Philip Wylie - After Worlds Collide

by After Worlds Collide(Lit)

  "Well, the first thing we investigated that morning was a store. It was a department store in the sense that it contained a great many kinds of things; but it did not contain, for example, clothes or, as far as we could discover, food. It had house-furnishings, and furniture and kitchen appliances-and by the way, cooking must have been a cinch for the Other People, because apparently they cooked things by induced heat and under high pressure with steam, so that it only took a few minutes. The store also exhibited some of those automobile-like vehicles like the one we found wrecked.

  "In the store," he continued, "we also found a large department of games and sports, and one of children's toys. The children had very peculiar blocks. Wires extend from their sides and corners so that they look like cockleburs and can be stuck together to make variously shaped figures in which the differently colored blocks are held apart by wires. It was Tony who solved the enigma of those blocks. 'Molecules,' he said, as we stood staring at them. And then I realized that each block was designed to represent an atom and that the children were taught by playing with the blocks the atomic structure of various elements.

  "I can give you no idea of the superlative order in which everything in it was arranged. It would be hopeless for me to try to tell you the skill with which those people combined use with beauty. Beauty and use with imaginative intelligence. I can only say two things-first, that you will all see it yourselves, and second, that while the streets, and the buildings, and the apartments of the city of the Other People fascinated us, we had intended to leave that morning."

  Again Tony ceased to read. "We appreciated, of course," he observed to his hearers, "that we ought to communicate with you; and after our breakfast, and a brief journey through some of the strange streets, we went out of the city by the way we had entered and returned to our ship where we tried to call you by radio. We failed utterly because of some puzzling interference.

  "We argued, then, whether we should return to you with what we had learned or whether we should first try to learn much more. The second argument was overwhelming in its appeal to us. We returned to the city; and on the second day, we discovered that it was not quite so intact as we had supposed. In no less than six places which we observed, the huge transparent dome was pierced and showed great jagged tears or holes and below were marks of demolition exhibiting great violence. Meteors had torn through. But except for the wreckage caused by these, I tell you we found almost nothing out of order in that remarkable city. They left it in order, we believe; the meteors probably were met after the city was deserted and during this sphere's long journey through space.

  "Now I will give you a few more random details from Eliot's diary:

  "One thing we noted on our return to the stores-if they were stores," Tony read, "was that in none of them did there seem to have been a system for collecting money, or a medium of exchange, or of keeping books. Seemingly the Other People just came in and took what they wanted-or individuals must have kept their own books-or some system which we couldn't imagine was used. For at the end of our three days' stay we were pretty certain that they had no medium of exchange to correspond to money.

  "A department of that store was given over to musical instruments. Their chromatic scale is different from ours, and their way of writing music entirely different. They had a few stringed instruments, no wind instruments, many percussion instruments, but they had developed a vast variety of instruments which seem to have been operated by the transference of electrical impulses to sound. Unquestionably, music and the science of electricity had existed side by side for so long that the art had developed a science for its expression.

  "We found in profusion the small, light vehicles of the type which we first discovered wrecked on the road near our camp. It is plain these were operated by some sort of electric impulse; but we could do nothing with them."

  Tony skipped more pages. "Imagine us with the sun rising and the flood of indirect illumination dimming away. Imagine us under that vast transparent bubble in the early morning, having a long look at one marvel after another. We went across bridges and up and down streets. We tramped along ramps and on a dozen levels. We visited civic centers and museums and theaters and recreation-grounds and central kitchens and other places of assembly, the purpose of which was not clear. All we lacked was some one to explain at frequent intervals just what the devil we were seeing, because while we were interested we often could only guess, and sometimes none of our explanations made sense. We never found that some one. One thing was very clear, however: the Other People liked to spend a lot of time together. They had privacy in their own apartments, to be sure, but there were so many things and so many kinds of things for people to do in crowds that we became convinced that they were very gregarious. We felt too that their crowds were not comprised of mobs of unfriendly, unsympathetic, unacquainted individuals-like the crowds that once thronged the streets of New York-but were crowds of people who were associated in a most friendly and cooperative spirit with each other.

  "We followed a gallery underground where we found more great machines-engines-which we could not at all understand. We saw further descents into depths we decided not to explore. But we did come upon some of their stores of food -particularly grain."

  "Samples of this grain," Tony reminded them, looking up, "already you have examined for yourselves. Eliot and I tasted it; we ate it. It was starchy and not unpleasant. Whether or not it still contains vitamins, at least it has the starch base for nutrition. In the afternoon, we found one other thing of far greater importance to us than any other discovery, if I may except the food supply. This was a school."

  "A school?" several voices cried.

  "We believe it was a school for their children from their early years up. Can you imagine the benefit of such a discovery to you? We have brought back some of the objects from that school. Some of them seem to be books-books of a different type, to be sure, than our volumes; yet they can be described as books. Other objects, which we believe to have been materials of instruction, are harder to describe. Neither Eliot nor I were able to operate them, but we formed the theory that they probably were mechanisms giving instruction visually or by sound.

  "Then we found a sphere. It was in the lobby of the school. It was a sphere about fifty feet in diameter upon which was a relief map which we must assume to be of this planet. Eliot James made a most painstaking sketch of that sphere. There were other maps."

  "In short," said Tony, closing Eliot James' book of notes, "we have awaiting us not only an equipment beyond anything I dreamed of on earth, but a means of acquiring the secrets of the use of the engines and implements and other knowledge of this planet which we could not have obtained, by ourselves, at all.

  "A little study by ourselves as children in those amazing classrooms, a little skill and a little luck in setting in operation their mechanisms of instruction; and their secrets are ours!"

  CHAPTER IX THE MYSTERIOUS ATTACK

  Lunch was very late that day; it was long before the company of the camp could be satisfied that they had heard everything of importance that Tony had to tell them. This included, of course, the report on the finding of the lark-like aircraft of which he had made report to the other camp.

  Now Tony sat alone. Many, at first, tried to sit beside him and to talk to him. But he had told them that he was weary and wished to be alone for a little while. When the children came running up to him, however, he talked to them cheerfully.... Now they too had left.

  Tony had seen meals being sent to Hendron's cabin-like house-watched them being carried past the Ark and the workshop and the lumber-piles. He had stared often at the door of the house. But no one had emerged-and Eve had not sent for him.

  He sat alone, on a mound of chips and sawdust. Was Hendron turning over the command to Ransdell, in there now? Was Hendron asleep from exhaustion and were Eve and Ransdell taking advantage of the resultant solitude to express fresh love for each other? His heart was heavy; heavier still because h
e realized that the torrent of dreads and despairs it held were unworthy of him.

  He ached, and stared at his plate. His eyes felt salty and hot. He tried to clamp his mind on present necessities. They should move to the miracle city: they should study the food and machinery there. They should tend their own crops for fresh food. They should learn to run the Other People's vehicles-so that they could all be transported to the new city as rapidly as possible. They should prepare defenses for themselves against the possibility that the people who had flown the lark-like ships might some day attack them. People from earth? Or cautious scouts of the Other People?

  His mind jumped incessantly back to Eve-Eve and Ransdell, his two closest friends. They seemed both on the point of deserting him. Ransdell was, of course, a great man. Stronger in character, perhaps. Tony felt the crushing weight of the responsibilities he himself had endured. Still, Ransdell had taken greater risks-held a higher office. And Ransdell had been a new and different sort of man for Eve. She had known plenty of Yale graduates with social position and wealth and superficial culture-plenty-even if the Yale graduates now left alive could be numbered on the fingers of one hand....

  "Mr. Drake?" said a voice.

  Tony started. "Oh, Kyto!" Suddenly Tony did not want to be alone any longer. The smiling face of the little Japanese was familiar and good. "Sit down here, Kyto."

  Kyto hesitated.

  "You're not-working for me-any longer!" Tony grinned.

  Kyto seated himself with a precise and smooth motion. "That's true," he said slowly. "I'd forgotten for an instant."

  Tony was astonished. "You've certainly learned a lot of English in the last few months."

  "I always knew more than I pretended to know," the Japanese answered coolly.

  Tony smiled. "Really, Kyto? Then why did you pretend not to? Is that one of those things that makes people say the Japs are subtle and dangerous?"

  "In a way," Kyto answered. "I pretended not to know much English while I was in your employ, because I was a spy."

  "What!"

  "It is true."

  "But good God, Kyto, what use was my service-to a spy? I didn't know where there was a fort, or a gun-"

  "It gave me a respectable character."

  "And what did you spy on?"

  "It doesn't matter now. I shall tell you some day. You see, I used to be,"-there was scarcely a trace of accent in his words,-"long ago in Tokyo, a professor of foreign languages. I spoke English when I was a baby. Missionaries taught me. I was a patriot. I volunteered for espionage. While I was in America, my ideas changed. I became-before the Bronson Bodies appeared-a pacifist. I had sent in my resignation and offered to give myself up-at the time of the discovery of the approaching planets. My letters were ignored in the subsequent frantic days. So, during those days, I endeavored to reshape my life. You Americans-some of you, at least-stood for the things I desired: A world run by sense and science; a world of peace and fraternity. I wished to go on your ship. But my wish was not exclusively a selfish one. I continued to mingle with my associates in espionage-as one of them. I learned much."

  Tony had never been more astonished. As he looked at his former servant he realized that his jaw had literally sagged. "I'll be damned," he murmured.

  "You find it amusing?"

  "Astounding."

  "You were right before." Kyto laughed in a high key. "It is amusing. Delicious! And I was a fool. A blind, patriotic fool."

  "I'm glad you told me," Tony said suddenly. "You're a man, Kyto. And we need you here. Need the things your race possesses."

  "Thank you," Kyto said solemnly. "You are also a man."

  Involuntarily Tony glanced at Hendron's cabin and shook his head.

  The Japanese understood perfectly. "I hope you will not mind an expression of my sympathies?"

  Tony looked at him-his valet, expressing sympathies on a most personal matter! No-a friend-a professor-a savant. A man who had heroically offered to give up his life for the beliefs that he had gained. "No, Kyto."

  "You will need courage," Kyto said. "Courage, restraint You have both in sufficient quantities."

  "I have rats eating my soul," Tony answered stonily.

  "It is too big for all the rats on earth."

  Tony stared at the little man and said in a curious tone, "Funny."

  There was a silence between them.

  "I have more to say." Kyto picked up a chip and opened a pocket-knife. He began to whittle as expertly as any country-store porch loafer.

  "More?"

  "You know that other ships for the trip to this planet were being prepared?"

  "Sure. But none of them-"

  Kyto shrugged. "Did you know that in what had been Manchuria the most fanatical Japanese, the Russians, and certain Germans combined to build such a ship?"

  "No."

  "They were mostly extreme communists. But owing to their need of scientific experts, they took into their group many non-communists."

  "So?"

  "Great men. They were as likely to succeed as you."

  Tony stared at his companion. "And you believe they did? You think they are the people who have been flying here-"

  "I know." Kyto drew an object from his pocket-a tightly folded piece of paper. On it were drawn Japanese characters. "I found this a few hours ago. I had been walking from camp. It was blowing along in the wind. It was not mine."

  ''What is it?"

  "A prayer-a written prayer. They are in common use in Japan."

  "It might have come on the Ark."

  "Yes. But it might not. There is no such thing in the catalogue."

  "Anybody who had traveled in Japan might have had one- in a pocketbook-and lost it."

  "Again, yes. But I know intuitively."

  "If they were Russians and Germans and Japanese-why didn't they land, then?"

  "My point in telling this! They do not want company here. They came to set up a Soviet. I have the information in detail. They were sworn, if they reached here, to set up their own government-to wipe out all who might oppose them. It is not even a government like that of Russia. It is ruthless, inhuman-a travesty of socialism, a sort of scientific fanaticism. Most of those men and women believe in nothingness of the individual. They believe that love is really only breeding."

  Tony shook his head unbelievingly. "Why didn't they wipe us out, then?"

  "Your ray-projectors were good protection. They may find a means of making them powerless. They are manifestly ahead of us here in studying the civilization of the Other People- they use their ships already."

  "I mean, the first time. Why didn't they annihilate us that first night? It would have been easy. A bomb or two-"

  "I have wondered. There must have been a reason-for they are wholly ruthless. And I can find only one explanation: They wish to found a new state-to be alone on the planet-to make it theirs. To found a state takes people; and for people, one needs women. The more the better-the quicker. They will not strike until they can be selective in their killing-so they wipe out all who may oppose them, but preserve all whom they may convert-especially the women."

  "Good God!" Tony stood up. "You mean to tell me you think there is a gang of men or people on Bronson Beta planning that?"

  "I am positive."

  "It's-it's crazy!"

  Kyto shook his head. "Conquest was like that, only two thousand years ago-a short time. And there is no more world. Is there anything that can be said to be crazy now-anything we cannot expect?"

  "Then why didn't you tell us sooner?"

  Kyto fumbled the paper. "I wanted to be sure. This made me sure."

  "It's the worst evidence I ever saw. The thing's fantastic!"

  "I have warned you as best I can." He bowed his head, and walked away.

  Oddly enough, this scene with Kyto had brought back to Tony some of the strength that had ebbed from him. The thought that his new information would be a good excuse to break in on Hendron and Ransdell and Eve occurred to him,
but he thrust it aside without effort.

  He walked into the group of people who had finished their midday meal. He touched several on the shoulder. "Duquesne, I want to talk to you privately. Von Beitz! Williamson!"

  Fifteen minutes later he had explained his command to a dozen picked men.

  "I'll have to tell Ransdell and Hendron later," Tony said. "First, we'll double the guard. Second, we'll put out some sentries-far enough out to give a warning of approaching planes. Third, we'll run off a blast on our projectors to make sure they are in order."