Philip Wylie & Edwin Balmer - When Worlds Collide

by When Worlds Collide(Lit)

  His senses reasserted themselves. He realized that the wind was dying, the oppressiveness was departing and the temperature had lowered perceptibly. He was able for the first time to hear the conversation of people around him, and even in his shocked and shocking state, he was moved by mingled feelings of compassion and amusement. The heavy hand of the gods had scarcely been lifted. Its return might be expected imminently, and yet the marvelous resilience of humankind already was asserting itself.

  "... Ruined my dress, absolutely ruined!" he heard one woman say.

  And some one else laughed. That sentence spread. "Her dress was ruined. Too bad!"

  From the men there came a different sort of comment:

  "When I say I never saw anything like it before in my life, I mean I've never seen anything like it before in my life...."

  The excited voice of one of the scientists: "Amazing, the way things survived. Almost nothing has been damaged in the machine-shops and the power-houses. Those places were built like bank vaults. Great genius for organization, that man Hendron."

  Another man spoke: "I inspected the seismograph first. The needle had shot clear off the roll the night before last and put it out of business. Then I looked at the barometric record. Air-pressure changed around here inches in minutes. The barometer went out of business too. You could almost feel what was happening to the earth. I had sensations of being lifted and lowered, and of pressure coming and going on my ears.

  "I wonder how many people survived. The volcanic manifestations must have been awful. They must still be going on-although I can't tell whether it's earthquake now, or just my legs shaking. And smell the sulphur in the air."

  Tony saw Peter Vanderbilt sitting pacifically on a log, a cup of coffee in one hand, a sandwich in the other, and his bedraggled handkerchief spread over his knees for a napkin. The elegant Vanderbilt's mustache was clogged with mud. His hair was a cake of mud. His shoes were gobs of mud. One of his pant-legs had been torn off at the knee. His shirt-tails had escaped his belt and festooned his midriff in stained tatters, and yet as Tony approached him, he still maintained his attitude of cosmic indifference, of urbanity so complete that nothing could succeed in ruffling it spiritually.

  Vanderbilt rose. "Tony, my friend," he exclaimed. "What a masquerade! What a disguise! I recognized you only by the gauge in which heaven made your shoulders. Sit down. Join me in a spot of lunch."

  Tony sat on the log, which apparently the wind had moved into position especially for Mr. Vanderbilt. "I'll have a snack with you," he replied. "Then I must get back to work."

  The quondam Beau Brummell of Fifth Avenue nodded understandingly. "Work, my dear fellow! I never saw so many people who were so avid for work, and yet there's something exalting about it. And the storm was certainly impressive. I admit that I was impressed. In fact, I proclaim that I was impressed. Yet its whole moral was futility."

  "Futility?"

  "Oh, don't think that for a minute I was being philosophical. I wasn't referring to the obvious futility of all man's efforts and achievements. They were quite apparent before this-this-ah-disturbance. I was thinking of myself entirely. I was thinking of the many years I had spent as a lad in learning geography, and how useless all that knowledge was to me now. I should imagine that the geography I learned at twelve was now completely out of date."

  Tony nodded to the man on the log. "So I should imagine. You'll excuse me, but I'm needed."

  Peter Vanderbilt smiled and put his cup beside Tony's on the ground. Then without a word he rose and followed the younger man. They found Hendron emerging from the great hangar. His condition was neither worse nor better than that of the others. He seized Tony's shoulder the minute his eyes lighted upon him. "Tony, son, have you seen Eve?"

  "Yes."

  "She's all right?"

  "She's entirely all right. She's working over at the emergency hospital."

  Behind Hendron stood a number of men. He turned to them. "You go ahead and inspect the machine-shop. I'll join you in a minute."

  He then noticed that Tony had a companion. "Hello, Vanderbilt Glad to see you're safe." And again he spoke to Tony. "What was the extent of the injury to personnel?"

  Tony shook his head. "I don't know yet."

  Vanderbilt spoke. "I just came from the field hospital before I had my coffee. I was making a private check-up. So far as is known, no one here was killed. There are three cases of collapse that may develop into pneumonia, several minor cases of shock, two broken legs, one broken arm, a sprained ankle; one of the men who made coffee during the storm got burned, and there are forty or fifty people with more or less minor scratches and abrasions. In all less than seventy-five cases were reported so far."

  Hendron's head bobbed again. He sighed with relief. "Good God, I'm thankful! It was more terrifying out there, apparently, than it was dangerous."

  "It was not unlike taking a Turkish bath on a roller coaster in the dark," Vanderbilt replied.

  Hendron rubbed his hand across his face. "Did you men say something about coffee?"

  "With brandy in it," Tony said.

  Vanderbilt took Hendron's arm. "May I escort you? You're a bit rocky, I guess."

  "Just a bit. Brandy, eh? Good." Before he walked away, he spoke to Tony. "Listen, son-" The use of that word rocked Tony's heart. "This was much more than I had anticipated, much worse. But by the mercy of Providence the major dangers have passed, and we seem to be bloody but unbowed. The ship is safe, although one side was dented against its cradle. That's about all. If I had foreseen anything like this, I could have been better prepared for it, although perhaps not. An open field was about the only habitable sort of place. I've got to get some rest now. I'm just a few minutes away from unconsciousness. I want you to take over things, if you think you can stand up for another twelve hours."

  "I'm in the pink," Tony answered.

  "Good. You're in charge, then. Have me waked in twelve hours."

  Tony began the rounds again. In the hall of the women's dormitory, Dodson and Smith were hard at work. Their patients sat or lay in bed. There was a smell of an‘sthetics and antiseptics in the air. Eve, together with a dozen other women, was acting as nurse. She had changed her clothes, and washed. She smiled at him across the room, and Dodson spoke to him. "Tell Hendron we're managing things beautifully in here now. I don't think there's anybody here that won't recover."

  "He's asleep," Tony replied. "Ill tell him when he wakes."

  He looked at Eve again before he went out, and saw her eyes flooded with tears. Immediately he realized his thoughtlessness in not telling her at once that her father was safe, but there was no reproof in her starry-eyed glance. She understood that the situation had passed the point at which rational and normal thoughtfulness could be expected.

  Tony went next to the machine-shop. A shift of men was at work clearing away the infiltrated dust on the engines and the mud that had poured over the floors. Another group of men lay in deep sleep wherever there was room enough to recline. One of the workers explained: "Nobody around here can work for long without a little sleep, so we're going in one-hour shifts. Sleep an hour, clean an hour. Is that all right, Mr. Drake?"

  "That's fine," Tony said.

  At the power-house a voice hailed him.

  "You're just in time, Mr. Drake."

  "What for?"

  "Come in." Tony entered the power-house. The man conducted him to a walled panel and pointed to a switch. "Pull her down."

  Tony pulled. At once all over the cantonment obscurity was annihilated by the radiance of countless electric lights. The electrician who had summoned Tony grinned. "We're using a little emergency engine, and only about a quarter of the lights of the lines are operating. That's all we've had time to put in order. It's jerry-made, but it's better than this damn' gloom."

  Tony's hand came down firmly on the man's shoulder. "It's marvelous. You boys work in shifts now. All of you need sleep."

  The electrician nodded. "We will. Some of
the big shots are inside. Shall I tell them to come out to see you?"

  An idea suddenly struck Tony. "Look here. Why shouldn't I go see them if I want to? Why is it you expect them to come out and see me?"

  "You're the boss, aren't you?"

  "What makes you think I'm the boss?"

  The man looked at him quizzically. "Why, it said so in the instruction-book we got when we were all sent out here. Everybody got a copy. It said you were second in command in any emergency to Mr. Hendron; and this is an emergency, isn't it?"

  Tony was staggered by this new information. "It said that in a book?"

  "Right. In the book of rules that everybody that lives here got the day they came. I had one in my pocket, but I lost pocket, book and all, out there on the landing-field."

  Tony conquered his surprise. It flashed through his mind that Hendron was training him to be in command of those who stayed behind and launched the Space Ship. He was conscious of a na‹ve pride at this indication of the great scientist's confidence in him. "I won't bother the men here," he said. "Just so long as we get as many lights as possible in operation, as fast as possible."

  He found a group of men standing speculatively in front of the men's hall. One of the side walls had been shattered, and bricks had cascaded from the front walls to the ground. Tony looked at the building critically, and then said: "I don't think anybody should occupy it."

  "There are a good many men in there asleep right now. Probably they entered in the dark without noticing the condition of the building."

  Tony addressed the crowd. "If two or three of you care to volunteer to go in with me, we'll get them all out. The men will sleep for the time being on the floor in the south dining-hall."

  He went into the insecure building, and practically all of the men who had been regarding it from the outside accompanied him. They roused the sleepers.

  The floor of the dining-hall was dry: men in dozens, and then in scores, without speech, among themselves, pushed aside the tables and stretched out on the bare boards, falling instantly to sleep.

  Next Tony went to the kitchen. Fires were going in two stoves; more coffee was ready, the supply of sandwiches had overtaken the demand, and kettles of soup augmented it. Taylor was still in charge, and he made his report as soon as he saw Tony.

  "The big storehouses are half underground, as you probably know, and I don't think the food in them has been hurt much, although it has been shaken up. I didn't know anything about the feeding arrangements, but I've located a bunch of men who did. There's apparently a large herd of livestock and a lot of poultry about a quarter of a mile in the woods. I've sent men there to take charge. They already reported that the sheep and goats and steers didn't budge, although their pens and corrals were destroyed. They're putting up barbed-wire for the time being. Everything got shaken up pretty badly, and the water and mud spoiled whatever it got into, but most of the stuff was in big containers. The main that carried the water from the reservoir is all smashed to hell, and I guess the water in the reservoir isn't any good anyway. I'm boiling all that I use, but somebody has just got the bright idea of using the fire apparatus and hoses from some of these young lakes."

  "You've done damned well, Taylor," Tony said. "Do you think you can carry on for a few hours more?"

  "Sure. I'm good for a week of this."

  Tony watched the innumerable chores which were being done by men under Taylor's instruction. He noticed for the first time that the work of reclaiming the human habitations was not being done altogether by the young men, the mechanics and the helpers whom Hendron had enlisted. Among Taylor's group were a dozen middle-aged scientists whose names had been august in the world three months before that day. Unable for the time to carry on their own tasks, they were laboring for the common weal with mops and brooms and pails and shovels.

  When Tony went outdoors again, it was four o'clock, though he had no means of knowing the time. Once again he noticed that the air was cooler. He made his way down the almost impassable trail to the stockyards, and found another group of men working feverishly with the frightened animals and the clamorous poultry. Then he walked back to the "village green." So far as he could determine, every effort was being bent toward reorganizing the important affairs of the community. He had at last the leisure in which to consider himself and the world around him.

  Perspiration had carried away the dirt on his face and hands, but his clothes were still mucky. The dampness of the air had prevented that mud from drying. His hair was still caked. He walked in the direction of the flying-field, and presently found what he sought-a depression in the ground which had been filled with water to a depth of three or four feet, and in which water the mud had settled. He waded into the pool carefully so as not to disturb the silt on the bottom. The water was warm. He ducked his head below the surface and laved his face with his hands.

  When he stepped out, he was relatively clean, though his feet became immediately encased in mud again.

  Slowly he walked to the top of the small hill from which he had watched the Bronson Bodies on the evening before. He felt a diminution of the sulphur and other vapors in the air, His throat was raw, but each breath did not sting his lungs as it had during the last hours when they had been lying in the open field. He noticed again a quality of thinness in the air which persisted in spite of the heat and moisture. He wondered if the entire chemistry of the earth's atmosphere had been changed-if, for example a definite percentage of its normal oxygen had been consumed. That problem, however, was unsolvable, at least for the time.

  By straining his eyes into the distance, and aiding their perceptions with imagination, he could deduce the general changes in the local landscape. The hurricane had uprooted, disheveled and destroyed the surrounding portions except where hill-crests protected small patches of standing trees. One-half of the flying-field had been lifted eight or ten feet above the other, so that its surface looked like two books of unequal thickness lying edge to edge. The open space inside the "U" of buildings which Hendron had constructed was littered with rubbish, most of it tree-branches. One dining-hall had collapsed. The men's dormitory was unsafe until it could be repaired. Everywhere was an even coat of soft brown mud which on the level must have attained a depth of ten inches-and the rain which still fell in occasional interludes continued to bring down detritus from the skies.

  What had happened to the rest of the world, to what had been Michigan, to the United States, to the continents and the oceans would have to be determined at some future time.

  For the moment, calm had come. The Bronson Bodies not only had passed and withdrawn toward the sun, but they shone no longer in the night sky. If atmospheric conditions permitted, they would be visible dimly by day; but only by day. As a matter of fact, from the camp they were completely invisible; not even the sun could be clearly seen.

  But the night came on clear-clear and almost calm. The mists had settled, and the clouds moved away. Dust and gases hung in the air; still the stars showed.

  The moon, too, should be shining, Tony thought. Tonight there should be a full moon; but only stars were in the sky. Had he reckoned wrong?

  He was standing alone, looking up and checking his mental calculations, when some one stopped beside him.

  "What is it, Tony?" Hendron said.

  "Where's the moon to-night?"

  "Where-that's it: where? That's what we'd like to know -exactly what happened. We had to miss it, you see; probably nowhere in the world were conditions that permitted observation when the collision occurred; and what a thing to see!"

  "The collision!" said Tony.

  "When Bronson Alpha took out the moon! I thought you knew it was going to happen, Tony. I thought I told you."

  "Bronson Alpha took out the moon!... You told me that it would take out the world when we meet it next on the other side of the sun; but you didn't mention the moon!"

  "Didn't I? I meant to. It was minor, of course; but I'd have given much to have been able to s
ee it. Bronson Alpha, if our calculations proved correct, collided with the moon in a glancing blow. That is, it was not a center collision; but it surely broke up the moon into fragments. Most of them may have merged with the far greater body; but others we may see later. There are conditions under which they would form a band of dust and fragments about the earth like the rings about Saturn. In any case, there is no use looking for the moon, Tony. The moon has met its end; it is forever gone. I wish we could have seen it."

  Tony was silent. Strange to stare into a sky into which never again the moon would rise! Strange to think that now that the terrible tides raised by the Bronson Bodies had fallen, there would not be any tide at all. Even the moon tides were gone. The seas, so enormously upsucked and swept back and forth, were left to lap at their shores in this unnatural, moonless calm.