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Show WHEN WORLDS rfOl I RsTfrK1 By EDWIN BALMER JSmimUSJ'& and PHILIP WYLIE s c !X Copyright by Edwin Rainier & Philip Wylte $ Jj " ' WNU Service Book of Daniel again especially Belshazzar's feast. Daniel, you may remember, interpreted the writing writ-ing on the wall. 'Mene, Mene, Tekeli Upharsin, God hath numbered num-bered thy kingdom and finished it. Thou art weighed In the balance and art found wanting. And in that night was Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, slain.' "It is something very like thai which is happening to us now, Tony; only the Finger, instead of writing again on the wall, this time has taken to writing in the sky over our heads. The Finger of God, Tony, has traced two little streaks in the sky two objects moving toward to-ward us, where nothing ought to move; and the message of one of them is perfectly plain. " 'Thou art weighed in the balance bal-ance and found wanting,' that one says to us on this world. 'God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it.' But what does the other streak say? "That is the strange one, Tony that is the afterthought of God the chance He is sending us! "Remember how the Old Testament Testa-ment showed God to us, stern and merciless- 'God saw that the wickedness wick-edness of man in the earth was great 1' it said. 'And it repented the wipe them out; but I'll pive some of them a chance. If they're good enough to take the chance and transfer to the other world I'm sending them, may be they're worth another trial. And 111 save five hundred millions of years.' For we'll start on the other world, Tony, where we left off here." "I see that," Tony said. "What's in that to forbid' my loving you now, my taking-you In my arms, my " "I wish we could, Tony!" 'Then why not?" "No reason not, if we wore surely sure-ly to die here, Tcny with all the rest of the world; but every reason not to, If we go on the Space Ship." "I don't see that !" "Don't -you? Do you suppose, Tony, that the second streak in the sky the streak we call Bronson Beta, which will come close to this world, and possibly receive rji safe, before Hronson Alpha wipes out all the rest do you suppose, Tony, that it was sent just for you and me?" "I don't suppose it was sent at all," objected Tony impatiently. "I don't believe in a God who plans and repents and wipes out world's He made." "I do. A few months ago I wouldn't have believed in Him; but since this has happened, I do. What is coming is. altogether too precise and exact to be unplanned by Intelligence In-telligence somewhere, or to be purposeless. pur-poseless. And if the big one is sent to wipe out the world, I don't believe be-lieve the other is sent Just to let me go on loving you and you go on loving me." "What is your idea, then?" "It's sent to save, perhaps, some of the results of five hundred million mil-lion years of life on this world; but not you and me. Tony." "Why not? What, are we?" Eve smiled faintly. "We're some of the results, of course. As such; we may go on the Space Ship. But if we ge, we cease to be ourselves, don't yon see?" "I don't," persisted Tony stub-bornlj'. stub-bornlj'. "I mean, when we arrive on that strange empty world if we do we can't possibly arrive as Tony Drake and Kve Hendron, to continue con-tinue a love and a marriage started here. How insane that would be!" v "Insane?" "Yes. Suppose one Space Ship got across with, say, thirty in its crew. We land and begin to live-thirty live-thirty alone on an empty world aa large as this. What, on that world, would we be? Individuals, paired and set off, each from the others, as here? No; we become bits of biology, biol-ogy, bearing within us seeds far more important than ourselves far more important than our prejudices and loves and hates. We cannot then think of ourselves, only to preserve pre-serve ourselves while we establish our kind." "Exactly what do you mean by that. Eve?" "I mean that marriage on Bronson Bron-son Beta if we reach it cannot possibly be what it is here, especially espe-cially if only a few, a very few of us reach it. It will be all-important then it will be essential to take whatever action the circumstances may require to establish the race." "You mean," said Tony savagely, remembering the remarks at breakfast, break-fast, "if that flyer from South Africa Af-rica Kansdell also made the passage pas-sage on that Space Ship, and we all live, I may have to give you up to him when circumstances seem to require it?" "I don't know, Tony. We can't j possibly describe it now; we can't imagine the circumstances when we're starting all over again. But one thing we can know we must oot Gx relations between us here which may only give trouble." "Relations like love and marriage mar-riage !" "They might not do at all, over there.' "You're mad, Eve. Your father's been talking to you." .(TO BE CONTINUED.) I Wft ; A vdr $''( J?lxki.&z2. - SYNOPSIS Djivid Ramble 11, noted aviator, has been commissioned at Capetown to deliver a consignment of photographic photo-graphic plates to Ir. Cole Hendron, in New York. Tony IXrako calls at the ITendrons' apartment. Kansdell arrives and Evo Hetndron, with whom Tony Is deeply in love, introduces in-troduces Tony to Rantsdell. New-York New-York newspapers publ&sh a statement state-ment made by Henda-on, saying that Professor Bronson has discovered discov-ered two planets,, wliiich are approaching ap-proaching the earth. T3ie result of the inevitable collision must be the end of this world. The approaching bodies are referred to as Bronson Alpha and Bronson Beta. Bronson Alpha, it is asserted, will hit the earth and demolish it. To devise means of transferring to Bronson Beta is what is occupying the minds of the members of tho League of the Last Days. Hendron forbids Tony and Eve to think of marriage. CHAPTER III Continued 9 "Jmasine the haughty Mussolini, when he finds that the secret he could not extort from his lron-souled lron-souled men of learning is the secret of Fascism's vanity. Vanity of vanities! van-ities! All in the end, is vanity! Dust! "Imagine our President trying to decry, now, this! Ah, I could -weep. Rut I do not. Instead I laugh. I laugh because few men but some some, my friend even in tho face of this colossal ignominy of fate go on and on through the night, burning burn-ing out their brains yet In theen-deavor theen-deavor to guide their o-wn destinies. What a gesture! But today what appalling shock I And afterward what a scene! When the world the fifteen hundred millions of human hu-man beings realize, all of them, that nothing can save them, and they rannot possibly save themselves. What a scene ! I hope to be spared for it. Meanwhile, sell my stocks for the best prices you can obtain, please; for my wife and I we have saved for a long time and denied ourselves too much." Later in (he day Tony was on his way to Newark airport, where a certain pilot, for whom he was to inquire, would fly him to the estate in tho Adirondaeks which had been turned over to Cole Hendron. CHAPTER IV EYE awaited Tony In a garden surrounded by trees. In the air was the scent of blossoms, the fragrance fra-grance of the forest, songs of birds. She was in white, with her shoulders shoul-ders and arms bare, her slender body sheathed close in silk. All feminine, she was, too feminine, indeed, in-deed, in her feeling for the task she set for herself. Would she succeed bolter at it if she had garbed herself like a nun? An airplane droned in the twilight twi-light sky and dropped to Its cleared und clipped landing field. Kve arose from the bench beside the little pool. She trembled, impatient; she circled the pool and sat down again. Here he came at last and alone, as she hoped. "Hello, Tony !" She tried to make It cool. "Eve, my dear !" "We mustn't say even that! No lon't kiss me or hold me so!" "Why? ... I know your father said not to. It's discipline of the League of the Last Days. But why Is it? Why must they ask it? And why must you obey?-' "There now, Tony. I'll try to ex-slain ex-slain to you. Let's sit here side by side but not your arm around me. ( want it so much, I can't have it. that's why, don't you sec? We're n a very solemn time. Tony. I spent a lot of today doing a queer tiling for me. I got to reading the Eve Smiled Faintly. "As Such, We May Go on the Space Ship. But if We Go, We Cease to Be Ourselves, Our-selves, Don't You6ee7" Lord that he had made man on the earth. And the Lord said, I .will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth; both man and beast and creeping tilings, and the fowls of the air; for it re penteth me that I have made them.' And then God thought it over and softened a little; and He warned Noah to build the arLc to save himself him-self and some of the beasts, so that they could start all over again. "Well, Tony, it seemed to me the second streak in the sky says that God is doing the same thing over once more. He hasn't changed His nature since Genesis; not in that short time. Why should He? It seemed to me, Tony, he looked us all over again and got disgusted. "Evolution, you know, has been going on upon this world for maybe live hundred million years; and I guess God thought that if all we'd reached in all that time was what i we have now, He'd wipe us out for-! for-! ever. So He started that streak to- ward us to meet us and destroy us . utterly. That's Bronson Alpha. : Liut before He sent it too far on Its way maybe He thought it all over again and decided to send Bronson Beta along too. "You see, after all, God had been working on tho world for five hundred hun-dred millions of years; and that must be an appreciable time, even to God. So I think He said. Til |