + +He had walked too many worlds like this. Too many bare gray worlds +with bare gray oceans and clouds of vapor swirling up into the warm +air. Too many worlds where there was wind and sound and surf; where +there should have been life, but wasn't. + +This was just another of those worlds. This wasn't Earth. This was +just a lifeless memory of the Earth he had known and loved. For +fifty-three years they had clung to the thought of home, of people +waiting for them, welcoming them back someday. Fifty-three years, and +for how many of those ship-years had Earth lain lifeless like this? + +He looked up at the sky and at all the stars that he couldn't see and +he cursed them all and cursed time itself and then, bitterly, his own +fatuous stupidity. + +The people came out of the ship and walked about on the graveled +plain, alone or in small groups. They had stopped talking. They seemed +too numbed by what they had found to even think, for a while. + +Shock, Hugh McCann thought grimly. First hysteria and tears and loud +unbelief, and now shock. Anything could come next. + + * * * * * + +He stood with the warm wind blowing in his face and watched the +people. In the bitter mood that gripped him he was amused by their +reactions. Some of them walked around aimlessly, but most, those who +were active in the various departments, soon started about the routine +business of running tests on planetary conditions. They seemed to +work without thinking, by force of habit, their faces dazed and +uncaring. + +Conditioning, Hugh thought. Starting their reports. The reports that +they know perfectly well no one will ever read. + +He wandered over to where several of the young men were sending up an +atmosphere balloon and jotting down the atmospheric constituents as +recorded by the instruments. + +"How's it going?" he said. + +"Earth-norm. Naturally--" The young man flushed. + +"Temperature's up though. Ninety-three. And a seventy-seven percent +humidity." + +He left them and walked down across the rocks to the ocean's edge. Two +young girls were down there before him, sampling the water, running +both chemical and biological probing tests. + +"Hello, Mr. McCann," the taller girl said dully. "Want our report?" + +"Found anything?" He knew already that there was nothing to find. If +there were life the instruments would have recorded its presence. + +"No. Water temperature eighty-six. Sodium chloride four-fifths Earth +normal." She looked up, surprised. "Why so low?" + +"More water in the ocean, maybe. Or maybe we've had a nova since we +were here last." + +It was getting late, almost sunset. Soon it would be time for the +photographic star-charts to be made. Hugh brought himself up short and +smiled bitterly. He too was in the grip of habit. Still, why not? +Perhaps they could estimate, somehow, how many millions of years had +passed. + +Why? What good would it do them to find out? + +After a while the sun set and a little later the full moon rose, hazy +and indistinct behind the clouds of water vapor. Hugh stared at it, +watched it rise higher until it cleared the horizon, a great bloated +bulk. Then he sighed and shook his head to clear it and started to +work. The clouds were thick. He had to move the screening adjustment +almost to its last notch before the vapor patterns blocked out and the +stars were bright and unwavering and ready to be photographed. He +inserted the first plate and snapped the picture of the stars whose +names he knew but whose patterns were wrong, some subtly, some +blatantly. + +There was something he was overlooking. Some other factor, not taken +into account. He developed the first plates and compared them with the +star charts of Earth as it had been before they left it, and he shook +his head. Whatever the factor was, it eluded him. He went back to +work. + +"Oh, here you are, Hugh." + +He jumped at the sound of Carhill's voice. He had been working almost +completely by habit, slowly swinging the telescope across the sky and +snapping the plates. And trying to think. + +"Why waste time on that?" Carhill added bitterly. "Who's ever going to +see our records now?" + +Behind Carhill, several of the other old ones nodded. Hugh was +surprised that they had managed to come back to the ship without his +hearing them. But of course they had come back in at sundown, as +usual on a routine check, and now they were gathering to compile their +reports. Hugh looked from face to face, wondering if he too was as +numb and dazed and haggard appearing as they were. He probably was. + +"What do you suggest, Amos?" he said. + +"I say there's no use going on," Carhill said flatly. "You've all run +your tests. And what have you found? No fossils. Not even a +single-celled life form in the ocean. No way even to tell how many +millions of years it's been." + +"Maybe it hasn't been so long," Haines said. "Maybe something happened +here fairly recently, and the people all went to some other system--to +one of the Centauri planets, maybe." + +Amos Carhill laughed bitterly. "You can say that in the face of the +evidence? We _know_ that millions of years have passed. Nothing's the +same. Even the tides are three times what they were. It's obvious what +happened. The sun novaed. Novaed and cooled. Do you really believe +that our race has lasted that long, on some nearby system?" + + * * * * * + +His voice rose. He glared about at the others. He threw back his head +suddenly and laughed, and the laughter echoed and re-echoed off the +steel walls. + +"I say let's die now!" Carhill cried. "There's no use going on. Hugh +was right, as usual. We shouldn't have tried to come back. We've been +fools, all these years, thinking we had a world to come home to." + +The people muttered, crowded closer. They pushed into the observation +room, shoved nearer to it in the outside corridor. They muttered in a +rising note of panic as the numbing shock that gripped them gave way. + +"Why not die here?" Martha Carhill's voice rose shrill above the sound +of her husband's laughter. "We should have died here millions of years +ago!" + +Hugh McCann looked at her and at Amos and at all the others. He +sighed. Why not? Why go on? There was no answer. Even a pragmatist +gave up eventually, when the facts were all against him. + +He glanced down at the reports on the table. All the routine reports, +gathered together into routine form, written up in routine +terminology. Reports on an Earth-type planet that just happened to be +the Earth itself. + +And then, quite suddenly, the obvious, satisfactory answer came to +him. The factors clicked into place, and he wondered why he hadn't +thought of them long ago. He looked up from the reports, at the people +on the verge of panic, and he knew what to say to quiet them. He had +the factors now. + +"No!" he cried. "You're wrong. There's no reason at all to assume that +our race is dead!" + +Amos Carhill stopped laughing and stared at him and the others stared +also and none of them believed him at all. + +"It's simple!" he cried. "Why has so much time passed outside the ship +while to us only fifty-three years have gone by?" + +"Because we traveled too fast," Carhill said flatly. "That's why." + +"Yes," Hugh said softly. "But there's one thing we've been forgetting. +What we did, others could do also. Probably lots of expeditions +started out after we left, all trying for the speed of light." + +They stared at him. Slowly the dazed look died out of their eyes as +they realized what he meant, and what the concept might mean to them. +The concept of other ships, following them out into time. The concept +of other men, also millions of years from the Earth they had left. + +"You mean," Carhill said slowly, "that you believe other people got +caught in the same trap we did--that there may be others _in this time +also_?" + +Hugh nodded. "Why not? Maybe they colonized some of those Earth-type +planets we checked on. Anyway, we can look for them." + +"No." Carhill shook his head. "If any of them had started after us we +would have crossed their paths already. We never have. We never found +a trace of any other expedition. Even if there is another, even if +there are colonies somewhere, we could spend another fifty years +looking." + +"Well," Martha Carhill whispered. "Why not? It would give us something +to look for." + +Hugh McCann glanced around the circle of faces and saw the new hope +that came into them, the new belief that sprang into existence so +quickly because they wanted to believe. He smiled, somewhat sadly, and +picked up the pile of reports and the photographs he had just +developed. Then he slipped out of the room, through the crowd outside, +away from them and the rising hum of their voices. He didn't need to +say anything more. The ship would go on. + + * * * * * + +"Hugh, is that you?" + +"Yes, Nora." + +She was waiting for him in the corridor. She came up to him and smiled +and slipped her arm through his. They walked on together, down the +hall past the last of the people. + +"I heard what you said, Hugh. You convinced them." + +He nodded. "I wonder why it took me so long to think of it." + +The voices died away behind them. They were all alone. They rounded a +corner where a viewscreen picked up the image of the moon, so +familiar, now the only thing that was familiar about this Earth. Nora +shivered. + +"You were very logical, Hugh. But I didn't believe you." + +He glanced around and saw that there was no one near them and that the +communicators in this part of the ship were turned off. Only then did +he answer her. + +"I didn't believe myself, Nora." + +"Tell me." + +"When we're outside." + +They went down the winding ramp that led to the interior of the ship. +It too was deserted now. They left the carpeted, muffled corridors and +their footsteps rang on the steel plates that lay down the middle of +the ship, its heart, where the energy converters were, and the +disposal units, and the plant rooms, and the great glass spheres of +the hydroponics tanks. + +"It's ironic, isn't it?" Nora said slowly. "We left here so long ago, +looking for worlds with life, and we come back to find our own world +dead." + +"It's ironic, all right." He walked along the row of tanks until he +came to the one he was searching for, and then he picked up a glass +cylinder and filled it from the tank. + +"I had to tell them something, Nora. They couldn't have gone on, +otherwise." + +The bottle was full. He stoppered it and then turned away. They +crossed to the nearest lock and he pushed the button that opened it. +They waited a few minutes until the door came open, and then they went +out, down the ramp to the ground, across the slippery rocks. Even +through the clouds there was enough light to see by. + +"It's warm," she said. + +"It always is, now." + +They were approaching the ocean. The surf beat loudly in their ears. +The spray was warm against their faces, almost as warm as the night +wind. + +"Tell me," she said. "You know what really happened, don't you?" + +"I think so. I can't really be sure." + +They paused on the low ledge where he had stood earlier and watched +the girls gather their data for the reports. At their feet the waves +washed up to the edges of the tide pools, eddying into and out of them +softly. The water looked dark and cold, but they knew that it too was +warm. + +"There've been lots of changes, and they all fit a pattern," he said. +"The temperature. The difference in salt content in the water. The +higher tides. Those things could happen for several reasons. But +there's only one explanation for the other changes, the ones I found +on the star charts." + +She waited. The water lapped in and out, reaching almost to where they +stood. + +"The Earth rotates faster now," he said. "And the stars are nearer. +Much nearer than they were." + +"Isn't that impossible?" + +"How do we know? We exceeded the speed of light. Who could say what +continuum that might have put us in? I remember an analogy I read +once, in a layman's book on different theories of space-time. '--The +future and the past, two branches of a hyperbola, each with the speed +of light as its limit--'" + +"You mean," she whispered, "that we're not in the future at all? We're +in the past--the far past--before there was any life on Earth?" + + * * * * * + +He looked down at the pools of water at their feet, the lifeless water +that according to all their old discarded theories should have been +teeming with life. He nodded slowly and lifted the glass cylinder he +had brought from the ship and stared at it. + +"That bottle," she whispered. "You filled it with bacteria, didn't +you?" + +He nodded again. + +"You're mad, Hugh. You can't mean that _that bottle_ is the origin of +life on Earth! You can't." + +"Maybe this isn't our Earth, Nora. Maybe there are thousands of +continuums and thousands of Earths, all waiting for a ship to land +someday and give them life." + +Slowly he unstoppered the cylinder and knelt down at the water's edge. +For a minute he paused, wondering if there were other continuums or +only this one, wondering just how deep the paradox lay. Then he tipped +the bottle up and poured, and the liquid from the cylinder ran down +into the tide pools and eddied there and was lost in the liquid of the +ocean. He poured until the bottle was empty and all the single-celled +bacteria from the ship's tank mingled with the warm, lifeless waters. + +The water temperatures were the same. Everything was the same, and the +conditions were very favorable and the bacteria would divide and +redivide and keep on dividing for millions of years. + +"We'll hold the ship under light speed," he said. "And in a few +million years we can drop back here and see how evolution is getting +along." + +He stood up and she took his hand and moved closer to him. They were +both shivering, despite the warmth of the air. + +"But how did life originate in the beginning?" she asked suddenly. + +Hugh McCann shook his head in the darkness. "I don't know. We've been +all over the galaxy and haven't found life anywhere. Perhaps it can't +have a natural cause. Perhaps it's always planted. A closed circle +from beginning to end." + +"But something--someone--must have started the circle. Who?" + +He looked down at the empty cylinder that he had dropped at the +water's edge and then he looked out at the ocean, lifeless no longer. +And once again he shook his head. + +"We did, Nora. We're the beginning." + +For a long moment their eyes met and held, and then they turned and +walked away from the ocean, back toward the ship, and the people. And +the moonlight glinted off the empty bottle. + +THE END + + * * * * * + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Empty Bottle, by Mari Wolf + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN EMPTY BOTTLE *** + +***** This file should be named 31601.txt or 31601.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/6/0/31601/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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