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Show I WHEN WORLDS I ff I iriKT By EDWIN BALMER WLLILL, and PHILIP WYLIE j 0yritht by Kdwin Balrrwtr Philip Wylla S , WNU Service SYNOPSIS David JtansilH 1, nolf-d aviator, has ba n aoerel ly commissioned n t CnpMown hy J,oni Ithonilin and Prof cssnr H run. so n, I li o, as! ro n nmp r, t n d f 1 1 ver a co n s i k n m n t of p ho I o-ura o-ura phic pla i p.s I o I Jr. Cnle Hi-nJ ron, in Kow York. 'J 1 o n y Urako falls at thn Honrlrons' aparlnient. Runsdfll arrives and Evo Tlfndron, with whom Tony Is deeply in love, introduces in-troduces Tony to Ransdell. 1 our system, now approaching us. " 'They must be new planels or comets or strangers from space. "'All iplaneis known to le associated associ-ated with our sun move approximately approxi-mately In the same plane descrihed by lh earth's orbit. This is true, whatever the size or distance of the planers, from Mercury to Pluto. The I wo Rronson bodies were moving almost al-most at riht angles to the plane of the planetary orbits. "Cornels appear from all directions; direc-tions; but these two bodies did not resemble comets when viewed through the greater telescope. One of them, at the time of the second observation, showed a small but perceptible per-ceptible disk. Its spectrum exhibited exhib-ited the characteristic lines of reflected re-flected sunlight. Meanwhile, several sev-eral observations of position nnrl movement were made which made "it has long TMn jmpposed fTiaT anut otiwir stun than onrs for of course onr sua m ony a star are other pin lit?) s like tbe erth and j fars aiKi Jupi(r. ft i not pre-I pre-I suj-d tht all stars are siwrouiKi 4i by planets; but It has beu e-ti-niated that probably at leftist on star in one hundred thownn4 las developed a la notary system. Among the many billions of stars. I tliere are probably millions of suns ! with planets. It is always possible that some catastrophe would teftr the planets away. It would require , nothing more than the approach ol another star toward the sun to fie-stroy fie-stroy (he gravitational control of th ! earth and Venus and Mars and Jupiter Ju-piter and other planets, and to send (hem all spinning into spare on cold and dark careers of theit own, "'This world of ours, and Venua and Mars and .1 upiter and Saturn, would then wander throughout infinite in-finite ages some of them perhaps eternally doomed to cold and darkness; dark-ness; others might, after incalculable incalcu-lable ages, find another sun. " 'Jt might be assumed, for purposes pur-poses of explanation of the Bronsbn bodie, that they once were planeti like our earth and Uranus, circling about some life-giving sun. A catastrophe ca-tastrophe tore them away, together with whatever other planets there mitrht have been, and sent them inJo (he darkness of interstellar space. Thefe two Bronson Atyha and Bronson Beta either ( were associated asso-ciated originally, or else established a gravitational influen-ee upon each other in He journey through space, und probably have traveled together through an incalculable time until they arrived In a region of the heavens heav-ens which brought them at last under un-der the attraction of the sun. Their previous course, consequently, has been greatly modified by the sun, and as a result, they are now approaching ap-proaching us,' " At this point, the prepared statement state-ment of Cole Hedron terminated.' Tony Drake was sitting up straight in bed, holding the paper before him while his eyes searched down the column of questions put by the reporters to Doctor Hendron and his answers. 'What will be the effect of this approach upon the earth? "'It is impossible yet to say.1 "'Will the earth be endangered?' "Answer: 'There will undoubtedly undoubted-ly be considerable alterations of conditions con-ditions of life here.' "'What sort of alterations? "That will be the subject of a later statement,' Doctor Hendron replied. re-plied. The character: and degree of the disturbance which we are to undergo is now the subject of study by a responsible group. We will attempt at-tempt to describe the conditions likely to confront all of us on the world as soon as they clearly define themselves.' " 'When will this supplementary statement be made? CHAPTER II Continued ... . 4- Tony sat tip vehemcnlly. "A h 1 ff a thing," he said aloud. "The whole world is haywire.- Haywire! Ity the way, Kyto, you don't happen hap-pen to send code messages to Einstein, Ein-stein, do you?" "Vdd inesagHsV" "ft. it pass. I'm going to hed. If my mother calls from the country, coun-try, Kyto, tell her I'm being a good hoy and sMll wearing woolen sock l gainst a cold snap. I must have Mi, to be in shape for work tomorrow. to-morrow. Maybe I'll sell five shores f atprk in the morning, or pi-hly pi-hly ten. It's wearing me down. 1 to n't stand the strain." Four hours later, after twice having hav-ing attempted to phone Kve Hen-iron, Hen-iron, and twice having been informed in-formed that service for the night pas discontinued, Tony got to sleep. It was the staid, accurate, ultra-iffpo ultra-iffpo rati hie New York Times which rpreod the sensation before him In ft morning. The headlines lay Mark upon the page: clntlsts Say Worlds From Another Star Approach the Earth . Dr. Cole Hendron Makes Astonishing Astonish-ing Statement In Which Sixty of the Greatest Living Physicists Phy-sicists and Astronom ers Concur. "Comets Appear From AM Directions; Direc-tions; but These Two Bodies Did Not Resemble Comets When Viewed Through the Great Telescope." Tel-escope." it plain that tiie two Bronson bodies bod-ies were objects of planetary dimensions dimen-sions and characteristics, approaching approach-ing us from out of stellar distances that is. from space. " 'The two bodies have remained associated, approaching us together and at the same speed. Both now show disks which can be measured. It can now he estimated that, when first observed, they hnd approached within the clislance from the sunof the planet Neptune. It must be renumbered, re-numbered, however, that they lie in an entirely different direction. " 'Since coming under observation, they have moved within the distance dis-tance of the orbit of the planet Uranus, and are approaching the distance dis-tance ot Saturn. "Bronson Alpha which is the name temporarily assigned to the larger of the two new bodies appears ap-pears in the telescope similar in size to Uranus. - That is, its estimated esti-mated diameter is something over forty thousand miles. Bronson B'la. which is the smaller of the two bodies, has an estimated diameter of eight thousand miles. It is similar in size, therefore, to the earth. " 'Bronson Bota at present is In advance of Alpha in their approach ap-proach toward the solar system; but they do not move in parallel lines; Beta, which is the smaller, revolves around Alpha so that their positions constantly change. "'They have both come definitely within the sphere of gravitational influence of the sun; but having arrived ar-rived from interstcllnr space, (heir speeds of approach greatly exceed the velocities of our familiar planets plan-ets in their orbits around the sun. "'Such are the observed phenomena. phenom-ena. The following is necessarily highly speculative, but it is offered as a possible explanation of the origin of the two Bronson bodies. Tony was scarcely awake when Kyto had brought him the paper. "Dr. Hole, Hendron, generally ac-tnowledged ac-tnowledged to be the leading as-tophysicist as-tophysicist o-f America," Tony read, ''early this morning xave to the ress the following statement, on behalf of the sixty scientists named n an accompanying column." .Tony's eyes flashed to the col-inin, col-inin, which carried the list of distinguished dis-tinguished names, English, German, fiYench, Italian, Swiss, American. South African, Australian, and Jap-luese. Jap-luese. "Similar statements are being plven to the press of all peoples at Chis time. Tn order to allay alarms likely to rise, from the increase of rnmors haed upon incorrect or mis-&wtorstnod mis-&wtorstnod reports of the discovery tnade hy Professor Bronson of Capetown, Cape-town, South Africa, and in order to cqHflint all people with the actual (Itnation, as it is now viewed, we offer thee facts. " 'Kiev en months ago, when examining ex-amining a photographic plate of the region 15 (Eridanus) in the southern south-ern skies, l'rofewsor Bronson noticed no-ticed the presence of two bodies near the star Archernar, which had not been observed before. " 'Both were exceedingly faint and, lying in the constellation Bridanus, which is one of the largest constellations constel-lations in trie sky. they were at first put down as possibly long-period rariable stars which had recently Increased in brightness . after hav-inc hav-inc been too faint to affect the photographic pho-tographic plate. 'A month later, after photographing photograph-ing acain the same locality, rrofes-unr rrofes-unr Bronson looked for the two new stars and found that they had moved. No object of stellar distance could show displacement in so short space of time. It was certain, therefore, that the newly observed bodies were not stars. They must be previously unobserved and unsuspected unsus-pected members oC our solar system, sys-tem, or else objects, from outside " 'As soon as possible.' " Tomorrow ?' " 'No; by no means as soon as tomorrow.' to-morrow.' "'Within a week? Within a month?' "T would say that, it might h made within a month.'" Tony was, on his feet, and in fpita of himself was trembling. There was no possible mistaking of the undertone of this astounding an nouncement. It spelled doom, or some enormous alteration of all : conditions of'' life on the world equivalent to complete disaster. The League of the Last Days! There was some reference to it in another column, but Tony scarcely caught its coherence. Where was Eve; and what, upon this morning, was she doing? How was she feeling? feel-ing? What was she thinking? Might she. at last, be sleeping? She had been up all night, and at work assisting her father. The statement had been released at one o'clock in the morning. How much i more than this, which had been told, did Eve now know? Plainly, manifestly, the scientists knew more much, much more, which they dared not tell the public. Dared not I That was the fact. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |