“Is it possible that they know nothing of the Great Circle?” Veda Kong almost groaned as though in obeisance before her beautiful sister from the Cosmos.

“By now they probably know,” answered Darr Veter, the scenes we have witnessed date three hundred years back.”

“Eighty-eight parsecs,” rumbled Mven Mass’s low voice. “Eighty-eight…. All those people we have just seen have long been dead.”

As though in confirmation of his words the scene from the wonderful world disappeared and the green indicator went out. The transmission around the Great Circle was over.

For another minute they were all in a trance. The first to recover was Darr Veter. Biting his lip in chagrin he hurriedly turned the granulated lever. The column of directed energy switched off with the sound of a gong that warned power station engineers to re-direct the gigantic stream of energy into its usual channels. The Director of the Outer Stations turned back to his companions only when all the necessary manipulations had been completed.

Junius Antus, with a frown on his face, was looking through pages of written notes.

“Some of the memory records taken down from the pBtellar map on the ceiling must be sent to the Southern Sky Institute!” he said, turning to Darr Veter’s young assistant. The latter looked at Junius Antus in amazement as though he had just awakened from an unusual dream.

The grim scientist looked at him, a smile lurking in his eyes — what they had seen was indeed a dream of a wonderful world sent out into space three hundred years before… a dream that thousands of millions of people on Earth and in the colonies on the Moon, Mars and Venus would now see so clearly that it would be almost tangible.

“You were right, Mven Mass,” smiled Darr Veter, “when you said before the transmission began that something unusual was going to happen today. For the first time in the eight hundred years since we joined the Great Circle a planet has appeared in the Universe inhabited by beings who are our brothers not only in intellect but in body as well. You can well imagine my joy at this discovery. Your tour of duty as Director has begun auspiciously! In the old days people would have said that it was a lucky sign and our present-day psychologists would say that coincidental events have occurred that favour confidence and give you encouragement in your further work.”

Darr Veter stopped suddenly: nervous reaction had made him more verbose than usual. In the Era of the Great Circle verbosity was considered one of the most disgraceful failings possible in a man — the Director of the Outer Stations stopped without finishing his sentence.

“Yes, yes…” responded Mven Mass, absent-mindedly. Junius Antus noticed the sluggishness in his voice and in his movements; he was immediately on the alert. Veda Kong quietly ran her finger along Darr Veter’s hand and nodded towards the African.

“Perhaps he is too impressionable?” wondered Darr Veter staring fixedly at his successor. Mven Mass sensed the concealed surprise of his companions; he straightened up and became his usual self, an attentive and skilled performer of the task in hand. An escalator took them to the upper storeys of the building where there were extensive windows looking out at the starry sky that was again as far away as it had always been during the whole thirty thousand years of man’s existence — or rather the existence of that species of hominids known as Homo sapiens. Mven Mass and Darr Veter had to remain behind.

Veda Kong whispered to Darr Veter that she would never forget that night.

“It made me feel so insignificant!” she said, in conclusion, her face beaming despite her sorrowful words. Darr Veter knew what she meant and shook his head.

“I am sure that if the red woman had seen you she would have been proud of her sister, Veda. Surely our Earth isn’t a bit worse than their planet!’’ Darr Veter’s face was glowing with the light of love.

“That’s seen through your eyes, my friend,” smiled Veda, “but ask Mven Mass what he thinks!” Jokingly she covered his eyes with her hand and then disappeared round a corner of the wall.

When Mven Mass was, at last, left alone it was already morning. A greyish light was breaking through the cool, still air and the sky and the sea were alike in their crystal transparency, the sea silver and the sky pinkish.

For a long time the African stood on the balcony of the observatory gazing at the still unfamiliar outlines of the buildings.

On a low plateau in the distance rose a huge aluminium arch crossed by nine parallel aluminium bars, the spaces between them filled in with yellowish-cream and silvery plastic glass; this was the building of the Astronautical Council. Before the building stood a monument to the first people to enter outer space; the steep slope of a mountain reaching into clouds and whirlwinds was surmounted by an old-type spaceship, a fish-shaped rocket that pointed its sharp nose into still unattainable heights. Cast-metal figures, supporting each other in a chain, were making a superhuman effort to climb upwards, spiralling their way around the base of the monument — these were the pilots of the rocket ships, the physicists, astronomers, biologists and writers with bold imaginations…. The hull of the old spaceship and the light lattice-work of the Council building were painted red by the dawn, but still Mven Mass continued pacing up and down the balcony. Never before had he met with such a shock. He had been brought up according to the general educational rules of the Great Circle Era, had had a hard physical training and had successfully performed his Labours of Hercules — the difficult tasks performed by every young person at the end of his schooling that had been given this name in honour of ancient Greece. If a youngster performed these tasks successfully he was considered worthy to storm the heights of higher education.

Mven Mass had worked on the construction of the water-supply system of a mine in Western Tibet, on the restoration of the Araucaria pine forests on the Nahebt Plateau in South America and had taken part in the annihilation of the sharks that had again appeared off the coasts of Australia. His training, his heredity and his outstanding abilities enabled him to undertake many years of persistent study to prepare himself for difficult and responsible activities. On that day, during the first hour of his new work, there had been a meeting with a world that was related to our Earth and that had brought something new to his heart. With alarm Mven Mass felt that some great depths had opened up within him, something whose existence he had never even suspected. How he craved for another meeting with the planet of star Epsilon in the Tucan Constellation!.. That was a world that seemed to have come into being by power of the best legends known to the Earth-dwellers. He would never forget the red-skinned girl, her outstretched alluring arms, her tender, half-open lips!

The fact that two hundred and ninety light years dividing him from that marvellous world was a distance that could not be covered by any means known to the technicians of Earth served to strengthen rather than weaken his dream.

Something new had grown up in Mven’s heart, something that lived its own life and did not submit to the control of the will and cold intellect. The African had never been in love, he had been absorbed in his work almost as a hermit would be and had never experienced anything like the alarm and incomparable joy that had entered his heart during that meeting across the tremendous barrier of space and time.