When Worlds Collide

by Philip Wylie

  Tony took her in his arms then and kissed her.

  “I’ll try to understand what you’ve told me,” he said a long time afterward. “I don’t deserve this.”

  Eve laughed softly. Her copper hair was disheveled, and her black eyes were luminous in the dark. Tony, looking down into them, was frightened even when he heard her laughter, and the words that followed it. “I’ll be the person who decides in the future about your merits and demerits. Perhaps in giving up the power to choose the men she loves, the fathers for her children, by accepting our false single standards, woman has thrown away the key to freedom for both sexes. Anyway, let’s not worry about that right this minute.”

  “You whistle so persistently and so cheerfully,” Jack Taylor said to Tony on the following morning, “that it makes me irritable.”

  “Good!” Tony replied, and kept on whistling.

  “I came here to bring you news, various kinds of news. The first item is interesting and historical: Ransdell is just in from a flight, and says he found how all those people got up here from the cities to attack us. There’s a road reasonably undamaged that leads nearly three-quarters of the way from St. Paul here. The places wrecked by the earthquakes have been hastily repaired, and the whole road is littered with broken-down automobiles. Most of that mob must have driven a good part of the way. They must have spent weeks getting ready to strike.”

  Tony looked up from the suitcase which he was strapping in his room. He had stopped whistling. “That a fact? Well, that’s one mystery cleared up, anyway.”

  “The second item is that the list of who goes in which ship has just been posted.”

  “Huh.”

  “I thought that word would get a rise out of you. Don’t worry, don’t worry. You’re in the first ship, with Eve, all right. Hendron’s in command. You’re a lieutenant. James is with you. But guess who’s in command of the second ship.”

  “Jessup?”

  “Guess again.”

  “Kane?”

  “Nope; you’re all wet. Those two noble scientists are second in command. The big ship is going out under the instructions of your good friend David Ransdell.”

  “That’s grand,” Tony said; “but will he have sufficient technical knowledge to run the thing?”

  “Oh, Jessup and Kane will do that all right. Ransdell’s only going to be a figurehead until they get to Bronson Beta. But isn’t that sweet?”

  “That’s swell.”

  “I mean for you and Eve. Think of it. Alone together in the reaches of utter space for ninety whole hours, cooped up with only about a hundred other people.”

  Tony groaned, kicked the lock on his suitcase shut, and said: “Jack, how’d you like to be lying on this floor unconscious?”

  “Sure you could make the grade?”

  “What do you think?”

  Jack scratched his head in mock calculation.

  “Well, remember back in Cornell when you were sounding me out to see if I’d be a likely candidate for this jaunt? Remember your asking me if I hadn’t rowed on a crew, and my telling you that I had, but it wasn’t much of a crew, and we were champions that year because the others were still worse?”

  Tony nodded with mock menace. “I remember. What about it?”

  “Well, on thinking it over, I’ve decided that that was a pretty good crew, after all. Now on this matter of whether I’m going to be lying on the floor unconscious, or you, I have another item to point out beside my quondam skill at the oars. I was a little bit rattled the day you came into my room, and I forgot to mention that I was also captain of the boxing team.”

  Tony stepped back. “Professionalism rearing its ugly head, eh? All right. We’ll find something else to decide our positions. How about baseball-bats?”

  “My idea exactly. Celluloid baseball-bats.”

  “Fine. I’ll meet you and your seconds out behind the power-house in half an hour. In the meantime I’ve got to get packed up here. You know we’re going places to-morrow.”

  Jack sat down on the bed. “That reminds me: I’m going on the second ship too.”

  Tony’s face fell. They were serious again.

  Jack said: “When you are all set, they want you down at the Ark. Everybody’s going through it, and getting assigned to their quarters.”

  Tony walked up a long flight of steps to the airlock. As he went, he cast an upward glance at the elaborate structure of beams which supported the Ark, and which workmen were now removing. The interior of the Ark was brilliantly lighted by electricity. Through its center ran a spiral staircase, and a long taut cable inside the stairs. At eight-foot intervals steel floors cut the cylinder into sections. The two forward sections were crammed with machinery and instruments, and across them ran the great thrust-beams against which the atomic tubes would exert their force. A ring of smaller tubes pointing outward around the upper and lower sections like spokes were provided to give free dimensional control of the ship, and to make the adjustments necessary for grounding. It had been planned to travel head-on for the greater part of the distance. When the reaction forces were started, the whole ship would be upside down for some time, and eventually the landing would be made after turning it end for end; and although the probabilities of depositing the ship precisely upon her stern, and of keeping her in that position, were small, it was felt that after she had landed she might tip over,—a motion that would be broken by the use of the horizontal jets,—or that she might even roll, which could also be stopped by the jets, as had been done on the short and simple hop from the ground on the night of the attack.

  Tony walked up the spiral staircase from the stern’s engine-room. Above it were stockrooms with their arrangements for lashing fast the livestock which the Ark carried. Above the stockrooms were storerooms reaching to the center of the ship, and tightly packed. In the center of the ship were the human quarters, their walls carefully padded, and lashings, similar to but more comfortable than those provided for the animals, arranged along the floor.

  These accommodations were not alluring. They suggested that the journey would be cramped and unpleasant, but inasmuch as it would take only ninety hours if it was successful, everything had been sacrificed to utility. On the side walls were water-taps, and in steel closets food for a considerably longer time than four days had been stored; but in their journey through space the travelers would enjoy no comfortable beds, eat no hot meals and divert themselves with no entertainments. The exact conditions of flight through space were unknown; and underneath the springs and paddings which lined the passengers’ quarters was apparatus both for refrigeration and for heating. Tony passed through the double layer of passenger quarters, through the layers of storerooms and the engine-room at the front end of the great cylinder, climbing all the way on the spiral stairs. There he found Hendron, who was testing some of the apparatus.

  “You sent for me?” Tony asked.

  “No. Oh, I see what it was. They were giving out the numbers of your slings down below. I’ve asked every one to get in slings before we start and when we land, as I’m not sure, from the single test, exactly what the general effect will be. I think King was in charge of the list, but if you see him any time within the next few hours, he will tell you your number and position.”

  As Tony was about to go, Hendron recalled him. “I never showed you my engines, did I?”

  “No,” Tony said.

  Hendron waved his arm around the chamber. It looked very much like the interior of a submarine. “This is the forward power-cabin,” he began. “The breeches of the main tubes are concealed behind a wall which is reënforced by the thrust-beams. Those are the ones which are to break the force of our fall; but you can see here the breeches of the smaller surrounding tubes. They are not unlike cannon, and they work on the same principle. Acting at right angles to our line of flight, they can turn the ship and revolve it end for end, in fact, like a thrown fire-cracker, if we should turn on jets on opposite sides and opposite ends. The breech of each
of these little tubes,”—at that point Hendron turned a wheel with a handle on it, and the rear of one of the tubes slowly opened,—“is provided with the tubes which generate the rays that split atoms of beryllium into their protons and nuclei. The forces engendered in the process, which is like a molecular explosion, but vastly greater, together with the disrupted matter, is then discharged through the gun, the barrel of which is lined with Ransdell’s metal. The consumption of fuel, so to speak, both in quantity and rate, is regulated by a mechanism on the breech itself. The rate and volume of the discharge will be, of course, immensely greater for leaving the earth, than it was on the mere hop from the ground on the night of the assault. The ship proved itself then to be a gun, or rather a number of guns, which we will fire steadily on the trip through space. By Newton’s Law, which Einstein has modified only in microscopic effects, for every action there is an equal and positive reaction, so that through space the speed and energy of the discharge from the tubes—which we also call the engines and motors, rather inaccurately—are what will determine the speed and motion of the ship.”

  Tony looked at the breech of the tube and nodded.

  “Journeying through space we will be a rocket that can be fired from both ends and from all around the sides of both ends?”

  “Exactly, although the side firing is of lesser intensity. We have twenty stern vents and twenty forward, you see, and twelve around the circumference at each end.” Hendron smiled. “It is very beautiful, our ship; and according to the laws of physics, by the release of more power, it will navigate space as surely as it hopped from the ground, when we required it to. We’ll leave this world, Tony; and, I believe, we’ll land upon Bronson Beta.”

  Tony stared at him: “And we’ll live?”

  “Why not, Tony? I can control the landing as I can control the leaving.”

  “I meant,” said Tony, “granting that—granting we travel through space and reach that other planet and land upon it safely, will we live afterward?”

  “Why not?” Hendron returned again. “We can count upon vegetation on Bronson Beta almost surely. No, surely, I should say. Higher forms of life must have been annihilated by the cold; but the spores of vegetation could survive.

  “Arrhenius, the great Swedish physicist, demonstrated years ago that the germinating of spores may be preserved rather than killed by intense cold. He cited, indeed, microörganisms that had been kept in liquid air, at a temperature of some two hundred degrees below zero, Centigrade, for many months without being deprived of their germinating power.

  “We know too little about the lower temperatures; but what we have discovered indicates that the germinating power of microorganisms and spores should be preserved at lower temperatures for much longer periods than at our ordinary temperatures.

  “Arrhenius made calculations on a cold of only minus 220 Centigrade, which is much warmer than the almost ‘absolute cold’ in which all organisms on Bronson Beta have been preserved.”

  Hendron referred to a notebook: “‘The loss of germinating power,’ Arrhenius observed, ‘is no doubt due to some chemical process, and all chemical processes proceed at slower rates at lower temperatures than they do at higher. The vital functions are intensified in the ratio of 1:2.5 when the temperature is raised by ten degrees Centigrade.’

  “So in the case of spores at a distance from the sun of the orbit of Neptune, after their temperature had been lowered to minus 220, their vital energy would, according to this ratio, react with one thousand millions less intensity than at ten plus. Arrhenius figured that the germinating power of spores would not deteriorate in three million years at minus 220 more than it would in one day at an ordinary earthly temperature. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to believe that at the much lower temperatures which must have prevailed on Bronson Beta, spores and microorganisms could have been preserved indefinitely.

  “These, now, have been thawed, and are being revived by the sun; so I feel we can count at least upon vegetation upon Bronson Beta.”

  “At least!” Tony caught up his words. “You will not deny, then, that there may be a possibility of higher life surviving or capable of being revived—too?”

  Hendron shook his head. “I have seen too many incredible things occur, Tony,” he replied, “to deny any possibility—particularly under conditions of which no one on this world has had any experience. But I do not expect it. I do expect vegetation, especially vegetation that grows from spores.

  “In the early days on this world, the great majority of plants did not reproduce by seeds, but by the far more resistant spores, which have survived as the method of reproduction of many varieties. So we will count upon a native flora which, undoubtedly, will appear very strange to us. Of course, as you know, we are taking across with us our own seeds and our own spores.”

  “I know,” said Tony, “and even our own insects too.”

  “An amazing list—isn’t it, Tony?—our necessities for existence. We take so much for granted, don’t we? You do not realize what has been supplied you by nature on this world of ours—until you come to count up what you must take along with you, if you hope to survive.”

  “Yes,” said Tony, “ants and angleworms—and mayflies.”

  “Exactly. You’ve been talking with Keppler, I see. I put that problem entirely up to Keppler.

  “Our first and most necessary unit for self-preservation proved to be the common honey bee, to secure pollination of flowering plants, trees and so on. Keppler says that of some twenty thousand nectar insects, this one species pollinates more than all the rest put together. The honey bee would take care of practically of this work, as his range is tremendous. There are a few plants—Keppler tells me—such as red clover, which he cannot work on; but his cousin the bumblebee, with his longer proboscis, could attend to them. So, first and foremost among living things, we bring bees.

  “We also take ants, especially the common little brown variety, to ventilate, drain and work the soil; and, as you have observed, angleworms also.

  “Since we are going to take with us fish eggs to hatch into fish over there, we have to take mayflies. Their larvæ, in addition to providing food for the fish, are necessary to keep the inland waters from becoming choked with algæ and the lower water plants.

  “In the whole of the Lepidoptera there is not, Keppler says, one necessary or even useful species; but for sheer beauty’s sake—and because they take small space—we will take six butterflies and at least the Luna moth.

  “And we must take one of the reputed scourges of the earth.”

  “What?” said Tony.

  “The grasshopper—the locust. Such an insect will be vitally necessary to keep the greenery from choking our new earth; and the one best suited for this job is, paradoxically enough, one of mankind’s oldest scourges, the grasshopper. He is an omnivorous feeder and would keep the greenery in check—after he got his start. Our first problem may be that he will not multiply fast enough; and then that he multiply too fast. So to keep him in check, and also the butterfly and the moth, we will take parasitic flies. We will have to have these—two or three of the dozen common Tachinidæ have been chosen.

  “These will be the essential insects. Here on earth, with a balanced and bewilderingly intricate economy already established, a tremendously longer list would be vital to provide the proper checks and balances; but starting anew, on Bronson Beta, we can begin, at least, with the few insects we have chosen. Unquestionably, differentiation and evolution will swiftly set in, and they will find new forms.

  “We are bringing along vials of mushroom and other fungi spores. Otherwise vegetation would fall down, never disintegrate, and pile up till everything was choked. A vial the size of your thumb holds several billion spores of assorted fungi—in case the spores of the fungi of Bronson Beta have not survived. They are absolutely essential.

  “Also, besides our own water supply for the voyage, we are taking bottles of stagnant pond-water and another of sea-water contai
ning our microörganisms such as diatoms, plankton, unicellular plants and animals which form the basis for our biotic economy and would supplement, or replace, such life on the other globe.

  “About animals—” He halted.

  “Yes, about animals,” Tony urged.

  “There is, naturally, still discussion. Our space is so limited, and there is most tremendous competition. Birds offer a somewhat simpler problem; but possibly you have heard some of the arguments over them.”

  “I have,” said Tony, “and joined in them. I confess I argued for warblers—yellow warblers. I like them; I have always liked them; and meadow larks.”

  “The matter of dogs and cats is the most difficult,” Hendron said, closing the subject. Air pumps murmured somewhere within the ship, which seemed half-alive. Electric generators hummed, and from somewhere came the high note of one of the electronic engines. Tony left Hendron and went from the ship.

  That night, the emigrants from the Earth gathered again in the dining-hall. Hendron addressed them, outlining the general final preparations which were augmented by specific, printed instructions to meet such contingencies as could be foreseen.

  The large ship, an exact duplicate of the original Ark with the exception of its greater proportions, stood on a concrete platform three hundred yards from its smaller companion.

  After the meeting, the crowd moved outdoors and stood awhile, looking at the Bronson Bodies. As in their former approach their size had increased in diametric proportion during the last few days and nights, and they now dominated the heavens, Alpha eclipsed by Beta, which rushed toward the earth ahead of it, in the same position as that held by a planet in transit across the face of the sun. The spectacle was one of weird beauty, and one calculated to strike terror in the bravest. Bronson Alpha looked like the rising moon, except that it was much larger than any moon had ever seemed to be; and its edges, instead of being sharp, were furred with a luminous aura which indicated its atmosphere. Riding as if on the bosom of Bronson Alpha was its smaller comrade, and it was sometimes difficult for the eye to delineate it exactly, for both planets gave off a brilliant white light. On Beta dark irregular “continental” splashes could be seen, and similar areas of maximum brightness doubtless indicated great oceans.