When Worlds Collide (When Worlds Collide 1)

“He’s a good egg,” Tony replied. “I knew him for years. His sister went to school with my mother.”

“Another thing: Dad’s name wasn’t on that list. I think when Dad thought he could save only a hundred people, he figured that he was too old, and that his work had been done; and I’ll bet if the first ship had been ready to leave and there had been none other, Dad would have been missing at the crucial time, so that they would have been compelled to go without him.”

“Yes,” Tony said thoughtfully. “That’s exactly what your father would have done. And how calmly we are able to consider that! It’s strange the way people change. I remember once when I was in college, seeing a man in Boston struck by an automobile. I don’t suppose he was really badly injured, and yet for days afterward I was actually sick. And I used to brood about the awfulness of people being locked up in prisons, about electrocution and operations.

“I couldn’t stand the thought of people being hurt. I used to lie in my bed at night in a cold sweat thinking about the, to me, impossible courage of men who volunteered during the wars to go on missions that meant sure death. And now”—he shrugged his shoulders—“death has lost all its meaning. Suffering has become something we accept as the logical accompaniment of life. I am not even shocked when I think that your father would deliberately commit suicide on this planet if he decided his biological usefulness was at an end—although, of course, such a decision would have been mistaken.”

Eve nodded in agreement. “He intended to do it, I think, as a lesson—a sort of instruction—to the others.”

A silence fell between them. In the cantonment a mechanical siren tooted, and the night-shift exchanged places with the day-shift to the noisy undertone of moving trucks and banging doors. Lights sparkled in all the windows of the dining-hall, and as the doors opened and closed, a streak of vivid purplish light darted across the open campus. Tony began to talk again. “I have changed my ideas about everything, Eve—not only about life and death! I think that even my ideas about you are changing. When Ransdell came to New York under such dramatic circumstances, and when I saw your interest in him, I was jealous. I pretended I wasn’t, even to myself; but I was. And in some small way—some small-minded way—I felt superior to him. I was better educated, better bred, better trained socially. Since I’ve come to know that man, I’ve learned that from the standpoint of everything that counts, he’s a man, and I’m still in short pants.

“It would have been hard to talk to you about such things at one time; in fact it would ha

ve been impossible, because I would have considered it bad form. Now it’s all different. The day after to-morrow we are going to sail. I may not have a chance to see you alone again between now and then. I don’t want to burden you with a feeling of unnecessary responsibility. There isn’t any responsibility on your part. But I must tell you that I love you. I’ve told you that before, long ago, and what I said then has nothing to do with what I feel now. In saying it I am asking you for nothing. I mean that you shall know only that whatever happens, whatever you decide, whatever either of us does in the future, cannot alter the fact that I now do and always shall hold for you intact the most fundamental part of all that any man can feel toward any woman.”

He had finished his words with his face turned toward her, and his eyes looking into her eyes.

Eve spread her palms on the ground behind her and leaned back. “I love you too, Tony. I shall always love you.”

A long second passed, and then he said in a startled and absent-minded tone: “What?”

“I said I shall always love you. What did you expect me to say?”

“I don’t know,” Tony replied.

“Can a girl say anything more?”

“I guess not.”

“Well, what’s the matter with you then?”

Tony thrust his hand against his forehead. “I don’t know. I can’t believe it. I don’t think either of us can guess what we will ‘always’ do—if we reach Bronson Beta.”

Eve was still leaning on her straightened arms. “Whether we’ll have marriage on the other planet or not, I can’t tell. Maybe I’ll be expected to share you with some of the other girls. I think the old system of living will never quite return. You’re thinking of Ransdell: I admire him; I’m fascinated by him. Sometimes I have brief periods in which I get a tremendous yen for him. So much manhood in one person is irresistible. Probably I’m the first girl in the world who thrust into one of these intimate tête-à-têtes a statement of the truth. I am assuring you I love you. I’m telling you something that every human being knows and that every human being tries to pretend is not true—that love on a night like this can always be pledged as enduring; but that love through the years invariably proves to be something that is capricious, something that waxes and wanes. I’m not saying that I love you with reservations, Tony. I’m saying only that I’m human.”

Tony took her in his arms then and kissed her.

“I’ll try to understand what you’ve told me,” he said a long time afterward. “I don’t deserve this.”

Eve laughed softly. Her copper hair was disheveled, and her black eyes were luminous in the dark. Tony, looking down into them, was frightened even when he heard her laughter, and the words that followed it. “I’ll be the person who decides in the future about your merits and demerits. Perhaps in giving up the power to choose the men she loves, the fathers for her children, by accepting our false single standards, woman has thrown away the key to freedom for both sexes. Anyway, let’s not worry about that right this minute.”

“You whistle so persistently and so cheerfully,” Jack Taylor said to Tony on the following morning, “that it makes me irritable.”

“Good!” Tony replied, and kept on whistling.

“I came here to bring you news, various kinds of news. The first item is interesting and historical: Ransdell is just in from a flight, and says he found how all those people got up here from the cities to attack us. There’s a road reasonably undamaged that leads nearly three-quarters of the way from St. Paul here. The places wrecked by the earthquakes have been hastily repaired, and the whole road is littered with broken-down automobiles. Most of that mob must have driven a good part of the way. They must have spent weeks getting ready to strike.”

Tony looked up from the suitcase which he was strapping in his room. He had stopped whistling. “That a fact? Well, that’s one mystery cleared up, anyway.”

“The second item is that the list of who goes in which ship has just been posted.”

“Huh.”

“I thought that word would get a rise out of you. Don’t worry, don’t worry. You’re in the first ship, with Eve, all right. Hendron’s in command. You’re a lieutenant. James is with you. But guess who’s in command of the second ship.”

“Jessup?”

“Guess again.”