“You know,” she began uncertainly, “that present-day neurology has discovered the process by which emotions emerge in the conscious and subconscious divisions of the psyche. The subconscious yields to the influence of inhibiting drugs administered through the ancient spheres of the brain that control the chemical regulation of the organism, including the nervous system and, to some extent, higher nervous activity….”
Erg Noor raised his brows. Louma Lasvy felt that she was speaking in too great detail and too long.
“I want to say that medicine is able to affect those brain centres that control the strong emotions. I could….” Understanding flashed up in Erg Noor’s eyes and developed into a slight smile.
‘‘You propose affecting my love for Nisa and relieving me of suffering?” he asked brusquely.
The doctor nodded in affirmation, afraid to spoil the tenderness of her sympathy with words that would inevitably be schematic.
Erg Noor stretched out his hand gratefully but shook his head in refusal.
“I would not give up the wealth of my emotions, no matter how much suffering they cause me. Suffering, so long as it is not beyond one’s strength, leads to understanding, understanding leads to love and the circle is complete. You’re very kind, Louma, but it isn’t necessary!”
And the commander disappeared through the door with his usual swift gait.
Hurrying, as they would have done in an emergency, the electronic and mechanical engineers erected the televisophone screen for the reception of terrestrial transmissions. After thirteen years the screen was being erected in the library of the central control tower as the ship was now in a zone where radio waves, dispersed by Earth’s atmosphere could be received.
The voices, sounds, forms and colours of their native Earth cheered the travellers up and also served to increase their impatience — the great length of the Cosmic journey was becoming intolerable.
The spaceship sent out a call to Artificial Earth Satellite No. 57 on the usual wavelength used for long-distance Cosmic journeys and impatiently awaited an answer from this powerful station that served as a link between Earth and the Cosmos.
At last the call signals from the spaceship reached Earth.
The whole crew of the ship were awake and did not leave the receivers. They were returning to life after thirteen terrestrial and nine dependent years in which there had been no contact with their native planet! They listened eagerly to reports from Earth, and they took part in the discussion of important questions raised on the world radio network by anybody who wished to do so.
Quite by chance they picked up a proposal from the soil scientist Heb Uhr that gave them material for a six-weeks’ discussion and very intricate calculations.
“Discuss Heb Uhr’s proposal!” thundered the voice of Earth. “Let everybody who is working in that field; who has any similar ideas or objections, say his word!”
This, the usual formula, had a pleasant sound for the travellers. Heb Uhr had proposed to the Astronautical Council a plan for the systematic exploration of the reachable planets of the blue and green stars. He believed these to be special worlds with extraordinarily strong power emanations that might chemically stimulate mineral compounds that are inert under terrestrial conditions to struggle against entropy, that is, give them life. Special forms of life from minerals that are heavier than gas would be active in high temperatures and in the intense radiation of stars in the higher spectral classes. Heb Uhr was of the opinion that the failure of the Sirius expedition, the failure to find life there, was to be expected since that rapidly rotating star was a binary that did not possess a powerful magnetic field. Nobody disputed with Heb Uhr the fact that binary stars could not be regarded as the originators of planetary systems in the Cosmos, but the essence of the proposal called forth very lively opposition from Tantra’s crew.
The astronomers, headed by Erg Noor, compiled a report which was transmitted as being the opinion of the first people who had seen Vega in the film taken by Parus.
People on Earth listened with delight and admiration to the voice from the approaching spaceship.
Tantra opposed the dispatch of the expeditions suggested by Heb Uhr. The blue stars really did emanate tremendous energy per unit of their planets’ surfaces, sufficient to ensure the life of heavy compounds. Any living organism, however, was at once both an energy filter and a dam which, in its struggle against the Second Law of Thermodynamics, functioned only by means of the creation of a complex, by means of the great complication of simple mineral and gas molecules. Such complications could only occur in a process of tremendously active development, which, in turn, entailed the lengthy stability of physical Conditions. Stable conditions did not exist on the planets of high-temperature stars which rapidly destroyed complicated compounds in bursts and vortices of powerful radiation. Nothing there could exist for long despite the fact that minerals acquired the most stable crystal structure with a cubic atomic pattern.
Tantra was of the opinion that Heb Uhr was merely repeating the one-sided assertions of the ancient astronomers who had not understood the dynamics of planet development. Every planet lost the lighter substances that were carried away into space and dispersed. The loss of light elements was especially great in cases where there was great heat and great light pressure from the blue suns.
Tantra gave a long string of examples and concluded that the process of “increasing weight” on the planets of the blue stars did not permit the emergence of living forms.
Satellite 57 transmitted Tantra’s objections direct to the Council observatory.
At last the moment came that Ingrid Dietra and Kay Bear, like all other members of the expedition, had been awaiting so impatiently. Tnntra began to reduce her speed from her subphotonic velocity, had passed the ice belt of the solar system and was approaching the spaceship station on Triton. High velocity was no longer necessary: travelling at a speed of 900 million kilometres an hour, they would have reached Earth from Neptune’s satellite. Triton, in less than five hours. The acceleration of the spaceship, however, took so long that she would have overshot the Sun and travelled far away from it into space if she had set out from Triton.
In order to economize the precious anameson and save the ship from carrying unwieldy equipment, communications inside the solar system were effected by ion planet-ships. Their speed did not exceed 800,000 kilometres an hour for the inner planets and 2,500,000 kilometres an hour for the most distant outer planets. The usual trip from Neptune to Earth took two and a half to three months.
Triton was a very big satellite, only a little smaller than the huge third and fourth satellites of Jupiter, Ganymede and Callisto, or the planet Mercury. It therefore possessed a thin atmosphere consisting mainly of nitrogen and carbon monoxide.
Erg Noor lauded the spaceship at the appointed place at the satellite’s pole, far from the broad domes of the station buildings. On a ledge of the plateau, near a cliff that was honeycombed with underground premises, stood the gleaming glass building of the quarantine sanatorium.
Here the travellers were subjected to a five-week quarantine in complete isolation from all other people. In the course of this time skilled doctors would study their bodies to make sure that no new infection had taken root. The danger was too great to be ignored: every person who had landed on another planet, even on an uninhabited one, had to submit to this inspection no matter how long he had afterwards been confined to the spaceship. The interior of the ship itself was also inspected by the sanatorium’s scientists before the station gave permission for the journey to Earth. Those planets that had been studied long before and had been colonized by man, such as Venus and Mars, as well as some of the asteroids, had their own quarantine stations where travellers were examined before the ships left.