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Show ... c o o o c o o o o G o Wofflds (SHHScle o By Edwin Balmer o and Philip Wyiie o ' Copyright. 1M4, by Balmer Pbllip Wjrll EM win 1 WJTU Sorrlce. O ooooooooooooo SYNOPSIS Under tha leadership of Cole Hendron, noted American scientist, over SOD par on. escape la two Space Ships just be for a, cosmic collision wiped out th earth, and land oa Bronson Beta. smooth, straight metal roadway Is dls covered. Indicating; that whoever one lived on Bronson Beta bad swift nor Ins; vehicles. Thousands of slant mete ors hurtle through the sky, but son of Hendron's colonists is hurt Th meteors are fragments of the destroyed axth s moon. Tony Drake, Hendron' lieutenant, and Professor Higgins dls over a river bottom green with vege tatlon. CHAPTER II Continued , Was It significant that Bates and Jeremiah Post, who bad dug from th oil the wreck of the Other People'! vehicle, were the first affected? And Maltby soon afterward was sick. Twenty-si- x persons together fell HI and three died Bates, and Ward low, a chemist, and one of the girls who had erred as a nurse to the sick Lucy Grant The rest made complete re coveries; no one else was later af fected ; the strange plague passed from the camp. But of the hundred and three em! (rants from earth perhaps the sole survivors of humanity in all creation three were dead. And Tony Drake ordered the breaking of the strange oil of Bronson Beta for the first burials of Earth People. Three new Interments to add to the uncountable graves of the Other People who were yet to be discovered t . Hendron. who himself had not fallen sick, was by far the most disturbed by these deaths that had come to the camp; thereafter be doubled bis re strictions. It was Ellgglns, the botanist, who at length openly defied the leader. Illgglns took four of the younger men and under other circumstances would have Tony unquestionably joined them and went off exploring At that time Oendron was endeavoring to maku a new set of gears, and a chassis and a body, for a second atomic-engin- e vehicle, using metal from the wall of the Ark ; and al though he engaged more than twenty people In the operation, It was progres Ing very "slowly. Moreover they bad Just passed through another three days of heavy rain, and while it was good for the gardens, nevertheless the people who lived In tents .were ex tremely miserable. They were study Ing the possibility of having all together. In one or two of the round sections of the Ark during the coming "Winter, as It would be Impossible to erect metal bouses by that time; and very one was dejected over the Idea of passing nearly two earth years Bleeping on the padded floor of a chamber In the Ark in one great communal - . few of the leaves. I am taking other human beings. Another still the liberty of calling this one maple, more dreadful thought curdled the imand this one oak. and this one spruce, aginations of the people who sal and this one elm." around the camp fires: were those The exiles from earth pushed close other beings human? to finger the leaves and bits of wood, Hendron walked up to the camp- so strange and yet suggesting the fire and addressed bis comrades. familiar. These promised them homes, think." be said slowly, "that the rooms of their own, chairs, tables, cup- thought now engraving the imaginaboards and book shelves and writing tions of many of you may be discard desks and a thousand other things ed I mean the thought that the plane dear to their emotional memories. which approached our camp was pilot Tony drew close to Eve. "Well be ed by other than human beings. We outcasts no longer outcasts I" he emomust infer from our gl!mpe of that tionally murmured. "Well have a machine in the sky, and from the house and a wood fire again 1" sound of its flight that some other "We?" whispered Eve. "We? loo party on earth was successful In com and I? We'll be allowed to marry and pleting a ship capable of taking the live by ourselves?" leap from Earth to Bronson Beta." "If they were any people from They were near to Hendron, but he seemed not to hear them. earth." Jeremiah Post countered, They were all sitting around a fire on "why should they have approached so that night after those first moments near, and yet not give any sign they of gentleness and of affection when bad seen us?" they had been brought electrically back Cole Hendron faced this objector to the happy past when once again calmly. He was aware that Post was their hopes had risen. one of the younger men who believed It was night and dark; and there that be, the leader' of the party on was no moon. Nor would there ever earth, and the captain on the voyage be a moon. They had been singing through space, had served his purpose, softly ; and one of their number Dim-I- t "Have you come to believe." he chal rl Kalov bad slipped away from the lenged the metallurgist, "that any of fire and talked to Hendron, and gone the people native to this planet could to the Ark and come back with a have survived?" strapped around his "I believe," retorted Post, "that we shoulders. No one had seen htm recertainly are not safe in excluding that turn, but suddenly from out of the possibility from our calculations. As darkness came a ripple of music. you all know." be continued, addressing The singing stopped and they listhe whole group now rather than tened while Dirnltrl played. He played Hendron, "I have given extended study old songs and he played some of the to the vehicle of the Other People music from Russia which his father which we have found. Not only in Its had taught him. Then, between nummechanical design and method of probers when the applause died and a pulsion was it utterly beyond any hush fell over the group, as they waitvehicle developed oo earth, but its ed for him to begin again, there was a metallurgy was In a class by itself sound. compared to ours. These people had It was soft and remote and yet It far surpassed our achievement In the transfixed every one Instantly, because f sole fields of science from which we it was a sound that did not belong to yet have any sample. Is it not nat any human being. It was a sound that ural to suppose that likewise, they did not belong to their colony. A sound were beyond us In other endeavors? foreign and yet familiar. A sound that Particularly, perhaps. In preservation rose for a few Instants and then died of themselves. I will not be so absurd out to nothing, only to return more as to Imagine that any large number of them could have survived the exstrongly than before. One by one ihey turned their faces treme ordeals of space. But is It up, for the sound was In the sky. It utterly Inconceivable that a few could?" "In order that each of us may form approached rapidly, above them, In the dark. There was no mistaking It now. his and her own opinion of the pos It was the motor of an airplane. An sibilities," said Hendron, "I will ask airplane on Bronson Beta I An airplane Duquesne to acquaint you with the plano-accordlo- n kg; WgH$ Nearer and Nearer It ' Came i , A Long Stabbed Across ,th Sky and Began Combing It for th Van-- Ihlng Plane. A Speck A 'FtasH of Wing 8urfac. And the ' Clouds. (roup. Late on the afternoon of the fourth dny the exploring party returned, plainly Id triumphant excitement Higgins reported for them all when they halted, surrounded by their friends: ' "We covered about seventy five miles. We saw a great desert We vent into a valley where a mighty tangle of fern trees Is 'beginning to rise toward the heavens. I have seen excavations In an bid pit where the fossils of animals that ; were extinct during ' th civilized period on this planet were being dug out. And we encountered, not ten miles from here, on the Other People's road, something that will very largely relieve one of our (reat difficulties.", With that he unstrapped his pack, opened It and dumped out at Hendron's feet a doren objects upon which Hendron dropped eagerly. They were wood, chips of wood. 3ard wood soft wood. Finely grained wood, and wood wtth a coarse, straight (rain. "Is there much of ItT iiendron asked, as he examined the chips. Higgins nodded. "There Is enough of It standing, seasoned, perfectly preserved, to supply us with all the lumber we can use for generations. The appearance of the forest that we found completely accords with your theory of this planet's past history. There stood a great forest of many varieties of trees, none exactly resembling those of our world, yet of their goneral order. They seamed to have been trees mostly; their leaves had fallen; they lay on the ground; the boughs were bare. "There must have been a long, last autumn followed by a winter without parallel on our world and previously on this planet Atl water froze; atr froze, preserving the forest as It was at the end of that awful autumn when oo thaw came through the millions of years In outer space until this planet found our sun. "The trees I examined were unlike the trees ot earth; yet their trunks and boughs were wooden I their leaves eticUmbered Hie' ground. Here are a piloted by other human beings, or pe- rhapsthey did not dare to think about the alternative. Nearer and nearer it came, until some of them could discern the splotch of darkness against - the stars. But then the ship In the heavens seemed to see their fire on the- - ground and be alarmed by It for it switched Its course and started back In the direction from which It had come. Hendron rushed toward the observa tory and shouted to Von Belts, who was on duty at the radio, to turn on a searchlight Von Beits must have heard the airplane too, tor even as Hendron shouted, a long finger of light stabbed across the sky and began combing It tor the vanishing plane. It caught and held upon the ship for a fraction of a second before It plunged through s sleazy cloud, but that second was not long enough for anyone to tell what manner of ship It was, or even whether It was a ship such, as might have been made by the people of the earth. A speck a flash of wing surface. And the clouds. .They sat stricken and numb. Sure ly, If there had been human beings In that ship surely If It bad contained other refugees from the destruction of the earth It would have circled over their fire time and again In exultation. But it had fled. What could that mean? Who could be In It? What In telligence could be piloting it? The pulsations of the motor died. The light was snapped off. The colonists shuddered. They were not alone on Bronson Beta. CHAPTER III threw a log onto the fire. It blazed up freshly, and Illuminated the strained,' Immobile faces of the emigrants from Earth. Nobody spoke They only looked at one another. Out of the night out of the dark ness, out or the remote. Infinitely dls tant, Impersonal Nowhere, had come that humming, throbbing reality. Sme- here on Bronson Beta there were Somebody Bronson Alpha. "This must have been a torturingly inhabitants prolonged process of the is not a star of The approach here. disWe a like the approach of planet covered Bronson Alpha and Bronson Beta only a few months before they were upon us; the Beings here must have known for generations, for centuries, the approach of the stranger star! "Knowing It for hundreds of years, could any of the Inhabitants here have schemed a way of saving themselves? That seems to be the question now before us. "1 cannot say that they could not I can only say that we could not have devised anything adequate to meet their situation. Vet they might have. They knew more than we: they had much more time, but their problem was terrific the problem of surviving through nearly absolute cold and darkness, a drift through space, of a million or millions of years. If any of you believe that problem could have been met by the Beings here, he has as much right to Ills opinion as I have to mine." "Which Is?" Jeremiah Post demanded. "That the people here tried to solve that problem," replied Duquesne without evasion, "and failed ; but that they made a magnificent attempt When we find them, we will find I hope and believe the method of their tremen- dous attempt" Shirley Cotton stood up. "What M. Duquesne," she Inquired, "would be the attitude of the Beings If they survived and found us here?" "Their attitude, after awaking from a million years' sleep, would combine, among other elements, surprise and caution, I should suggest But engag ing as such speculations may be, our position demands that we be practical We must assume that aircraft we saw in these skies came from earth. If there are other pe pie from our world upon Bronson Beta, we prefer to be friends with them. That attitude, besides being rational, is our natural In clination. However," he shrugged his huge shoulders eloquently, "it does not therefore follow that another party of emigrants from earth would want to be friendly to us. It Is possible that finding themselves here, they prefer private possession of this planet" Eve Hendron, sitting beside Tony, leaned toward him and whispered: "I can Imagine that Can't you?" Tony nodded. "That's what I've been doing. I was In Russia during the days on earth," he said. "Suppose that a Rossian party made the hop. Since we did, why not? They worked along lines of their own, but they had some of the world's best scientists. If they made it you may be sure they packed s their ship with Communists the most vigorous and the most fanatic. When they found themselves here, what would they feel most?" "I know," Eve nodded. "They'd feel that they had a world to themselves, where they could work out the millennium according to their own ideals." And," Tony finished for her, "that they must beat down, at the very out set possible Interference." They were whispering only to each other; but many heads bent near to listen ; and Hendron, seeing that Tony caught his attention, called to him: "You have a suggestion?" "Two," said Tony, rising to his feet I suggest Cole, that we organize at once an adequate exploring expedition ; ana at me same time, prepare defenses." "Will you lead the exploring party and choose its members?" Hendron asked Tony. "Gladly." "I," said Hendron, "will be responsi ble for the defenses here." The people about Tony pressed clos er. "Take mel . . . Mel . . . Tonv. i want to go Take me I" Eve Hendron reached for Tony's arm and clung to Mm as he moved out of the group gathered about him. "Take me too, Tony." "Not you." "Why not?" "I wouldn't on earth: why would I here? Besides, I want to come back to you. I want to feel, when I'm away. I'm risking whatever we happen to risk," for you. Yon see, I love you. It's like on earth, when I'm with you away from tne omers. see the stars nn then There's Cepheus and the Dragon ; and vega ana tne bwan, as we've alwava seen them. And the earth hard and cold at our feet; so comfortably solid and substantial, this nrth. which came to us torn from some distant star for a couch, sometime, for you and mel" iMgnt deepened. The comnanv of emigrants from the earth heaped higher the fire with wood from the forest which had leafed on this land of Rron. son Beta a million yearn ago. Some of tne company men as weJ as women smverea wun a chill not Instilled In their veins by the sharpness of night first-clas- Finger of Light to-1h-re and became starry nights-swe- lled brighter. -Their They made their calculations. was sun. with its retinue of planets, would approaching another star. There that believe nol we do be na collision ; was such a thing occurred. There sun another of an approach merely own close enough to counteract, by its attraction, the attraction of the original sua upon this placet, and upon physical experience of this planet as we now perceive It" The French scientist readily arose, and loomed larger thun ever In the flickering flare of the fire: "My friends, it Is completely plain to all of us that once this world, which has given us refuge, was attached to some distant sun which we, on the world, saw as a star. "That star might have been a sun of the same order as our sun, which this world has now found. If such were the case, it seems likely that Bronson Beta circled Its original sun at some distance similar to our distance from our sun; for the climatic conditions here seem In the past to have been similar, at least to the conditions on earth. "However, whatever the original sun for this planet was, this world must have been satisfactorily situated with regard to It for millions and hundreds of millions of years. "Orderly evolution must have proceeded for an Immense period to produce, for Instance, that log the material which we burn before us to give us, tonight, light and heat; and to produce the people who made the vehicle which my colleague Jeremiah Post so admirably has analyzed. "Beings of a high order of Intelligence dwelt here. We have evidence that In science they had progressed beyond us unfortunately for themselves, poor fellows I Their science must have showed them their dooms so plain and for a frightfully long period a doom from which there scarcely could have been, even for the most favored few, any means of escape. Theirs was s fate far more terrible than was ours a fate Incomparably more frightful than mere complete catastrophe, "Attend! There they were. In some other part of the heavens, circling, at some satisfactory distance, their sun! For millions and millions of years this world upon which we now stand went its orderly way. Then Its nslrotioniers noticed that a star wm nppronchinij. A star-- a mere !ti( 'oi "light no ill 1 Rumble in Lines r Rumbling in itna dally when the hot water supply tank Is heated by a coll in the hen tar-- . box, Is caused by steam, formed In the con, rorcing us way through the water In the coll as It . rises to the rnni, .....a. connections should slope upward tovlf al-' iow me menm vnsy escape. Rumbling-- ' also occurs when " faucet is opened Hot-Wat- er h. r,i ...... . hwiuii g f "QUOTES" Snoring Described Snoring, COMMENTS ON CURRENT TOPICS BY observe &, S iu Suardisn. has beea fa!M t civilization, on the iavagea do not en-- re W " man who gave audible anaoun NATIONAL CHARACTERS a that way of the lelf and other tribesmen the JS jorhood of an enemy w,.UM OMtt. With civilization PATRONAGE lrgument) came securhv. and sir! O'MAHOXET By SENATOR security those nasal i,.,iM.g of of Wyomingand not of the uIrUi ouhanswer to the question of Qlght-Lord L'llswater. when he was stL? is emphatically er. ruled that snoring was out of that the order in the "ves" and the proof iselected house of common only having party, are those who draw Cn. There war. Civil the three Presidents since distinctions between different wan has managed to survive without bene- of snoring. When Beau BrunimeU the to and present, fit of patronage to was once traveling fr.,:n Calais u ill. or according for good country, Paris, he found himself u the the point of view, with that of a kings messenger, who New program which is called the later said that the I Van slept the Deal. whole way. and even snored. But Gro-ve- r the messenger added what bethought Except in the administrations of Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson and was an extenuating circumstance Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democratic niui jji uuimeii snored jo. 'federal to a stranger much like a gentleman." party has been patronage. Town Doomed by River Though it was a stalwart supporter of Andrew Jackson, who announced Doomed to destruction by theOxut that "too the victor Iielong the spoils," river, the central Asiatic town 0f it was Grover Cleveland who declared Turktul is being replaced as the tap-itthat "public office is a trust" and who of Kara-Kalpaby a new city took the first steps to use the civil 100 miles away in the jungle. With-Iservice law in any nieasureable degree fifteen years the river, once four for the purpose of selecting govern- miles distant, has eaten away its mental employees. banks until it is only S'ki yards from the town. The Soviet government PURPOSE OF AAA appropriated $25,0K),fHM f..r the nw capital. Ey PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT pre.e Jr 2 - Z - THE g com-pan- y k and mine to conthe people of fact that adthe to this country IS your duty ITtinue to educate justment means not only adjustment downward, but adjustment upward. If you and I agree on a correct figIt means ure for a normal carry-ove- r that if we have a bumper crop one reyear we will, by mutual consent duce the next year's crop in order to even up that carry-oveAt the same time. If we get a short crop In a given year, you and I agree to increase the next year's crop to make up the shortage. That is exactly what we are doing today in the case r. of wheat It is high time for you and for me to carry, by education, knowledge of the fact that not a single program of the AAA contemplated the destruction of an acre of food crops in the United States, in spite ot what you may read or be told by people who have special axes to grind. carried effort to rebuild foreign- trade" is being steadily forward with - curlack- the necessary safeguards against rency fluctuations. Signs are not ing that other governments, finding other methods unsatisfactory, are now disposed to direct their policy in the same direction. All progress made In extending world trade makes it easier to regularize curCorrespondingly, rency relationships. all progress in this direction makes It much easier and safer for governments to arrange for an extension of trade. These movements supplement each other. As trade grows and currencies approach a condition of stability, the rigid control over exchanges which many governments now exercise can be lessened or abolished. FELLOWSHIP ESSENTIAL By SIR FRANCIS YOUNGHUSBAND British National Chairman of the World Fellowship of Faiths. in this can silly world only the impossible win belief. Rupert Hughes. KILL BLACK WIDOW The deadly Black Widow spider's bite is decidedly dangerous to people. Kill All Spiders... Watch for them in garages, corners of porches etc The minute you see them spray THOROUGHLY It also kills FLIES, MOSQUITOES and other inictt. with REBUILDING FOREIGN TRADE By C0RDELL HULL. Secretary of State. OUR Author's Lament I am tempted to think that Be sure you get sot I FLY-TO- X. J W frH PIIOTO FINISHING Highest quality. Lowest prices. 6 or I 30c. rolls developed and printed pdsure Mailed same day, I'ar rbut. Han Jme, CI. 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Address is essentially to SELECT PRODUCTS, INC we 4402 23rd St, Long Island City.N.T. not M Nam, it or Street Addrta.. . the scientist The mystic experiences Toun & State. unidirectly the essential drive of the verse, he reaches his conclusions by My DrKgiiit'i Name it direct inspiration, and he will be looked Street Addrtst. upon as the type of what the race is Town & State. developing toward in Its slow, evolutionary way. he now occupies. When we want know the real nature of the world will turn in future to the mystic, as we do now to the philosopher ......... ADMINISTRATION POLICIES By EUGENE TALMADGE Governor of Georgia. the actions in emanating from the principles of the Democratic doctrine? ARE Are the policies emanating from Washington in keeping with the Constitution of the United States? I can hear your answer. But I can also hear the question in your minds: "It Is easy to attack what Is going on ; anyone can tear down and criticize, but what remedy have you?" 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