Philip Wylie & Edwin Balmer - When Worlds Collide

by When Worlds Collide(Lit)

  "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 re‰nforced 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, microorganisms 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, af
ter 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 larvas, in addition to providing food for the fish, are necessary to keep the inland waters from becoming choked with alg‘ 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 Tachinid‘ 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 containing our microorganisms 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.

  It seemed as they rose over the horizon on that last night that they increased visibly in size as the onlookers regarded them.

  And such might have been the case, for now the earth was no longer rushing away from the stranger bodies, but toward them.

  Already the desolate and wounded surface of man's world was stirring to their approach. Slight earthquake shocks were felt from time to time, and the very winds seemed to be moving in a consciousness of the awful cataclysm that was drawing near. All over the world, the tides-unnaturally absent since the shattering of the moon-rose again and licked up the sides of the fresh, raw shores; the people who huddled on mountains and prairie plateaus that night knew instinctively that this was indeed the end.

  Chapter 23-The Last Night On Earth

  TONY sought out Eve.

  "Come walk with me," he said.

  "I'd like to. It's so strange to wait, with everything done that matters. For it's all done, Tony; everything that we're to take with us has been prepared and put in place. Except the animals and ourselves."

  "Dull lot of animals, mostly," complained Tony. He was excited and on edge, with nerves which he tried to quiet and could not.

  He did not want to talk to Eve to-night about animals; but he migh
t as well, for people were all about, alone or in pairs, likewise restless and excited.

  "It would be madness to try to bring the interesting animals along, wouldn't it?" Eve said agreeably. "Like lions and tigers and leopards."

  "I know," admitted Tony. "Meat-eaters. We can't cart along meat for them, of course; and we can't expect meat on Bronson Beta. All we can hope for is grass and moss; so we load up with a cow, and a young bull, of course; a pair of sheep of proved breeding ability, a couple of reindeer, and a colt and a young mare. Half humanity lived on horsemeat once and milked the mares. We'll be allowed goats, too. And deer, if our big ship gets over. Do you suppose there'll be other ships starting from this side of the world tomorrow night and from the other side, the evening after?"

  "Father doesn't know. When the radios were working well, months ago, he broadcast the knowledge of David's metal. It must have become obtainable from volcanic eruptions in other places. But we've no real news of any one else ready to start. One thing is certain. No party can count upon the arrival of any other. Each crew has to assume that it may be the only one that gets across to Bronson Beta."