by Earl
THEN Cabel, greed-ridden, had revealed the cupidity he had held in check for those three years. He had planned the triple murder, knowing a story of attack by wild Indians, backed by a generous heap of dust, would carry at Koniko.
What incredible fortitude kept Cabel on his feet after this three-day eternity of hellfire? Even Burt, unencumbered, felt himself on the verge of sunstroke. And he was younger, stronger than Cabel.
The two men crossed an open patch of lush-grown ground, and here the sun beat down with hammers of blinding flame. Burt could not resist a maddened urge to curse the fiery orb above. A huge, stinging drop of sweat touched one eyeball, burning it, so that he had to rub his eye clear, but he looked again, And again—raising his hand and peering through the fingers. His lips made a soundless exclamation of amazement.
Cabel was moving on doggedly, head hanging. When they had crossed the clearing, Burt called a halt. Cabel threw himself, pack and all, on the sawgrass beside the trail, panting like a spent fox. His bloodshot eyes peered up mockingly from between the steaming tangle of his hair as Burt stood over him.
“Haul out your little paper, sonny,” sneered Cabel, “so I can spit at it.”
Ha drew the flap of leather that was his tongue between his cracked lips.
Burt looked down at the murderer. “Gabel,” he said, sawing off the words, “you won’t live to enjoy the fortune we made. You’re going to face your Maker with blood fresh on your hands!”
“Stow it!” croaked Gabel. “You haven’t the spunk to kill me.”
“Gabel, look at the sun!”
The murderer peered upward toward the sun. His first careless glance changed to a wide-eyed stare. An exclamation ripped from his heatlacerated lips.
“Good God! What’s the matter with the sun?” he gasped. “The heat’s got us—it looks too big!”
“The heat’s going to get us, you mean!” hissed Burt steamily, “Gabel, do you know what that means that we see? It means the Earth is falling into the sun! It must have been going on for hours, maybe days, but we didn’t notice. Except that I think you’ll agree this has been the hottest three days we’ve ever had, even in this Devil’s sinkhole.”
Gabel’s haggard face showed his abysmal fear. “It can’t be!” he mumbled, swallowing with a throat that had nothing to swallow, “Maybe it’s a—a mirage!”
“Whatever it is,” retorted Burt grimly, “that’s going on between heaven and Earth, I’m not going to let up on you. Get going!”
Burt, driving the murderer along pitilessly, saw at last a chance to break him. Let his tortured mind labor under the two burdens of secret murder and a burning doom, while the aching, sweating physical grind fore his nerves to shreds.
When the afternoon sun, a huge bloated orb, reached its peak of hellish intensity, Gabel broke. Screaming like a madman, he flung himself tremblingly under a tree, as if to hide from the pitiless sun.
“It’s growing!” he babbled. “I saw it with my own eyes—never heat like this before-coming down on us—.Why did I kill Johnson! Blood! Bipod—”
THE confession was signed. They went on with Burt carrying his own pack. Burt had given Gabel his fill of water. It was not till an hour later that Burt realized the murderer had cracked completely. He listened, horrified, as the broken man in front hissed:
“Damn you, sun, you won’t get me! They’re going to hang me—”
And Burt Robinson, rowing a grinning, vacant-eyed Gabel up the river, felt for the first time in full force the stunning realization of Earth’s doom. He had avenged the murder of his friend, but to what avail?
* * * *
“. . . if you can believe me, gentlemen,” earnestly finished the young man in knickers. The crowd had not stirred since he first had begun to speak.
“Just who are you?” demanded Professor Hargreave.
“Well, nobody,” confessed the young man with a wry grin. “That is, my name isn’t known except to my friends and relatives and the minister who baptized me. The name is Terry Blackwell. I’m an amateur astronomer, use an eight-inch refractor, home-made mounting.”
“That’s neither here nor there.” Hargreave’s puffy, florid face was grim, sweat-beaded. “The thing is, what proof have you for your—ah—quite hare-brained explanation of this unprecedented phenomenon?”
“Proof?” Terry Blackwell frowned a bit. “I have proof—of sorts. That is, I have a series of photographs of the ether-strain in the past three months of its approach toward the sun.”
Professor Hargreave looked at him sternly. “And you didn’t reveal this knowledge, or theory at least, of yours till this last, fatal moment?”
A look of angry pain came into the young man’s eyes. “This morning at 5:15 A.M. I tried to get an audience at Yerkes,” he said slowly. “I was refused admittance! A month ago I wrote a letter to Yerkes, offering to show my photographs, but the reply was a cold refusal, signed by yourself! It is not easy, I can assure you, for an amateur to gain a hearing.” The Yerkes astronomer flushed deeply, Hargreave remembered the letter vaguely, and recalled, too. that he had chuckled over it. Strange how little things could turn up with the devastating force of a hurricane, in the sweep of tumultuous events.
“Well, we’ll see your photographs,” said Hargreave at last, gruffly. “Where are they?”
“At my home—Geneva—hour’s drive,” responded Terry. “Perhaps we’d better hurry?”
“Hurry—yes,” agreed the astronomer, jerking himself up. “Come, my car.”
CHAPTER III
Stars in Their Courses
A YEAR before Robert McClaugh, Ph.D., had said: “I believe my ten years of research are coming to a head. Atomic power lies just ahead!” Six months before he had stated: “The power of the atom can be released by a suitable concentration of cosmic rays!”
One month before he had cried excitedly: “Look, Vogel, my artificial cosmic rays already have the power to split the nitrogen atom!”
A week before he had spoken nervously: “Vogel, I dare not try it. Who knows but what the release of total energy in even a thimbleful of gas might be the fuse to set the whole world aflame?”
“But what are you going to do?” Vogel had asked.
“Forget it for the time being,” McClaugh had muttered. “Controlled atomic energy would be the world’s greatest blessing. But escaping, it would be world-destruction. Since I don’t know whether it is controllable with my ionized screen, I’ll have to work out a sure method. There can be no half-cocked guesswork with this demon-force.”
And McClaugh, with Vogel’s assistance, had begun what might well be the task of years, to find a quencher that would as easily snuff atomic power as water puts out flame.
Then something had occurred to put a new face on the whole thing. Vogel had announced it with a dazed expressionlessness. McClaugh had listened with a detached curiosity.
“Come, come, man!” McClaugh scoffed at last. “What are you trying to say, that the earth is falling into the sun?”
“I don’t know how else,” Vogel said doggedly, “you can explain the sun being four times or more its usual size!”
“Why, you’re serious!” stated McClaugh. Then he dashed outside his laboratory home to see for himself. Everything was lit by an unnatural brightness this hot morning. People hurried here and there with fear on their faces. McClaugh put up his hand and squinted at the sun between his fingers. It was unmistakably a larger sun than had ever shone on Earth in the history of man!
“What do you think, sir?” Vogel asked when they went back inside. His lips trembled. He wiped perspiration from his forehead.
“I think it’s splendid,” retorted McClaugh, without sarcasm.
Vogel stared. “But, professor, it means the doom of all Earth! Everyone is going to die!”
“Exactly, everyone is going to die.” The old scientist looked speculatively at his young assistant. “Vogel, do you think it would make much difference if everyone died a few hours beforehand? Would yo
u, for instance, care much if you died now or three days later, if in both cases the death was inevitable?”
“Sir—I don’t understand—I—”
“Fool!” barked McClaugh in quick temper. “Naturally the quicker death is the more desirable. Death itself is not so terrifying; the suspense of waiting for it is far worse. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes, sir. But we don’t know for sure the earth will plunge all the way to the sun. It may stop somewhere and take up a new orbit.”
“That we must find out, Vogel. I want you to call up all the newspaper offices and radio stations and ask for official reports, if any.” His eyes held a peculiar light. “In the meantime—” He whirled on the motionless, dazed Vogel. “Well!” he roared.
The young assistant ran like a frightened rabbit. A half hour later he sought the scientist and found him down in the basement workroom.
“I’ve tried everywhere,” Vogel announced: “There have been no official reports from anywhere. The newspaper offices have pleaded with Yerkes for a statement, but they refuse as yet.”
MCCLAUGH’S eyes still had a peculiar glint in them. “Do you know what that means, Vogel? Their refusal to report means they fear the worst. The earth is going to fall into the sun!”
“I called my mother, too,” murmured Vogel, biting his lip to hold back a scream that pressed in his throat. “She wants me to come home—frightened, I guess. May I go. sir?”
“Yes, of course—of course.” The old scientist’s tone was preoccupied. He was busily engaged in examining the large electrical apparatus in the center of the room.
“Professor, what did you mean a while ago when you asked if I would prefer—er, death now or later?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all,” hummed the aged scientist. He looked up fiercely as the assistant stood there. “Well!” Vogel left with the echoes of that peremptory roar.
As soon as the assistant left, McClaugh ran to the door, locked it. Then he gazed at the apparatus with eagerness. Here was the machine that could rend asunder a mere puff of gas and extract from it untold power. But the proof of it lay in the trying, and so far he had not dared try.
He had not dared to increase the intensity of his artificial cosmic ray beam to the point where it would not merely knock electrons loose from gas atoms, but disrupt the nuclei themselves! In the nuclei lay the inconceivable hammer of atomic power. His cosmic rays were the hand that would wield that hammer.
McClaugh’s heart began to pound madly, an hour later, when the apparatus had been made quite ready. One twist of that red dial and a Titan would leap from the machine. But would his screen of ionized mercury hold the vortex of potential force? Or would it burst free and—
McClaugh hesitated at the last minute. His mind revolved again the train of thought that had brought him this far. Earth was doomed by an inexplicable fall toward the sun. If the vortex escaped and accomplished its progressive disintegration of the earth, it would simply be a quicker doom.
But what if Earth was not doomed by the sun?
Sweating. McClaugh felt his mind whirling. The driving, all-consuming urge of ten years of striving toward this goal gathered itself and rolled forward like a juggernaut in his mind, mowing down all other considerations.
Atomic power! Controlled atomic power or—holocaust!
The low, powerful hum of the internal transformers seemed to beat time to his throbbing thoughts. White-faced dials seemed to stare at him like watching eyes. Watching this man who had fate in his hands.
Power or destruction? Which would it be?
McClaugh grasped the red dial with a nervous hand. The die was cast. With a savage finality he twisted the rheostat control. He staggered back as a tremendous shock rocked the floor. The whine of great power sang through the apparatus. McClaugh closed his eyes, waiting for the microcosmic explosion that would destroy a world.
But the machine hummed steadily on!
He ran to the dials, face alight. They told their story—the story of ten billion watts accumulated within the mercury chamber. And it had held! He had succeeded in producing controlled atomic power! The earth had a legacy of endless, costless power!
McClaugh grounded the mercury chamber, dazed in his triumph, and watched the dials show the slow outpouring of ten billion watts into the capacious bosom of Earth.
THEN suddenly his face contorted horribly. His eyes swam in a film of blood-tears.
For in this moment of victory, a temporarily forgotten thought swept over him with crushing fury.
Irony of ironies! He had given this great gift to a world that would have no chance to use it. For the earth was plunging into the sun!
* * * *
“. . . Terry Blackwell shuffled through the pack of prints and finally picked out one. He handed it to Professor Hargreave.
“That’s about the best I took,” Terry said. “It shows quite clearly the distortions of the star field, especially around its edges.”
Hargreave wiped a rivulet of sweat from his cheek, took the print eagerly. It showed a small portion of the night sky, with an appreciable dusting of stars. Just below center was noticeable a small patch in which the stars ran in curved streaks to form a circle. Within that circle the star images were superimposed on one another to form a mottled design.
“The rest of these prints,” continued Terry, “show the three months’ progress of the ether-strain among the background of constellations, as it slowly but surely approached the sun. I did not know how close it was till one night it occulted Jupiter—that is, it threw Jupiter’s image about three minutes of arc out of place. Then I knew it was comparatively close to Earth!”
Hargreave and the officials with him looked over the prints carefully, One of the officials said finally:
“Couldn’t this be a fault in the lens of your camera, or in your telescope?”
Strangely, it was Hargreave who took Terry’s part then, “No, because the distortion takes different positions in the print, which could not be explained that way. Besides—besides, I seem to recall that several prints were ruined recently up at the Observatory by distortions exactly like these. We thought it was in the photographic paper and threw them away.”
“That’s right!” said one of the officials. “I remember that one print was ruined by a fault in Scorpio, about a month ago.”
“June sixth, to be exact,” confirmed Terry, holding up the print for that date. If the group had had any serious doubts left, they vanished utterly when this photograph showed the tail of Scorpio twisted cut of place.
Hargreave looked at Terry with something of deep respect. “Young man,” he said excitedly, “I think there isn’t any doubt about it any more. Incredible as it seems, your ether-strain theory must be right. It plunged into the solar system, or rather the solar system met up with it. and as a result—”
They all knew the result—a great, menacing sun that had apparently burst its linear bonds and become a threat of doom over a world of creatures who were, in the last analysis, less bound by the laws of man than the laws of nature.
Before a blanket of censorship had muffed the blarings of radio commentators an hour before, there had been stark reports of rioting hundreds, suicidal thousands, hysterical millions in Europe, which had already viewed the Brobdingnagian sun for twelve hours. What was happening in America, the Lord only knew.
Hargreave glanced at his watch. It was ten o’clock. Wiping off the sweat sprinkled over his boiled-looking skin with a limp and already saturated handkerchief, he gasped:
“Telephone! Quickly!”
CHAPTER IV
Sunrise
OUTWARDLY, Jose Estaban was calm and proud, with his back against the high stone wall of the prison courtyard. If there were any mental worms gnawing at his brain, it did not show on his saturnine face with its mocking smile. He had been that way the night before, during the hasty military trial.
The solemn, dark faces of the enemy had filled with hate as they turned to him. There had been
the formal recital of his many acts of espionage. Then the faces had turned to triumphant glee as the head-officer pronounced the sentence in cold, harsh tones:
“Jose Estaban, known as El Diablo Bspia, your crimes against the nation of Bolivia merit death. Fucilado a la solida del sol—you will be shot—at sunrise!”
Jose Estaban looked up and saw the rosy fingers of approaching dawn tremble through the gloom. The ten men of the guard, at an order from their captain, made a right turn on their heels, and marched toward the farther wall, against which lay ten rifles.
Jose stared stolidly ahead. El capitan stalked up. “Blindfold, senor?” He tendered a black cloth.
Jose smiled the saturnine smile that had won him the name of the Devil Spy.
“Save it, mi Capitan,” he murmured softly, “for mourning when el Chaco Boreal, the land for which we fight, passes into the hands of Paraguay!”
“Brave words for a dead man!” leered the captain. He whirled and walked to a position beside the ten riflemen. As he glanced impatiently out the east gate for the soon-to-rise sun, his lieutenant spoke in his ear: “Would it not be best, mi Capitan, to have the men lire right now, even though the sun has not yet risen, lest he escape in some way?”
“The puerco will not escape.”
“Five times before was he captured, and five times he escaped!” reminded the under-officer. He rolled his eyes, superstitiously. “They say the devil himself watches over this man. Caramha! Look—how he grins as he stands there, as though he expects not to die, but to have the laugh over us. The men are nervous, too, and—”
“Silence, perro!” hissed the Bolivian Captain. “There is no miracle can save him. We will wait for a punctual sun to give the signal of his death.”