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Show when WORLDS 1 ftf.l I IfST By EDWIN BALMER I LULLIPii and PHILIP WYLIE i Copyright by Edwin Balmer -At .rhilip Wyll g WNU Service M ana nirnt amia rne weltering ehanjr of conditions and in the glut of fabulous alarms and reports, the men who gathered news and printed print-ed it, labored to fulfill their purposes. pur-poses. Tony saw more of the world's activities ac-tivities than most of its citizens at this lime. He had scarcely returned re-turned from his. first tour of .the eastern cities when he was sent out again, this time to the Middle and l-"ar West. That Journey was arduous ardu-ous because of the increasing difficulties diffi-culties of travel. He saw the vast accumulation of freight in the mid-western mid-western depots. He saw the horizon-tilled settlements being prepared. pre-pared. He saw the breath-taking reaches of prairie which had been put under cultivation to feed the new horde in the high flat country ; nmih and west of Kansas. 1 T SYNOPSIS David rtansdell, noted aviator, has been commissioned at Capetown to deliver a consignment of plioto-Eraphic plioto-Eraphic plates to Dr. Cole Hendron, in New York. Tony Drake calls at the Hendrons' apartment. Ransdell arrives and Eve Hendron, with whom Tony Is deeply in love, Introduces In-troduces Tony to Ransdell. Newspapers News-papers publish a statement made by Hendron, saying that -Professor llronson has discovered two planets, which are approaching the earth, Tlie result of the inevitable col-, lislon must be the end of thlB world. The approaching bodies are referred to as Bronson Alpha and Eronson Beta. Bronson Alpha, it is asserted, will hit the earth and demolish it. To devise means of transferrins to Bronson Beta is what is occupying the minds of ' the members of tlie League of the Tast Days. Eve outlines out-lines to Tony the idea of the Space Ship, which Hendron has in contemplation. con-templation. The scientist tells Tony he is to be a member of tho selected se-lected crew of the projected Space Ship. Tony rounds up suitable men and women to build the ship. M IMIIIB I I in iteim.-i " course it is a terrible blow to the. Soviet. I. believe the 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 aug-ment the regular crop of revolutions." revolu-tions." Tony put down his fork. "That's all I know." He reached for a cigarette and lighted it. "What to expect tomorrow, or a week from tomorrow, no one can say. Since it's impossible to tell just 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 where portions of it will witness eruptions and quakes, it may be that even the gigantic steps being taken by some governments will be futile." After dinner Leighton ushered Ransdell into the apartment. Tony was furious. 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 Ilnnsdell away. "He has flown , five times to Washington for Father," . Eve ex- Tony's work was varied. He continued con-tinued to send back by ones and twos those scientists whose counsel tlorndon desired, and the flower ot the young men and women who might be useful in the event of a great cataclysm. Ilendron's own ideas were still un-crystnlized un-crystnlized : he felt with increasing intensity the need for gathering together to-gether the best 'brains, the healthiest healthi-est bodies and the stanchest hearts that could be found. He had a variety vari-ety 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 these 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 impend-ing destruction, his scientists had S-wJ-i-Cw-tf?..' Y;'Kv ts.'a CHAPTER IV Continued 12 "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 hard-est thing is to convince the people that it must be done; but the leaders lead-ers have recognized the fact and arc going ahead. A sort of prosperity pros-perity 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. "I can't give you a really good picture of it all. I really know very little of it. It ail came in dashes things read in newspapers, things heard over the radio, things told mo; but this country at least has. grasped the basic idea that there Is going to be trouble, and great trouble, trou-ble, in a short time." "Quite so,". Hendron said. "Now how about the rest of the world?" "The rest of the world?" Tony repeated re-peated Ilendron's inquiry. "I don't know much about the rest of the world. What I do know I'll tell you; but the information is garbled, contradictory con-tradictory and unreliable. For one thing, many of the European nations na-tions are still foolishly trying to keep ttieir plans secret in order to ' protect their borders, and so on. In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised sur-prised if they fell to fighling. There seems to be small thought of co-operation, and they stick fiercely fierce-ly 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 Lon-don was without power or light for five or six days. There was a vast amount of sabotage. "Australia and Canada, on the other hand, acted very much as the United States has acted. 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. The whole country coun-try is filled with sputtering, ineffective ineffec-tive people. They're playing politics poli-tics for all, it's worth, and new cabinets cab-inets come and go, sometimes at the rate of three a day, without ever getting anything accomplished at all. But at least they liave kept functioning as a nation. In Germany Ger-many a few Communists were killed; and so were a few Jews. "Mussolini is struggling to keep his control so far, with success. . .s for liussia. Little is known. Of pushed their experiments in obtaining obtain-ing power from atomic disintegration disintegra-tion to a point where the power ol the atom could be utilized,, within limits, as a propulsive force. Hendron had thereupon succeeded succeed-ed in bombarding the surface of th mnon with a projectile that was, in its essentials, a small rocket. He had settled the problems of hull composition, insulation and aeration, aera-tion, which would arise In such a vessel, if made in a size to be occupied oc-cupied by men. He had devised rockets which could be directed. He had constructed a rocket with vents at both ends so that a dls charge in the opposite direction would break its fall. Several 'such rockets he actually dispatched undei 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 ac-tual landing had not destroyed evec tlie delicate instruments they contained. con-tained. Tlie chief problem that remained unsolved was a metal sufficiently resistant to the awful force I-len-firon employed. Even the experimental experi-mental rockets often failed in their . (light because the heat generated by I the atomic combustion within them melted and blew away the walls intended to retain it. So, at the Hendron laboratories, tlie world's metallurgists concentrated their forces upon finding an alloy capable of withstanding the temperatures and pressures Involved in employing employ-ing atomic energy as a driving force. Tony visited both of Hendron's stations. One was in Michigan and one In New Mexico. He brought back reports on the progress being made there in the construction of laboratories, machine shops and dormitories. dor-mitories. He found Hendron sleepless and Icily calm in the midst of his multitudinous mul-titudinous enterprises. But Eve showed the strain more than her father, and during the first evening, which they spent together, to-gether, she expressed her fear: "Father's greatest hope was that his ship would be successful. There Is more information than has been given out about the Bronson bodies. We admit that they will come very close. Terribly close. We do not admit yet precisely how close." (TO BE CONTINUED.) Brighter and Brighter, and Higher and Higher, Each Night the Strange Stars Stood in the Southern South-ern Skies. Indeed, One Ceased to Resemble a Star at All. plained. "And he's wonderful in the laboratory, lie has a genius for mechanics." The South African listened to this account of himself with embarrassment; embarrass-ment; and Tony realized that under un-der any other circumstances he would have liked him. lu fact, originally. orig-inally. Tony had liked David Ransdell Rans-dell immensely until he had realized real-ized that' he also was to go with him and Eve on the Space Ship! CHAPTER V ' BRIGHTER and brighter, and higher and higher, each night the strange stars stood in the southern south-ern 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 disk even to the uaked eye. Each night, also, they altered position po-sition slightly, relatively to each other. For tlie gravitational control of the larger Bronson Alpha-swung Alpha-swung the smaller, Bronsnn Beta, about it in an orbit like that of the moon about the earth. Their plain approach paralyzed enterprise on the earth.' Throughout Through-out the civilized -world two professions profes-sions above all others adhered most universally to their calling: clay and night, in the face of famine. Hood, fire, disaster and .every conceivable con-ceivable form of human anguish, doctors and surgeons clung steadfast stead-fast to their bigli culling; and. day |