When Worlds Collide (When Worlds Collide 1)

“He brought them here to us,” Eve said; and Tony understood that too. It was plain enough: Some father, who had heard of the camp and the Space Ships, had brought his children here and left them—going away, asking nothing for himself.…

Clear and loud in the night, a bugle blew; and Tony and Eve both started.

“Gabriel’s horn,” muttered Tony. “The last trump!”

“Father advanced the time,” returned Eve. “He decided to give a few minutes more of warning; or else he fooled me, too.”

“You are carrying that child?” asked Tony. Eve had the little girl.

“Yes,” said Eve. “You are carrying the boy?”

“Yes,” said Tony. “Rules or no rules; necessities or no necessities, if we can take sheep and goats, I guess we can take these two.”

“I guess so,” said Eve; and she strode strongly beside him into the edge of illumination as the great floodlights blazed out.

The buildings were all alight; and everybody was bustling. The loading of the two Arks long ago had been completed, as Eve had said—except for the animals and the passengers and crew. The animals now were being driven aboard; and the passengers ran back and forth, calling, crying, shaking hands, embracing one another.

They were all to go; every one in sight was billeted on the Space Ships; but some would be in one ship, some on the other. Would they meet again—on Bronson Beta? Would either ship get there? Would they rise only to drop from a great height back upon this earth? What would happen?

Tony, hurrying to his station, appreciated how wisely Hendron had acted in deceiving them all—even himself—as to the night.

Here he was, second in command of the first Space Ship, carrying a strange child in contravention of all orders. The chief commander’s daughter also carried a child.

No one stopped them. Not Hendron himself. It was the last hour on earth, and men’s minds were rocking.

The bugles blew again; and Tony, depositing the boy with Eve, set about his business of checking the personnel of his ship.

Three hundred yards away, Dave Ransdell checked the personnel of his larger party. Jessup and Kane, there, were in the navigating-room as Hendron was in the chief control-room here.

Ransdell, for a moment, ran over. He asked for Hendron, but he sought, also, Eve.

Tony did not interfere; he allowed them their last minutes together.

A third time the bugles blew. This meant: “All persons at ship stations!” All those who were to leave the earth forever, aboard ship!

CHAPTER 24—STARWARD HO!

TONY completed his check of crew and passengers. Thrice he blew his whistle.

From off to the right, where the second ship lay, Dave Ransdell’s shrill signal answered.

“Close valves and locks!”

There was no one on the ground. No one! They were all aboard. All checked and tallied, thrice over. Yet as Tony left the last lock open to gaze out again and listen, he heard a faint cry. The father of the children?

Could he take him too? One man more? Of course they could make it. If it was only one man more, they must have him. Tony withheld the final signal.

With a quick command, he warned those who were closing the lock. It swung open again. The voice was faint and far away, and in its thin notes could be detected the vibrations of tense anxiety. Tony looked over the landscape and detected its direction. It came from the southwest, where the airplane-field lay. Presently he made out syllables, but not their meaning.

“Hello,” he yelled mightily. “Who is it?”

Back came the thinly shouted reply: “C’est moi, Duquesne! Attendez!”

Tony’s mind translated: “It’s I, Duquesne! Wait.”

On the opposite side of the flying-field a lone human figure struggled into the rays of the flood-lights. It was the figure of a short fat man running clumsily, waving his arms and pausing at intervals to shout. Duquesne! The name had a familiar sound. Then Tony remembered. Duquesne was the French scientist in charge of building the French space ship that had been reported to him by James long ago. Instinctively he was sure that this Duquesne who ran ludicrously across the flying-field was the same man.

He turned to the attendants at the airlock.