After Worlds Collide (When Worlds Collide 2)

Their manifestations were most conspicuous in the glow which illumined the dome over the city at night, and which so agreeably lighted certain interiors by night and by day. These manifestations resembled those which Tony and Eliot James had reported from the first Sealed City which they had entered.

Maltby and his assistants discovered many other proofs of power impulses.

The source of the power they could not locate; but Lady Cynthia’s account of the activities of the “Midianites” suggested to Maltby a key to the secret.

“I believe,” Maltby said, “that the Bronson Betans undoubtedly solved the problem of obtaining power from the inner heat of the planet, and probably learned to utilize the radium-bearing strata under the outer crust. They must have perfected some apparatus to make practical use of that power. It is possible, but highly improbable, that the apparatus came through the passage of cold and darkness in such state that when the air thawed out and the crust-conditions approached normal, it set itself in operation automatically.

“What is far more probable is that the Midianites have discovered one installation of the apparatus. We know from Lady Cynthia that they are months ahead of us in experimenting with Bronson Betan machinery. I believe that they have put in order and set going the power-impulse machinery connected with the city which they have occupied.

“The impulses from that installation may be carried by cables under the ground; more probably, however, they are disseminated as some sort of radio-waves. Consequently they reach this city, as they reached the city that Tony and James entered, and we benefit from them.”

Behind the wall at the end of the hall, near the couch upon which Dodson slept, one of Maltby’s men came upon a mechanism connected with what was, plainly, a huge metal diaphragm. He called his chief, and the entire party of engineers worked over the mechanism.

Suddenly sound burst forth. Voices! Singing! And the thunder of a tremendous chorus filled the hall! Men’s voices, and women’s! How triumphant, sublime, the chant of this chorus!

No syllable was of itself understandable; the very scale and notes of the music were strange. Strange but magnificent!

It caught all the people in the hall and awed them into stillness. They stood staring up, agape; not frightened at all, only uplifted in their wonder!

Voices—voices of men and women a million years dead—resounded about them, singing this strange, enthralling requiem.

Eve, beside the body of her father, straightened and stood, with her head raised, her eyes dry, her pulses pounding full again.

Tony, outside in the street, heard the chorus, and he came running in—to be checked at the entrance of the hall as though caught there in a spell. Only slowly, and as if he had to struggle through an invisible interference, could he advance; for the singing continued.

It suggested somehow, though its notes were not like, the Pilgrims’ Chorus in “Tannhäuser.” It was now like the “Fire Music”—now an exalted frenzy like the “Ride of the Valkyries.” Some great Wagner had lived a million years ago when this planet pursued its accustomed course about its distant star!

The chorus ceased.

Tony caught Eve in his arms, lest she collapse in the reaction from her ecstasy.

“Tony! Tony, what a requiem for him! It leaves us nothing now to do for him! Oh, Tony, that was his requiem!”

Down the sunlit streets of the city the children of the earth, Dan and Dorothy, walked hand in hand, staring at the wonders about them, crying out, pointing, and flattening their noses against the show panes.

Though they plainly remembered the thrills and terrors of the Flight, they could not completely understand that the world was gone, that they had left it forever. This was to them merely another, more magic domain—an enthralling land of Oz, with especially splendid sights, with all the buildings strange in shape and resplendent in colors, with tiers of streets and breath-taking bridges. Behind the children, Shirley Cotton and Lady Cynthia strolled and stared; and along with them went Eliot James, who could not—and who did not attempt—to conceal his continued astonishments.

“Isn’t this like the other city?” Shirley asked him.

“In general, but not in details,” Eliot answered; and he asked Lady Cynthia: “Is it like the city where you were?”

“In general, as you say,” the Englishwoman agreed. “But in detail these people certainly were capable of infinite variety. And what artisans they were!”

“And architects!” added Shirley.

“And engineers—and everything else!” said Eliot James.

“Where,” demanded Dan, turning to his older companions, “where are all the people?”

“Where?” echoed Eliot to himself, below his breath, while Shirley answered the child: “They went away, Danny.”

“Where did they go? … Are they coming back? … Why did they all go away? … What for?”

The questions of the child were the perplexities also of the scientists, which no one yet could resolve.

“Don’t run too far ahead of us,” Shirley bade the children in a tone to avoid frightening them. For danger dangled over these splendid silent thoroughfares apparently untenanted, yet capable of catching away and keeping Van Beitz. Was it conceivable that survivors of the builders—the Other People—haunted these unruined remains of their own creation? Or was it that the ruthless men from earth—the “Midianites”—had sent their spies ahead to hide in this metropolis before its occupation by Hendron’s people?

Tony called a council of the Central Authority to consider, especially, this problem. The Committee of Authority assembled in what had clearly been a council-chamber near to the great quiet secluded room, and yet illumined by the sunlight reflected down and disseminated agreeably and without glare.