Show WHEN OD lt 11 E ay Z edmin sonvico Sor vIco SYNOPSIS OF PRECEDING CHAPTERS david ransdell arrives at now york from south africa with pho photographic to plates tor for dr cole cola tony drake calls at tho the he drons apartment evo eve hendren wit with h whom tony is 13 in lovo love introduces tony to Pans ransdall dell professor bronson eminent astronomer lias has discovered ered two planets that h have v e been brought under tinder the attraction of our sun the result of the inevitable ca colli I 1 ii slon elon must bo be the end of the earth the approaching ng bodies 0 es are referred to as bronson alpha and bronson beta hendron plans a space ship on which he ha hopes to make a landing on dronson cronson beta before the destruction of the earth but has not been able to find a metal which will withstand tho the heat and pressure of atomic energy to bo be used in propelling the space ship tidal waves and quakes change the entire surface ot of the earth the hendron colony suffers but survives ransdell Kans dell and eliot james leave on an aerial to ascertain conditions elsewhere they are attacked and badly wounded but return alive reporting universal destruction throughout the country Hen drons camp Is attacked by a hunger crazed horde and halt half of the personnel Is killed hendron Ilen dron calls calla the survivors into the ship and sends it aloft tho the thousands in the attacking horde are upped out by the scaring blast omitted emitted by the ship CHAPTER IX continued 17 nearly kearly three weeks after the at lack a census was re taken there were two hundred and nine uninjured women one hundred and eighty two uninjured men there were about eighty men and women who were expected wholly to recover there were more than a hundred who would suffer some disability four hundred and ninety three people had been killed or had bad died after the conflict work of course was nas redistributed more than five months lay ahead of them the space ship could be completed even with tills this reduced croul group in in three weeks on one of the unseasonably warm afternoons in december tony received what he considered afterward the greatest compliment eer ee r paid to him in his life ue ile was nas making one of his regular tours of the stockyards stock yards when ransdell overtook him in all their recent encounters ransdell ansdell li had not spoken a hundred words to tony but now he said almost gruffly id like to speak to you tony turned and smiled the south african hesitated and almost blushed im not talkative he said bluntly but ive been trying to find you alone for weeks again he hesitated yes that fight you put up took a huge pocket knife from his flannel shirt and commenced to open and shut its blade nervously that was a d n ilde fine piece of work fellow what was yours tony replied heartily ransdell held out his hand they gripped slid and in that gr grip lp the hands of lesser men would have been broken from that time on those rivals in love were as blood brothers another general meeting was held in the dining hall Ilen clendron dron again took charge 4 the matter which I 1 have to discuss with you he began is one which will come I 1 am sure as a distinct surprise it Is the result of my earnest thought and of careful calculations from the standpoint of realism and I 1 have learned that all of you are courageous enough to face truths I 1 am forced to add that my decision has been made possible by the diminution of our numbers all of you know chati founded this tillage of ours tor for the purpose of transferring to the planet that will take the place of the earth a company of about one hundred aundre people e with the hope that they might 19 t perpetuate our doomed race it seemed to me that a ship lar large e enough to accommodate such a 9 number might be fabricated and launched by the one thousand persons who were originally assembled here it Is obvious of course that the more intelligent and healthy the units of humanity we are able to transfer to the planet the better the chances for founding a new race will be lie ile paused and his eyes roved over the throns throng not a breath was drawn d rawn and not a word was spoken sly my friends we are five hundred in number on the night of the attack we all ot of us und and some who since have died crammed into the space ship we all realize that no such crowding will be possible on the voyage through space we all realize that much cargo other than humanity must be atoned on the 1 ship it if there Is to be any point and purpose la in our sate safe landing upon another planet one hundred persons remains my estimate of the probable crew and passenger list of uie the ship that saved us all on that night but I 1 have come to the conclusion that by dint of tremendous effort and operation cooperation co and largely because of the success of the experiments peri pert ments which we have made with Itans dells metal it will be possible within the remal remaining nIng months of time to construct colstr act abec ond end and larger vessel which wili be capable of removing the entire residual personnel vers oncel of this camp Ilen drou sat down no cheer was lifted As it they had seen the goggons Gor gons head the audience was turned to stone the sentence imposed by the death lottery had been lifted enery aery man and woman who sat there was free every one of them had a chance to live to alghi and to make a new career elsewhere in the starlit firm firmament ament although in ellot eliot james diaries the days appeared to be crammed with events to the dwellers in nen hen drous colony the weeks passed in what seemed like a steady routine and james had been so busy that he was unable to write voluminously dec 4 today what we call the keel of the second space ship was laid tile the first has been popularly named noahs ark and we have offered a prize of five thousand dollars in absolutely worthless bank notes tor for anybody who will contrive a name for the second dec 7 kj to the japanese servant whom tony drake had had bad for some years in new york and of whom he was inordinately fond walked peacefully into camp the inscrutable little jap walked up to tony whose back was turned katos face was like a smiling budihas Budd has and fully appreciating the drama of the situation he be said in his odd voice with exceeding humbleness request possibilities of return to former employment when tony spun around I 1 thought he was going to faint immediately afterward he began thumping 1 katos atos back so hard that I 1 personally feared for the japs life but he seems to be wiry in fact he must have the constitution of a steel spring for he has traveled overland more than eight hundred miles in the past two months and his story which I 1 am getting out of him piecemeal Is one ot of fabulous adventure dec 19 1 I discovered only today that hendren has used tor for insulation su between the double walls of the now completed ark two thick layers ot of asbestos and between tween n them books the books make reasonably good insulating material and when we aarlie at our fu tt ture home if 1 we do not arrive with too hard a blow we will be provided with an enormous and complete library amazing fellow hendron hendren jan 18 A flight was made to the mines from which Rans dells metals have been taken and in the course of it the plane passed over st paul and minneapolis apparently the mobs in those two cities have tor for the most part either perished or migrated however we have babe not drawn in the he outposts stationed around the cantonment after the last attack and it if we should be again attacked in force we shall not temporize but use the final weapon at once jan 20 there was dancing in the hall of the dormitory and ransdell so far overcame his almost animal shyness that he danced once with eve the rivalry between Raus delland and tony Is the most popular subject of discussion among the girls and women but such a bond has grown between the two men that I 1 know whoever Is defeated in the contest it if there Is victory or defeat will take his medicine honorably and generously I 1 nm am wondering however about that business of victory or defeat the women here slightly outnumber the men it will be necessary tor for them to bear children on the new planet variation of our new race will be desirable perhaps we will resort in the main to polyandry and abolish because of biological necessity all marriage there are it ft good many lory aery real love affairs existent already feb 17 in a little more than a month it will be time for our departure As that solemn hour approaches all of us tend to think back into our lives rather than forward toward our new lives hendron has not hesitated to make it clear that our relatively short jump through space will be dangerous indeed the ships may not have been contrived properly to withstand what are tit at best merely theoretical conditions the cold of outer space may us the rays which travel through the empty reaches when we thrust our selnes sebes among them clad in the thin cylinders of our ark may assort assert a different potency from that experienced under the layer of earths REMO atmosphere sphere either or both of our projectiles may collide alth a wandering in which case the consequences will be similar to those anticipated from the collision of earth with bronson alpha ilen dron assures us only that the ships will fly find it if they reach the atmosphere mo sphere on bronson neta beta it will be possible to land them feb 22 the cronson bronson bodies have reappeared in the sky with visible discs observations through our modest telescope show clearly that bronson IS ronson beta warmed by the sun has a surface now completely thawed at the first approach an excellent spectroscopic analysis was made of the planets composition the analysis denoted its fitness to support human life but we stand in such awe of it that we say to ourselves only perhaps we shall be able to live it if we ever disembark there but we cannot know there may be things upon its mysterious surface elemental conditions undreamed of by man however there Is some mysterious comfort a sort of superstitious courage afforded to many of 0 our numbers by the fact that as our doom approaches a future home is also waxing brightly in the dark sky feb 28 tremendous effort is being expended upon the second ark the task of 0 accumulating metal for its construction construct lon was tremendous men dous looks like a little pittsburgh its furnaces going all night its roads rutted by heavy trucking and its foundries shaking with a continual roar of machinery the construction of the second ark in such a record time would have been impossible had it not been for the adaptability of Ilen drons solution of atomic disintegration te power and heat we have in unlimited quantities 11 march 6 the day and hour of departure has been announced in order to intercept the bronson body at its most advantageous point we shall leave the earth on the of this month at a i m precisely it is estimated that the journey will require 00 hours although it could be made much more quickly 18 from time to time when our own receiving apparatus has been functioning we have overheard radio broadcasts from the world outside the static Is still tremendous and these broadcasts have been most unsatisfactory once in november and again in january we heard the president of the united states ne ile recited in a very strained and weary voice a few fragmentary details of life in his small kingdom not in any hope of aid but as it if he wished to inform any one else who might be listening what the situation was on three or four occasions we have I 1 el 0 f A ju 1 I he must have the constitution of a steel spring for he has traveled overland more than eight hundred miles in the past two months his story Is one of fabulous adventure caught snatches of broadcasts from foreign stations but except for a lull immediately after the storms we have never been able to overhear overbear enough so that we know anything definite about the situation in europe or elsewhere 11 march 20 A week from tonight we shall leave the earth the approach of 0 this zero hour has cast it a spell on the colonists they move as if in a dream nervous tension Is enormous everything Is in readiness a few perishables will be moved into the ships in n the last hours tile stock and poultry have already been domiciled in their quarters although they have not been lashed fast I 1 have been given by nen hen dron to include with my papers a complete list of the contents of both alps in spite spile of their enormous size the second ship looks like three gas storage tanks plied piled on top of each other and also lias has the same shining exterior as the first it Is impossible to believe that they could contain nil all the items in these lists it la Is the most incredible assortment of 0 the gear that belongs to mankind ever assembled in any one place laco we are ready when I 1 think tony said to live eve as they sat side aide by side on a small email hilltop watching the descent of twilight into the busy valley of the foresight aud ingenuity of your father I 1 am appalled lie ile was ahead of 0 most of 0 the people ln in the te world in ills his idea for leaving the earth and he was ahead abend of all of 0 us when ho he saw the possibility and the practicability of 0 taking everybody who was left after the struggle to the new planet its odd I 1 used to imagine scenes that would exist when the ark was ready to leave and of 0 the thousands of us hero here only a hundred could be chosen it would have been a terrible period for every one eye eve hugged herself with her arms and looked at him sidewise 1 I knew all about dads plans for the departure and I 1 knew something else you were not to go were you me ile of course not what good would I 1 have been eve smiled on this evening an evening so close to the great adventure she seemed radiant and unusually tender youre modest tony one of your greatest charms let me tell you once I 1 saw the list dad had bad made up lie ile had given bronson first place I 1 came second dodson was third ransdell was fourth and you were fifth tony when he could pick almost as he wished from the whole world ho he made you fifth pretty high up your father must be sentimental to consider me at all but I 1 am glad he gave ransdell that fourth position I 1 cant imagine any situation in the world which dave handle eve ignored the compliment rather father tool took the list away from me and he was very angry that I 1 had seen it peter vanderbilt was on it when you consider it van has as much to offer as almost anyone the delicacy that cornea comes from over breedIng a wiry nervous constitution an artists temperament taste a learned mind a gorgeous sense of 0 humor and courage probably hes wasteful spendthrift decadent and jaded or at least lie he used to be but how greatly his positive virtues outweigh hla his vices another thing dads name on that list I 1 think when dad thought he could save only a hundred people he figured he was waa too old and that his work had been done and ill bet it if the first ship had been ready to leave and there had been none other dad would have been missing at the crucial time yes tony said thoughtfully exactly what your father would have done although of course such a decision would have been mistaken eve nodded in agreement lie ile intended to do it I 1 think as a lesson a sort of Instruct instruction lon to the others A silence fell between them then tony began to talk again 1 I have changed my ideas about everything eve not only about life and death I 1 think that even my ideas about aboul you are changing when ransdell came to new york under such dramatic circumstances and when I 1 sa saw w your interest in him I 1 was wai jealous jen loua I 1 pretended I 1 even to myself but I 1 was and in some small way some small minded way I 1 felt |