Show COLLIDE I 1 alky ediwn 04 NN 1 all cy U 44 tr service SYNOPSIS OF PRECEDING CHAPTERS david ransdell arrives at now new york from south africa commissioned by loid id rhondle and professor dronson bronson the astronomer to deliver photo orphic plates to dr cole hendron tony drake calls at the Hen drons apartment rt ansdell arrives and eve dvo hendron with whom tony Is deeply in love introduces tony to ransdell A statement by hendron says bays professor bronson has discovered two planets that have been brought baroug bt under the attraction of 0 our sun tho the result of 0 the inevitable collision must be t the 0 end of the earth arth the approaching bodies are referred to as aa bron bronson s 0 n alpha and bronson beta bronson beta will pass but tho the other will hit the earth and demolish it to devise means of transferring to bronson beta eta Is what Is occupying tile minds of the members of the league of the last days tony rounds up suitable men and women to build the space ship on chich hendron hopes to make a landing on bronson beta CHAPTER IV continued 8 and the alie unemployed h have ave been corralee corr aled en masse there Is a project to turn the entire basin of the mississippi north and west of kansas city into an abode for the coast populations and the unemployed are building there I 1 understand quarters for ten million people they are also pla planting vast areas of lands in crops I 1 imagine that they are going to compel the migration mi ration when the interior of tile the country is prepared as well as possible to receive it and when the danger of tidal waves draws near I 1 dont just remember the figures but in an appalling quantity of canned goods clothing medical supplies and things like that are being prepared and distributed to bases in the mississippi valley granted that the valley remains inhabitable I 1 really believe that a majority of our population will be ba successfully moved there and installed for an indefinite time its woud wonderful erful it eve said tony nodded the machinery nahlah organized millions of men durin during the war was still more or less adall available able for this much bigger undertaking from the standpoint ot of plans and human cogs the hard est thing Is to convince the people that it must be done but the leaders have recognized the fact and are going ahead A sort or of prosperity has returned of course all ail 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 tile the masses in emotional balance 1 I cant give you a really good picture of it all I 1 really know very cry little of it it all came in dashes things read in newspapers things heard over the radio things thing S told me hut but this his country at least has grasped the basic idea that there Is going to be trouble and great trouble tn in a short time quite so clendron Ilen dron said now how about the rest of the world orld the rest of the world worldly tony repeated nen Hen drons inquiry 1 I dont know much about the rest of the world what I 1 do know ill tell you but the information is garbled contradictory and unreliable for one thing many of the european nations are still foolishly trying to ek keep beep their plans secret in order to protect their borders and so on in fact I 1 be at all sur if they fell to fighting there seems to be small thought of operation cooperation co and they stick fiercely to national lines En rn glands labor troubles festered tile the minute she tried to institute compulsory work for those who tended tier lier utilities I 1 believe lon brighter and brighter and higher and higher each night the strange stars stood in the south ern skies indeed one ceased to resemble a star at all don was without power or light for five or six days there was a vast amount of sabotage australia and canada on the ocher 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 la is south africa the french are ve very ry gay about it and very mod mad the whole country Is filled with sputtering ineffective people playing polities politics for all its worth and now new cabinets come and po go sometimes at the rate of three a day without ever getting anything accomplished at all ail but at least they have kept functioning as a nation in germany a few communists were killed and so were a few jews mussolini Is struggling to keep his control so tar far with success As for russia little Is known of course it Is a terrible blow to the soviet I 1 belleve believe tile the government Is carrying on rather bitterly but as best it can china Is still jut just china so you can tell very little about it in south america the news has served merely to augment the regular crop of revolutions 11 tony put down his fork all I 1 know lie ile reached for a cigarette and lighted it what to expect tomorrow or a week from tomorrow no one can say since its impossible to tell just how high tides will be how bow far inland they will rush anil and what areas will be be devastated and since not even the best guess will be any Indic indication atlo er of 0 where the land may rne rise where it may fall and where portions of it will witness eruptions and quakes it may be that even tile the gigantic stops steps being taken by some governments will be futile after dinner loughton gliton ushered ransdell Kans dell into the apartment tony was as furious lie ile had bad hoped to have me e to himself how he had hoped to have her ind and with what further satisfaction lie ie did not delane but st at least he knew new that he wanted ransdell iway away lie ile has flown alve times to washing ton for father eve explained pla ilal ned ined and hes wonderful in the laboratory ab oratory lie he has a genius for fai mechanics the south african listened to this account of himself with embarrassment and tony realized that under any other circumstances he would have liked him in fact nally anally tony had liked david ransdell immensely until he had realized that ho he also was to go with him and ee on the space still ship CHAPTER V and brighter and alil higher her and higher each night the strange stars stood in the south ern skies shies 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 naked ebe each night also they altered position slightly relatively to each other for the gravitational control of the larger Bron bronson sorl alpha swung the smaller bronson neta beta about it in an orbit like that of the moon about the earth their plain approach paralyzed enterprise on the earth throughout the civilized world two professions above all others adhered most universally to their calling day and night in the face of famine flood fire disaster and every conceivable cei vable form of human anguish doctors and surgeons clung steadfast to their high calling and day and night flight amail the weltering change or of conditions and in the glut of fabulous alarms and reports the men who gathered news and printed it labored to fulfill their purposes tony saw more of the worlds activities tivi tIvIt ties les than most of its citizens at this time lie he had scarcely returned from his first tour of the eastern cities when he wai wag sent out again this time to the middle and far west that Jour journey ripy was arduous because of the increasing difficulties of travel he saw the vast accumulation ot of freight in the midwestern depots ile he saw the horl bort zon billed settlements being prepared he saw the breathtaking breath taking reaches of prairie which had been put under cultivation to feed the new horde borde in the high flat country north and west of kansas along the pacific coast lie he observed the preparations being beang made for the withdrawal from tile the western ocean seattle tacoma portland san francisco los angeles san diego were digging up their roots tonys work was varied ne he continued to send back by ones onca and twos those scientists whose counsel Iler clerndon nilon desired and the lower flower of the young men and women who might bo be useful in the event of a great cataclysm Hen drons own ideas were still un crystallized crystall zed lie felt with increasing intensity the need for gathering together the best brains the healthiest bodies and the hearts that could be found no lie had a variety of plans lie he had founded two stations in the united states and was in the process or of equipping them for all emergencies under tinder 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 BO that afterward they could emerge as leaders in the una final effort against doom under the pressure of the impending I 1 ig destruction his hia scientists had pushed their experiments in obtaining power from atomic disintegration to a point where the power 0 of the atom could be utilized within limits as a propulsive force Ilen clendron dron had thereupon succeeded tn in bombarding the surface of the moon with a projectile that was in its essentials a small rocket lie ile had settled the problems of 0 hull composition insulation and aeration which would arise in such a vessel if made in a size to be occupied by men ile he had bad devised rockets which could be directed ile he had bad constructed a rocket with vents at both ends so that a discharge in the opposite direction would break its fall several such rockets he be actually dispatched under 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 lail landing ding had not destroyed even the delicate instruments they contained the chief problem that remained unsolved was a metal sufficiently resistant to the awful force ilen dron employed even the elpe experimental rockets often failed in thel their 1 I cant there was a pause ton toa cant canut put it in words no there was another long on pause mrs drakes voice was lower more tremulous and yet it was not the voice of a hysterical or an unreasoning woman tell me tony liow bow bad Is it going to be how could he tell tier her that tor for her there was annihilation but for himself some chance of 0 escape she would wish it for or him whatever happened to herself but lie hs could not accept it A berth in the space ship leaving her herel beret leaving here millions ot of mothers and children tool but probably no one at all would be saved tony recollect recollected eu almost ov I 1 N 9 1 I 1 4 I 1 r V I 1 the slack black buildings which man had deserted Desert td night flight because the heat beat generated by the atomic combustion within them melted a and nd blew iway away the walls inte intended nde d to retain it IL so at the Ilen hendron dron laboratories the worlds metallurgists concentrated their forces upon finding an alloy capable of withstanding the temperatures and pressures involved in employing atomic energy as a driving force tony visited both of Uen Ilen drons stations one was in michigan and one in new mexico lie ile brought back bach reports on the progress being made there in the construction of laboratories machine shops and dormitories mi ful tories he found Ilen clendron dron sleepless and jelly icily calm in tile the midst of his bis multitudinous enterprises cut but eve showed the strain more than tier her father and during tile the first evening which they spent together she expressed tier her fear fathers greatest hope was that his ship would be successful there is more information than has been given out about the cronson bronson bodies we admit that they will come very close terribly close we do not admit yet prec precisely liely how close they were standing together on the balcony overlooking the brightly ll 11 gaited and still noisy city their arms were locked together in defiance of their oath to the league Il hell lell succeed tony said lie ile has succeeded except that every rocket he builds Is limited tn in the distance it can fly and the power it can use by the fact that its propulsive tubes melt there a metal nor an alloy in a the world that will withstand that heat tony did not ianswer answer after a long silence she sha spoke again its an awful thin thing tony look down there look down on the city think of the people look at the lights if lits and then imagine water mountains of it water that would reach to herel here tony held tier her arm am more tightly dont torture yourself ive eve 1 I cant help it oh tony just think of well the WRY way things thing have shave to bo be eve ile he could not say any 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 lie he called a number in greenwich connecticut waited an abnormally long time then asked a mald maid for mrs drake tits voice was warm and calm well mother ilow how are you his mothers reply was controlled troll ed but nerves stabbed through every word she said tony darling ive tried and tried to reach you oh im just an inch short of fainting I 1 thought something had happened to you sorry mother ive been busy 1 I know come right out and tell me coe all about it with relief work on the space ship la in recent days was not really advancing they were held up from lack of a material to withstand tand the power that science now could loose from the atom the idea of escape was probably only a fantasy utterly vain so thinking tony ended his talk and put up the re receiver celver taxicabs had bad been sent for tony and his party they made their way immediately downtown to the big building alch housed tile the ilea dron laboratories the cab had covered a few blosl blocks s when tony realized that throughout its length and breadth manhattan had been de populated here and there a lone figure was visible asti usually ally a figure in the uniform of a policeman or a soldier once he be thought lie he caught sight of a than man skulking in the shad owson a doorway but he was not sure and there were nere no women no children there were few lights in the skyscrapers As the tastes bowled through the murk and dark unchecked by traffic traffie signals sig nala tony and lack jack taylor shuddered involuntarily to see the black buildings which nan man had deserted at the elevator they were met by eve she kissed tony in an ecstasy of defiance and then hurried to assist his group in the 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 loner inner door closed only a skeleton crew had remained in new york under Ilen clendron dron the scientist himself was introduced by tony to each of the new arrivals and to each he said a few words of welcome several were already known to hiro him then hendron made an announce ment menta a statement which was repeated afterward in french and german ladles and gentlemen you will sleep in the dormitories above here tonight tomorrow we ill remove by airplane to my field station in michigan the others are already there in bidding you good night I 1 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 this evening the people who remain are either law officers or marauders TO DID DB CONTIN TIED |