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.
AN
EMPTY
BOTTLE
By Mari Wolf
ugh McCann took the last of the photographic plates out of thedeveloper and laid them on the table beside the others. Then he pickedup the old star charts—Volume 1, Number 1—maps of space from variousplanetary systems within a hundred light years of Sol. He lookedaround 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 observationroom ceased as the people stopped to listen.
McCann set the charts down and opened them at the first sheet—thecomposite map of the stars as seen from Earth. "Don't be toodisappointed if we're wrong," he said.
Amos Carhill's fists clenched. He leaned across the table. "You stilldon't believe we're near Sol, do you? You're getting senile, Hugh! Youknow the mathematics of our position as well as anybody."
"I know the math," Hugh said quietly. "But remember, a lot of ourbasics have already proved themselves false this trip. We can't besure of anything. Besides, I think I'd remember this planet we're onif we'd ever been here before. We visited every planetary systemwithin 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'velanded on in years."
Hugh shrugged and turned to the next chart. The others clusteredaround him, checking, comparing the chart with the photographic platesof their position, finding nothing familiar in the star pattern.
"I still think we would have remembered this planet," Hugh said. "Justbecause it is so monotonous. After all, what have we been lookingfor, all these years? Life. Other worlds with living forms, othertypes of evolution, types adapted to different environments. Thisparticular planet is less capable of supporting life than our ownMoon."
Martha Carhill looked up from the charts. Her face was as tense andstrained as her husband's, and the lines about her mouth deeplyetched. "We've got to be near Earth. We've just got to. We've got tofind people again." Her voice broke. "We've been looking for solong—"
Hugh McCann sighed. The worry that had been growing in him ever sincethey first left the rim of the galaxy and turned homeward deepenedinto a nagging fear. He didn't know why he was afraid. He too hopedthat they were near Earth. He almost believed that they would soon behome. 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 theirjourney was almost over and they would