After Worlds Collide (When Worlds Collide 2)

“I tell you I did! The tubes fused—the tubes I figured and designed myself. The human factor did not fail. They piloted it properly. The tubes fused!”

No one could quiet him. His daughter had to lead him away with Tony and Ransdell both helping her. The excitement of Ransdell’s news and, on top of it, Tony’s had snapped his nerves, drawn too long to extreme tension. It was perfectly plain to all the company whom he had led that his day, as a man of resource, was done.

Tony, thoroughly realizing this, trembled himself as he helped lead his friend to his cabin. Partly it was from pity and compassion; for no one knew better than Tony with what mercilessness Hendron had driven himself and how he had borne so long his enormous burden. But partly this trembling was from an emotion far less worthy. It was jealousy again of Dave Ransdell.

Jealousy more bitter and hard than that which had possessed him when they both were on earth—and rivals. For here they were rivals again and with the conflict between them accentuated.

How Eve had hugged Dave and held to him and kissed him!

To be sure, they had all embraced him—men and girls. Every girl in the camp hysterically had kissed him. But Eve had not been hysterical, Tony knew. Eve—Eve— Well, it had changed this world for her that Dave Ransdell had reached it.

Then there was the talk which Tony had heard: the talk already to-night of Ransdell as the new leader of both camps; the leader of the survivors of earth to replace and follow Hendron.

Tony tingled alternately with hate of Dave, and with shame at himself, as he thought of this talk. He had quieted the talk of himself as leader and he honestly had not wanted it a few days ago; he would not permit himself to be considered a candidate against Hendron; but now that Hendron was surely done, he wanted his people—his people, he thought them—to want him for their leader. And some still did; but more, he thought miserably, to-night turned to Dave Ransdell.

This was unworthy; this was childish, this jealousy and hate of his strong, courageous comrade! So Tony told himself; but he could not conquer it.

Now they had come to Hendron’s cabin; and Tony felt himself becoming officious in the endeavor to be of more use to Hendron and to Eve than Dave might be.

Ransdell felt this and drew back.

“Thank you, Tony,” said Eve, in her gentle voice. “Now you go back to the people.”

“All right,” said Tony. “Come along, Dave.”

“Let him stay here, Tony,” said Eve.

“Him—and not me?” Tony stared.

“What more can he tell them?” Eve asked patiently. “He’s given them his news, who’re living and who”—she lowered her voice carefully so her father could not hear—“who are dead. He has no more to tell. You—you haven’t begun to tell them what you must have to tell of the strange city!”

“Don’t you want to hear it?” Tony persisted.

“I’m staying with Father now,” said Eve.

Rebelliously—and yet ashamed of himself for his feeling—Tony turned away and left her with Ransdell.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CITY OF VANISHED PEOPLE

“THE best way to give you some idea of the city,” Tony said, facing the entire company except Hendron and Eve, “is to read you extracts from the record made, on the spot and at the time, by Eliot James. Before I begin, however, I ask you to think of a city made of many colored metals built like the spokes of a wheel around a vast central building. Think of a dome of transparent metal over it. And then remember particularly, while I read, that every street, every building, every object in the whole metropolis was in an amazing state of preservation.

“Remember that there was not a single sign of human habitation. I have already told you that the people were human—very much like ourselves—but there was not a sign of them or any remains of them except for statues and paintings and representations which we called photographic for lack of a better word and for record on their remarkable visual machines. Bear all that in mind. Here, for example, is what Eliot wrote on the evening of our first day there. It was the fifty-first day on Bronson Beta. I will skip the part that describes the city in general.”

He began to read: “Tony and I are now seated in a bedroom of an apartment in one of the large buildings. The night of Bronson Beta has descended, but we have light. In fact, the adventure of light is the most bizarre which has befallen us since we penetrated this spectacular and silent city. As twilight descended we were about to return to our airplane. We were at the time on the street. We had visited one or two buildings, and the effect of the silence combined with the oncoming darkness was more than we could bear. I know that my scalp was tingling, the palms of my hands were clammy, and when I stood still I could feel my muscles shaking. We could not rid ourselves of the feeling that the city was inhabited; we could not cease looking quickly over our shoulders in the hope or the fear of seeing somebody. As we stood uncertainly on the street the sun vanished altogether, its orange light reflected by low-lying cumulus clouds. The sky took on a deeper green and at a word from Tony I would have run from the place. Suddenly, to our utter confoundation, the city was bathed in light. The light came on without a sound. Its source, or rather, its sources, were invisible. It shone down on the streets from behind cornices. It burst luminously upon the walls of the giant buildings.

“The interiors of many of them were also filled with radiance. All this, suddenly, silently, in the gathering gloom. I shall never forget the expression on Tony’s face as he turned to me and whispered: ‘It’s too much!’ My own mind, appalled at this new, marvelous manifestation of the genius of the Other People, was very close to lapsing into unconsciousness for a second. Then I found myself with my hands clenched, saying over and over to myself, ‘It’s light, just light. It was getting dark, so they turned on the lights.’ Then I amended that to—‘The lights come on here when it’s dark.’ Immediately Tony and I fell into an altercation. ‘It’s just the lights coming on,’ I said.

“‘But that’s impossible!’

“‘Nevertheless, they’re on.’

“Tony, searching frantically for the shreds of his sanity, replied, ‘But if the lights come on every night in this city, we’d have seen it through telescopes.’

“‘Maybe we didn’t happen to catch it.’

“‘It can’t be.’