When Worlds Collide Page 22

  It seemed as they rose over the horizon on that last night that they increased visibly in size as the onlookers regarded them.

  And such might have been the case, for now the earth was no longer rushing away from the stranger bodies, but toward them.

  Already the desolate and wounded surface of man’s world was stirring to their approach. Slight earthquake shocks were felt from time to time, and the very winds seemed to be moving in a consciousness of the awful cataclysm that was drawing near. All over the world, the tides—unnaturally absent since the shattering of the moon—rose again and licked up the sides of the fresh, raw shores; the people who huddled on mountains and prairie plateaus that night knew instinctively that this was indeed the end.

  CHAPTER 23—THE LAST NIGHT ON EARTH

  TONY sought out Eve.

  “Come walk with me,” he said.

  “I’d like to. It’s so strange to wait, with everything done that matters. For it’s all done, Tony; everything that we’re to take with us has been prepared and put in place. Except the animals and ourselves.”

  “Dull lot of animals, mostly,” complained Tony. He was excited and on edge, with nerves which he tried to quiet and could not.

  He did not want to talk to Eve to-night about animals; but he might as well, for people were all about, alone or in pairs, likewise restless and excited.

  “It would be madness to try to bring the interesting animals along, wouldn’t it?” Eve said agreeably. “Like lions and tigers and leopards.”

  “I know,” admitted Tony. “Meat-eaters. We can’t cart along meat for them, of course; and we can’t expect meat on Bronson Beta. All we can hope for is grass and moss; so we load up with a cow, and a young bull, of course; a pair of sheep of proved breeding ability, a couple of reindeer, and a colt and a young mare. Half humanity lived on horsemeat once and milked the mares. We’ll be allowed goats, too. And deer, if our big ship gets over. Do you supose there’ll be other ships starting from this side of the world tomorrow night and from the other side, the evening after?”

  “Father doesn’t know. When the radios were working well, months ago, he broadcast the knowledge of David’s metal. It must have become obtainable from volcanic eruptions in other places. But we’ve no real news of any one else ready to start. One thing is certain. No party can count upon the arrival of any other. Each crew has to assume that it may be the only one that gets across to Bronson Beta.”

  “And damn’ lucky if it lands, too,” agreed Tony. “However, I hope the Australians are making a try, and will start with a kangaroo. And if the South Africans have a ship, they ought to show some originality in animals, even if they too feel confined to grass- and moss-eaters. Who has a chance of sending up a ship, anyway?”

  “The English, Father thinks, surely have preserved enough organization to build and equip one ship, and the French, the Germans and Italians ought to do the same. Then there are the Russians and the Japanese at least with the potential ability to do it. There’s a chance in Australia and another in South Africa—Lord Rhondin would head any party there, Father thinks.”

  “Any one else?”

  “A possibility in Argentina and also in China.”

  “That makes twelve, counting our two.”

  “Possibilities, that’s all. Of course, we know nothing about them. Father guesses that if twelve are trying, perhaps five may get ships out into space.”

  “What five?” demanded Tony.

  “He did not name them.”

  “Five into space beyond the attraction of the world.”

  “The world won’t be left then, Tony,” Eve reminded him.

  “Right. Funny how one keeps forgetting that, isn’t it? So there’ll be no place for them to drop back to, if they miss Bronson Beta. They just stay—out there in space—in their rocket, with their air-purifiers and oxygen-machines and their compressed food and their seeds and insects and birds or birds’ eggs, and carefully chosen grass-eating animals.… I imagine they’ll eat the animals, at last, out there in space; and then—”

  Eve stopped him.

  “Why deny the possibilities?” he objected.

  “Why dwell on those particular ones, Tony, when they may be the ones we ourselves will meet? We—or our friends in our other ship.… It’s funny how you men complain about missing the wild animals. Do you know, Tony, that Dave told me that Dr. Bronson thought about the impossibility of taking over lions when he first began planning with Father the idea of the space ships? That night Lord Rhondin and Professor Bronson walked about the room and spoke about how there would be no more lions.”

  “Funny to think of meeting Rhondin for the first time on Bronson Beta,” said Tony, “if we and the South African ship get over. Good egg, Lord Rhondin, from all I hear from Dave.”

  They were off by themselves now, and Tony drew her nearer to him. She neither encouraged nor resisted him. He tightened his arm about her, and felt her softness and warmth against him. For a moment she remained motionless, neutral; then suddenly her hands were on his arms, clasping him, clinging to him. Her body became tense, thrilling, and as he bent, her lips burned on his.

  She drew back a little, and at last he let her. In silence he kissed her again; then her lips, close to his, said: “Farewell to earth, Tony!”

  “Yes,” he said, quivering. “Yes; I suppose this is our last sure night.”

  “No; we leave to-night, Tony.”

  “To-night? I thought it was to-morrow.”

  “No; Father feared the last night—if any one knew it in advance. So he said to-morrow; but all his calculations make it to-night.”

  “How soon, Eve?”

  “In an hour, dear. You’ll hear the bugles. He deceived even you.”

  “And Dave?” asked Tony jealously. Dave Ransdell now was his great friend. Dave was to be in command, except as to scientific matters, of the party in the second ship; Tony was himself second only to Hendron on the first ship; and Tony had no jealousy of Dave for that. Moreover, Eve was to travel in the ship with her father and Tony; if he was saved, so would be she! And Dave might, without them, be lost. Tony had told himself that he had conquered his jealousy of Dave; but here it still held him.

  “No,” said Eve. “Father told Dave to-morrow, too. But we leave the earth to-night.”

  “So to-morrow,” said Tony, “to-morrow we may be ‘ourselves, with yesterday’s seven thousand years.’ I had plans—or dreams at least, Eve—of the last night on earth. It changes them to find it barely an hour.”

  “I should not have told you, Tony.”

  “Why? Would you have me go ahead with what I dreamed?”

  “Why not?” she said. “An hour before the bugles; an hour before we leave the world, to fall back upon it from some frightful height, dear, and be shattered on this globe’s shell; or to gain space and float on endlessly, starving and freezing in our little ship; or to fall on Bronson Beta and die there. Or perhaps, Tony—perhaps, to live!”

  “Perhaps,” repeated Tony; but he had not, this time, gone from the world with her in his mind. He held her again and thought of his hour—the last hour of which he could be sure.

  “Come away,” he said. “Come farther away from—”

  “From what, Tony?”

  “From everybody else.” And he drew her on. He led her, indeed, toward the edge of the encampment where the wires that protected it knitted a barrier. And there, holding her, he heard and she heard a child crying.

  There were no children in the encampment. There never had been. No one with little children had been chosen. But here was a child.

  Eve called to it, and the child ceased crying; so Eve had to call again for a response that would guide her to it in the dark.…

  There were two children, together and alone. They were three and four years old, it appeared. They knew their names—Dan and Dorothy. They called for “Papa.” Papa, it appeared, had brought them there in the dark and gone away. Papa had told them to stay there, and somebod
y would come.

  Eve had her arms between the wires, and the children clung to her hands while they talked. Now Tony lifted them over the wires; and Eve took them in her arms.

  In the awful “moonlight” of Bronson Beta, the children clung to her; and the little girl asked if she was “Mamma.” Mamma, it appeared, had gone away a long time ago.

  “Months ago only,” Eve interpreted for Tony, “or they wouldn’t remember her.”

  “Yes. Probably in the destruction of the First Passage,” Tony said; and they both understood that the mother must be dead.

  “He brought them here to us,” Eve said; and Tony understood that too. It was plain enough: Some father, who had heard of the camp and the Space Ships, had brought his children here and left them—going away, asking nothing for himself.…

  Clear and loud in the night, a bugle blew; and Tony and Eve both started.

  “Gabriel’s horn,” muttered Tony. “The last trump!”

  “Father advanced the time,” returned Eve. “He decided to give a few minutes more of warning; or else he fooled me, too.”

  “You are carrying that child?” asked Tony. Eve had the little girl.

  “Yes,” said Eve. “You are carrying the boy?”

  “Yes,” said Tony. “Rules or no rules; necessities or no necessities, if we can take sheep and goats, I guess we can take these two.”

  “I guess so,” said Eve; and she strode strongly beside him into the edge of illumination as the great floodlights blazed out.

  The buildings were all alight; and everybody was bustling. The loading of the two Arks long ago had been completed, as Eve had said—except for the animals and the passengers and crew. The animals now were being driven aboard; and the passengers ran back and forth, calling, crying, shaking hands, embracing one another.

  They were all to go; every one in sight was billeted on the Space Ships; but some would be in one ship, some on the other. Would they meet again—on Bronson Beta? Would either ship get there? Would they rise only to drop from a great height back upon this earth? What would happen?

  Tony, hurrying to his station, appreciated how wisely Hendron had acted in deceiving them all—even himself—as to the night.

  Here he was, second in command of the first Space Ship, carrying a strange child in contravention of all orders. The chief commander’s daughter also carried a child.

  No one stopped them. Not Hendron himself. It was the last hour on earth, and men’s minds were rocking.

  The bugles blew again; and Tony, depositing the boy with Eve, set about his business of checking the personnel of his ship.

  Three hundred yards away, Dave Ransdell checked the personnel of his larger party. Jessup and Kane, there, were in the navigating-room as Hendron was in the chief control-room here.

  Ransdell, for a moment, ran over. He asked for Hendron, but he sought, also, Eve.

  Tony did not interfere; he allowed them their last minutes together.

  A third time the bugles blew. This meant: “All persons at ship stations!” All those who were to leave the earth forever, aboard ship!

  CHAPTER 24—STARWARD HO!

  TONY completed his check of crew and passengers. Thrice he blew his whistle.

  From off to the right, where the second ship lay, Dave Ransdell’s shrill signal answered.

  “Close valves and locks!”

  There was no one on the ground. No one! They were all aboard. All checked and tallied, thrice over. Yet as Tony left the last lock open to gaze out again and listen, he heard a faint cry. The father of the children?

  Could he take him too? One man more? Of course they could make it. If it was only one man more, they must have him. Tony withheld the final signal.

  With a quick command, he warned those who were closing the lock. It swung open again. The voice was faint and far away, and in its thin notes could be detected the vibrations of tense anxiety. Tony looked over the landscape and detected its direction. It came from the southwest, where the airplane-field lay. Presently he made out syllables, but not their meaning.

  “Hello,” he yelled mightily. “Who is it?”

  Back came the thinly shouted reply: “C’est moi, Duquesne! Attendez!”

  Tony’s mind translated: “It’s I, Duquesne! Wait.”

  On the opposite side of the flying-field a lone human figure struggled into the rays of the flood-lights. It was the figure of a short fat man running clumsily, waving his arms and pausing at intervals to shout. Duquesne! The name had a familiar sound. Then Tony remembered. Duquesne was the French scientist in charge of building the French space ship that had been reported to him by James long ago. Instinctively he was sure that this Duquesne who ran ludicrously across the flying-field was the same man.

  He turned to the attendants at the airlock.

  “Get Hendron,” he said; “he’ll be in the stern control-room now. Tell him Duquesne is here alone.” He operated the winch which moved the stairway back to the hull of the ship.

  The short fat man trotted across the field, stopping frequently to gesticulate and shout: “Attendez! C’est moi, Duquesne!”

  At last he scrambled up the steps of the concrete foundations to the ship. He rushed across the platform and arrived at the airlock. He was completely out of breath, and could not speak. Tony had an opportunity to look at him. He wore the remnants of a khaki uniform which did not fit him. Protruding from the breast pocket of the tunic was the butt of a revolver. He was black-haired, black-eyed and big-nosed. He regarded Tony with an intensity which was almost comical, and when he began to speak brokenly, he first swore in French and then said in English: “I am Duquesne! The great Duquesne! The celebrated Duquesne! The famous Duquesne. The French physicist, me, Duquesne. This I take for the ship of Cole ’Endron—yes? Then, so I am here. Tell him I have come from France in three months, running a steamboat by myself, flying across this foul country with my plane, which is broken down near what was Milwaukee, and to here I have walked by myself alone these many days. You are going now, yes? I see you are going. Tell him to go. Tell him Duquesne is here. Tell him to come and see me. Tell him to come at once. Tell him I leave those pigs, those dogs, those cows, those onions, who would build such a foolish ship as they will break their necks in. I said it would not fly, I, Duquesne. I knew this ’Endron ship would fly, so I have come to it. Bah! They are stupid, my French colleagues. More suitable for the motormen of trams than for flyers in outer space!”

  At that instant Hendron arrived at the top of the spiral staircase.

  He rushed forward with his eyes alight. “Duquesne! By God, Duquesne! I’m delighted. You’re in the nick of time. In forty minutes we would have been away from here.”

  Duquesne gripped Hendron’s hand, and skipped around him as if he were playing a child’s game. With his free fist he smote upon his breast. Whether he was ecstatic with joy or rage could not have been told, for he shouted so that the entire chamber reverberated: “Am I a fool that you should have to tell me what hour was set for your departure? Have I no brains? Do I know nothing about astronomy? Have I never studied physics? Have I run barefoot across this whole United States of America for no other reason than because I knew when you would have to leave? Do I not carry the day on the watch in my pocket? Idiots, charming friends, glorious Americans, fools! Have I no brain? Can I not anticipate? Here I am.”

  Suddenly after this broadside of violent speech he became calm. He let go of Hendron’s hand and stopped dancing. He bowed very gravely, first to Hendron, then to Tony, then to the crew. “Gentlemen,” he said, “let’s be going. Let’s be on our way.”

  Hendron turned to Tony, who in reaction burst into a paroxysm of laughter. For an instant the French scientist looked deeply wounded and as if he might burst into expletives of anger; then suddenly he began to laugh. “I am ridiculous, am I not?” he shouted. He roared with laughter. He rocked with it. He wrapped his arms around his ample frame, and the tears rolled down his cheeks. “It is magnificent,” he said.
“Yes. It is to laugh.”

  “What about the ships that were being built in other countries in Europe?” Hendron asked him.

  “The English?” returned Duquesne. “They will get away. What then, who knows? Can you ‘muddle through’ space, Cole ’Endron? I ask it. But the English are sound; they have a good ship. But as to them, I have made my answer. I am here.”

  “The Germans?” demanded Hendron.

  The Frenchman gestured. “Too advanced!”

  “Too advanced?”

  “They have tried to take every contingency into account—too many contingency! They will make the most beautiful voyage of all—or by far the worst. Again I reply, I am here. As to all the other, again I observe, I have preferred to be here.”

  And in that fashion Pierre Duquesne, France’s greatest physicist, was at the eleventh hour and the fifty-ninth minute added to the company of the Ark. He went off with Hendron to the control-room, talking volubly. Tony superintended the closing of the lock. He went up the spiral staircase to the first passenger deck. Fifty people lay there on the padded surface with the broad belts strapped around their legs and torsos. Most of them had not yet attached the straps intended to hold their heads in place. Their eyes were directed toward the glass screen, where alternately views of the heavens overhead and of the radiant landscape outside the Space Ship were being shown.