A Brand New World by Ray Cummings

More than twice seventeen months went by. For me and for Dan the progress of the world, it seemed then, must always be in cycles of seventeen months. That is the length of time which Xenephrene took periodically to overtake and pass us in our orbit. Almost between us and the sun, every seventeen months; and at such times she was at her closest points to us, some sixteen to nineteen million miles away. Not very far, in terms of astronomical measurement, but to Dan and me very far indeed.

Two of these passings came and went. We had hoped there might be some sign from Xenephrene; even something hostile would had seemed to us better than nothing. Dan and I often sat in the night, gazing at the great purple-white star.

Romantic, mysterious world, imperturbably blazing up there! It held captive for Dan the woman he loved; for me, a beloved sister and my dear father. Held them captive -- if indeed they were alive, which is the best we could hope -- held them, and it gave no sign! Beautiful, mysterious world -- and sinister! Gazing up at it, my fancy roamed.

What strange sights and sounds and beings were there! We had had but a little glimpse, no more -- and then it was snatched away.

It is not important now for me to recount what these months brought on earth. The adjustment to new conditions, new climate, new night and day. Volumes of history describe it fully -- the myriad shifting events over the world's great surface, the new nations, new mingling of races -- everything new, it would seem. Everything but human nature, the old characteristics, love, hate, jealousy, friendship, greed, envy -- nothing on earth has ever changed them, and nothing will.

We did not know why father, Hulda and Zetta were abducted; but that they were captured by the invaders and with them returned to Xenephrene we felt sure. Why the invaders came at all, and then so hastily withdrew, we could not guess. Zetta knew, and she had told father. But the secret went with them. Perhaps, we decided, the Creator intends this veil of mystery between the worlds. If that thought could be spiritual consolation to Dan and me, we tried to make the most of it.

Dan was distracted. Vainly he and I sought some way by which we might get to Xenephrene. It seemed impossible. Before that terrible winter when what they now call the "Great Change" began, any serious talk of going to a neighbor planet was always laughed at. But no one laughed now.

Scientists told Dan and me that at present, for us of earth, the thing was impossible. If father had left his notes, perhaps, instead of putting them in his pocket that fatal afternoon; if some vestige of apparatus had been left behind by the invaders; if only we still had even a portion of the mechanism of Zetta's small vehicle, that our scientists might study it, try to learn its secret -- Ah, those ifs! They are all encompassed in the one phrase, which each of us mortals at one time or another in life has murmured sadly: "If only I had known!"

I was far older now in spirit than that winter thirty-five months before. We do not age in regular progression, but in spurts of stressed mental and physical suffering. I aged, for though I lost a sister and father, something else I lost, less tangible but unforgettable. The girl Zetta -- the loss of what might have been, for me and for her.

Love born of a glance, now to stay with me always? It was not that. I was not so youthful that I could cherish such romantic illusion.

But this I knew. Something, that memorable afternoon when she and I first joined glances, sprang into being. As though over the gap from one world to another, from a man to a woman and back again, it sprang and clung reluctant to be broken. And it left its mark upon my mind and spirit. It was not to be; I believed that fully. But, it had been, the consciousness was within me that it would have been a thing very beautiful.

And I was older; and, I think, a better man, just for the memory.

Thirty-five months! A dreary, hopeless interval to Dan and me. Dreary, for in the midst of all the world's turmoil we seemed to stand apart; not actors, spectators merely, with our minds and spirits up there where the great purple star was shining. Thirty-five hopeless months, for it seemed that what we had lost was forever gone.

On February 4, 1956, Dan and I were living in Porto Rico. Freddie was in Miami. Father's post in Southern Chile was taken by one of his fellow scientists. The world rolls on! Father was lost, his post filled, and himself almost forgotten. How fatuously we mortals attach importance to ourselves! We strut our little moment upon the stage, some in the spotlight, some shrinking in the shadows by the back drop. We miss our cues, fumble, and are abashed or terrified. But in a moment no one cares. The curtain rings down; up again, with the old play, but new scenes and other actors; and the changing audience forgets we ever were on the stage at all.

Father's post was filled. Freddie and I had been down there in Chile one summer, but we did not like it and we came back. Summer! The very word had lost its meaning. They were beginning now to call it the Day.

We came back in June, chasing the daylight, and located in Porto Rico. Dan and his father were engaging in the new agriculture. The daylight and twilight months in the West Indies were found favorable for the raising of vegetables. Every one was groping. What could or could not be done was as yet scarcely known. But it promised to be a profitable business. Food of any kind, anywhere in the world, at any time, found a ready market. All the world governments were engaged in its purchase, its storage, and its distribution.