When Worlds Collide (When Worlds Collide 1)

“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 thing is to convince the people that it must be done; but the leaders have recognized the fact, and are going ahead. A sort of prosperity 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.”

Hendron nodded. “Exactly, Drake. I’m really astonished to hear that they’ve done so well. It’s unthinkable, isn’t it? Absolutely unthinkable! Just a few months ago we were a nation floundering in the depths of what we thought were great difficulties and tribulations, and to-day, facing an infinitely greater difficulty, the people are more intelligent, more united—and more successful.”

“I think it’s thrilling,” Eve said.

Tony shook his head in affirmation. “I can’t give you a really good picture of it. I really know very little of it. It all came in dashes—things read in newspapers, things heard over the radio, things told me; but this country at least has grasped the basic idea that there is going to be trouble, and great trouble, in a short time.”

“Quite so,” Hendron said. “Now how about the rest of the world?”

Tony’s hand jerked as he buttered his roll. He looked up. “The rest of the world?” he repeated. “I don’t know much about the rest of the world. What I do know I’ll tell you, but you mustn’t take my word as final. The information is garbled, contradictory and unreliable. For one thing, many of the European nations are still foolishly trying to keep their plans secret in order to protect their borders, and so on. In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they fell to fighting. There seems to be small thought of coöperation, and they stick fiercely 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 was without power or light for five or six days. There was a vast amount of sabotage. The police fought battles through Piccadilly and Trafalgar Square with armed mobs. A curious thing happened in India. One would think that the Hindus would be the last people in the world to recognize what was about to happen. One would believe that their reaction would be fatalistic acceptance. However, according to one report at least, there is something in the Veda which anticipated the Bronson bodies, or some similar cosmic manifestation; and with the spread of the news that disaster threatened the world, the Hindus and Brahmins rose together. Now no word comes from India at all. Every line of communication has been cut or silenced.”

Tony paused, ate a little. “This is all very sententious. Most of what I’m saying is taken from the clichés of the newspapers. You’ll have to forgive me, but you asked me to tell you.”

“Don’t stop, Drake, old man.”

“Yes, go ahead, Tony.”

“Australia and Canada, on the other hand, acted very much as the United States has acted. Their political leaders, or at least the ones who came immediately into prominence and power, accepted the fact that trouble was on the scene. 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. They think it is very funny, and they think it is an insult to France at the same time. The whole country is filled with sputtering ineffective people. They’re playing politics for all it’s worth, and new cabinets come and go, sometimes at the rate of three a day, without ever getting anything accomplished at all. But at least they have kept functioning as a nation. Germany went fascist; a few communists were killed; and so were a few Jews.

“Communists are struggling to get control—not, with success. As for Russia, little is known. Of course it is a terrible blow to the Soviet. The heavy industries which they developed so painstakingly and at such awful cost are scattered over a wide area. I believe the Soviet 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 the regular crop of revolutions.”

Tony put down his fork. “That’s all I know.” He reached for a cigarette, and lighted it. “What to expect to-morrow or a week from to-morrow, no one can say. Since it’s impossible to tell 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 what portions of it will witness eruptions and quakes, it may be that even the gigantic steps being taken by some governments will be futile. Am I not right?”

“My dear boy,” Hendron replied after a pause, “you are eminently right. That is an amazingly clear picture you’ve given us. I’m surprised that any nation has had the intelligence to take steps, although I suppose, being patriotic in my heart, I rather hoped and expected that our own United States would leap from the backwash of villainous politics into a little good clear sailing before the crisis arrives.… Let’s have our coffee in the other room.”

After dinner Leighton, whose customary mournfulness had, by some perversity, bloomed into the very flower of good nature, ushered Ransdell into the apartment.

Tony was furious at Ransdell’s arrival. 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 Ransdell away; and the South African would not go away.

“He has flown five or six times to Washington for Father,” Eve explained. “And he’s wonderful in the laboratory. He has a genius for mechanics.”

The South African listened to this account of himself with embarrassment; and Tony, observing him, realized that under any other circumstances he would have liked him.

In fact, originall

y Tony had liked David Ransdell immensely—until he had realized that he also was to go with him—and with Eve—on the Space Ship!

CHAPTER 10—MIGRATION

BRIGHTER and brighter, and higher and higher, each night the strange stars stood in the southern 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 disc even to the naked eye.

Each night, also, they altered position slightly relatively to each other. For the gravitational control of the larger—Bronson Alpha—swung the smaller, Bronson Beta, about it in an orbit like that of the moon about the earth.

Their plain approach paralyzed enterprise on the earth, while the physical effects of their rush toward the world was measurable only in the instruments of the laboratories.

Throughout the civilized world two professions above all others adhered most universally to their calling: day and night, in the face of famine, blood, fire, disaster and every conceivable form of human anguish, doctors and surgeons clung steadfast to their high calling; and day and night amid the weltering change 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 world’s activities than most of its citizens at this time. He had scarcely returned from his first tour of the Eastern cities when he was sent out again, this time to the Middle and Far West. That journey was arduous because of the increasing difficulties of travel. The railroads were moving the Pacific and the Atlantic civilizations inland, and passenger trains ran on uneasy schedules. He saw the vast accumulation of freight in the Mid-western depots. He saw the horizon-filling settlements being prepared. He saw the breath-taking reaches of prairie which had been put under cultivation to feed the new horde in the high flat country north and west of Kansas.