Warning from the Stars | Page 3

capitals at the top, the name of
the man with the familiar handwriting, and fear came back, clamped
cold fingers around his throat:
James Rawdon Bentley
Dear Dick, the writing went on, Take a large economy-size grip on
yourself. I know this is going to sound like a voice from the dead, but
I'm very much alive and kicking--in the best of health in fact....
The writing blurred, and instinctively Forster put his fist up to rub his
eyes, only to meet the hard plastic of his helmet visor. James Rawdon
Bentley....
It was January 18, 1951, three years ago, and the jagged line of the
Australian coast stretched like a small-scale map to the black curve of
the horizon.
From the converted bomber that was his flying lab, Forster could see
the other American observation plane cruising on a parallel course,
about half a mile away, and beyond it downwind the fringe of the
billowing cloud dome of the super-secret British thermonuclear shot.
Then suddenly Bentley's voice from the other plane was crackling over
the earphones, sharp and urgent:
"Our Geigers and scintillometers are going crazy! We're getting out of
here! There's something coming inside ... a light...."
* * * * *

Silence. Forster had watched in helpless horror as the other ship dipped
a silver wing, then nosed down ever so slowly, it seemed ... down ...
down ... in a dive that seemed to take hours as Forster's plane tracked it,
ending in a tiny splash like a pebble being thrown into a pond; then the
grimly beautiful iridescence of oil and gasoline spreading across the
glassy waters of the Timor Sea.
No parachutes had opened on the long journey down. An Australian air
sea rescue launch and helicopter were at the scene of the crash in
minutes, but neither bodies nor survivors had been found, then or
later....
"Everything okay, Doctor Forster?"
"Yes," he said hoarsely. "Yes ... everything's okay ... just routine."
Forster focussed his eyes on the writing again. There was no doubt at
all that it was Bentley's. They had roomed and studied together for four
years at MIT, and then there had been a couple of years' post-graduate
work after that. During all that time they had used each other's notes
constantly.
But Bentley was dead.
Forster read on, stunned:
First, you'll want to know what happened over the Timor Sea after the
shot. Put very simply, I, the rest of the technicians, and the crew of the
B-29 were transhipped to another vehicle--without any damage to
ourselves. How, I'm not allowed to explain at this stage. Actually, they
only wanted me, but it wasn't feasible to collect me and leave the rest
behind, so they're all here, safe and well.
Who are "they," and where am I? The second question I can't
answer--not allowed to. "They," roughly translated, are "The Shining
Ones," which doesn't tell you anything, of course. Briefly, they're a
couple of light-years ahead of Earth in evolution--mentally, morally,
and physically, although I use the last word loosely. Too bad that

English is a commercial language, it's so hard to discuss really abstract
ideas.
Why am I here? The whole reason for this message is wrapped up in
the answer to that.
As you probably know, Project Longfall, which I was heading up was
delayed about a year due to my removal. That was the sole purpose,
although I and the rest of us are getting special instruction to keep us
occupied.
About the same time, they also took several other key people from
Britain, Russia, and the United States. Others were already here.
The idea then was delay--to delay more test shots of atomic weapons,
in the hope that East and West would come to some agreement. Now,
because of the growing volume of tests, and the critical tension which
prevails, delay will no longer suffice, and far more drastic steps are to
be taken.
I wish you could be here for only a few minutes to see what happens
after a multi-megaton thermonuclear test shot is set off on Earth.
* * * * *
I can't describe it in terms which would have any relation to your
present knowledge of physics. All I can say is that life here is
intimately bound up with the higher laws of electro-magnetism which
at present are only being guessed at on your level. It's not the
radioactivity which you know as such which causes the trouble--there
are neutralizing devices throughout the planetary system to take care of
that. The damage is caused by an ultra-ultra-short wave radiation which
not even the most sensitive scintillometer you have can pick up, a very
subtle by-product of every chain reaction.
It doesn't have too much immediate effect on the lower forms of
life--including