OCR Text |
Show CTII I IffE? By EDWIN BALMER HtJPgz.gviMM, and PHiLIP WYLIE i ' S Copyright by Edwin Bajmer & Philip Wylia ?H WNU Service 1 SYNOPSIS David RansdeU, commissioned at "apetou'n to deliver a consignment of photographic plates to Dr. Cole Kendron, reaches New York. Tony-Drake Tony-Drake calls at the Hendrons' apartment. apart-ment. Eve Hendron, with" whom. Tony Is In love, introduces Tony to Ransdell. A statement by Hen-ilron Hen-ilron says that Professor Eronson iias discovered two planets approaching ap-proaching the earth. The result of the Inevitable collision must be the i ind of this world. The approaching bodies are referred to as Bronson Mpha and Bronson Beta. B-ve outlines out-lines to Tony the idea of the Space Ship, which Hendron has in contemplation, con-templation, to transfer a party of human beings, lower animals, and other forms of life, to Bronson Beta. Tony rounds up suitable men and women to build the ship.. Hendron has not been able to find a metal which will withstand the heat and pressure of atomic energy to be used In propelling the Space Ship. The tides sweep to the Appalachians Dn the east and to the mountains Dn the Pacific side, and quakes change the entire surface of the paxth. Bronson Alpha collides with tha moon and wipes it out. what they must do to live if they land there." In three days the static in the air vanished to such an extent that messages mes-sages from various parts of the world became audible. Out of those messages a large map was constructed con-structed in the executive ollices. It was a speculative map, and its accuracy ac-curacy was by no means guaranteed. guaran-teed. It showed islands where Australia Aus-tralia had been, two huge islands in the place of South America, and only the central and southern part of Europe and Asia. There was a blank in place of Africa, for no one knew what had happened to the Dark continent. A few points of land were all tliat were left of the British isles, and over the air came the terrible story of the last-minute (light from London across the Channel, in which the populace was overwhelmed on the Great Lowland plain. Among the minor phenomena phenom-ena reported was the disappearance of the Great Lakes, which had been Inclined from west to east and tipped like travs of water Into the valley of the St. Lawrence. On the the storm was put In condition, and Eliot James aud Ransdell made a live-hundred-mile reconnaissance. At lleiulron's request the young author au-thor addressed the entire gathering in the dining hall after his return. CHAPTER VIII . ; ((x fit. RANSDELL and myself," IV 1 Eliot James began, "took our ship off tiie ground this morning at eight o'clock. We flew due north for about seventy-five miles. Then we made a circle of which that distance was the radius, covering the territory terri-tory that formerly constituted parts of .Michigan and Wisconsin. "I say 'formerly' because our (light was like a journey of discovery. discov-ery. Vou 'have already been told that the Great Lakes have disappeared. disap-peared. They are, however not entirely en-tirely gone, and I should say that about one-third of Lake Superior, possibly now land-locked, remains in its bed." "The country we covered, as yon' doubtless know, was formerly heavily heav-ily wooded and hilly," the young author au-thor continued. "It contained many lakes and was a mining center. Most of the forests' have been -burned away. Seams have opened underneath under-neath them, which are In -reality mighty canyon abysses in the naked earth. Steam pours from them and hovers in them. All about the landscape land-scape are fumaroles, hot springs, geysers and boiling wells. 1 ' "In the course of our flight we observed the ruins of a moderate sized town and of several villages. We also saw the charred remains of farms, lumber and' mining camps. Not only have great clefts been made, hut- hills have been created, 1 In innumerable places the eartlr shews raw and multi-colored thfl purplish red of iron veins, the glaring white of quartz, the dark monotony of 'basalt intermingled iu a giant's conglomerate. -Ve observed a few areas which, like our own, were relatively undisturbed. undis-turbed. Qhis district, as you know, is sparsely settled. I w complete my wholly inadequate report to you by satisfying what must be youi major curiosity: we saw in the course of our flying a number oi human beings. Some of them wandering wan-dering over this nude, tumultuous country alone and obviously without with-out resources for their sustenance, Others were gathered together in small communities in the sheltered-places. sheltered-places. They had fires going, and r; it l CHAPTER VII Continued 20 "Rut they don't know it. They can't know a thing like that just from being told or even from what they've just been through." . "Neither can we, Tony." "No; we think we you and T, at least are going to be safe somehow. some-how. We are sure, down in our hearts aren't we, Eve? that you find I will pull through. There'll be some error in the calculations that will save us; or the Space Ship will take us away; or something." As she nodded Tony seized and held her with a fierceness and with a tenderness In his ferocity, neither of which he had ever known before. He looked down-at her in his arms, and it was difficult to believe that anyone so exquisite, so splendidly fragile, could have survived the orgy of elemental passion through which they all had passed. Yet that he knew was nothing to what would" be. ' He kissed her long and deeply; and when he drew his lips away, she very gently freed herself from him; for, far more faithfully than he, she heeded her father. He sighed. She looked up at him. "They tell me, Tony, that you kept the whole camp going, single-handed." single-handed." she returned him to practical prac-tical affairs. "Did you know Professor P.ron-son P.ron-son is here?" "Yes; I saw him 7spoke to him. How did he happen to -ome?" "He'd arrived in the yv'Htry end was almost here when the stn;iji struck. He's known about what was 1 On the Large Map There Was a Blank in Place of Africa, for No One Knew What Had Happened to the Dark Continent. fifth day they learned that an airplane air-plane flight had been made over what was the site of New VorU. The Hudson River valley was a deep estuary; the sea rolled up to New-burgh; New-burgh; and the entire coast along its new line was scoured from east to west with running valleys which were piled high with the wreckage of a mighty civilization. Every where were still fetid plains of cool-, ing lava. . they were apparently secure atleasl for the time being. All of them attempted at-tempted to attract our attention to themselves, and it is with regrel that I must say that not only is their Tescue Inadvisable from the sheer necessity of our own self-preservation, self-preservation, but that in most cases it would be difficult if not impossible, impos-sible, as we ;found no place in which we niight have landed a plane, if the surface of the water ihat remained in Lake Superior be excepted, and a few other ponds and lakes." After the speech, people crowded around James. Peter Vanderbilt, moving through the crowd, glimpsed Iinnsdell as he was walking through the front doors of the hall. The New Yorker stepped out on the porch beside the pilot; the sophisticated sophis-ticated Manhattan dilettante wrth his smooth, graying hair, his worldly world-ly wise and weary eyes, his svelte accent, beside the rugged, tan-faced, tan-faced, blue-eyed, powerful adventurer. adven-turer. "I wanted to ask you something," Vanderbilt said. Kansdell turned, and as usual he did not speak but simply waited. "t)o you think it would be possible to hop around the country during the next few months?" "With a good ship an amphibian." amphi-bian." Vanderbilt tapped his cigarette holder against one of the posts on the porch. "You and I are both supernumeraries around here, In a sense. I was wondering If It might not be a good idea to make an ex- 1 pedition around the country aud see for ourselves just what has happened." hap-pened." CTO BE CONTINUED. It was impossible to make any estimate whatsoever of the number j ot people who had survived the ca-rasroiip-;, Doubtless the figure ran V of millions; but except in 'lttV w'ortunnte and prearranged places, s( ,Lv were destitute, disorganized disor-ganized u-' doomed to perish of hunger anuV-xposure. On the tenth day the sun shone for the first time. At the end of two weeks it would have been difficult diffi-cult to tell that the settlement in Michigan had undergone any great cataclysm. For fifteen days the earth did not cease trembling. In all those fifteen fif-teen days, furthermore, there had been no visitor to the camp from the outside world, and the nulio station sta-tion had contented itself for the most .part with the messages it received, re-ceived, for fear that by giving its position 'and broadcasting its comparative com-parative security, it might be overwhelmed over-whelmed by a rush of desperate and starving survivors. At the end of three weeks one of' (he airplanes which had escaped to happen, and he's been figuring it out for a longer time than anyone any-one else. He's had the highest respect re-spect for Father. You know it was to Father that he sent his results. They had to get together, Father and he. They .agreed it was better bet-ter to work here than in South Africa; Af-rica; so he did the traveling. He'll be invaluable if we do get away." "You mean, if we get away from the world?" .- "Yes. You see Father's chief work has been and will be on the Space ship; how to get away from the world and reach Bronson Bjta, when it returns. That's all Father can possibly arrange if not more. He can't take any time to figuring how we'll live, if we reach tat other world. But Professor Bronson Bron-son hau been doing that for months. For more than a year he practically lived in . his mind on Bronson Beta. So he's here to make the right preparation for the party that goes on the ship; who they should be. what they should carry, an'd |