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Show (WH EN' WORLDS! I COLLIDE B'! Copyright by Edwin BaJmr & Philip Wylle 2 j WNU Service SYNOPSIS ravil R.'insilell, noted aviator, has be i-ii commissioned at Capetown to dt-li vtrr a consignment of pit o toil to-il i'u pliic ulut es l Dr. Cole Hendron, in New York. Tony Drake calls at t lie H end ions ti part men t. liansdell arriVf s and Hve Ilendron, with whom Tony Is deeply In love, in-trod in-trod uces Tony to Kansdell. News-papers News-papers publish a statement made by Hcmlron, Haying- that Professor I'.i-onson has discovered two planets, which are approaching' the earth. The result ot the inevitable collision col-lision must be the end of this world. The approaching bodies are referred to as Bronson Alpha and Uronson iJeta. bronson Alpha, It is asserted, will hit the earth and demolish It. To devi.se means of transferring to i ron son Be l a Is what Is occupying tiie minds of the members of the 1-eagua of the Ijast Days. Eve outlines out-lines to Tony the idea of the Space Ship, whici Ilendron has in contemplation. con-templation. The scientist tells Tony he is to be a member of the selected se-lected crew of the projected Space Ship. Tony rounds up suitable men and women to build the ship. Hen-dion Hen-dion has not been able to find a metal or an alloy which will withstand with-stand the heat and pressure of ntom ic energy to be used in pro-pelling pro-pelling the Space Ship. Ink here millions of mothers and children, too! But probably no one at all would be saved, Tony recollected almost with relief. Work on the Space Ship, in recent days, was not really advancing. They were held up from lack of a material to withstand the power that science now could loose from the atom. The Idea of escape was probably only a fantasy, utterly utter-ly vain. So thinking, Tony ended his talk, and put up the receiver. Taxicabs had been sent for Tony and his party. They made their way immediately downtown to the big building which housed the Heu-dron Heu-dron laboratories. The cab had covered a few blocks when Tony realized that throughout its length and breadth Manhattan had been depopulated. Here and there a lone figure was visible usually a figure in the uniform of a policeman or a soldier. Once he thought he caught sight of a man skulking in the shadows shad-ows of a doorway. But he was not sure. And there were no women, no children. There were few lights In the skyscrapers. sky-scrapers. As the taxies bowled through the murk and dark, unchecked un-checked by traffic signals, Tony and Jack Taylor shuddered involun- Jack Taylor was beside Tony when they reached the roof. "As God lives, that's a marvelous thing!" He stared at the two yellow yel-low discs in the sky. "Think of it! The heavens are falling upon us and a few hundred men, here and there, are sitting on this stymied golf ball figuring how to get away!" "Look down, now, said a different differ-ent voice, "at the street." It was a young man's voice, carefully controlled, con-trolled, but In spite of its constraint, ringing" with an unusually vibrant and vital quality. Tony recogized a recruit whom he had not himself selected. It was Eliot James, an Englishman from Oxford, Ox-ford, and a poet. By profession and by nature, he was the most impractical imprac-tical of all the company; and one of the most attractive, in spite of his affectation if it was that of a small beard. The beard became hitn. He was tall, broad-shouldered, aquiline in feature, brown. The baleful moonlight of the Bronson Bodies glinted up from the street. "Water," some one said. "Yes; that's the tide. It's flowing in from the cross streets from the Hudson, and from the East river, too." "How high will It rise tonight? Oh, how high?" "Not above the bridges tonight. But of course the power houses will go." , "And the tunnels will be filled?" "Of course." "There are people down there, wading in the street! . , . Why did they stay? They've been warned enough. We've business here." , "So had they they supposed, and as important to them as we imagined imag-ined ours to be to us. Besides," ' they're safe enough tonight. They can climb three stories in almost any building and be safe. The tide ebbs, of course, In six hours." "Then comes agaiu higher!" "Yes much higher. For the Bronson Bodies are rushing at us now." "Exactly how," asked Eliot James, "do they look through the telescope tele-scope ?" j "The big one Bronson Alpha," ! replied Jack Taylor, as they all looked up from the street, "not verj different from before. It seems to be gaseous, chiefly it always was chiefly gaseous, unlike tiie earth and Mars, but like Jupiter and Saturn Sat-urn and Neptune. Its approach to. the sun has increased the temperature tempera-ture of its envelope, but has brought out no details of its geography, geogra-phy, if you could call it that Bronson Bron-son Alpha offers us no real surface, as such. It seems to be a great globe with a massive nucleus surrounded sur-rounded by an immense atmosphere. What we see is only the outer surface sur-face of the atmospjiere." "Could it ever have been inhabited?" inhab-ited?" the poet asked. "In no such sense as we understand under-stand the word. For one tiling, if we found ourselveti on Bronson Alpha, Al-pha, we would never find any surface sur-face to live on. There is probably no sudden alteration of material such as exists on the earth wiien air stops and land and water begin." be-gin." "But the other world Bronson Beta is different?" "Very different from its companion com-panion up there, but not so different from our world, it seems. It has a surface we can see. with air and clouds in its atmosphere. There are fixed details which do not change, and which prove a surface crust is! CHAPTER V Continued 13 They wore standing together on the balcony overlooking the' brightly bright-ly lighted and still noisy city. Their srnis were locked together In defiance defi-ance of their oath to the League. "He'll succeed," Tony said. "He has succeeded, except that every rocket he builds Is limited In the distance it can fly and the power pow-er it can use by the fact that Its propulsive tubes melt. There isn't a metal nor an alloy In the world that will withstand that heat." Tony did not answer. After a long silence she spoke again. "It's an awful thing, Tony. Look down there. Look down on the city. Think of the people. Look at the lights, and I hen Imagine water, mountains of it. Water that would reach to here !" Tony held her arm more tightly. "Don't torture yourself, Eve." "I can't help it. Oh, Tony, just think of it!" "Well, that's the way things have to be, Eve." He could not say nny more. When Tony went down, the street was still filled with people. All the people were talking. They walked, but it did not seem to matter to them what direction they took or what chance company they shared. When he arrived at his apartment apart-ment he called a number In Greenwich, Green-wich, Connecticut, waited an abnormally abnor-mally long time, then asked a maid for ilrs. Drake. His voice was warm and calm, "Well, Mother. Uow are you?" His mo tlier's reply was con- trolled, but nerves stabbed through i every word she said. "Tony, darling! dar-ling! I've tried and tried to reach you. Oh! I'm just an inch short of fainting. 1 thought something had happened to you." Tony and Jack Taylor Shuddered Involuntarily to See the Black Buildings Which Man Had Deserted. De-serted. ... At the Elevator They Were Met by Eve. tarlly to see the black buildings which man had deserted. At the elevator they were met by Eve. She kissed Tony, in an ecstasy of defiance, and then hurried to assist as-sist his group In tiie removal of their baggage, and in directing its disposal. Every one left the street reluctantly. The Bronson Bodies were hypnotic. In the laboratories there was the utmost confusion. No longer was the inner door closed. Only a skeleton crew had remained In New York under Ilendron. The scientist himself was introduced by Tony to each of the new arrivals, and to each he said a few words of welcome. wel-come. Several were already known to him. ! "Sorry, Mother. I've been busy." i "I know, ('ome right out and tell ! me all about it." j "1 can't." j There was a pause. "You can't i put it in words?" "No." i There was another Ions pause, j Mrs. Drake's voice was lower, more ; tremulous and yet it was nut the j voire of a hysterical or an unrea-! unrea-! soiling woman. "Tell me, Tony, how bad is it going to be?" How could he tell her that for her, there was annihilation, but for ! himself some chance ot escape? ; She would wish It for him, whatever what-ever happened to herself ; but he could not accept it. A berth iu the Space Ship, leaving her here! Leav- Then Ilendron made an announcement announce-ment a statement which was repeated re-peated afterward In French and German. "Ladies and gentlemen you will sleep in tiie dormitories above here tonight. Tomorrow we will remove by airplane to my field station In Michigan. The others are already there. In bidding you good night, I must also request no one to leave the building. A splendid view of the firmament may be had from the roof. But the streets are entirely unsafe. The last wave of emigration left New York at sundown sun-down this evening. The people who remain are either law officers or marauders." exists. The atmosphere was frozen solid In the journey through space, but the sun has thawed out the air and has started, nt least, on thawing thaw-ing out the seas." "Have you seen," asked the poet, "anything like cities?" "Cities?" "The ruins of cities, I mean. That globe lived in the sunshine of a star that was an octillion miles away. I thought just now, looking at it, that perhaps on It were cities like this where people once watched the coming com-ing of whatever pulled them loose from their sun, and dropped them into the black mouth of space." (TO BE CONTINUED.) , |