* * *
It was only a little later that the same English engineers restored the power-supply to Danot, which had been cut off for reasons unguessed, until they had searched the tunnel and found one dead and four wounded Americans.
Tony Drake, on entering the capital city, went first to the hospital rooms where Eliot and Jack Taylor and Whittington and Peter Vanderbilt lay. They would all “pull through,” the English surgeon promised; but he could not say so much of others under his care; for the uprising had cost, on both sides, thirty lives; and ten more of the wounded would not recover.
But battle on Bronson Beta was over—at least for the present. Further contest was unthinkable; yet it was prevented only by the overpowering numbers of the Americans and English together, when compared to the still defiant few of the “Asian Realists.” Some score of these had to be confined; but all the rest were reconciled to the government that was being arranged by the Americans and the English.
They were gathered all together in Gorfulu; and they were going to have a great meeting to discuss and agree upon the form of government.
Marian Jackson sat with the men on the committee; for surely she had earned the right; but she had not, as she herself proclaimed, “the first ghost of a glimpse of government.”
What was it to be?
Some suggested an alternate dictatorship, like the consuls of Roman republic, with an American consul alternating in power with an English. Others declared as positively that all rivalries and jealousies of the shattered earth should be forever banished and denied.
There were a score of other schemes.
And more debate than ever before on manners and morals—especially about marriage. Should there be laws for love? Cast off conventions and taboos! All right; try to get along without any.…
Tony retired to the lovely apartment provided in the capital city for Eve and himself; he was very tired. The day had been dark and long, and outside the shield of the city, very cold.
It was neither dark nor cold within; for the power-plant more than supplied needed heat and light. The people were provided with every material thing.
“And to-day,” said Tony to his wife, “we ascertained beyond possible question that this planet stays with the sun. To-day we passed aphelion, and have definitely begun to approach the sun again. Life here will go on.”
“Our life together, Tony!”
He kissed her more tenderly for his child within her.
“I’ve not dared think too much of—our son, Eve. But now it seems certain he’ll come into a world where he can live. But what strange, strange things, my dear, he is sure to see!”
THE END