Philip Wylie & Edwin Balmer - When Worlds Collide

by When Worlds Collide(Lit)

  Tony moved with a feeling of incredulity. The Hendron apartment was exactly as it had been. Leighton approached stiffly with a cocktail on a small silver tray. There was even jazz emerging softly from the radio. He smiled faintly. Funny that a girl of Eve's extraordinary education and taste should enjoy the monotonous rhythm of jazz coming over the radio, and yet she had always liked it.

  Eve appeared-a new Eve who was a little different from the old Eve. She wore a green evening dress that he remembered from an hour spent long ago on the balcony.

  "Hello, Tony." In her eyes was the same wonderment, the same surprise and unbelief that he felt. She took the cocktail which Leighton had brought, and held it up to the light. A pink hemisphere, a few drops of something that belonged to a life in a world already as good as dead. "Happy days!"

  Hendron appeared immediately after his daughter. "Drake! Evening, old man. No cocktail, thanks, Leighton. Well, this is odd. Here we stand, just as we did in the old days, eh?"

  "Don't say the old days, Father. We'll be doing it all the rest of our lives."

  Hendron's extravagantly blue eyes twinkled. "If you expect me to furnish you with cocktail glasses and smuggled Bacardi in the years that lie ahead on Bronson Beta, Eve, you vastly overrate my paternal generosity and thoughtfulness. Let's have dinner. I want to get back to the laboratory for a conference at midnight."

  The dining-room doors were opened. White, silver and red glittered under the indirect lights. "I point with pride," Eve said, "to the roses. It's something of an achievement these days."

  They sat down. Leighton served consomm‚, and Tony picked up his silver spoon with a dreamy feeling of unreality which psychologists have noted and only badly explained.

  Hendron brought him to his senses. "Tell us the news, Tony. We've been living down there at the laboratory ever since you left. This is Eve's and my first night off. Eating there, sleeping there. We have dormitories now on the floor above. What's going on in the world? You know, we even bar newspapers now. They're too much of a distraction, and Dodson has instructions to keep track of the news but not to give us any, unless it will have an effect on our work."

  Tony sipped the consomm‚. "You mean to say you haven't kept tabs on the effect of your own society's bitter pill?"

  Hendron shook his head. "Not anything to speak of. A word here and there in reference to something else, that's all."

  Eve said eagerly: "Go ahead, Tony! Tell us everything. What do you know about the world? What's it like in Boston? What do people think and say? What's the news from abroad? All we know is that the Government has at last done a little governing, and taken over the public utilities in order to keep them running."

  Tony began to talk. He took what opportunity their questions gave, to eat.

  "It hasn't made as much difference as you'd think. The Government at Washington is now less concerned with the fact that the populace should be moved away from the Coast, than it is with immediate problems. If you really have not read about them, I can give you some idea. There was a general strike in Chicago two weeks ago that tied up everything. No electric light and no water; nothing for a day. There was a terrific riot in Birmingham. The police forces in half a dozen cities walked out. The State governments weren't able to cope with the situation. In some cases it was just that the people decided not to work any more, and in others it was pure mob uproar. The Federal Government stepped in everywhere. They took over blanket control of the utilities, saw to it that trains were kept running, powerhouses kept going, and so on. Nominally workers are jailed for dereliction, but actually I think they have found it necessary to execute them. Trouble began when I was in Boston, but in three days all the major functions of housing, food and transportation were working fairly well.

  "I think the people looked first to the President, anyway; and the President had the good sense to kick politics in the face and take full authority upon himself to do anything and everything which he thought would keep the country in operation. There was some trouble in the Army and Navy, still more in the National Guard, especially with soldiers who were fathers and wanted to remain with their families. I suppose there are nearly half a million men doing police duty right now."

  "It's strange," Eve said, "but I realized things were functioning, without even having the time to investigate precisely why they were going."

  Her father looked keenly at Tony. "That's all according to the plan that the League worked out before the news broke. A man named Carey is largely responsible for it. He's an economist. I believe he's a guest at the White House right now, and has been for ten days."

  "I've seen his name," Tony said, and continued: "As I was saying, it hasn't made as much difference as you would imagine. I saw one nasty riot in Baltimore between soldiers on one side and cops on the other, but in half an hour it was all over. I think that the work of keeping the public informed has been marvelous. The radio goes twenty-four hours a day, and the newspapers appear as often as they have anything fresh to print. People are kept encouraged and reassured and directed. Of course, part of the general calmness is due simply to mass inertia. For every person that will get hysterical or do something foolish, there are about ten who will not only fail to get hysterical, but who will not even recognize that their lives are presently going to be changed entirely. The whole city of Philadelphia, with the exception of the university, is almost unaltered. Anyway, that's the impression you get of it.

  "And the unemployed have been corralled en masse. There is a project to turn the entire basin of the Mississippi north and west of Kansas City into an abode for the Coast populations, and the unemployed are building there, I understand, quarters of sorts for ten million people. Most of them are temporary. They are also planting vast areas of land in crops. I imagine that they are going to compel the migration when the interior of the country is prepared as well as possible to receive it, and when the danger of tidal waves draws near. As a matter of fact, every industrial center is working at top speed, and Chicago is headquarters for their produce. I don't just remember the figures, but an appalling quantity of canned goods, clothing, medical supplies and things like that are being prepared and distributed to bases in the Mississippi valley. Granted that the valley remains inhabitable, I really believe that a majority of our population will be successfully moved there and installed for an indefinite time."

  "It's wonderful, isn't it?" Eve said.

  Tony nodded. "The machinery which organized millions of men during the war was still more or less available for this much bigger undertaking, from the standpoint of plans and human cogs. The hardest thing is to convince the people that it must be done; but the leaders have recognized the fact, and are going ahead. A sort of prosperity has returned. Of course, all prices and wages are rigidly fixed now, but there is more than enough work to go around, and keeping busy is the secret of holding the masses in emotional balance."

  Hendron nodded. "Exactly, Drake.-I'm really astonished to hear that they've done so well. It's unthinkable, isn't it? Absolutely unthinkable! Just a few months ago we were a nation floundering in the depths of what we thought were great difficulties and tribulations, and to-day, facing an infinitely greater difficulty, the people are more intelligent, more united-and more successful."

  "I think it's thrilling," Eve said.

  Tony shook his head in affirmation. "I can't give you a really good picture of it. I really know very little of it. It all came, in dashes-things read in newspapers, things heard over the radio, things told me; but this country at least has grasped the basic idea that there is going to be trouble, and great trouble, in a short time."

  "Quite so," Hendron said. "Now how about the rest of the world?"

  Tony's hand jerked as he buttered his roll. He looked up. "The rest of the world?" he repeated. "I don't know much about the rest of the world. What I do know I'll tell you, but you mustn't take my word as final. The information is garbled, contradictory and unreliable. For one thing, many of the European nations ar
e still foolishly trying to keep their plans secret in order to protect their borders, and so on. In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they fell to fighting. There seems to be small thought of cooperation, and they stick fiercely to national lines.

  "England's labor troubles festered the minute she tried to institute compulsory work for those who tended her utilities. I believe London was without power or light for five or six days. There was a vast amount of sabotage. The police fought battles through Piccadilly and Trafalgar Square with armed mobs. A curious thing happened in India. One would think that the Hindus would be the last people in the world to recognize what was about to happen. One would believe that their reaction would be fatalistic acceptance. However, according to one report at least, there is something in the Veda which anticipated the Bronson bodies, or some similar cosmic manifestation; and with the spread of the news that disaster threatened the world, the Hindus and Brahmins rose together. Now no word comes from India at all. Every line of communication has been cut or silenced."

  Tony paused, ate a little. "This is all very sententious. Most of what I'm saying is taken from the clich‚s of the newspapers. You'll have to forgive me, but you asked me to tell you."

  "Don't stop, Drake, old man."

  "Yes, go ahead, Tony."

  "Australia and Canada, on the other hand, acted very much as the United States has acted. Their political leaders, or at least the ones who came immediately into prominence and power, accepted the fact that trouble was on the scene. They got down to brass tacks, and are doing what they can for and with their people. So is South Africa.

  "The French are very gay about it, and very mad. They think it is very funny, and they think it is an insult to France at the same time. The whole country is filled with sputtering ineffective people. They're playing politics for all it's worth, and new cabinets come and go, sometimes at the rate of three a day, without ever getting anything accomplished at all. But at least they have kept functioning as a nation. Germany went fascist; a few communists were killed; and so were a few Jews.

  "Communists are struggling to get control-not, with success. As for Russia, little is known. Of course it is a terrible blow to the Soviet. The heavy industries which they developed so painstakingly and at such awful cost are scattered over a wide area. I believe the Soviet Government is carrying on rather bitterly, but as best it can. China is still just China. So you can tell very little about it. In South America the news has served merely to augment the regular crop of revolutions."

  Tony put down his fork. "That's all I know." He reached for a cigarette, and lighted it. "What to expect to-morrow or a week from to-morrow, no one can say. Since it's impossible to tell how high tides will be, how far inland they will rush, and what areas will be devastated, and since not even the best guess will be any indication whatsoever of where the land may rise, where it may fall, and what portions of it will witness eruptions and quakes, it may be that even the gigantic steps being taken by some governments will be futile. Am I not right?"

  "My dear boy," Hendron replied after a pause, "you are eminently right. That is an amazingly clear picture you've given us. I'm surprised that any nation has had the intelligence to take steps, although I suppose, being patriotic in my heart, I rather hoped and expected that our own United States would leap from the backwash of villainous politics into a little good clear sailing before the crisis arrives.... Let's have our coffee in the other room."

  After dinner Leighton, whose customary mournfulness had, by some perversity, bloomed into the very flower of good nature, ushered Ransdell into the apartment.

  Tony was furious at Ransdell's arrival. He had hoped to have Eve to himself.

  How he had hoped to have her, and with what further satisfaction, he did not define; but at least he knew that he wanted Ransdell away; and the South African would not go away.

  "He has flown five or six times to Washington for Father," Eve explained. "And he's wonderful in the laboratory. He has a genius for mechanics."

  The South African listened to this account of himself with embarrassment; and Tony, observing him, realized that under any other circumstances he would have liked him.

  In fact, originally Tony had liked David Ransdell immensely-until he had realized that he also was to go with him-and with Eve-on the Space Ship!

  Chapter 10-Migration

  BRIGHTER and brighter, and higher and higher, each night the strange stars stood in the southern skies.

  Indeed, one ceased to resemble a star at all and appeared, instead, as a small full moon which grew balefully each night; and now the other also showed a disc even to the naked eye.

  Each night, also, they altered position slightly relatively to each other. For the gravitational control of the larger- Bronson Alpha-swung the smaller, Bronson Beta, about it in an orbit like that of the moon about the earth.

  Their plain approach paralyzed enterprise on the earth, while the physical effects of their rush toward the world was measurable only in the instruments of the laboratories.

  Throughout the civilized world two professions above all others adhered most universally to their calling: day and night, in the face of famine, blood, fire, disaster and every conceivable form of human anguish, doctors and surgeons clung steadfast to their high calling; and day and night amid the weltering change of conditions and in the glut of fabulous alarms and reports, the men who gathered news and printed it, labored to fulfill their purposes.

  Tony saw more of the world's activities than most of its citizens at this time. He had scarcely returned from his first tour of the Eastern cities when he was sent out again, this time to the Middle and Far West. That journey was arduous because of the increasing difficulties of travel. The railroads were moving the Pacific and the Atlantic civilizations inland, and passenger trains ran on uneasy schedules. He saw the vast accumulation of freight in the Mid-western depots. He saw the horizon-filling settlements being prepared. He saw the breath-taking reaches of prairie which had been put under cultivation to feed the new horde in the high flat country north and west of Kansas.

  Along the Pacific Coast he observed the preparations being made for the withdrawal from the western ocean. Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, the cities inevitably doomed, were digging up their roots. Millionaires drove eastward in great limousines with their most priceless treasures heaped around them; and small urchins cast an anxious eye at the Pacific and turned to look with uncomprehending hope toward the mountains that ranged beside it.

  Every citizen in the United States had some part in the migration. Relief maps of the United States were supplied by the Government, so that any man by looking at one could tell whether he had put a thousand feet or five thousand of altitude between himself and the menacing waters.

  Tony's work was varied. He continued to send back by ones and twos those scientists whose counsel Hendron desired, and the flower of the young men and women who might be useful in the event of a great cataclysm.

  Hendron's own ideas were still uncrystallized: he felt with increasing intensity the need for gathering together the best brains, the healthiest bodies and the stanchest hearts that could be found. He had a variety of plans. He had founded two stations in the United States, and was in the process of equipping them for all emergencies. Under the best conditions, the personality of his group might divide into two parts and move to those stations, there to remain until the first crisis passed so that afterward they could emerge as leaders in the final effort against doom.

  Under the pressure of the impending destruction, his scientists had pushed their experiments in obtaining power from atomic disintegration to a point where the power of the atom could be utilized, within limits, as a propulsive force.

  Hendron had thereupon succeeded in bombarding the surface of the moon with a projectile that was, in its essentials, a small rocket. He had settled the problems of hull composition, insulation and aeration, which would arise in such a vessel if made in a size to
be occupied by men. He had devised rockets which could be directed. He had constructed a rocket with vents at both ends so that a discharge in the opposite direction would break its fall. Several such rockets he actually dispatched under remote control, hurtling many miles into the air, turning, descending part way under full force of their stern "engines," and checking their fall by forward discharges at the end of their flight, so that their actual landing had not destroyed even the delicate instruments they contained.

  The chief problem that remained unsolved was a metal sufficiently resistant to the awful force Hendron employed. Even the experimental rockets often failed in their flight because the heat generated by the atomic combustion within them melted and blew away the walls intended to retain it. So, at the Hendron laboratories, the world's metallurgists concentrated their efforts upon finding an alloy capable of withstanding the temperatures and pressures involved in employing atomic energy as a driving force.