After Worlds Collide

by Philip Wylie

  “In short,” said Tony, closing Eliot James’ book of notes, “we have awaiting us not only an equipment beyond anything 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 he 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.”

  Von Beitz scowled. “I can’t believe it. Germans? Maybe—some Germans, Heitbrat, for example. But wouldn’t it be better if we said nothing to the women? They might get hysterical.”

  “These women don’t get hysterical,” Tony answered succinctly.

  He had scarcely finished his instructions when a message was brought to him to report at Hendron’s house.

  He went in. Eve was in the living room—the room that had been headquarters for the camp since the building of the house. She was sitting at her father’s desk, and Ransdell stood at a little distance from her. Dodson was there. The faces of all three were serious.

  “Hendron has collapsed,” Dodson said to Tony. “Whether he will recover or not, I cannot say.”

  Tony shook his head sadly.

  Eve spoke. “The camp must have a leader.”

  “Yes,” Tony answered.

  “Election might be unsatisfactory,” she continued. “And it would take time.”

  “Yes.”

  “Father appointed no second-in-command. Whoever is in charge while he is ill must remain here. You and Eliot James alone can fly our single plane. We’ll need it constantly now. A radio must be taken down to the other camp at once, for example.”

  Tony looked at her with as little sign of emotion as he could show. This was a new Eve to him—a stern, impartial Eve. Grief and need had combined to make her so. “The static we’ve been having makes a radio useless,” he said.

  “That static occurs only at night,” she answered. “Sundown to sunup.”

  “The lights in the city—” Tony murmured. He squared his shoulders. “I’ll take a radio down at once.”

  Eve rose and gestured Ransdell into her father’s chair. She shook his hand. Dodson shook his hand. Tony shook his hand—Tony whose soul was at that moment in exquisite torment.

  Ransdell looked drawn and bleak.

  “One other thing,” Tony said, his voice steady. “We may be in a new and to me fantastic danger.” Like a soldier making a report, he detailed the knowledge Kyto had given him and told Ransdell what precautions he had already taken. Even as he spoke the air was filled with a hissing thunder and they waited to continue the conversation until tests of the blast tubes had been finished.

  “I’ll get outposts established at once,” Ransdell said. “I scarcely believe that such a thing could be—but we can take no chances.”

  “I’d like to talk with Kyto,” Eve said. She left the room even as Tony turned to bid her good-by.

  “That radio—” said Ransdell. Tony could not make his senses believe that the man who spoke to him now was the man with whom he had spent the latter part of the previous night in deep exultation. Rivalry over leadership—rivalry over Eve—they seemed inadequate things intellectually for the breaking of a friendship. Tony remembered the pact he and Ransdell had reached in Michigan, long ago. Now—it seemed broken!

  “I’ll take it immediately, Dave,” he answered.

  The use of his first name startled Ransdell somewhat from his barren mood. He rose and held out his hand.

  Tony shook it. “So long,” he said.

  “Good luck.”

  Tony opened the throttle regulating the supply of minute quantities of fuel to the atomic blast of his plane. The increase of speed as he fled southward took some of the strain from his nerves. His ears roared to the tune of the jets. The ground underneath moved in a steady blur. Beside him on the extra seat was the radio—a set taken from the ark of the air, and still crated.

  Tony had lost his hope of being leader. He had lost Eve. Ransdell came first in the hearts of his companions. Tony wondered how other men in the camp would adjust their philosophies to this double catastrophe. Duquesne would shrug: “C’est la vie.” Vanderbilt would have an epigram. Eliot James would tell him to hope and to wait and to be courageous.

  Far ahead he saw the cantonment.

  He lost altitude, dropped in a tight spiral, straightened out, and landed at an unnecessarily furious speed.

  A few minutes later he was surrounded, and the radio was being carried from the plane by experts.

  James was at his side. “Lord, you look tired! I’ve got a bunk for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  Questions were being asked. “Got to sleep,” Tony said, trying to smile. “Tell you later. Every one’s all right—Hendron’s somewhat ill—Ransdell’s commanding up there. See you after I have a nap.” They let him go.

  He stretched out under one of the shelters. James, after a private question or two, thoughtfully left him. He could not sleep, however. He did not even want to be alone. Then—some one entered the room where he lay. He turned. It was the girl Marian Jackson.

  “You’re not asleep,” she said easily.

  “No.”

  She sat down on the side of his bed. “Want anything?”

  “Guess not.”

  “Mind if I sit here?”

  “No.”

  She brushed back the hair from his forehead and suddenly exclaimed. “You’re all chapped and wind-burned!”

  He smiled. “Sure. Flying.”

  “Wait.” She was gone.

  A moron, Tony reflected. But she was very sweet. Thoughtful! A woman, just brushing back your hair when you were weary, could do strange things in the way of giving comfort. She returned.

  “Shut your eyes. This is salve. Make you feel better. You’re shot; I can tell. I’ll stay here while you sleep, so you won’t need to worry about anything.”
<
br />   He felt her hands—delicate, tender. Then he was asleep.

  He woke slowly. He was being shaken. Waking was like falling up a long, black hill.

  Light hit his eyes. James stood there.

  “Tony! Wake up!”

  He sat up, shook himself.

  “We got that radio working. Were talking to Hendron’s camp. Suddenly the man at the other end coughed and yelled ‘Help!’—and now we can’t raise any one.”

  Tony was up again—outdoors—running toward the plane. James was running behind him.

  “Give me Vanderbilt and Taylor. We’ll go.”

  “But—”

  “What else can we do?”

  * * *

  As Tony descended upon Hendron’s encampment, three men peered tensely through the glass windows of the ship: Taylor, Vanderbilt, and Tony himself. Nothing seemed disturbed; the buildings were intact.

  “Not a person in sight!” Taylor yelled suddenly.

  They slid down the air.

  Tony cut the motors so that their descent became a soft whistle.

  Then they saw clearly.

  Far below were human figures, the people of the cantonment, and all of them lay on the ground, oddly collapsed, utterly motionless.

  CHAPTER X

  WAR

  TONY circled above the stricken camp of the colony from earth. He could count some sixty men and women lying on the ground.

  They looked as if they were dead; and Tony thought they were dead. So did Jack Taylor at his side; and Peter Vanderbilt, his saturnine face pressed against the quartz windows of the plane, believed he was witnessing catastrophe to Hendron’s attempt to preserve humanity.

  The Death spread below them might already have struck, also, the other camp—the camp from which these three had just flown. They might be the last survivors; and the Death might reach them now, at any instant, within their ship.

  Tony thought of the illness which had come over the camp after the first finding of the wrecked vehicle of the Other People—the illness that had proved fatal to three of the earth people. He thought: “This might be some more deadly disease of the Other People which they caught.” He thought: “I might have brought the virus of it to them myself from the Sealed City. It might have been in or on some of the objects they examined after I left.”