Perry laid the metal sheet on one side.
“Phooey!” growled Tanner. “They’re all soft soap at the moment, but once they know space travel and have earth bodies they’ll move around and wipe humanity off the Earth.”
Perry smiled very slowly; it had a touch of grimness in it.
“That,” he said quietly, “remains to be seen. For the time being, I trust ’em.”
Perry lost no time thereafter. He handed over the secret of wanthorium once he had gained the accordance of Dr. Wancliffe’s imprisoned brain to his schemes. Thereafter, through several weeks, it was mainly a matter of watching the Selenites’ incredibly advanced engineering machines manufacturing the stuff in infinite quantities, delicate machines fitting the stuff to the ten thousand Selenites present in the enormous underground cavern.
So far, the Selenites had kept faith. The time came at last to depart for Earth.
Perry himself led the exodus in his ship with Wancliffe’s double brained robot immediately in the rear. Further behind, floating through the weird galleries of the moon, came the ten thousand Selenites in a disordered array of machinery.
Upward and outward into the blinding sunshine, into the depths of space, over the gulf to Earth and the American continent they went. The enormous Selenite army settled just outside New York, much to the consternation of Earthlings who imagined interstellar invasion was now added to their troubles.
Then Perry spoke over a world television hook-up. Presidents, kings and dictators listened to him, scientists were on tenterhooks, surgeons were astounded.
“Upon the cooperation we can now give depends humanity’s last hope of survival,” Perry stated calmly to the battery of transmitters before him. “You have heard my plan, and it is the only feasible one. Every man with medical knowledge, every surgeon in the world, must come to New York. The Medical Institutes will be opened for our purposes. Men must be trained in the art of making synthetic beings—beings who will take on life when living lunar brains are transplanted into them. It may take years—years of grueling endeavor—but because so much hangs on it, I know you will agree.”
Perry was right in that. Mankind agreed everywhere, and New York saw an influx of medical experts such as the world had never known. Even President Gregory, a one-time doctor, offered his services. And an added spurt was given to endeavor as armies of Selenite machine brains floated overhead almost ceaselessly, waiting, watching, prepared to strike without mercy at the first sign of an attempt to break faith.
But Perry and his enormous army of ever growing workers did not break faith. They wanted humanity to survive as badly as the Selenites wanted living bodies.
Through the months, enormous surgical laboratories sprouted in all directions. The whole world was concerned only in the making of synthetic men and women from Perry’s original plans. Five thousand men and five thousand women—the women first by mutual agreement with the Selenites.
Perry himself concentrated first on re-creating the bodies of Elrond Wancliffe and his wife, was finally rewarded by seeing them living and well beside him, restored to the girl who had untiringly helped him through all his endeavors.
Tanner too had changed, was carried away with enthusiasm for the project, even though he still had inner doubts.
A year went by. Two years … Five years…
Synthesis was everywhere. Day after day more and more brains were transferred to waiting bodies and the corresponding number of alert Selenite machine watchers grew correspondingly less.
Until at last the day arrived when every brain had been given an Earthly body. The last Selenite man mingled with Earthly people, along with the lunar men and women who had gone before him.
“I can’t for the life of me understand it!” declared Dr. Wancliffe, as he stood in the surgical laboratories surveying the report on the synthetic people’s progress. “These men and women, virtually made from the test tube and possessing incredibly brilliant minds, are quite content to mate with each other. In several cases Earthmen have married lunar brained women—and the lunar women, though infinitely cleverer, have settled down to quiet domesticity. It beats me! You’ve restored the balance of the human race, Perry; it’s only a question of time before the race picks up again, but—”
Wancliffe stopped and frowned. “Why the devil don’t any of them try to seize power? That’s what I expected.”
“I thought the same,” growled Tanner. “I’m ready for them to launch something dastardly any minute.”
“So am I,” murmured Kay, glancing across at Perry.
Perry smiled slowly, surveyed the assembled surgeons.
“In a few months the world will be back to normal,” he said quietly. “Business will resume. Out there beyond New York is a vast field of machinery which f contains all the secrets of lunar science we’ll ever need to know. They can easily be analyzed. Those machines formerly housed brains, which are now in the bodies of synthetic earth men and women.
“The moon is totally devoid of life; all chance of threat from there has gone. I took a long chance, my friends, and it worked. These Selenites never had the power to read thoughts, therefore they never knew my innermost ideas. Further, their destruction of womankind was dastardly, though I said otherwise at the time to drive home my argument. I’ve turned the tables on them by using their womankind to repair our deficit.”
“But how?” Wancliffe demanded. “They behave just like ordinary Earth women, and therefore—”
Perry held his hand up for silence, went on talking.
“The genius of a Selenite brain is only produced because the moon has a sixth of the Earth’s gravity. When the Selenites were flesh and blood the lesser gravity permitted a fuller, clearer bloodstream to nourish their brains. Their brains became brilliant because they were fed by a perfect circulation that had but little gravitational drag to overcome.
“But, when they were given Earthly bodies they naturally had an Earthly gravity to contend with, and also an Earthly bloodstream which is nothing like so smooth as a Selenite’s. The result is that the brains are not so well nourished, no longer capable of getting those vast ideas. They’ve been defeated by a biological fact. They’ll never be clever again; they’re earthly!”
“Good Heavens!” Wancliffe breathed, staring at Perry blankly. “You’re right! And to think nobody thought of it—”
“Why should they? It’s the obvious thing that escapes notice.”
Perry turned aside as the scientists gathered together to talk the matter over. He laid a strong hand on Kay’s arm.
“Funny thing,” he murmured. “I don’t quite know whether I ought to ask your father’s permission to marry you, or not. After all I created you—”
“My body … yes,” she agreed softly, “and my love I gave you from the first moment these synthetic eyes of mine saw you. Nor do I think anyone will question your title to both!”
For answer he clasped her to him and she felt him shudder slightly.
“Perry!” she uttered anxiously, “what is it?”
He answered slowly, thankfully, “It’s just that I’ve realized for the first time how truly horrible is a world without women!”
The World In Wilderness
Chapter I
The Celestial Show
That extraordinarily rare event, the impending collision of two stars, was quite sufficient to stir the scientifically minded of the world’s peoples to considerable interest in the late September of that fateful year when the possibility was announced by the leading astronomers.
Unfortunately, the occurrence would be so distant as to be hardly visible to the unaided eye—a momentary flash of light, perhaps, if one knew exactly where to look for it. In actual fact, paradoxically enough, the event had already happened, but so vast was the distance, the light waves from the occurrence were only just appearing—past images of an event long gone.
The main thing was that here was a chance, by the purchase of a small telescope or good field glass
es—manufactured by the millions by enterprising firms—to see Nature in a mood never before known. Or at least never seen since the Earth itself had been created, and even at Earth’s creation there had not been an actual collision, only a passing of two stars—the sun and a runaway.
Obviously, the only accurate recording of such an event would have to be made in space itself, where, unhindered by atmosphere and equipped with the finest telephoto plates, a full recording of the event could be made, together with a complete motion film.
Automatically the assignment fell to Space Enterprises, Incorporated, the only space-travelling company in the world, in which were merged countless other businesses and a multitude of famous names. The Company’s ships plied regularly from Earth to all the worlds of the system in search of valuable minerals, ores, materials that would give one man power over another. Every planet was devoid of life, that fact was proven. Therefore, the Company’s sole work was commercial…
Blake Venner, ace pilot of the void, was more than satisfied with the assignment. In fact, he spent the whole evening before his departure raving about it to Sheila Berick, daughter of the Company’s President. Because she loved Blake well enough to be engaged to him, she listened dutifully, calmed him down gently whenever his excitable nature got the better of him.
Even so, he paced the warm luxury of the girl’s fashionable New York apartment and persistently refused her offers to sit down beside her on the divan.
“Think of it!” he cried, his bright blue eyes gleaming and his wiry fair hair standing up in an obstinate tuft. “A terrific contribution to science! A movie film of something that’s never happened in history before—to our knowledge, that is. What a gift to hand to posterity! Celestial collision! Say, did you ever read up on Jeans?” he asked quickly, turning.
Sheila nodded her dark head slowly. “Of course…” Her brown eyes were faintly amused. “Why?”
“Remember The Mysterious Universe?” Blake finally accepted the offer to sit beside her. “If I remember rightly, Jeans said it is an ‘unimaginable rarity’ for one star to come anywhere near another star. Then he gives that excellent analogy of his. He pictures a scale model in which the stars are ships, and by this means each ship is found to be at least a million miles from its nearest neighbour; showing thereby the rarity of even close approach, let alone a collision. Yet, two thousand million years ago this occurrence took place, and the solar system was born. From then until now, there have been no such coincidences … But now, judging purely, of course, from the light waves hurtling across space, a runaway star out beyond Alpha Centauri will collide with Egusus 612, a small dwarf type star not unlike our own sun.”
“You’re making me envious,” the girl smiled. “It should be a sight for the Gods right out in space.”
“Your father won’t let you come then?” Blake asked.
“No—against regulations; and you know what Dad is for upholding regulations. I tried all my wiles on him, but it just wouldn’t work … so you see, even the President’s daughter gets no favours. Maybe I’ll think of something else,” she finished, smiling again.
Blake shrugged. “It’s tough, but I suppose it’s only right. Space is no picnic, even for a trained man…” He relapsed into thought for a moment, then his face brightened again. “Well anyway, once this assignment’s over, I’m due for two month’s vacation. Are you still enough in love with a lunatic to marry me?”
“Nothing can change that!” There was no hesitation in the girl’s answer. For all his impulsiveness, she knew Blake’s sterling qualities, his reckless courage. For a moment her dark eyes studied his somewhat pugnacious features, then she said quietly: “I’ll be waiting here for you when you get back, and I’ll bet there’ll be plenty of lionising and feting for you and Nick. It isn’t every day that two pilots secure such a scoop as has fallen to you two. In the interval, I’ll record everything in my diary; it will help me to keep in touch with you even though you’re millions of miles away in space.”
Blake shook his head in mystification. “That diary of yours should make good reading one day—or rather diaries. You’ve been at it for years now, haven’t you…?”
He broke off as his gaze caught the clock. Vigorously, he got to his feet, buttoned up his uniform collar.
“I guess time always goes by too fast when I’m with you. Got to turn in early tonight. We leave at eight in the morning and will be away about two weeks or so. The collision takes place a week from today at 8.13 in the evening. You’ll be watching it?”
Sheila rose to her feet, her satin gown clinging to her slender form. She did not answer the question.
“I suppose,” she said slowly, “that I’ll have to buy a telescope and watch, if all else fails. I did so want to see the collision from space.”
“Forget it,” Blake smiled. “Your dad’s right. You’d feel cockeyed for weeks after the journey.” He stooped, kissed her gently. “Take care of yourself,” he murmured, then suddenly releasing her, he strode lithely to the door…
****
By 8.15 the following morning, the Space Enterprises’ finest equipped and fastest machine was clear of the stratosphere, plunging at ever increasing speed through the clear reaches of infinity, driven onwards against Earth’s gravitational field by the powerful Bennett-Jones dilinite rocket fuel. Ahead loomed the always incomprehensibly vastness of space, studded with the nearer view of the inner planets and moon, the distant dimensionless glittering of the stars.
Blake sat squarely in his padded chair, hands on the controls, eyes on his instruments. Behind him, checking over the apparatus, was Nick Vane, by far the smartest scientist the Company possessed.
Tall, sallow skinned and dark, he took life with a certain immovable gravity; he was the kind of man who would remain undisturbed through an earthquake and would record the effects in copper plate handwriting. He and Blake made an excellent team; they were the firmest of friends, the one courageous and impulsive and the other calculating and impassive. Their joint efforts had never yet failed to produce perfect results.
“I wonder,” Nick said presently, “if we’re heading right into a death trap…”
“Huh?” Blake looked up, startled. “You’re a nice cheerful sort of guy to go around with. What do you mean, anyhow?”
“I’m considering the possibilities, and the more I consider, the more I wonder. Maybe there are things we didn’t have the time to check up on. For instance, the collision of two stars will produce intense bursts of radiation of various sorts, and plenty of them may never have happened before. Because they travel at the speed of light, they’ll reach us identically at the same moment we see the collision … I wonder what will happen then?”
“What the hell can happen?” Blake snorted. “Throwing a scare into me like that! You know as well as I do that this ship’s proofed against all radiation in three separate sections. Even cosmic rays can’t get through, and they’re about the most powerful thing of all we’re likely to contend with.”
Nick shrugged. “Well, it was only a consideration, anyway. I like to weigh the possibilities of everything from the very start. If I’m going to die, I prefer to know in what fashion—”
“Yeah, including the colour of your coffin and the date of burial?” Blake finished drily. “If you’d forget your passion for organization for a moment, the trip would be a lot, happier for me! You’re putting me right off my stroke.”
“Sorry!” Nick grinned a little. “Maybe I am wrong at that.”
Whether he considered the matter further or not, he did not mention it again. For a week of earth-time, the vessel flew onwards under Blake’s skilful guidance, travelled well out beyond Pluto into the real abysmal depths of space by the time the pre-calculated moment for the collision arrived.
With the automatic pilot in operation, both men gave their full attention to the void and the drama being enacted there. It was quite enough to make Nick gaze in admiring wonder. To the split second, Egusus 612 and the runa
way unknown, both of them stars of the sun’s diameter, united in a common blast of unbearable brilliance.
The movie telephoto cameras ground out steadily, recording every detail. Nick busied himself with the still-plate apparatus. Blake glanced at the self-registering instruments recording all that was necessary in the scientific line—brilliance of light emitted, displacement of mean position, and so forth.
At last the two stars had coalesced into a common oneness. The brilliance of the impact was dying. The two would probably condense into one white dwarf of incredible heaviness. The show was over.
“Hmm…” Nick commented. “Seems an awful distance to come for such a short display, especially when everybody else will see it in comfort at the television theatres. Ah well, I suppose that’s what mugs like us are for! Turn her round, Blake, and let’s get home!”
He unfastened the film cans with a practised hand, moved into the adjoining dark room, and closed the door.
Chapter II
Deserted World
Eight days later the return journey was almost complete. Earth loomed green and resplendent from the depths of the void— first a cloud-wreathed globe, then becoming flat as the space ship dropped through the clouds with fast-diminishing speed.
As usual, Blake watched his instruments carefully, studied the ground-reflecting screens.
Presently the faintest hint of a frown crossed his face.
“Say!” he exclaimed, looking up, “I’d rather expected some sort of demonstration on our return, hadn’t you? Not that I want it, of course, only it seemed inevitable. Queer, don’t you think, that there’s nobody around?”
“I agree.”
Nick’s brows came down. The ship was well below the clouds now, dropping directly over New York, heading west of the city for the open landing grounds encompassed in the horseshoe-shaped Enterprise Building.
John Russell Fearn Omnibus Page 52
