by Philip Wylie
The days did not suffice for the work to be done, particularly in preparation of the Space Ship.
Hendron had the power. Under the pressure of impending doom, the group laboring under him had “liberated” the amazing energy in the atom—under laboratory conditions. They had possessed, therefore, a potential driving power enormously in excess of that ever made available before. They could “break up” the atom at will, and set its almost endless energies to work; but what material could harness that energy and direct it into a driving force for the Space Ship?
Hendron and his group experimented for hour after desperate hour through their days, with one metal, another alloy and another after another.
At night, in the reaction of relaxation, there were games, motion pictures which had been preserved, and a variety of private enterprises which included organization and rehearsal of a very fine orchestra. There were dances, too; and while the thin crescents of the Bronson Bodies hung in the sky like cosmic swords of Damocles, there were plays satirizing human hopes and fates in the shed next to that wherein the Space Ship, still lacking its engine, was being prepared.
The excellent temper of the colony was flawed rarely. However, there were occasional lapses. One night during a dance a girl from California suddenly became hysterical and was carried from the hall shouting: “I won’t die!” On another occasion a Berlin astronomer was found dead in his bed—beside him an empty bottle of sleeping-powders holding down a note which read: “Esteemed friends: The vitality of youth is required to meet the tension of these terrible days with calmness. I salute you.” The astronomer was buried with honors.
Tony perceived an evidence of the increasing tension in Eve when they walked, late one afternoon, through the nearby woods.
She saw on the pine-needle carpet of the forest a white flower. She plucked it, looked at it, smelled it and carried it away. After they had proceeded silently for some distance, she said: “It’s strange to think about matters like this flower. To think that there will never be any more flowers like this again in the universe—unless we take seeds with us!”
“That impresses you, perhaps,” said Tony, “because we can come closer to realizing the verdict—no more flowers—than we can the verdict ‘no more us.’”
“I suppose so, Tony. Did David ever tell you that, in his first conference at Capetown with Lord Rhondin and Professor Bronson, they were excited over realizing there would be no more lions?”
“No,” said Tony, very quietly. “He never mentioned it to me.”
“Tell me, Tony,” she asked quickly, “you aren’t jealous?”
“How, under the conditions laid down by your father,” retorted Tony, “could anybody be ‘jealous’? You’re not going to be free to pick or choose your own husband—or mate—or whatever he’ll be called, on Bronson Beta. And if we never get there, certainly I’ll have nothing to be jealous about.”
The strain was telling, too, on Tony.
“He may not even return to us here,” Eve reminded. “And we would never know what happened to the three of them.”
“It would have to be a good deal, to stop them. Each one’s damn’ resourceful in his own way; and Ransdell is sure a flyer,” Tony granted ungrudgingly. “Yet if the plane cracked, they’d never get back. There’s not a road ten miles long that isn’t broken by some sort of landslip or a chasm. Land travel has simply ceased. It isn’t possible that there’s a railroad of any length anywhere in operation; and a car would have to be an amphibian as well as a tank to get anywhere.
“Sometimes, when day follows day and nobody arrives or passes, I think it must mean that every one else in the world is dead; then I remember the look of the land—especially of the roads, and I understand it. This certainly has become a mess of a world; and I suppose the best we can expect is some such state awaiting us,” Tony smiled grimly, “if we get across to Bronson Beta.
“No; that’s one of the funny things about our possible future situation. If we get across to Bronson Beta, we’ll find far less damage there.”
“Why?” Tony had not happened to be with the scientists when this had been discussed.
“Because Bronson Beta seems certain to be a world a lot like this; and it has never been as close as we have been to Bronson Alpha. It wasn’t the passing of Bronson Beta that tore us up so badly; it was the passing of the big one, Bronson Alpha. Now, Bronson Beta has never been nearly so close to Bronson Alpha, as we have been. Beta circles Alpha, but never gets within half a million miles of it. So if we ever step upon that world, we’ll find it about as it has been.”
“As it has been—for how many years?” Tony asked.
“The ages and epochs of travel through space.… You ought to talk more with Professor Bronson, Tony. He just lives there. He’s so sure we’ll get there! Exactly how, he doesn’t bother about; he’s passed that on to Father. His work assumes we can get across space in the Ship, and land. He starts with the landing; what may we reasonably expect to find there, beyond water and air—and soil? Which of us, who may make up the possible crew of the ship, will have most chances to survive under the probable conditions? What immediate supplies and implements—food and so on—must we have with us? What ultimate supplies—seeds and seedlings to furnish us with food later? What animals, what birds and insects and crustacea, should we take along?
“You see, that world must be dead, Tony. It must have been dead, preserved in the frightful, complete cold of absolute zero for millions of years.… You’d be surprised at some of the assumptions Professor Bronson makes.
“He assumes, among other things, that we can find some edible food—some sort of grain, probably, which absolute zero would have preserved. He assumes that some vegetable life—the vegetation that springs from spores, which mere cold cannot destroy—will spring to life automatically.
“Tony, you must see his lists of the most essential things to take with us. His work is the most fascinating here. What animals, do you supose, he’s figured we must take with us to help us to survive?”
* * *
On the tenth of September, the inhabitants of the strangely isolated station which existed for the perfection of the Space Ship, began to look—although prematurely—for the return of the explorers into the world which had been theirs.
The three had agreed on the fourteenth as the first possible day for their return; but so great was the longing to learn the state of the outside world, that on the twelfth even those who felt no particular concern for the men who ventured in the airplane, began to watch the sky, casting upward glances as their duties took them out of doors.
It was difficult for anyone to work on the appointed day. The fourteenth was bright. The wind was gentle and visibility good—although the weather had never returned to what would have been considered normal for northern Michigan in the summer. There was always a moderate amount of haze. Sometimes the sky was obscured by new and interminable clouds of volcanic dust. The thermometer ranged between eighty and ninety-five, seldom falling below the first figure. From the laboratory, the dining-halls, the shops, powerhouse, kitchens and the hangar, men and women constantly emerged into the outdoors to stand silently, inspecting the sky.
No one went to bed that night until long after the usual hour. Then, reluctantly, those overwearied, those who had arduous tasks and heavy responsibilities on the morrow, regretfully withdrew. Fears now had voices.
“They’re so damn’ resourceful, I can’t believe they could miss out.”
“But—after all—what do we know about outside conditions?”
“Think of the risks! God only knows what they might have faced. Anything, from the violence of a mob to a volcanic blast blowing them out of the sky.”
Tony was in charge of the landing arrangements. At three A.M. he was sitting on the edge of the field with Eve. Hendron had left, after giving instructions that he was to be wakened if they arrived. They had little to say to each other. They sat with straining eyes and ears. Coffee and soup simm
ered on a camp-stove near the plane-shed against which they leaned their chairs. Dr. Dodson lay on a cot, ready in case the landing should result in accident.
At four, nothing had changed. It began to grow light. Since the passing of the Bronson Bodies, dawn had been minutes earlier than formerly.
Eve stood up stiffly and stretched. “Maybe I’d better leave. I have some work laid out for morning.”
But she had not walked more than ten steps when she halted.
“I thought I heard motors,” she said.
Tony nodded, unwilling to break the stillness. A dog barked in the camp. Far away toward the stockyards a rooster crowed. The first sun rays tipped the lowest clouds with gold.
Then the sound came unmistakably. For a full minute they heard the rise and fall of a churning motor—remote, soft, yet unmistakable.
“It’s coming!” Eve said. She rushed to Tony and held his shoulder.
He lifted his hand. The sound vanished, came back again—a waspish drone somewhere in the sky. Their eyes swept the heavens. Then they saw it simultaneously—a speck in the dawning atmosphere. The speck enlarged. It took the shape of a cross.
“Tony!” Eve breathed.
The ship was not flying well. It lurched and staggered in its course.
Tony rushed to the cot where Dodson slept. “They’re coming,” he said, shaking the Doctor. “And they may need you.”
The ship was nearer. Those who beheld it now appreciated not only the irregularity of its course, but the fact that it was flying slowly.
“They’ve only got two motors,” somebody said. The words were not shouted.
Scarcely breathing, they stood at the edge of the field. The pilot did not wiggle his wings or circle. In a shambling slip he dropped toward the ground, changing his course a little in order not to strike the ten-foot precipice which had bisected the field. The plane was a thousand yards from the ground. Five hundred.
“She’s going to crash!” some one yelled.
Tony, Dodson and Jack Taylor were already in a light truck. Fire-apparatus and stretchers were in the space behind them. The truck’s engine raced.
The plane touched the ground heavily, bounced, touched again, ran forward and slewed. It nosed over. The propeller on the forward engine bent.
Tony threw in the clutch of the car and shot toward it. As he approached, he realized that fire had not started. He leaped from the truck, and with the Doctor and Jack at his heels, he flung open the cabin door and looked into the canted chamber.
Everything that the comfortable cabin had once contained was gone. Two men lay on the floor at the forward end—Vanderbilt and James. Ransdell was unconscious over the instrument panel. Vanderbilt looked up at Tony. His face was paper-white; his shirt was blood-soaked. And yet there showed momentarily in the fading light in his eyes a spark of unquenchable, deathless, reckless and almost diabolical glee. His voice was quite distinct. He said: “In the words of the immortal Lindbergh, ‘Here we are.’” Then he fainted.
James was unconscious.
The truck came back toward the throng very slowly and carefully. In its bed, Dodson looked up from his three charges. He announced briefly as way was made for them: “They’ve been through hell. They’re shot, bruised, half-starved. But so far, I’ve found nothing surely fatal.” Then to Tony, who was still driving: “You can put on a little speed, Tony. I want to get these boys where I can treat them.”
Two or three hundred people waited outside the surgery door for an hour. Then a man appeared and said: “Announcements will be made about the condition of the flyers in the dining-hall at breakfast time.”
The waiting crowd moved away.
An hour later, with every member of the community who could leave his post assembled, Hendron stepped to the rostrum in the dining-hall.
“All three will live,” he said simply.
Cheering made it impossible for him to continue. He waited for silence. “James has a broken arm and concussion. Vanderbilt has been shot through the shoulder. Ransdell brought in the ship with a compound fracture of the left arm, and five machine-gun bullets in his right thigh. They undoubtedly have traveled for some time in that state. Ransdell’s feat is one of distinguished heroism.”
Again cheering broke tumultuously through the hall. Again Hendron stood quietly until it subsided. “This evening we will meet again. At that time I shall read to you from the diary which James kept during the past thirty days. I have skimmed some of its pages. It is a remarkable document. I must prepare you by saying, my friends, that those of our fellow human beings who have not perished, have reverted to savagery, almost without notable exception.”
A hush followed those words. Then Hendron stepped from the platform, and a din of excited conversation filled the room. The scientist stopped to speak to three or four people, then came over to his daughter. He seemed excited.
“Eve,” he said, “I want you and Drake to come to the office right away.”
Bronson and Dodson were already there when they arrived.
A dozen other men joined them; and last to appear was Hendron himself. Every one was standing, and Hendron invited them to sit down. It was easy to perceive his excitement now. His surpassingly calm blue eyes were fiery. His cheeks concentrated their color in two red spots. He commenced to speak immediately.
“My friends, the word I have to add to my announcement in the hall is of stupendous importance!
“When we took off Ransdell’s clothes, we found belted to his body, and heavily wrapped, a note, a map, and a chunk of metal. You will remember, doubtless, that Ransdell was once a miner and a prospector. His main interest had always been diamonds. And his knowledge of geology and metallurgy is self-taught and of the practical sort.”
Bronson, unable to control himself, burst into speech. “Good God, Hendron! He found it!”
The scientist continued impassively: “The eruptions caused by the passage of the Bodies were of so intense a nature that they brought to earth not only modern rock, but vast quantities of the internal substance of the earth—which, as you know, is presumably of metal, as the earth’s total density is slightly greater than that of iron. Ransdell noticed on the edge of such a flow a quantity of solid unmelted material. Realizing that the heat surrounding it had been enormous, he secured specimens. He found the substance to be a metal or natural alloy, hard but machineable. Remembering our dilemma here in the matter of lining for the power tubes for the Space Ship, he carefully carried back a sample—protecting it, in fact, with his life.
“My friends,”—Hendron’s voice began to tremble—“for the past seventy-five minutes this metal has withstood not only the heat of an atomic blast, but the immeasurably greater heat of Professor Kane’s recently developed atomic furnace. We are at the end of the quest!”
Suddenly, to the astonishment of his hearer, Hendron bowed his head in his arms and cried like a woman.
No one moved. They waited in respect, or in a gratitude that was almost hysterical. In a few moments Hendron lifted his face.
“I apologize. These are days when nerves are worn thin. But all of you must realize the strain under which I have labored. Perhaps you will forgive me. I am moved to meditate on the almost supernatural element of this discovery. At a time when nature has doomed the world, she seems to have offered the means of escape to those who, let us hope and trust, are best fitted to save her most imaginative gesture of creation—mankind.”
Hendron bowed his head once more, and Eve came wordlessly to his side.
* * *
Hendron stood before an audience of nearly a thousand persons. It was a feverish audience. It had a gayety mingled with solemnity such as, on a smaller scale, overwhelmed the thoughtful on a night in November in 1918 when the Armistice had been signed.
Hendron bowed to the applause.
“I speak to you to-night, my friends, in the first full flush of the knowledge that your sacrifices and sufferings have not been in vain. Ransdell has solved our last tec
hnical problem. We have assured ourselves by observation that life on the planet-to-be will be possible. My heart is surging with pride and wonderment when I find myself able to say: man shall live; we are the forefathers of his new history.”
The wild applause proclaimed the hopes no one had dared declare before.
“But to-night I wish to talk not of the future. There is time enough for that. I wish to talk—or rather to read—of the present.” He picked up from a small table the topmost of a number of ordinary notebooks. “I have here James’ record of the journey that brought us salvation. I cannot read you all of it. But I shall have it printed in the course of the next few days. I anticipate that printing merely because I understand your collective interest in the document.
“This is the first of the seven notebooks James filled. I shall read with the minimum of comment.”
He opened the book. He read:
“‘August 16th. To-night Ransdell, Vanderbilt and I descended at six o’clock precisely on a small body of water which is a residue in a bed of Lake Michigan. We are lying at anchor about a mile from Chicago.
“‘Our journey has been bizarre in the extreme. Following south along what was once the coast of Lake Michigan, we flew over scenes of desolation and destruction identical with those described after our first reconnaissance. In making this direct-line flight, it was forced upon our reluctant intelligence that the world has indeed been wrecked.
“‘The resultant feeling of eeriness reached its quintessence when we anchored here. Sharply outlined against the later afternoon sun stood the memorable skyline of the metropolis—relatively undamaged! With an emotion of indescribable joy, after the hours of depressive desolation, I recognized the Wrigley Building, the Tribune Tower, the 333 North Michigan Avenue Building, and others. My companions shouted, evidently sharing my emotions.