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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/77608-h/77608-h.htm b/77608-h/77608-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3d045ae --- /dev/null +++ b/77608-h/77608-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9129 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + A Brand New World | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } +hr.full {width: 95%; margin-left: 2.5%; margin-right: 2.5%;} +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +x-ebookmaker-drop {display: none;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.right {text-align: right;} + +.smcap { font-variant:small-caps; } + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +div.titlepage { + text-align: center; + page-break-before: always; + page-break-after: always; +} + +div.titlepage p { + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + font-weight: bold; + line-height: 1.5; + margin-top: 3em; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; } +table.autotable td, +table.autotable th { padding: 4px; } + +.tdl {text-align: left;} +.tdr {text-align: right;} +.tdc {text-align: center;} + +.ph1 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } +.ph1 { font-size: x-large; margin: .83em auto; } + +.ph2 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } +.ph2 { font-size: medium; margin: .83em auto; } + +.ph3 { text-align: right; text-indent: 0em; } +.ph3 { font-size: medium; margin: .83em auto; } + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77608 ***</div> + +<div class="titlepage"> + +<h1>A Brand New World</h1> + +<p class="ph1">By Ray Cummings</p> + +<p>Copyright 1928 by The Frank A. Munsey Company</p> + +<p><i>A new planet in the solar system! And in its wake<br> +come mystery, danger—and a most amazing confusion.</i></p> + +<p>This story appeared originally in The Argosy All-Story Weekly,<br> +beginning serialization September 22, 1928.</p> + +<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br> +Famous Fantastic Mysteries September 1942.]</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table> +<tr><td class="tdr">I.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">THE COMING OF THE WORLD</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">II.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">THE WHITE GIRL IN THE MOONLIGHT</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">III.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">THE CROWNING TERROR</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">IV.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">ZETTA</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">V.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CRIMSON SOUND!</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">VI.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">"IF I HAD BUT KNOWN!"</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">VII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">MYSTERIOUS STAR, IMPERTURBABLY SHINING!</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">VIII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">FROM ACROSS THE VOID</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">IX.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">PIONEERS INTO SPACE</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">X.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">LANDING TO FACE THE UNKNOWN</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">XI.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">"UNDER GARDENS"</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">XII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">AT DAWN</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">XIII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">"EMPEROR OF THE EARTH!"</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">XIV.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">BRAVE, FOOLISH LITTLE ZETTA!</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">XV.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">GRAFF'S TREACHERY</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">XVI.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">ON OUR WAY TO CONQUER THE EARTH!</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">XVII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">PLANNING THE CONQUEST</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">XVIII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">THE EARTH AT BAY!</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">XIX.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">RED MADNESS STALKING THE EARTH</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">XX.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">THE NIGHT PROWLERS</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">XXI.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">A NEST OF VERMIN</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">XXII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">PEACE ON EARTH</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<p>[Illustration: As if affected by laughing gas, thousands of people were +seized with an insane mirth, following a period of strange depression. +A world gone mad! Actions were aimless, horror and suicides were +spreading everywhere! And always that terrible laughter. . . . What +would happen to the human race?]]</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</h2> +</div> + +<h3>THE COMING OF THE WORLD</h3> + + +<p>The new Star was first observed on the night of October 4, 1952, +reported by the Clarkson Observatory, near London. A few hours later +the observers at Washington saw it also; and still later, it was found +and identified as unknown upon one of the photographic plates of the +great refracting telescope of Flagstaff, Arizona. By observers at Table +Mountain, Cape Town, and the observatory near Buenos Aires, it was not +seen, for it was in the northern heavens.</p> + +<p>The affair brought a brief mention in the Amalgamated Broadcasters' +report the next day; and the newspapers carried a few lines of it on +their back pages. Nothing more.</p> + +<p>I handled the item. My name is Peter Vanderstuyft. I was twenty-three +years old, that autumn of 1952, a newsgatherer for the Amalgamated +Broadcasters, attached to the New York City headquarters. The item +meant nothing to me. It was the forerunner—the significant, tiny +beginning—of the most terrible period of the history of the earth; +but I did not know that. I tossed it over to Freddie Smith, who was +with me in the office that night.</p> + +<p>"Father's staff has found a new star—wonderful!"</p> + +<p>But Freddie's freckled face did not answer my grin. For once his +pale blue eyes were solemn. "Professor Vanderstuyft phoned me from +Washington awhile ago. It sure seems queer."</p> + +<p>"What's queer?" I demanded.</p> + +<p>Then he grinned. "Nope. Your father says you'd sell your soul for a +news item. When we've got anything important to tell the world—we'll +tell you."</p> + +<p>"Go wrap up an electric spark," I informed him.</p> + +<p>He grinned again and went back to studying his interminable blue +prints—his "thermodyne principle," as he called it, for a new heat-ray +motor. Father was financing him for the patents and working model. +Freddie was father's assistant in the Washington Observatory. But he +was off duty now in New York arranging for the manufacture of his model.</p> + +<p>This was in October. I was tremendously busy. A sensational murder +case developed, and I was sent out to Indiana to cover it. A woman +had presumably murdered her husband and a couple of children, but it +looked as though she were going to be acquitted.</p> + +<p>She was a handsome woman, and a good talker. She was taking full +advantage of the new law regarding free speech, and every night from +the jail she was broadcasting little talks to the public.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>October passed; and then November, and still I had not been able to +get back to New York. Freddie occupied my rooms there, busy with his +invention; father was at his post in Washington, and my sister Hulda +was in Porto Rico, visiting our friends the Cains. Our plans—father's +and mine—were to join the Cains and Hulda in Porto Rico for Christmas.</p> + +<p>Father was leaving the Washington Observatory to assume charge of +the Royal Dutch Astronomical Bureau, which had just completed an +observatory in extreme Southern Chile, with the largest telescope in +the world soon to be installed there. Freddie Smith was going with him +as his assistant; and the A. B. Association had appointed me their +representative, to live down there also.</p> + +<p>None of these plans worked out, however. Christmas approached, and I +was still engaged in Indiana with this accursed broadcasting murderess. +And father wired me that he was too busy in Washington to leave.</p> + +<p>During all these weeks there had been continual items in the news +concerning the new star—issued by father's Washington staff, and by +most of the observatories of the northern hemisphere. Father is a queer +character; the Holland blood in us makes us phlegmatic, silent, and +cautious—characteristics which apply more to father than to me. He is +a true scientist, calmly judicial, unwilling to judge anything, or form +any decisive opinion, without every possible fact before him.</p> + +<p>Thus it was that during those weeks, neither Hulda in Porto Rico, +nor myself had an intimation from father of the startling things he +was learning. As he said finally, of what use to worry us until he +was sure? Like the public in general, I became aware of conditions +gradually. A news item here and there—items growing more insistent +as the weeks passed, but still all crowded aside to make room for the +sensational murder trial.</p> + +<p>I recall some of the items. The new Star was approaching the general +region of our solar system with extraordinary velocity. A star of the +fortieth magnitude. Then they said it was the thirtieth. Soon it was +visible to the naked eye. I remember reading one account, not long +after the star's discovery, in which its spectrum was reported to be +sunlight! Our own solar spectrum! Reflected sunlight! This was no +distant, gigantic, incandescent star blazing with its own light. It was +not large and far away, but small and close. As small as our own earth, +and already it was within the limits of our solar system. A dark globe, +like our earth, or the moon, or Venus and Mars—dark and solid, shining +only by reflected sunlight!</p> + +<p>By mid-December, at a convention of astronomers held in London, the new +world was named Xenephrene. Father went over in one of the mail planes +and read his afterward famous paper, suggesting the name, and giving +his calculation of the elements of the orbit of this new heavenly body. +It was the most startling announcement which had yet been made, and for +one newspaper edition it got the first page. And I was ordered to give +nine minutes of broadcasting time to it.</p> + +<p>"Xenephrene" was a globe not quite, but very nearly as large as the +earth. It had come whirling in like a comet from the star-filled +regions of outer space; presumably like a comet to encircle our sun and +then, with a hyperbolic orbit, to depart from us forever.</p> + +<p>It had come visually into our northern heavens, and crossed the earth's +orbit on the opposite side of the sun from us. It encircled the +sun—this was in December—made its turn between the orbits of Mercury +and Venus, and now was supposedly departing.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>But according to father's calculation of its new orbital elements, +it was not about to depart! Its orbit had become an ellipse—a very +nearly circular ellipse similar to those of Venus and the earth! A new +planet—a brand new world—had joined our little solar family! A world +only a fraction smaller than Venus and the earth; larger than Mercury, +larger than Mars. An interior planet, its orbit would be within that of +the earth—between the earth and Venus.</p> + +<p>On this date, December 20—so ran father's announcement—Xenephrene was +proceeding in its elliptical orbit, and the earth was in advance of it. +We could see Xenephrene in the sky now—any one could see it who cared +to look. It was no more than thirty million miles from us now. A new +morning and evening star, which at times far outshone Venus.</p> + +<p>See it indeed! Xenephrene, the magnificent! For weeks it had been +visible throughout its erratic course as from the great unknown realms +of outer space it swam into our ken. During October and November it had +been visually too near the sun—and too far away as yet—to be much +of a spectacle. But I saw it in early December—a morning star it was +then—just before dawn, rising in the eastern sky. A glowing purple +spot of light, blazing like a great sapphire in the pale gray-blue of +the dawn.</p> + +<p>Xenephrene, the new world! I stood gazing up at it, and a flood of +romance surged over me. A new world, strange, mysterious, beautiful! I +had occasion several times during those terrible, fearsome days which +so soon were to come to all of us on earth, to recall my fleeting mood +of romance at first sight of Xenephrene. Mysterious globe! Romantic! +How well could I have added—sinister!</p> + +<p>What the scientists were thinking and doing during these weeks of +December, 1952, and January, 1953, I did not know until later. Their +fears—gropings—unceasing labor to verify their dawning suspicion of +the truth—they withheld from the public. Until father's culminating +discovery, which on February 10, 1953, he made public.</p> + +<p>Christmas that winter was a depressing time for all of us. I think, +everywhere in the world, a sense of ominous depression was gradually +spreading. A great catastrophe impending, even though unheralded, must +inevitably cast its forerunning shadow. I know I felt depressed. Away +from father and Hulda—alone out there in Indiana on my job, with +father inexplicably too busy to let me join him.</p> + +<p>Hulda's Christmas letter from Porto Rico was depressing:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Miserable winter. Peter, it's positively cold. Imagine—we had it 54 +degrees yesterday. In Porto Rico! Mrs. Cain says we wish you'd keep +your icy blasts of the north to yourself.</p> +</div> + +<p>Trying to be jocular, but Hulda, too, was depressed that Christmas. It +was indeed a miserable winter. Extraordinarily cold, everywhere. For +a week or two, the papers had been commenting upon it. Zero weather +around New York and all out through Indiana to Chicago. A succession +of gray, snowy days—gray afternoons with the twilight seeming to come +in mid-afternoon. And at nearly eight o'clock in the morning it was +still the twilight of dawn. The newspapers commented on that, jocularly +remarking that the weather man was making our winter days very short +this year.</p> + +<p>The weather, in truth, was so abnormal that it occasioned an increasing +newspaper comment. Even by Christmas, Canada was enveloped by constant +sub-zero temperatures, which occasionally swept down as far as Virginia +with heavy snowfalls. Florida, in December, had its greatest freeze +since 1888; damage to the fruit was enormous. In the West Indies, an +unprecedented cool wave was experienced.</p> + +<p>Everywhere in the north temperate zone was the same. And from South +America we had the reverse reports. The summer in Rio and in Buenos +Aires was unusually hot. Cape Town reported an abnormal spell; +Australia and New Zealand were sweltering.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>For every unexplained condition of annoyance something must be blamed. +In the United States some enterprising feature man gathered the +information that authorities considered the radio broadcasters were +responsible for the bad weather. The World Press sent it out, and it +was widely used.</p> + +<p>Many persons—so it said—had addressed the Anglo-American Radio +Commission and other governmental radio agencies stating that the +myriads of ether waves—the "electric waves"—sent out by the +broadcasting stations were the cause of the extreme weather conditions. +The "ether" was disturbed, so it was claimed; who could say what +dangerous floods, blizzards, torrid heat, wind storms, and icy blasts +might not be caused if this radio condition were not checked? It was +suggested that the world governments take action to restrict the output +of broadcasters.</p> + +<p>Newspaper jealousy of us, of course! It had been growing for years, +ever since those early days when we first engaged in the audible +dissemination of news. Our organization now was prompt in repudiation. +The Amalgamated Broadcasters Association appealed immediately to the +Federated World Weather Bureaus.</p> + +<p>Within a week we were enabled to broadcast that the weather bureau +physicists were emphatic in their declaration that the weather could +not be blamed on radio waves. In order to affect the weather, radio +would have to exert an influence on temperature, humidity or barometric +pressure—which emphatically it does not do. Even in radio laboratories +where the waves are most intensely produced, there never has been any +such recorded effect.</p> + +<p>We also pointed out that in the past, freaks of weather were always +complained of; the coldest day in the history of Washington, D.C., +which this December of 1952 had almost but not quite equaled, was +February 11th, 1899—which was long before there were any broadcasting +stations.</p> + +<p>Nor did any of this take into account the obvious fact that radio could +scarcely be blamed for what seemed our abnormally short winter days. +It was not fancy; it seemed an actual fact. And from the southern +hemisphere reports gave reverse conditions. The days were growing +unnaturally long; sunset and twilight extended abnormally far into the +evening.</p> + +<p>It occurred to me as strange that our A.B.A. never broadcasted a +mention of this; that there were never any scientific, authoritative +reports concerning it. Surely the scientists could determine with +exactitude whether our sun were rising and setting at the times it +should! They could, indeed! They could—and they were calculating +it only too exactly! But, as I learned afterward, there was a world +government censorship upon the whole subject.</p> + +<p>This censorship was lifted on that memorable February 10, 1953, when +father made his startling statement to the world.</p> + +<p>On February 9th, my job in Indiana ended; the murderess was acquitted +amid applause and public rejoicing. But the verdict only held a divided +first-page place now with the planet Xenephrene. The new world had +steadily been nearing the earth; it was now only twenty-odd million +miles away—a magnificent, startling spectacle, a purple point of light +blazing near the sun; with the naked eye it appeared twice the size of +any star.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon of February 9th, Freddie phoned me from New York. I +had never heard his voice so oddly solemn.</p> + +<p>"Peter, your father wants you to come to Washington at once."</p> + +<p>"What's up?" I demanded.</p> + +<p>"Nothing. He wants to see you and me. You come to New York—join me +here—leave to-day. Will you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I agreed. "I'm through out here, fortunately."</p> + +<p>"I'll wait for you here at your place. I wouldn't try the planes, if I +were you—not with storms like this—"</p> + +<p>"No," I said. "Besides, they're jammed since the railroads are hung up."</p> + +<p>"Wait your chance—come by train, it's—safer."</p> + +<p>He was so oddly solemn! It wasn't like Freddie Smith to bother about +safety—a dare-devil, if there ever was one. But he was right about the +planes; the surest way to get to New York at the moment was to take it +slowly.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>For a week the whole northeastern United States had been locked in the +grip of a blizzard. The railroads were hung up; the strain of traffic, +and the fearful weather had been too much for the passenger planes. +Every one was jammed; and several failed to get through and were +stalled in the storm along the way. But the railroads now were getting +their tracks cleared; service was improving.</p> + +<p>"I'll see you to-morrow," I told Freddie.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said. "I've got our accommodations on board the +Congressional. Get here if you can."</p> + +<p>I got through, and we took the Congressional Limited that February 10th +for Washington. New York City was an almost unprecedented sight that +dark-gray afternoon we left. A snowbound Canadian city it might have +been by its appearance. A heavy, silent fall of snow; thick, soft, +pure-white flakes.</p> + +<p>The north wind of the past few days had died away. The snow sifted +almost vertically down between the canyons of buildings. Without a +wind, the afternoon seemed only moderately cold. Freddie and I passed +a street thermometer at the corner where we had gone to join our taxi, +which could not get into the cross-street. The temperature was five +below zero.</p> + +<p>Freddie caught my expression. He said, "This isn't New York cold. Can't +you tell the difference? This is the cold of the north," still with +that oddly solemn voice.</p> + +<p>Our taxi with its clanking chains rumbled its way down Broadway and +across Thirty-Fourth Street to the Pennsylvania Station. I had never +seen Broadway like this. A white street, piled with soft, white snow +which covered up its familiar configurations, buried its curbs, leveled +street and pedestrian walks into one flat white surface. A strange +Broadway; featureless, blankly expressionless, like a man's face +without hair or eyebrows.</p> + +<p>There was little traffic. Pedestrians in a crowd tramped the street's +center. In the still cold the snow creaked and crunched under their +tread. A few enterprising sleighs, brought down these past weeks +from upstate, went by us loaded with people. The crowd was laughing, +shouting.</p> + +<p>At the shop windows, almost closed in by huge piles of snow left over +from the storm of the week before, disconsolate proprietors gazed out +from under the shadow of the overhead pedestrian levels. Three o'clock +in the afternoon; the street lights were all winking on, turning the +pure white of the snow a pale lurid green with their glare.</p> + +<p>The crowd seemed taking it like a holiday, gay with shouts of laughter +as it romped and shoved its way through the drifts. But there was no +laughter within me. "The cold of the north," Freddie had said. It +brought me a vague shudder.</p> + +<p>"Look there." Freddie pointed to the second level at Forty-Second +Street. At a department store entrance crowds were coming out and going +in. A huge sign in moving electric lights gave the information that +here Canadian winter equipment could be purchased. And as I gazed, a +man in gaudy flannel costume of brilliant colors came from the store +entrance. An advertisement, no doubt. He swung out to the pedestrian +level on skiis; poised, and came sliding gracefully down the incline to +the main street level, amid shouts and applause from the crowd.</p> + +<p>We humans adjust ourselves very quickly to new conditions. And, for all +the pessimists to the contrary, the human instinct is to laugh. . . . +I saw a canvas sign over a small store, on a cross-street impassable +at the moment with snowdrifts. It bore the ancient quip, "<i>Whether the +weather be cold or hot, we've got to have weather, whether or not. Buy +your Arctic overshoes here.</i>"</p> + +<p>New York City, that February 10th, thought it was all a good joke. . . .</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Freddie and I had a compartment on the Congressional. We anticipated +it would be nearly midnight by the time we got to Washington; Freddie +flung himself moodily on the lounge as though he were prepared to sleep +all the way, except when we might perhaps order in dinner.</p> + +<p>Freddie at this time was twenty-seven. I had always liked him, though +physically and temperamentally we were quite opposite types. I am +typically Dutch, short and wide, heavy-set and stocky. But not fat. +Built, as Freddie once told me, along the general lines of a young +cart horse. And, as he has also remarked, I have the Dutch phlegmatic +sparseness of speech, which in my case, he insists, often turns surly.</p> + +<p>Freddie, not much taller than I, was slender almost to thinness. +But wiry; I have wrestled with him, and he twists like an eel, with +surprising strength. A sandy-haired, pale-blue-eyed, freckle-faced +fellow, usually grinning, and with a swift, ready flow of speech.</p> + +<p>His mind not only was alert, but keen. Scientifically inclined; and an +extremely good mathematician. He had made good at astronomical work +from the start. As a clocker of delicate star-transits, in father's +opinion he had no equal; and he could sit all day over tedious routine +mathematics and never tire.</p> + +<p>I eyed him now as he lay on the lounge in our train compartment. It was +wholly abnormal for Freddie to be so morose.</p> + +<p>"Whatever it is father's got to tell me," I commented, "it sits like +lead on you, doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said abruptly. And he added, "He ordered me to say nothing, +so I'm doing it."</p> + +<p>I found father equally solemn. It was eleven o'clock when, after +crossing the snow-filled Washington streets, we reached my home. Father +greeted us at the door with what was a very sick attempt at a smile.</p> + +<p>"Come in, boys. You're lucky to get here at all. Hello, Frederick. +Brought your model? That's good—we'll look at it presently. . . . +Hello, son—I understand you've been pampering a murderess."</p> + +<p>In the study, when we had discarded our overclothes, his manner +abruptly changed. We sat down, and he stood facing us, and then began +restlessly pacing the little circular room, as though undecided how to +begin telling me.</p> + +<p>"Peter," he said at last, "you'll think it's queer that I've said +nothing to you—my son—of this—this thing that is upon us now—this +catastrophe to the world—"</p> + +<p>My heart leaped. Yet it was hardly a surprise. Knowledge of it all +had been coming to me little by little for weeks; fragments here and +there, like the meaningless parts of a puzzle which now his words, +adding nothing new, pieced together to make my premonitions a complete +realization. He spoke swiftly, fronting me with his squared, heavy +shoulders; his dark eyes holding me with his somber gaze.</p> + +<p>"No use to worry you, son, or to frighten Hulda—you could be of no +help—and we're all in it together—the whole world. . . . They've +lifted the censorship. The time has come when it is best for everyone +to know it—this inevitable thing. Peter, you can give it to your +organization to-night, and to the world. The widest publicity—this +statement from me and my organization—"</p> + +<p>He stopped abruptly, seeming to realize the incoherence of his words, +striving to master his emotions and tell me calmly. He seized a chair +and sat facing me, smiling at Freddie; and he lighted a cigar.</p> + +<p>But his fingers trembled. He was a man of sixty at this time; a +squarely solid, commanding figure; a smooth-shaved face, square-jawed, +dark, restless eyes, with gray-black, bushy brows and a shock of +iron-gray hair. A crisp, forceful speaker. But he had not been so +to-night. I have never seen him look so old, almost haggard. And the +usual clear-white of his eyes was shot with blood.</p> + +<p>I understood it as he talked; past weeks of anxiety, nights of +sleepless observation at the telescope, watching Xenephrene, the new +world; watching it come in to join our little solar family; observing +by night—and all day busy with unending calculations of Xenephrene's +changing orbit as it rounded the sun and took its place among us.</p> + +<p>Watching. At first with interest, surprise, awe; then with a dawning +fear. Then, his hurried conferences with other scientists. He had been +three times to London, I now learned—and once, a consultation of +astronomers was held at the Chan observatory, in Tibet.</p> + +<p>And then, conferences of the scientists with the world governments, +at which time the censorship was ordered. And father went back to +his post, to observe and calculate the daily abnormal changes in our +sunrise and sunset. Until at last the truth could no longer be escaped. +The future could be prognosticated, to a mathematical certainty; the +censorship must be lifted and the world told.</p> + +<p>Father's voice, with its old dominating ring now, boomed at me.</p> + +<p>"The world must be told, Peter. We cannot, dare not, hide it any +longer. This new planet Xenephrene—I'll give you all the technical +details; I have them here." He waved a sheaf of typewritten papers at +me. "Your office can prepare it in any form you like. The coming of +Xenephrene—its new bulk so near us—has disturbed, is now disturbing, +our earth. You know it—everybody knows it instinctively, though they +do not realize it or understand it."</p> + +<p>"The weather—" I began; and my pounding heart seemed nearly smothering +me.</p> + +<p>"Yes—the weather. And our queerly shortened winter days. All these +abnormal conditions which have come upon us this winter. Xenephrene has +affected us astronomically—in just one way. The inclination of the +axis of our earth is altering! Do you know what that really means? Can +you explain it to the public?"</p> + +<p>"He can," Freddie burst out. "He will."</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The axis of the earth! Our seasons—our winter and summer—our +climate—our days and nights—changing, permanently changing? It seemed +for an instant, nothing. And then it seemed a thought too amazing, +too unnatural to encompass. The basic order of everything from time +immemorial now to be changed? And as I listened to his swift, brusque +words my head reeled with it.</p> + +<p>The axis of the earth was slowly swinging so that eventually our South +Pole would point directly to the sun and there become stabilized. This +would occur on April 5 next. Our new seasons, our new astronomical +year, would begin on that date.</p> + +<p>"Can you realize what that will mean, Peter? When our South Pole points +to the sun there will be a torrid zone in the southern hemisphere. +The great Antarctic polar continent will blaze into a tropical glory. +Patagonia, the Magellan Straits, Australia, the Federated Cape +Provinces, far southern Chile and the Argentine—all in the blazing +tropics. Six months of that, with days months long in which the sun +never sets! Then swinging back to winter.</p> + +<p>"The new temperate zone will be at our equator. Not very temperate. +Snow and ice alternating with months of blazing heat. And all our +northern hemisphere—it will have six months, beginning next April, of +total darkness and frightful cold."</p> + +<p>His voice rose to a grim power. "Ah, you're just beginning to realize +what it will mean to us! New seasons, and new periods of day and night! +Blazing noon at the South Pole! Dark, silent, congealed midnight in +the north. Darkness like a cold black shroud over most of our northern +hemisphere. Our greatest cities are here, Peter. London, New York, +Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Peking—from forty to fifty North Latitude. All +will be buried for months in the darkness of arctic night!"</p> + +<p>He laughed just a little wildly. "They think it is a joke now, this +strange new winter which has descended upon us. They're beginning, in +New York, to treat it like a Canadian winter carnival. Fun while it +lasts, and then spring and summer will come soon again—because they +always have before. But this time, Peter, spring and summer won't come +soon again.</p> + +<p>"The winter will grow colder. They have only seen its carnival aspect +so far. But the cold of the north has fangs. It's a monster—a +hideous monster whose congealing breath is death. It's lurking up +there, ready to creep upon us. It's in Canada now—in north Asia, in +northern Europe. You don't know that because our government has been so +carefully suppressing the news.</p> + +<p>"They're laughing in New York because it gets dark so early in the +afternoon. It's fun to tumble in the snow in the early afternoon +twilight. But they won't laugh in another week or two. The +blessed sunlight for New York is almost gone. Shorter days—still +shorter—until soon there will be no day at all!</p> + +<p>"Our huge cities here in the north, all buried in the snow and ice and +darkness of a polar winter! The greatest catastrophe in the history of +the world—we're facing it now! No power on earth can help us to escape +it, for it's inevitable!"</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</h2> +</div> + +<h3>THE WHITE GIRL IN THE MOONLIGHT</h3> + + +<p>The plantations of the Cains in Porto Rico lay back from the north +coast, some thirty kilometers from San Juan. Bisected by the railroad +and by the main auto road, they spread green and fragrant in the vivid +sunlight. Rows of orange and grapefruit trees, stretching over the +undulating sand, with pineapples between the rows of trees.</p> + +<p>Here and there, thickets of banana trees, encouraged to grow and break +the force of the trade wind from the sea; a tall spreading mango—a +sapling perhaps back in the almost forgotten days when Spain ruled +this island; clumps, occasionally, of giant coconuts rising on the low +hillsides; trees with smooth brown trunks and feather-duster tops, the +trunks all bent backward from the coast by the wind.</p> + +<p>The main auto road, lined with its majestic royal palms, was oily black +and sometimes very noisy; the railroad with its metal ties was a dark +streak like a double pencil line amid the green of the trees. But the +plantation crossroads were white ribbons of sand in the sunlight, and +whiter still at night, under the white glory of the moon.</p> + +<p>It was then—at night—that the magic romance of the tropics was to +me always most poignant. At sundown the brisk trades were stilled. A +quiet, brooding somnolence fell upon everything. The native shacks, +palm-thatched, burned brown by the sun, turned darkly mysterious. Off +beyond the distant coast, as it showed from the commanding height +of the Cains' veranda, the sea at night was dimly purple under a +gem-studded purple sky; and sometimes the moon-beams shimmered off +there in the silent magic darkness. The scent of the orange blossoms +hung heavy in the still air, exotic, stirring the fancy to a million +half formed dreams that one may tell but never express.</p> + +<p>Upon the highest knoll—an eminence of perhaps a hundred feet—stood +the Cains' plantation house. A white road led up the slope to it. A +broad, spreading frame bungalow, with a peaked tin roof, and a wide +flat veranda around three of its sides, with coconut posts set at +intervals. A bunch of bananas always hung there, ripening; a box, lying +against the house wall, was filled with oranges at intervals by a +native boy.</p> + +<p>Beyond the house, at the edge of the knoll-top, a corral with open +sides and a heavy-thatched roof housed the saddle and workhorses. The +Cains' one concession to modernity—the garage, and a small hangar for +Dan's sport plane—stood well beyond the foot of the knoll. In the +evening, lolling in the wicker chairs of the veranda, one could not see +the garage, and if the traffic on the main road chanced to be dull, one +might go back in fancy half a century, to when this magic land must +have been at its best. It was still very beautiful. Sunlight and color +and warmth.</p> + +<p>But the blight, here as everywhere else in the northern hemisphere, was +already at hand.</p> + +<p>"To-morrow," said Dan, "we'll ride over to Arecibo. Want to, Hulda?"</p> + +<p>"On horseback?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said. "Of course. You don't think, knowing you as I do, I'd +insult you with a car or a plane?"</p> + +<p>Hulda can drive a car or handle a plane as well as any one. But for +all our Dutch stolidity, there is a strain of romance in us. Hulda's +greatest pleasure was riding astride the little Porto Rican horses; +and though there seems nothing hotter on earth than a white sand road +at noon in the cane fields, Hulda would always ride through them with +delight.</p> + +<p>"Good," she said, and laughed. "Señor Dan, that will please me much."</p> + +<p>But her mocking laugh was forced, for this was February 10th of that +fateful winter. An unknown fear lay upon Hulda, as on us all; and the +cane fields on the way to Arecibo might have been hot other years, but +they certainly were not hot now.</p> + +<p>This evening, for instance, as Mr. and Mrs. Cain and their son Dan, and +Hulda, sat in the living room of the bungalow, the shutters were all +closed and a huge brazier of charcoal burned beside them for warmth. +Already it had smoked up the ceiling; and Mr. Cain, despairing that the +cool spell would soon moderate, promised his wife for the tenth time +that he would get a stove from San Juan and rig it up all shipshape +with a pipe—"Like in Vermont, eh, Ellen? Hulda, I'm going to radio +your father to-morrow. This local weather bureau's too dumb to tell me +anything. Your father ought to know—he's a scientist; they're supposed +to know everything."</p> + +<p>The Cains were what, a decade or so ago, were called plain folks. New +Englanders, Cain had made his money on a Vermont farm. Their only son +Dan had grown to manhood; graduated from college with one of the new +agricultural degrees; and partly because of Mrs. Cain's frail health +they had taken Dan and established themselves in Porto Rico.</p> + +<p>Dan now was the brains and the energy of the business. I had gone to +school with Dan Cain. A big, rangy, husky six-footer, with crisp, curly +brown hair, blue eyes and a laughing boyish sun-tanned face.</p> + +<p>A handsome young giant, I should imagine any girl would love him at +sight. Demure little Hulda—a brown sparrow of a girl—loved him, I +felt certain, though nothing as yet had been said of any engagement +between them. I rather hoped it would come to pass; and I think Dan's +parents did also, for Hulda was very lovable.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Life often holds odd coincidences. At eleven o'clock, this night of +February 10, I was in Washington with father and Freddie. What father +was telling me I thought then the most important event of the world's +welfare.</p> + +<p>But at almost the same time, Hulda, in Porto Rico, was sitting in the +living room with Dan Cain. And another event, wholly different in +significance yet of equal importance to the world, was impending. The +elder Cains had retired. Dan and Hulda, characteristic of them of late +when alone, had fallen into sober discussion.</p> + +<p>Dan was really perturbed over the weather. The temperature had gone far +into the forties the night before. Florida citrus trees might stand +that for a limited period, but it certainly was not good for Porto +Rican trees. And the Florida citrus industry was wiped out this winter. +It had snowed last week all over the peninsula; a fall of snow with a +following freeze that had killed everything which the December freeze +had spared. And now—into the forties in Porto Rico! Ten degrees lower +would be freezing. If this kept on—</p> + +<p>The sound of a pony thudding up the knoll at a gallop broke in upon +Hulda's and Dan's gloomy reflections. They stared at each other.</p> + +<p>"What could that be?" Dan was on his feet.</p> + +<p>The pony came up to the front porch entrance, stopped, and on the +wooden steps bare feet sounded. Dan flung open the door. The pale-blue +vacuum light newly established in the Porto Rican rural districts was +behind him; the doorway was a dark rectangle of brilliant stars and +cold moonlight, and a rush of chill air swept in.</p> + +<p>A peon was on the porch, dirty white trousers and white shirt, ghostly +in the moonlight. He was barefooted and bareheaded. His little white +pony stood at the foot of the steps in a lather of sweat, drooping and +panting.</p> + +<p>"Ramon!" Dan exclaimed. "What the devil! Come in here!"</p> + +<p>It was one of the Cain's house boys. He came in, chattering, but not +from cold. His coffee-colored face had a green cast with its pallor. He +was frightened almost beyond speech.</p> + +<p>"What the devil!"</p> + +<p>Dan shook the boy with annoyance. Hulda stood apart, staring, and +a nameless fear was on her; an unreasonable shudder as though this +thing—in its outward aspect the mere fright of a native boy, which +probably meant nothing important—were something gruesome, horrible, +unutterably frightening.</p> + +<p>"Ramon—" Dan shook him again, and the boy suddenly poured out a flood +of Spanish; broken, incoherent—Hulda could not understand it. She saw +Dan's face grow grave, and then he laughed. But it struck Hulda then +that the incredulous laugh had a note of fear in it.</p> + +<p>"Ramon, <i>que dice</i>?" The boy understood English. Dan added, "Don't be a +fool, Ramon! Tell me—"</p> + +<p>Hulda gasped, "What—what is it, Dan?"</p> + +<p>He swung on her, and as he saw her face, the solemn fear in her dark +eyes, his laugh faded.</p> + +<p>"Hulda, he says he was riding home from a fiesta over at the Rolf +plantation in Factor. Coming back—you know the hills back there where +the bat caves are—what we call our Eden tract? He saw something—a +woman like a ghost, he says—a woman's figure that jumped—it's out +there now!"</p> + +<p>Ramon had shrunk against the wall, shuddering; the whites of his black +eyes glistened in the blue glare of the vacuum tube.</p> + +<p>"Ramon, you been drinking?"</p> + +<p>"No! Oh, no—no, señor!"</p> + +<p>"What—else, Dan?"</p> + +<p>Hulda wanted to laugh. It was funny, taking seriously, paying attention +to a native's devil story. Other years, an Americano señor would +laugh derisively at any peon who talked of a ghost he had seen in +the moonlight. But not now; there was an uncanniness in the very air +everywhere in the world this winter.</p> + +<p>The boy was quieter. He told Dan more and Dan soberly translated it. A +thing like a great round silver ball—big as a native shack—glistening +with the moonlight on it as it lay in a coconut grove, a mile from the +Cains' plantation house, near the hills where the bat caves are.</p> + +<p>Ramon's pony had suddenly shied, and then Ramon had seen the gleaming +white thing lying there. And then he had seen a figure—like the white +figure of a woman or a girl—a white girl, with flowing white hair.</p> + +<p>It was quite near him. Standing beside the sloping trunk of a big palm +tree that grew on the hillside. Twenty feet away, perhaps, and ten feet +higher than the trail along which he was riding.</p> + +<p>Ramon was stiff with fear. His pony had halted; it stood with upraised +head and pointing ears. It saw the white woman's motionless figure +and suddenly raised its head with a long shuddering neigh of fear. +The sound must have startled the white woman up there. Ramon saw her +crouch; then she leaped from the hillside.</p> + +<p>His pony bolted. And then he lashed it for home, fearing the thing was +chasing him.</p> + +<p>Dan was very solemn. "That doesn't sound like a ghost tale, Hulda. +Ramon, saddle our ponies. Mine—<i>Parti-blanco</i>—and the señorita's. Not +with the <i>aparejo</i>—with the man's saddle."</p> + +<p>He glanced at Hulda, her trim figure in leather puttees and brown +riding trousers; and her face was now almost as white as her white +blouse.</p> + +<p>She stammered. "You want to go out there—go and see—"</p> + +<p>Ramon whimpered, "Señor, I'm afraid, here at the corral—if it followed +after me."</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Dan strode to the porch. The broad spread of the plantations lay solemn +and still under the cold white moon. The thatched roof of the corral +was dark, with inky black shadows beside the building. The banana trees +arching up over the house waved gently in the night breeze. Everything +was sharply white and black. But there was no sign of any intruder, +human or otherwise.</p> + +<p>"I'll go with you to saddle the ponies, Ramon. We'll go—you want to +go, Hulda?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said. She felt at that moment too frightened to stay in +the house without Dan, and thought of the elder Cains asleep in the +adjoining room never occurred to either of them.</p> + +<p>With sweaters donned against the midnight cold, they saddled the ponies +and started.</p> + +<p>Dan rode ahead, with Hulda almost beside him, and Ramon, his pony +reluctant as himself, following after them. It was a brief ride, during +which they hardly spoke. Down the knoll, past the silent garage; past +the somnolent group of shacks of the plantation workers.</p> + +<p>The road was narrow—white sand like a trail; coconut trees arched it +in places, and beside it spread the tracts of fruit trees. It wound +back toward a low-lying range of hills and up a steep declivity, where +it turned stony from the rain water which daily washed down it.</p> + +<p>Dan was flinging watchful glances around them. "Don't see anything yet, +Hulda. Do you?" His voice was a cautious half whisper.</p> + +<p>The sure-footed ponies picked their way carefully up the stony trail. +They went through a little ravine and emerged into a small valley, a +plateau almost flat on this higher land. Hills a hundred feet high +fenced it in; its table-like surface of white sand was ruled off with +the dark green lines of fruit trees. It was the Cains' two-hundred acre +"Eden tract." It lay brooding and drowsy under the moon, without a sign +of human movement.</p> + +<p>Dan halted; Ramon's pony came beside him.</p> + +<p>"Where were you when you saw it, Ramon?"</p> + +<p>The boy gestured. He was trembling again. He held his pony forcibly +from wheeling to run back. The other ponies seemed to sense the terror; +they raised their heads; one whimpered; and they were all quivering. +But Dan forced them slowly forward.</p> + +<p>The trail skirted the hills to the left. Above it, halfway up a steep +ascent, three black yawning mouths of the bat-caves showed. Hulda +had often been in them with Dan; a guano deposit in them was used as +fertilizer for the trees. Hulda saw them now, round and black, with the +moonlight on the rocks beside them, fifty feet above the valley.</p> + +<p>Ramon suddenly chattered: "There! You see it? <i>Ave Maria</i>—"</p> + +<p>Off at the edge of the fruit trees, in the shadows of a clump of +coconut palms, a great round thing gleamed. A silver sphere, like a +white ball some twenty feet high, lying there. A broken ball! It was +several hundred feet away, but Hulda could see a black rift in it. A +crack? A doorway!</p> + +<p>She knew it then. Not with conscious reasoning, but she knew then what +all this was to mean. A silver sphere lying there, with a black rift in +it like a doorway. And a small black patch on its side—like a window!</p> + +<p>"Hulda! Look!" Dan's hand went to her arm with a grip that both hurt +and steadied her. The three ponies were standing with braced feet in +the sand. Dan's flung up its head to neigh; but his fist thumped its +head and stilled it.</p> + +<p>And then Hulda saw the figure, as the native boy had seen it half +an hour before. It was standing now near the trail, ahead of them; +standing there between two orange trees; and just as Hulda saw it, the +thing moved over, and stopped in the moonlight on the white trail, +as though to bar their passage. It was not far ahead of them. Hulda +could see it plainly. A white figure. But it did not shimmer; not +ghostly—white only because of the moonlight on it. Uncanny, weird, yet +not gruesome.</p> + +<p>It was the figure of a girl; small, as small as Hulda. A slim, +pink-white girl's body, with flowing draperies which in daylight might +have been sky-blue. Long white hair flowing over pink shoulders.</p> + +<p>Dan's grip on Hulda tightened; then he cast her off and his hand caught +her bridle reins and held her pony firmly. Behind them Ramon and his +pony were thudding away in a panic.</p> + +<p>Dan breathed: "It—she sees us!"</p> + +<p>The girl's arms went slowly up as though with a gesture. It seemed a +gesture not menacing; a gesture of fear perhaps. Pale-white arms, of +delicate human shape. They were bare, but as they slowly raised, the +folds of the drapery clung to them.</p> + +<p>Abruptly Dan called: "Hello, there—"</p> + +<p>The figure did not move further. But the ponies were becoming +unmanageable, Dan exclaimed hastily: "Dismount, Hulda! You'll be thrown +off—I can hold them."</p> + +<p>Hulda and Dan dismounted. But Dan could not hold the ponies. They +jerked away from him. He and Hulda were left standing in the sand of +the trail, gazing after the two terror-stricken little animals as they +galloped away toward home.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Dan remembered later that there came to him then a fleeting wonderment. +Why were these ponies so afraid of this white figure of a girl in the +moonlight? From this distance there seemed nothing about the figure +unduly to frighten an animal. The question was not answered until long +afterward. But there were indeed things about this white shape which +the ponies evidently saw and felt—things which were denied to Hulda's +and Dan's human senses.</p> + +<p>Hulda gasped: "Oh, they've gone!" She stood by Dan, clinging to him. +The white figure in the road was gone also. But in a moment more they +saw it again. Near to them now—not more than thirty feet away. It was +standing off the trail among the fruit trees.</p> + +<p>Dan murmured: "It's human, Hulda. Nothing to be afraid of—see, it's +only a girl. You call to her."</p> + +<p>Hulda's quavering voice floated out: "We see you. Who are you? We're +friends."</p> + +<p>The figure moved again; backward, floating or walking soundlessly but +swiftly, as though with sudden fear.</p> + +<p>"Come on," said Dan. He started briskly forward along the trail, with +Hulda close after him. But within a dozen steps, he stopped. And then, +to both Dan and Hulda came amazement, and the thrill of real fear.</p> + +<p>The figure had been retreating. But the hill was close behind it. +Suddenly it stopped; seemed to gather itself; to crouch; to spring. It +left the ground, and came sailing up into the unobstructed moonlight +above the orange trees. Sailing up in an arc it passed almost directly +over their heads and landed soundlessly in the road behind them!</p> + +<p>As it passed overhead, outlined against the stars, they saw it more +plainly. It seemed a girl of human form, cast in a fashion which might +well have been called beautiful. She poised, not as though flying, but +sailing. Face toward the ground, white hair waving behind her, arms +outstretched, with the folds of her drapery robe opened fan-shape, +fluttering like wings. There was a brief glimpse of her lower limbs, +human of mold with the robe wound by the wind close around them.</p> + +<p>A thing of beauty, had it not been so uncanny. She floated in a sailing +arc as though almost weightless; and with a flip, dropped to the ground +upright upon her feet. A fairy's leap! Soundless, graceful! Romantic, +yet uncanny. A figure of enchantment from the dream of a child.</p> + +<p>[Illustration: A thing of beauty, she floated in a sailing arc against +the star-studded heavens, directly over the heads of the astonished +couple.]</p> + +<p>Dan tried to laugh. Fear seemed incongruous. As he and Hulda turned, +the figure stood again in the trail facing them. And they could see it +was a slim young girl, strangely beautiful, fearful as a fawn at their +approach; yet she lingered, seeming—Dan wondered if his fancy were +playing him tricks—desirous of conquering her fear and encountering +them.</p> + +<p>"Hulda—nothing to be afraid of. Don't move—you'll frighten her!"</p> + +<p>They stood motionless. The white girl in the moonlight down the road +took a step forward. They did not move. She came a little further. +Paused. Then another step. Not floating. Walking—they could see the +outlines of her limbs moving beneath the drapery.</p> + +<p>And now they could see her face. Queer, strange of feature, yet in what +way they could not have said. And certainly beautiful; gentle; anxious, +and afraid. Youthful, a mere girl; and with those flowing waves of +snow-white hair framing her face and falling thick over her pink-white +shoulders.</p> + +<p>She stood, twenty feet away. Dan and Hulda were almost holding their +breaths. Dan murmured: "Speak to her again. Softly—don't frighten her!"</p> + +<p>Hulda said gently: "Can you understand me? We're friends."</p> + +<p>The strange girl stood birdlike, trembling. Hulda repeated: "We're +friends—won't hurt you. Shall we come nearer? Who are you?"</p> + +<p>There was a moment of silence. And then the girl spoke. A soft whisper +of a voice, ethereal as the fairy voice of a child's enchanted fancy; +a wraith of sound, but it carried, and Hulda and Dan heard it plainly.</p> + +<p>"<i>Zetta! Zetta! Zetta!</i>"</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</h2> +</div> + +<h3>THE CROWNING TERROR</h3> + + +<p>There was so much happening everywhere in the world during those +fateful weeks that followed February 10, 1953—events so startling, +amazing, so stupendous of import, and of such diversity that I scarce +know how to recount them. Of necessity my mention of many must be +brief; and my picture of the whole, I fear, will be at best incoherent.</p> + +<p>Yet in that quality, at least, it will be a true picture; the world +was incoherent, chaotic—everywhere a chaos of events unprecedented, +uncontrollable. And in the chaos which swept Freddie and me away, the +news from Dan Cain in Porto Rico, important though it was, at the time +concerned us little.</p> + +<p>Father was in constant communication with the Cains; and later, after +father had gone to Miami when the Federal capital was moved there in +flight from Washington, he went to Porto Rico.</p> + +<p>The announcement that our world was to have such different days and +nights, and a climate so utterly changed, struck the public with horror.</p> + +<p>It is not my purpose to try to detail or to picture it. The chaos +everywhere; the paralyzation of industry throughout the northern +hemisphere which so far had been proceeding by man's will against all +the invading efforts of nature to wreck it; the panics that took place +in all the northern cities—crowds of refugees struggling to get south; +inadequate transportation; accidents; and a horrible crime-wave that +swept unchecked over every one of the large population centers.</p> + +<p>Human activities in our modern world are very widely diversified; more +widely varied—and yet more intermingled, more interdependent—than any +one realizes until there comes an upset from the normal.</p> + +<p>There is, in these modern times, nothing that anyone does which does +not almost immediately affect what some one else is doing. Had the +change come slowly, spread over a hundred, or a thousand or a hundred +thousand years as other great world changes have come and passed, +conditions would have adjusted themselves. No one would even have +noticed the change.</p> + +<p>But this was happening in minutes where others had taken centuries. +New York, London, Paris and all the cities of the north were doomed +to six months of twilight and night and blighting cold. Snow now was +upon land, millions of acres of land, where crops soon would have been +growing if millions of people were to have food. Yet now we know those +millions of acres would be for months snow-buried.</p> + +<p>Millions of homes soon would be without adequate heat or light; and the +people without adequate clothing. Rivers upon which the great power +plants depended were congealing into ice.</p> + +<p>This for the north, with business, industry and nearly every human +activity paralyzed by the sudden public horror. But in the south, from +the Equator to the South Pole, lay the land of promise. Or at least the +public thought so.</p> + +<p>Life lay there; life and the promise of food and warmth and the blessed +sunlight. For in the far Antarctic south, with the new light and heat +coming, millions upon millions of acres of land would be springing into +a new fertility to replace what the north had lost. But this, too, was +a fallacy; for after a few months, the pendulum would swing back; the +far south would go into night and cold.</p> + +<p>Many hundred million people, suddenly giving up all their accustomed +work in the world's activities and trying to move to another region! +A migration greater than the sum total of all others in the world's +history. In a hundred years of systematic, careful planning and +execution it might have been accomplished without disaster. But now it +was a panic, a chaos, a flight, with distracted governments trying to +cope with it, impotent to bring even a semblance of order.</p> + +<p>Our office of the Amalgamated Broadcasters was maintained in New +York City until well along in February. With government affiliation, +we broadcasted only what might be of help to the public; news of +conditions, generally censored to allay too great a fear; advice as to +what to do; information concerning transportation, and news from the +south. In this work, Freddie now joined me. There were days—almost +dark now except for a brief time before and after midday—when he and +I were in our cold office, one or the other of us at the microphone +throughout the twenty-four hours.</p> + +<p>It was an office of incoherent men and disorganized service; without +light, some of the time; with frozen and burst heating pipes and no +one to repair them. We sat bundled in our overcoats, with snow piling +against the windows.</p> + +<p>News came of crowds surging in the dark, snow-piled streets; food +giving out, with paralyzed transportation; news of raids by the public +upon all the markets; news of people trampled to death hourly at every +steamship dock, every bridge leading out of the city; uncontrollable +crowds at the tunnels, the railroad and plane terminals.</p> + +<p>State troopers vainly patrolled streets made almost impassable by +snow which now could not be cleared away; people froze in the cold +with which they were not equipped to cope; crime was everywhere, with +criminals, like ghouls, battening on the tragedy.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>In those terrible days there were few concerned with astronomy. Yet I +recall that one of my orders was to detail—for such as might still be +listening—a simple version of how, astronomically, all this was coming +to pass.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," I broadcasted, "when we know the fundamentals of this +change—the scientific reasons for it—the thing may hold less terror +for us."</p> + +<p>Useless words! Nothing could mitigate the terror!</p> + +<p>"You all know in a general way," I went on, "the astronomical reasons +for our alternating day and night—our succession of seasons, spring, +summer, autumn and winter. Yet if you follow me closely now, and +picture what I tell you, the subject will be clearer to your mind, and +you will understand the change which is now upon us. Some of you, our +government has advised, should remain in the north and withstand the +rigors of the new climate. New York City will not be abandoned! That +is absurd! It is the sudden change, the upset to our normal routine, +which has now caused suffering.</p> + +<p>"When we are equipped for the new conditions, New York and other cities +in its latitude will be perfectly habitable. We will have winter nights +several months long, and an arctic cold. Then spring, and a summer +with the sun giving us months of unending daylight. Those must be our +productive months—we must grow food then, to supply the southern +hemisphere, just as in the other months they must grow food down there.</p> + +<p>"Do not be too hasty! We cannot all—every one on earth—rush at +once to the Equator! Even there at times it will be too hot, and a +twilight winter fairly cold. Cold enough, a month or two from now, to +disorganize everything.</p> + +<p>"It is your panic—your haste—which is our greatest danger. Be calm! +Meet the conditions as they are. Help our government to maintain order, +here in the north. The world's work must be done—the new conditions +must be coped with sanely. We are not in desperate distress; only +through panic can real disaster come!"</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>These were our broadcasted words of government appeal. And then I +went on: "There is no need for panic. We want you to understand the +astronomical reasons for our new climate. I want you to imagine +yourself standing before your round, empty dining room table. Conceive +that the room is dark and that you have placed, almost in the center of +the table, a circular vacuum globe of yellow light. That represents the +sun.</p> + +<p>"Take now an orange, and through its center put a lead pencil. The +orange is the earth. By holding in your fingers the ends of the lead +pencil, you can rotate the orange. The lead pencil then represents the +axis of the earth.</p> + +<p>"Can you picture yourself in your darkened room under these conditions? +As you stand facing the round table with the light near its center, you +hold the orange on its lead pencil to the right of you near the edge +of the table. You hold the lead pencil vertical; its point, standing +directly up to the ceiling would be then our North Pole; its eraser, +pressed against the table edge, would be our South Pole.</p> + +<p>"You will find now that the light from your 'sun' illuminates about +half the orange—the half which faces toward the sun. The orange is +lighted from the North Pole to the South Pole—on the sunward side. The +other side is in shadow.</p> + +<p>"Now, rotate the orange, holding the pencil exactly upright. You will +see that the moving surface brings its shadowed side into the sunlight. +This rotation gives us our alternating night and day.</p> + +<p>"Still holding the pencil upright, begin now slowly carrying it with +the orange around the edge of the table. You will realize, if you +think for a moment, that, <i>with the pencil held exactly vertical</i>, it +makes no difference whether the orange is on one side of the table or +the other. The sunlight on its surface is exactly the same in every +position around the table. Under this condition, therefore, we would +have uniformly alternating days and nights of equal length; and <i>no +change of season</i>. You can see the most intense light would always be +at the equator, and the least intense, down to perpetual twilight, at +the Poles. Thus it would always be midsummer at the equator, temperate +to the north and south equally, and winter equally and always at both +Poles.</p> + +<p>"But this, of course, was not our condition. The axis of our earth +was not vertically upright, as I have asked you first to picture it. +Conceive now that you hold the orange and pencil again to your right at +the table edge. Instead now of having the pencil point directly upward, +slant it off <i>to the right</i>—<i>away from the sun</i>—toward the edge of +your ceiling where it joins the wall, for instance. To be more exact, +you are to tilt it over until it is about one-quarter of the way to a +horizontal position. Mathematically, this is twenty-three and a half +degrees from the vertical.</p> + +<p>"The top of the pencil—the North Pole—is now tilted away from the +sun—the bottom is tilted toward the sun. You will realize now that the +sunlit half of the orange is not from Pole to Pole. The light extends +beyond and around the South Pole to the other side—and the light <i>does +not reach the North Pole at all</i>.</p> + +<p>"Rotate the orange with the pencil held at that tilted angle. There are +points at and near the South Pole which do not leave the light; and +points at and near the North Pole are always dark. That is our <i>normal</i> +condition in December. In the northern hemisphere we call it winter; in +the southern hemisphere they call it summer.</p> + +<p>"Now move your orange around the edge of the table, halfway around +until you are on the other side. If you have kept the pencil tilted at +that same angle toward your ceiling corner, you will find now that its +top is pointing <i>toward the sun</i>. All the conditions on the orange's +surface are reversed. That is June; summer in the North, winter in the +South.</p> + +<p>"Those days are gone. We are now faced with an axis change—disastrous +only because it is changing so quickly. And I want you to know just +exactly what the change is. Conceive again your orange at the right +hand of the table, with the pencil point tilted away from the sun at +that twenty-three and one-half degree angle. We were like that last +December. But since then a new world has come into the solar system. +Its coming has disturbed the old order of things with us. The eraser of +that lead pencil—our South Pole—is moving up further toward the sun!</p> + +<p>"Take the orange a short distance along the table edge, and tilt the +pencil still further. That is where we are now, in February! Don't you +realize that more of our southern hemisphere is now in the constant +light, and more of the northern in the constant darkness? And now, tilt +the lead pencil further until it is horizontal to the table.</p> + +<p>"The eraser—the South Pole—points directly to the sun! That is the +position we will reach next April. Rotate the orange, holding the +pencil level. You will see that the light remains on the southern half +of the orange, and the northern half remains dark! On April 5, we will +have no day and night!</p> + +<p>"Six months later the earth will be halfway around its orbit. The axis +will remain in that new fixed position. The reverse condition then will +exist. Our North Pole will point to the sun! Light and heat in the +North! Darkness and cold in the South! So do not be too hasty in trying +to get away! These next few months will be bad, but after that we will +learn how to weather them. We cannot all live on the equator! Stay +where you are and help us fight it through!"</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Futile words! But it was the panic of flight—the attempted rush of +so many millions of people—the disorganization of all those myriad +activities upon which life depends—which was our greatest danger.</p> + +<p>Futile words! Impotent governments, themselves disingenuous, for they +were all preparing for hasty flight to warmer, more equable regions! +On February 22 the National Capital of the United States was moved +from Washington, District of Columbia, to temporary housing in Miami, +Florida. And even there, the great Florida city was disorganized, +snow-covered, with very nearly zero temperature.</p> + +<p>The deaths throughout the northern hemisphere that February of 1953 +will never be counted. A million? Many millions—I would hesitate to +guess.</p> + +<p>There were some nine million people within the limits of Greater New +York on Christmas. By mid-February I suppose there were no more than a +scant fifty thousand left—and these, most of them, were trying to get +away. A dark, almost deserted, buried city—buried in a white shroud +which mercifully hid its tragedy.</p> + +<p>I caught one last glimpse of the sun—the one clear day; the sun at +noon just creeping above the southern horizon and then plunging back. +The Arctic night was on us.</p> + +<p>I saw the roads between New York and Washington—the great highways for +the through auto traffic. Refugees were trudging along them on foot, +carrying lights in the darkness. Plunging through the snow; walking +blindly southward when they could go no other way. Falling by the +roadside; all the traffic lines were littered with frozen bodies, soon +hidden by the snow.</p> + +<p>We were not in Washington long; soon we were ordered to Miami. There +was a gray twilight there, which, with the buildings arranged for +temporary heating, were at least tolerable. And here we set up our +headquarters. The first of March came. Father was in Porto Rico. I +knew, by then, what strange things were transpiring there in the Cains' +plantation house.</p> + +<p>I knew, too, what the astronomers—gathered now at Quito, Ecuador, +as the best place in the Western World for twilight observation—had +discovered.</p> + +<p>Xenephrene was inhabited!</p> + +<p>Father was convinced of it the day after that momentous February 10. +But the news—and the news from the secluded little plantation house +of the Cains—was withheld from the public. But on March 2, everything +was disclosed. For our distracted world one culminating blow remained. +As though all that had gone before were not enough, fate held one +crowning terror.</p> + +<p>On March 2 it was broadcast that a hostile race of people in human form +had come from Xenephrene and landed on the earth! Invaders from this +brand new world! Landed two days before, north of New York; and now +were moving south upon the city!</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</h2> +</div> + +<h3>ZETTA</h3> + + +<p>That midnight of February 10th, Hulda and Dan stood on the small +Porto Rican trail, facing at a brief distance the white girl in the +moonlight. She answered Hulda's call; in a queerly small voice her +words came to them:</p> + +<p>"<i>Zetta! Zetta! Zetta!</i>"</p> + +<p>There was a brief silence. Dan murmured, "Let's go nearer."</p> + +<p>Slowly, carefully, they advanced; fearful of again frightening her. But +this time she did not move. She stood watchful, trembling slightly, +but held her ground. And presently they were confronting her. She +was shorter even than Hulda; very slim and frail. A young girl just +reaching maturity. A rose, not yet full-blown. The thought occurred to +Dan. But the comparison was wrong. Not a rose, for this was a flower of +young womanhood of a species no one of earth could name.</p> + +<p>She seemed, aside from her snow-white hair, no more than a strangely +beautiful girl of earth. But to both Dan and Hulda came again, more +strongly than before, the feeling of her strangeness. There was +something singularly unusual in her aspect. And this they both recall +clearly; as they stood there for a silent instant confronting her, both +were conscious of sensations indescribable, as though they were feeling +something within themselves—something vague, elusive—something +no mortal of Earth had ever felt before. And, perhaps, hearing +something—so faint, so ethereal they could not define it—faint as +though it were sound heard not by their ears, but by their minds.</p> + +<p>And they saw something, too, which perhaps no mortal eyes had ever seen +before. An aura, a dim, very faint red radiance shone around the three +of them as they stood there together in the moonlight. Hulda and Dan +remembered it was something like that.</p> + +<p>They stood for a moment, stricken with wonder at their sensations; and +perhaps the strange girl was less timorous as she saw their attitude +of awe. She stared up into Dan's face, and smiled. Queerly wistful; +trusting. A gentle little creature! And he stared down into her dark +eyes and found them shimmering pools of iridescence. Then again she +spoke, other words in a strange, liquid tongue, soft, with curiously +clipped, intoned syllables.</p> + +<p>Dan shook his head. "We can't understand you. Can you understand us?" +He smiled; and Hulda smiled.</p> + +<p>"She's not afraid of us," said Dan. The girl was waving a hand with +what they knew was a gesture of negation. She could not understand +their language; and when Dan tried Spanish—realizing it was futile; +and tried his imperfect French—her gesture continued.</p> + +<p>He tried again. "Dan! Dan! Dan!" he said, and struck his chest. And +Hulda indicated herself with "Hulda! Hulda!"</p> + +<p>The girl's eager face brightened. They had established communication; +the first communication between Xenephrene and our earth!</p> + +<p>The girl cried, "Zetta, Zetta," and laid her hand on her breast.</p> + +<p>It was the first communication between the worlds. What dire events, +tragedies, amazing things to transpire before the last communication +was over!</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>It is not my purpose, and again, I have no space in which to narrate +all the details of these days. The girl was persuaded to follow Dan +and Hulda, and through all that February she lived with the Cains in +the plantation house, guarded and kept hidden, though the news of her +presence could not be entirely concealed.</p> + +<p>The silver ball in the coconut grove was a vehicle in which, by +some method unknown to earth, this girl—this Zetta, as she called +herself—had come from her world, to ours. And she had not come alone. +A man had come with her—he seemed to be of middle age. He lay dead +near the vehicle. Perhaps the victim of an accident; or perhaps the +girl had killed him.</p> + +<p>There was no one, as yet, to say. Zetta could not, apparently, +understand any earth language; and her language sounded hopeless to +fathom. She seemed intelligent, docile, willing and anxious to be kept +with the Cains; eager, it seemed at first, to be in the room with +them—to hear them talk. But after that first night, she did not speak +again; and they thought she had fallen into a sullen silence.</p> + +<p>There is so much I have to tell! Astronomers at Quito had seen this +silver vehicle enter the earth's atmosphere that night of February +10th; and had seen another, infinitely larger, which they believed had +started from the surface of Xenephrene.</p> + +<p>Dan notified father of his strange visitor, of course. Father sent +instructions. The authorities of Porto Rico buried the man's body, +and set a guard to watch constantly over the vehicle as it lay in the +grove. Scientists came to inspect it, and could understand but vaguely +its mechanism.</p> + +<p>Two weeks passed. Father was in Miami then; and near the end of +February he started by government plane for Porto Rico.</p> + +<p>Conditions all over the world were far worse now. We only had a vague +picture; the radio and television were operating intermittently—but +all the regular channels for the dissemination of news were paralyzed. +And, too, the governments withheld, or distorted to a less terrible +aspect such reports as were available.</p> + +<p>Europe was enveloped in snow to the Mediterranean; the Barbary coast +was jammed with refugees. London and Paris, like New York, were +threatened with complete abandonment.</p> + +<p>In Canada, they said—like Scandinavia, north Interior Europe and Asia +of the far north—there was less panic, less disaster. These people +were accustomed to intense cold and equipped to withstand it.</p> + +<p>In the Canadian rural district, the farmers shut themselves up with +their winter fundamentals of food as had been their custom, and were +said to be making out fairly well. But the big centers of population, +dependent upon transportation and industry, were devastated. Greater +Montreal was abandoned in February.</p> + +<p>Transportation everywhere in the United States was kept partially open, +but only by efforts born of the frantic desperation of necessity. +The new Arctic airplanes, recently developed, were being hastily +manufactured in quantity, in government plants established in Florida +and Southern California, and were as hastily put into service to bear +the people southward. The railroads of our northern States kept open +for a while with snow plows loaned by the great Canadian trunk lines +which had long since succumbed.</p> + +<p>Steamship service along the Atlantic Coast ventured no farther north +than Charleston, South Carolina. The North Atlantic was filled with +ice floes driven south by the constant storms; the Polar ice field was +reported now as extending nearly down to the former New York-Liverpool +steamship lanes.</p> + +<p>The St. Lawrence River was frozen solid, from Montreal past Quebec and +down to its mouth, before Christmas. In January the middle Mississippi +was solid with an ice bridge which one day broke and swept away three +railroad bridges. The Hudson, from Troy to New York harbor, was solid +by mid-February. Within a week after that even the Savannah River +became impassable, and the port closed.</p> + +<p>Yet, for all that, by whatever desperate expedient possible, the +people were being transported south, and were cared for in their new +locations, in the best fashion that could be managed.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>What formerly had been our tropic zone was thronged with new arrivals. +Daily they poured in from the north. And from the far south, as +well—in spite of government's pleadings and commands to the contrary; +from Buenos Aires, Rio, Santiago, people were striving to get north, +nearer the equator, fearful of this new heat and blazing daylight which +was coming upon them.</p> + +<p>Nor was it only a disturbance of the world's normal temperatures. With +the abnormal climate came other inevitable disturbances. From widely +divergent localities, devastating windstorms were reported. A typhoon, +wholly out of season, swept the China Sea. A hurricane in Central +America. From Peru and Chile they told of heavy rains flooding the arid +coast. Rain fell at Biskra with torrential rainstorms sweeping up and +across the Sahara.</p> + +<p>I had been saying that father, near the end of February, went to +Porto Rico. The two weeks previous to his arrival there were weeks of +amazement growing daily into awe as Dan and Hulda were brought into +closer contact with their beautiful, unearthly visitor.</p> + +<p>It came upon them gradually, the strangeness, weirdness of this girl +so like themselves at first glance, yet obviously a being wholly +different. They treated her as a visiting guest, though in reality +she was a captive. Upon father's advice—for he guessed, at least +partially, what the outcome was to be—the Cains were content to do +nothing with Zetta save to have her live with them in seclusion; and to +make her comfortable.</p> + +<p>That she was extremely intelligent, Dan saw at once. She evidently +realized that they were wholly friendly. Whatever her purpose, living +there with them seemed all she desired.</p> + +<p>She had her own room, next to Hulda's. She seemed to appreciate Hulda's +efforts for her comfort. She ate with the family, making whimsical +faces at the food which she obviously disliked at first. For the rest, +she seemed content to sit in the living room, watching them, listening +to them talk.</p> + +<p>To Dan, her constant presence was at once fascinating and disturbing. +Fascinating, for Zetta's beauty was queerly magnetic, but disturbing, +too, for there was about this girl always that uncanniness indefinable. +For hours she would sit in the living room, apart from the family +group. She did not like the chairs, preferring to sit crosslegged on +the floor, on a cushion. She was very silent, although she would answer +when spoken to, with a smile or a strange, friendly gesture, and with +her eyes following each person who spoke.</p> + +<p>Her complexion was the creamy, pink white which we of earth call +beauty. She blushed, or flushed, readily. For no apparent reason a +wave of rose color would suffuse her face, throat and neck. It even +extended sometimes to her arms, and to her legs as they showed amid +her half-revealing drapery—the smooth white of her skin flushing with +deep rose color. For no reason; and then Dan noticed that it generally +happened when the outer door was opened and a rush of cold air swept +in. Nature automatically protecting against the cold!</p> + +<p>Dan often would furtively watch her. He was sitting in a far corner of +the room one evening; the elder Cains and Hulda were gathered about the +radio.</p> + +<p>The small, clear voice of the announcer was giving a summary of the +world's tragic news, this middle of February; on the small television +screen which the Miami Central Office was connecting with various +localities to illustrate his words, vague, fleeting pictures were +mirrored.</p> + +<p>Zetta was seated on the floor, in an opposite corner from Dan. He saw +that she was not listening to the radio. But she was listening to +something! Her head was tilted alert; across her face a succession of +her emotions was mirrored—a frown; whimsical pleasure; a smile.</p> + +<p>She was listening; and Dan realized suddenly that she was hearing +things he could not hear! A world of things, perhaps; something +displeased her, she gestured disapprovingly; and then smiled again.</p> + +<p>Uncanny! She was wholly absorbed, unaware that Dan was watching. +Hearing things no mortal of earth could hear! Like a dog, Dan thought, +which hears faint sounds denied its master. But Dan knew it was more +than that.</p> + +<p>And then his heart leaped. Zetta was seeing something he could not see! +Something in the room. Her eyes followed it, as evidently it moved. She +turned her head to gaze after it; she smiled, with breathless parted +lips, then laughed.</p> + +<p>Was she, perhaps, irrational? Conjuring visions in an unbalanced mind? +The explanation occurred to Dan, but he did not believe it was so. +Rather, it seemed to him, this girl's perceptions were more acute than +ours.</p> + +<p>She saw and heard things beyond the range of our human senses. Here on +earth they were things strange to her. She was listening and watching +them; surprised, often pleased, as one with normal senses gazes upon +new sights and finds them interesting.</p> + +<p>Dan found opportunity to regard the girl more closely. Her eyes, when +she looked at him, seemed normal. But at other times he saw that her +pupils became suddenly abnormally large; or again, contracted to +pin points, even in the dimness of indoors. At once, a dark veil—a +film—seemed to creep over the eyeball; but she became aware of the +scrutiny, and it was gone before Dan could make sure.</p> + +<p>Her ears, in outward shape a trifle rounder than ours, were generally +hidden—pink shells in the waving mass of her white hair. Dan fancied +that they moved at her will—that sometimes they expanded.</p> + +<p>Her fingers, and her toes, were long, slim and tapering, with +pink-white, pointed nails. The joints were more numerous than with us; +it gave them a prehensile aspect; and Dan fancied, too, that the arch +of the bottom of her foot was cup-shaped as though it might serve as a +vacuum for walking upon inclined surfaces.</p> + +<p>Father had told Dan that Zetta probably was from Xenephrene. But no +one could be sure. An idea occurred to Dan, and a few days later, just +before dawn, he and Hulda tried it. Xenephrene, on clear days, was +visible just before sunrise. The weather, here in Porto Rico now, was +generally below freezing. Once it had snowed. The Cains' fruit groves +were killed; but with all the world's catastrophe for comparison, Dan +and his father thought little of it. The Porto Rican day now was but +two hours long. The sun made a low arc in the south, descending within +two hours, not very much to the west of where it had risen.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>It was mid morning when in the darkness before dawn, Hulda and Dan with +Zetta stood outside the plantation house. To the south Xenephrene would +soon rise.</p> + +<p>"Do you think she'll recognize it?" Hulda asked.</p> + +<p>Dan smiled; how could one guess? Zetta stood between them, puzzled, +looking first at one, then the other. She had walked out with them +quietly. She always walked quietly, carefully, as though trying to +imitate their own slow steps. And though Dan, with gestures, had often +tried to make her leap into the air, she never would.</p> + +<p>It was cold, this mid morning before dawn; Dan and Hulda were dressed +in heavy, northern garments. Zetta wore the filmy robe in which they +had first seen her. She seemed to prefer her own garments, a number of +which had been brought from the vehicle, and installed with her at the +Cains'. To the cold she was utterly oblivious; the cold of outdoors, or +the warmth inside—she seemed not aware of the difference.</p> + +<p>They stood on the knoll. The sky to the southward was brightening. +The stars there moved in a low arc. Then Xenephrene came up. Blazing, +purple-white star.</p> + +<p>"Look!" said Dan. "Zetta, look! We call that Xenephrene. Can't you +understand me? Do you recognize that star? Your world? Did you come +from there?"</p> + +<p>At sight of the great purple star, a queer emotion swept her face. Dan +pleaded: "Zetta, haven't you learned anything of our language? We call +that Xenephrene. Your world? You came from there? Speak, Zetta!"</p> + +<p>She said slowly in English, with an accent quaint and indescribable: +"Yes. My worl'—I came from there."</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>"But what's the matter with you, Hulda?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing."</p> + +<p>"But there is!"</p> + +<p>"Not at all, Dan. Why do you say that?"</p> + +<p>"But there is! You're angry, or hurt. At me? What have I done?"</p> + +<p>"Nonsense. You haven't done—" She stopped; and he saw that her eyes +were filled with sudden tears; she tried to protest, but the words +would not come.</p> + +<p>They were sitting alone late one evening in the Cains' living room. Dan +had noticed that for some days Hulda was abnormally quiet, and she no +longer treated him with her usual comradeship. A reserve had come to +her. And now, when he asked her why, she burst into tears!</p> + +<p>She sobbed openly; he tried to put his arm around her, but she pushed +him away.</p> + +<p>"Hulda!" A light broke on Dan. "It's Zetta—why, you silly little +girl—"</p> + +<p>"You were—were kissing her this morning!"</p> + +<p>"I was <i>not</i>! Nonsense!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I s-saw you, with her in your arms, l-lifting her up—"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Lifting her up. But not kissing her. But I'm kissing <i>you</i>! +Now—like that! And <i>that</i>—Hulda, darling—"</p> + +<p>It is not my part to reconstruct the scene that followed between them, +although both have described the wonder of it all to all of the family +who would listen—wonder and awe at the voicing of love which all of +us knew they had felt for a year or two. They were engaged when ten +minutes later they thumped on the elder Cains' door to tell them the +wonderful news.</p> + +<p>Dan maintained that to Zetta he owed a great debt of gratitude; for +without Hulda's jealousy of Zetta, Dan says he might have been too +stupid ever to propose. The episode with Zetta was simple enough; Dan +explained it readily to Hulda's entire satisfaction.</p> + +<p>He had been alone with Zetta that morning, trying to make her talk more +of our language, which now he knew that she was learning. With a mind +wholly different from ours—this Dan now realized—she undoubtedly was +learning with extraordinary rapidity. But, quite evidently, she had her +own method. She would not speak again; but when he began naming objects +in the room, trying to aid her by systematic teaching, she showed +approval and listened attentively.</p> + +<p>During the course of this lesson, Dan had touched her. He laid his hand +on her arm. Curious sensation! He felt at once, not a lack of solidity, +but a seeming lack of weight. She had risen to her feet as though +startled by his touch. He stood, from his much greater height looking +down at her. Still holding her arm.</p> + +<p>And this Dan confessed to me, but most assuredly he did not confess it +to Hulda. As he stood here, staring into the glowing dark depths of +Zetta's eyes, it occurred to him that he should release her. But he +did not. Instead, he caught her in his arms. Lifted her up. Not, to be +wholly truthful, because scientifically he wanted to test her weight. +Rather was it because, at touching her, an instant of madness swept him.</p> + +<p>It passed. She was pushing him away, smiling, startled, but unafraid. +And, with the madness gone, he tossed her into the air as one would +toss a child. Caught her; tossed her again to the ceiling and let her +fall, to land lightly on tiptoe as her feet came down to the straw +matting of the floor. And in the doorway, he became aware that Hulda +was standing, silently watching them.</p> + +<p>When father arrived at the Cains' he weighed Zetta. Had she been a +normal girl of earth, by her appearance she would have weighed some +ninety or a hundred pounds. Zetta weighed eighteen pounds!</p> + +<p>There were several scientists in Porto Rico who, at father's +invitation, came to see Zetta. They were with her hours each day. Dan +and Hulda were excluded. Father's manner, Dan said, was very solemn, +and he seemed to be laboring under a suppressed excitement. Then came +the news of March 2, that invaders from Xenephrene had landed on the +earth near New York. The scientists at the Cains' house hastened to San +Juan, but father remained.</p> + +<p>One afternoon—it was the afternoon of March 4—Hulda and Dan listened +at the door when father was with Zetta. She was talking to him now! +Talking in low, slow tones; haltingly, and often he would question and +prompt her. Abruptly he rose to his feet and came out.</p> + +<p>"Hulda! Dan, where are your father and mother?"</p> + +<p>Dan called them; they came hustling in. The excitement of these days +was too much for the elder Cains; they lived in a constant confusion +and bewilderment.</p> + +<p>"Sit down, all of you," father commanded. "Zetta—come out here, child."</p> + +<p>She came at his call, wide-eyed, gentle; but she, too, was trembling +with excitement. Father seated her gently on a cushion. He said:</p> + +<p>"Our earth lashed into turmoil by this extraordinary change of climate, +is far worse off than that. These invaders—well, what Zetta has to say +will at least give us information—aid us in doing what we can to repel +them! It is a bad condition—it may prove serious—possibly complete +disaster!"</p> + +<p>He regarded Zetta with a gentle tenderness. "This girl has come from +her world to help us. Yes, she has learned our language, with what +strange qualities of mind, and senses so different from ours you will +be amazed to hear. A very gentle little creature. I think all of you +have grown to love her—she says you have been very kind to her, and +she loves you very much, particularly Hulda."</p> + +<p>It struck Hulda with a guilty pang, hearing this after her own jealousy +of Zetta; for Hulda was no more than human, and there had been days +when secretly she hotly resented the strange and beautiful girl's +presence in the house with Dan. But that was over. Hulda exclaimed +impulsively, "I do love her!"</p> + +<p>The two girls' glances met affectionately. "Yes," Zetta said suddenly. +"We do love ver' much."</p> + +<p>Father went on: "She is here—came here to help us. All this time, in +her own way, she has been striving to learn our language that she might +tell us. She has told me everything. Zetta, tell them—just what you +told me—"</p> + +<p>Father stopped his nervous pacing and sat down abruptly. And without +preface, quietly, sometimes haltingly, in her strangely small voice and +curiously clipped syllables, Zetta began her amazing narrative.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</h2> +</div> + +<h3>CRIMSON SOUND!</h3> + + +<p>On the afternoon of March 3, Freddie and I, in Miami, were summoned +by the War Department, which was installed here in temporary quarters +after the flight from Washington. We were greeted by the secretary, who +introduced us to a dozen or more grave-faced officials who were seated +around a large table in a cold, badly illuminated room. They were under +the impression that I had recently been to Porto Rico with my father; +they wanted further details from me, as an eyewitness, to supplement +the information which had been furnished them concerning the captive +girl from Xenephrene.</p> + +<p>I had not been to Porto Rico; I could tell them nothing, but I remained +at the conference with Freddie. Of him, they wanted a demonstration of +his invention. The War Secretary laughed, but it was a very hollow, +mirthless laugh.</p> + +<p>"You see, young man, we are almost in the position of grasping at +straws."</p> + +<p>By the general public, who reads of war conferences and grave official +decisions given with calm dignity in times of national crisis, the +inner workings of a government are never understood. The people +naturally picture men of great intellect, calmly, judicially weighing +problems of international law, and quietly giving their decisions, +as though the whole matter were controlled by some giant, insensate +machine of precision, incapable of error, undisturbed by human feeling.</p> + +<p>It is not so. Or, at least, I can vouch for the fact that in the +darkness of this afternoon of March 3, 1953, in the United States War +Department at Miami, it most certainly was not so.</p> + +<p>These gray-haired men were very human. Most were unshaved, with rumpled +hair and reddened eyes. Distraught, harassed; undecided; doubtful of +everything; striving to do the best they could, with the welfare of +millions of their people at stake. Conditions of unprecedented disaster +had for weeks assailed them. Under this culminating blow—invaders from +another world landing to attack what was once our greatest city—they +were all but broken.</p> + +<p>Very human indeed! The Secretary of the Navy sat savagely chewing on +the stump of an old cigar, blowing on his hands, cursing the cold +intervals. The Air Secretary was pouring hot coffee at the end of the +table, shoving a litter of papers out of his way to make room for the +cups. The stooped, middle-aged, haggard gentleman pacing the floor was +our President.</p> + +<p>"Grasping at a straw," said the War Secretary.</p> + +<p>In a sudden silence, through an open doorway to the room adjoining, I +could hear the clatter of the southern telegraphs, telephone bells, the +hiss and splutter of the radio and television instruments.</p> + +<p>"Close that door," the secretary added querulously. "You've brought +your model, Smith? Put it here on the table—tell us about it."</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Freddie opened his apparatus and explained it briefly. His so-called +thermodyne principle. Though ultimately he had hoped to adapt it into +a motor of revolutionary design, his present model was merely a small +projector.</p> + +<p>"Projector of what?" demanded the President irritably.</p> + +<p>"Of heat, sir," Freddie answered. "I'll show you. This is a very small +model, of course, but it demonstrates the principle."</p> + +<p>They did not want any technicalities from Freddie. He explained only +that his apparatus, in this present small form, took a tiny electric +spark and built it up into a new form of radiant heat.</p> + +<p>"It is," said Freddie, "heat of totally different properties from +the kind with which we commonly deal. It travels—radiates, by the +diffusion of its electrons, more like light than heat. At a great +speed—I think possibly, at over a hundred thousand miles a second."</p> + +<p>He opened his apparatus. It consisted of a small, flat, metallic box, +curved to fit a man's chest. A disk, like a small electrode, to be +pressed against the skin. Freddie bared his chest and strapped it on.</p> + +<p>"I use," he said, "the tiny electrical impulse which the human body +itself furnishes. This, I amplify, build up and store in a battery." +Wires from the generator led to a small box which he opened to show +his audience—a box of coils, and a tiny row of amplifying tubes. He +put this in his pocket, with wires leading to the battery and the +projector. These were both in one piece—the projector a small metallic +funnel, with a trigger; a grid of wires was across its opened end; it +had a long metallic handle, in the hollow interior of which was the +battery where the charge was concentrated.</p> + +<p>"Electrons of heat under pressure," said Freddie.</p> + +<p>"Show us," said some one.</p> + +<p>Freddie erected a screen across the room—an insulating screen to kill +the heat-beam so that it could not injure the wall. The men moved aside.</p> + +<p>Freddie, after a moment to generate and concentrate the charge, raised +the muzzle.</p> + +<p>The thing hissed slightly; a dull violet beam sprang like light from +the projector. It struck the screen some twenty feet away, in a large +circle of fluorescence; in the dimness of the room it seemed like +phosphorescent water, landing in a spray and dissipating as it struck, +like a dissolving mist.</p> + +<p>Freddie cried, "Peter, hold something in it!"</p> + +<p>I took a sheet of paper, held it carefully into the beam. It shriveled, +blackened and burst into flame. Then a lead pencil—it melted off +midway of its length as I held it up.</p> + +<p>[Illustration: "I held a piece of paper in the beam. It shriveled +immediately, blackened and burst into flame."]</p> + +<p>Freddie snapped off the apparatus. "That's all, gentlemen. With +a large model, I would use a high voltage current for my original +impulse, instead of the tiny impulse of the human body."</p> + +<p>"How far will that beam carry?" the President demanded.</p> + +<p>"This one?" Freddie asked. "Or a maximum, full-sized projector?"</p> + +<p>"This one. Why talk about what you haven't got?"</p> + +<p>"About thirty-five feet, sir. Further, perhaps, if I concentrate +it—keep it from spreading. Say fifty feet. But at that distance its +temperature would not be very great."</p> + +<p>"How great?"</p> + +<p>"Two hundred degrees Fahrenheit."</p> + +<p>"How much is it at the muzzle?"</p> + +<p>"About twelve hundred."</p> + +<p>An effective range of thirty-five or fifty feet! They were all +disappointed. "We can't," said the War Secretary, "figure this thing in +the light of a large model we some time might be able to build. What +good is that?"</p> + +<p>The man beside me said abruptly: "This thing is useless to help us now, +gentlemen. But, in the future—do you know, I wouldn't say but what +this young fellow has hit upon something not unlike what our enemies +seem to be using—"</p> + +<p>The door from the adjoining room opened. A man said: "Davis has started +his flight. He's almost within sight of them now—shall I bring in the +screen?"</p> + +<p>"Bring it in," said the President. "Get these lights down—put that +away, Mr. Smith—we'll discuss that some other time—it's been very +interesting."</p> + +<p>Freddie hastily gathered up his apparatus. The lights in the conference +room were turned out; it was illumined only by the blue reflection +through the doorway. Men brought in a tel-vision screen some two feet +square; placed it upright on the table and we all gathered before it. +The instrument room door was closed. We were in the darkness save for +the vague silver radiance that came from the screen.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>From the whispers around me I soon knew what was transpiring. The +invaders had landed on the east bank of the frozen Hudson, near the +suburb of Tarrytown. Xenephrene was at its closest point to the earth +now, which is what doubtless prompted the invasion. Xenephrene was +passing us; beginning to-day, the distance between the worlds would +grow greater.</p> + +<p>Presumably the invaders had landed on the night of February 28. It had +been snowing around New York City steadily for a week; but that night +was clear. Reports said that a great silver ball had been seen floating +down from the sky; later, from the ground, strange beams of colored +light were seen, moving slowly southward. And strange sounds were heard.</p> + +<p>But the information was confused and unauthentic. This last blizzard +had cut off all the New York area from the world. There was practically +no transportation; no wires remained standing; no radio-sending +stations were operating within all that region.</p> + +<p>How many people remained on Manhattan Island, no one could say. Very +few, probably. A deserted, congealed city, snow-buried, with its huge +buildings nothing now but giant monuments to a greatness which once had +been. The cold was worse than scientists prognosticated. Nothing could +get to New York now, save possibly dog-sleds, and the new type Arctic +planes; and very few of those were available.</p> + +<p>War against the invaders from Xenephrene!</p> + +<p>Our government bulletins of the day had assured the public that these +invaders would be held in check, attacked, held from moving further +south, and very soon exterminated. What deaths to our people they +had already caused, was not known. But it was evident that they were +hostile; a plane carrying refugees had passed near their lights. +Confused stories were told of melting, vanishing snow under red light; +and stories of another refugee plane attacked and destroyed by red +light and strange sound! Meaningless news! Yet terrible!</p> + +<p>The British Empire, from its capital in North Africa, offered us aid. +They were building the Arctic planes. The French government from its +headquarters in Tunis, preparing to move again south to the lower +Sahara, radioed its desire to help. Argentina and Chile, harassed with +their own problems in the new tropic heat, wanted to help if they could.</p> + +<p>Magnificent gestures, but they all meant very little. So far, nothing +had been done. A few of our planes had ventured near New York; and none +had so far been heard of since. Now, a huge Arctic plane, commanded +by this Davis, equipped with modern aircraft artillery, with radio +and a tel-vision image-finder, was making an experimental flight. A +companion plane, flown by the famous Robinson, was with it. Robinson +had the longest-range airplane gun of modern times; and he carried +bombs. His purpose was to try and get above the enemy; and Davis, with +his tel-vision and radio would report conditions as best he could.</p> + +<p>This attempt, then, was what now we were to witness. I have never been +present at so dramatic a scene as this one which took place on the +tel-vision mirror, and in the room around me.</p> + +<p>In the darkness the silver light from the screen vaguely illumined the +tense crowding figures. The highest officials of our government! No +calm judicial conference here! Tired, cold, anxious men, watching and +listening with bated breaths and thumping hearts. There had been a buzz +of whispered comments; the shifting of chairs; shuffling of feet. But +now there was silence.</p> + +<p>The screen image blurred for a moment as it was brought in from the +other room; but soon it cleared. I saw the cold, frosty stars in a +field of blue-black; far below, the dim vista of gray-white snow +shining in the starlight—a panorama of snow-laden country at night. +The image-finder was in the front of Davis's plane, pointing diagonally +downward. A swaying scene, diminished by the mirror, and by the two +thousand-foot altitude at which Davis was flying.</p> + +<p>Some one said: "Where are we? I don't recognize that landscape."</p> + +<p>"Long Island. He's heading for New York City. Hush! We'll throw in his +radio-sound." It was the voice of the War Secretary. "Grant, you said +you had connection."</p> + +<p>A man was fumbling with the miniature audiphone beside the mirror. We +heard the drone of Davis's plane; and then heard his voice, with words +indistinguishable as he spoke to the gunner with him.</p> + +<p>The President's voice said nervously: "Have you sending connection? If +we want to give him orders—where is the other plane? Isn't Robinson +around here?"</p> + +<p>Grant said: "Yes. He was visible awhile ago. Davis is going to fly over +New York—the enemy, he thinks, is still up in the Yonkers district."</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>I sat staring at the screen. Half an hour? Or two hours? I could not +have said. Swaying stars; a dim white swaying landscape. Then the +horizon dropped; stars covered everything; Davis was mounting. He +leveled at last.</p> + +<p>Dimly, far down, I could see the white configurations of Long Island +Sound, frozen into solid ice, white with piled snowdrifts, black where +the wind had swept it bare. A blurred, shifting scene, dizzying, but +sometimes steady and very clear. It tilted up—all land for a moment.</p> + +<p>I saw, momentarily as the plane swooped down, the great bridges over +the river from Long Island to Manhattan. Small as a child's toys. +Broken toy bridges, with ice piled upon them; cables dangling—the +older Brooklyn Bridge lay askew. A jam of river ice had wrenched at one +of its piers.</p> + +<p>It was a motionless world; the river of tangled, motionless ice-floes, +the frozen, motionless bay with hulks of vessels caught in it and +abandoned; and the great city—all congealed, stricken of motion in +every detail.</p> + +<p>And then we were over lower New York. The parks were wan, white blobs; +the streets were black canyons; the great buildings with their archways +and pedestrian levels in the crowded lower district stood like frozen +headstones—Davis swooped—I saw a great office building in which, it +seemed, the water system must have burst and flooded it when still +there was warmth inside; its facade was a mass of ice. The plane zoomed +up and only the stars were visible.</p> + +<p>[Illustration: Gaunt, ghostly in the moonlight, lay the frost-congealed +city of New York. Like frozen headstones the great buildings stood, +coated with glistening ice. Nowhere, on land or water, was there any +sign of life or motion.]</p> + +<p>Above the motor drone from the audiphone, the President's voice said: +"Ask him about Robinson. Where is he?"</p> + +<p>Then we saw Robinson's large quadru-plane with its helicopters folded, +its cabin hanging like a silver bullet beneath the lower wing. It +came swinging into our image from one side, and headed north into the +starlight.</p> + +<p>Abruptly we heard Davis's voice: "Above Central Park. It's piled level +as an Arctic snow-field. In the lower city there seemed no lights—saw +no sign of any one remaining. The enemy is in the open country up +ahead—northeast of the Yonkers district—Look! There now, you see the +enemy light!"</p> + +<p>At the distant northern horizon in the background of the image, a dull +radiance of red was visible. It seemed a crimson glow standing up into +the sky. Not the yellow of a reflected conflagration, but red—crimson +red.</p> + +<p>"Blood!" murmured the man beside me. "Crimson stain—"</p> + +<p>Davis's voice was saying: "I'll keep in sight of Robinson. He's +mounting. I'm cutting out my connection with you now—except the image +and the continuous one-way sound. You'll hear and see better. Hear and +see all that we do—I can begin to hear it now. Good-by to you all."</p> + +<p>His voice broke with the snap that indicated his connection was off. +The War Secretary cried: "Grant! Stop him! We must be able to talk with +him—give him orders! That fool—dare-devil—he's likely to do anything +just so we may see and hear as much as possible!"</p> + +<p>But the connection was broken. Davis, with that ominous, significant +"Good-by to you all," had cut out so that we might see and hear in full +volume. We could no longer communicate with him.</p> + +<p>The mirror was brighter and clearer with its greater power; the drone +of the motors came louder; and then dimmed suddenly as Davis evidently +threw in his mufflers.</p> + +<p>In the silence now, we heard another sound. The sound of the enemy! The +sound of that crimson radiance in the sky ahead! A low whine. It did +not seem electrical. A whine—more like a giant animal in distress.</p> + +<p>I listened, with a shudder thrilling me; and I know that every man in +the room must have felt the same. A queer thrilling shudder, as though +the very sound itself were physically affecting me with its vibrations. +It was very soft, now at first; and I was only hearing the faint, radio +echo of it; yet upon my senses it laid a singularly weird, uncanny +feeling of the diabolical.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The minutes passed. As the plane flew northward, the crimson stain +in the sky seemed spreading. And the whine increased; grew louder, +resolved itself now into a myriad undertones. Cries, muffled, faint, +aerial, yet somehow clear; screams, checked and then begun again; a +low, tiny throbbing—a myriad unearthly sounds, weirdly abnormal, like +nothing I had ever heard before, all blended as undertones to the one +great whine.</p> + +<p>The crimson radiance, screaming into the night! Light and sound +intermingled. Was this some strange weapon of a strange science which +the invaders from Xenephrene had brought to attack us? There was +something deadly in the aspect of that crimson radiance. And something +equally lethal in the gruesome sound which split the night around it.</p> + +<p>My thoughts were whirling in this fashion when I heard the muttered +words of the man next to me—murmuring to the man on his other side, +"That's weird! Vanderstuyft says that the girl from Xenephrene can see +and hear below the human scale! This is it—the infra-red made visible, +and its sounds brought up to our human ears! Weird—"</p> + +<p>Some one else was asking: "Is that light and that sound their weapon? +Where's the Robinson plane?"</p> + +<p>And the War Secretary said: "Hush! He's there—ahead. We're mounting."</p> + +<p>Nothing but sky again. A blood-red, night sky. The stars gleamed like +crimson jewels through the radiance. Then again, the Davis plane +leveled. We saw now that the invaders evidently were encamped in a +snowy stretch of what had been comparatively open country. The houses +which once were there, lay now under mounds of snow. A blank rolling +landscape; fences, roads, all gone beneath the billowing blanket of +white; the trees only were left, stark black sticks in patches.</p> + +<p>In an oval, perhaps a mile across its greatest diameter, the red beam +stood up into the sky. A barrage of crimson—not light, but sound! It +throbbed and screamed and whined its defiance!</p> + +<p>The two planes circled the radiance, some ten thousand feet up, and +several miles away. The Davis plane fired a shell; we heard the +dull muffled report, saw a yellow glare where it struck the red +beam and harmlessly exploded. But it struck low, where perhaps the +sound-vibrations were too intense.</p> + +<p>The planes mounted higher. We could see Robinson's ahead and above us! +He was closer to the crimson barrage. Trying to climb over it—to drop +a bomb.</p> + +<p>From this greater height, within the oval other lights showed, far down +on the snow. Tiny moving spots of vivid color. The enemy's encampment. +Davis was now at least at the twenty thousand foot level. Robinson was +still higher. In that deadly cold it seemed incredible; but still they +struggled up.</p> + +<p>At this height the crimson barrage was thin; once, overhead, I seemed +to see where it ended. The whine of it was fainter, but every gruesome +undertone still sounded clear.</p> + +<p>"He's trying it!" The man beside me blurted it aloud. Startled movement +sounded in the room; a chair pushed back with a rasp; tense murmurs; +shuffling feet. We stared. Robinson's plane darted in—</p> + +<p>There was just an instant when I thought it was safely through. I could +see it clearly—the black outline of a bird stained crimson. It seemed +to hang motionless; then it fluttered; falling—and as it fell, like +a mist of black vapor it suddenly expanded; a black wraith of a plane +expanding, dissipating. It did not seem to reach the ground. It was +gone, dissolved into nothing visible, with only a howling, mouthing +sound from the crimson monster to mark its passing!</p> + +<p>A shiver swept me; I was cold, trembling. I heard some one near me cry +in horror: "Davis, he's—" and check himself. The screen was a blur of +crimson, with lurid spots of light on the ground showing through it. +Davis was heading downward in a swoop through the red beam! It spread +until the whole image before us was a crimson stain.</p> + +<p>The lights on the ground seemed coming up, leaping up, growing in size +as the plane dived at them. The room was a chaos of gruesome tiny +screams! We were in the crimson! It snapped with a myriad sparks. It +howled, squealed, screamed! An instant, but it seemed an eternity. Then +the red vanished. We were through it! By Heaven, through it! Safely +through! Diving at the ground!</p> + +<p>I saw that one of the spots of light had broadened to a green ghastly +glare on the snow-surface. Figures of men in human form standing there, +fore-shortened by the overhead perspective to huge heads and dwindling +bodies. Human forms; men of almost naked bodies, standing in the snow, +bodies painted green by the glare. Apparatus of war erected in the +snow—a bare spot where the snow was gone, and rock and earth showed +clean—a shimmer that seemed a pool of water lying warm with ice around +it.</p> + +<p>A glimpse—no more than a second or two undoubtedly. Then the scene, +rushing upward, was fading. The confusion of sounds and blurred lights +suddenly grew faint—faded—vanished into darkness and silence!</p> + +<p>The tel-vision screen was dead—a blank silver surface staring at us +like a corpse. The audiphone was mute.</p> + +<p>Davis's plane had vanished like its fellow into nothingness before it +reached the ground!</p> + +<p>This was the afternoon of the 3rd of March. That night, while Freddie +and I were at our boarding place, the news reached us that a silver +ball of invaders from Xenephrene had landed in the twilight of the +Venezuelan coast—the heart of the region which in all our western +hemisphere we had come to prize most dearly!</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</h2> +</div> + +<h3>"IF I HAD BUT KNOWN!"</h3> + + +<p>"Look here, young man," said the War Secretary, "can you operate a +plane of the Arctic A type?"</p> + +<p>I could, and so could Freddie, I said. The War Secretary continued his +pacing of the room. It was about nine o'clock of the morning of March +15—black as midnight outdoors; cold, with clouds scudding low over the +Florida keys, clouds which promised snow. The War Secretary had sent +for us.</p> + +<p>Conditions were worse everywhere, it seemed now by this morning's +news—as though each day brought its disasters worse than any which +had gone before. The invaders from Xenephrene were obviously almost +impregnable to our attack. The efforts of Robinson and Davis had proved +it, if nothing else. It was obvious also that the invaders at New York +City so far had made no offensive move. Their barrage—the crimson +howling sound, or light, whatever it might be—was merely their defense.</p> + +<p>"Heaven knows," the secretary exclaimed, "what weapons they may have +to loose when they begin an attack!"</p> + +<p>And now, another huge silver ball had landed in Venezuela—on the +coastal plain near La Guayra. In the deserted frozen wastes of New +York State the invaders were not an immediate, serious menace. But in +Venezuela it was a far different condition.</p> + +<p>La Guayra was the main receiving port for all our refugee ships. A +twilight had fallen there, but the temperature still was mild. It was +colder up in Caracas, but the people thronged there, and with heroic +efforts the Government and the citizens were doing their best to +receive them.</p> + +<p>It was not a wholly unselfish effort. With the new climate, Colombia, +Venezuela, the former jungles of the Amazon basin of Brazil; Ecuador, +Peru, even the mountain fastnesses of Bolivia, and the arid coast of +north Chile—this was the land of promise. It was the best, the only +tolerable all-year climate left to the Western World. Here the new +great cities would spring up—centers of industry and commerce; here +would be the new great fields of grain; the cattle ranges.</p> + +<p>But here, in the midst of the confusion of arriving settlers, the enemy +from Xenephrene had landed! We had no details; we only knew that around +the silver ball a barrage of red howling sound was standing up into the +sky. Within that circular mile of the red barrage, all that had been +evidence of our human life—houses, trees, people—all was vanished!</p> + +<p>The War Secretary stopped before me. "I've radioed your father this +morning, Peter. Told him to send that Xenephrene girl up here to us at +once! We've got to do something. We must learn if we can what these +unearthly enemies are like—do scientifically what we can to oppose +them."</p> + +<p>He gestured at me vehemently. "You Hollanders are very stubborn, young +Peter. Your father told me he was very busy—he'd have full information +for me in a day or two! That's the scientist for you! Taking it +methodically, with that damn scientific routine, when a day or two is +an eternity just now!"</p> + +<p>I regarded Freddie. We did not smile; in these terrible days there was +not a smile left in us. But Freddie nodded.</p> + +<p>"That's father's way," I said. "But—"</p> + +<p>"Well, I told him I was sending a special plane down there at once to +get him and the girl. The Venezuelan Government is demanding details of +us. Every thirty minutes Caracas calls me up. Makes a fool of us—a +girl of this unknown enemy race right in our hands and we don't produce +her! Your father said, 'Good! Send Peter and young Fred Smith—I want +to see them anyway.'"</p> + +<p>There was nothing that could have pleased Freddie and myself better. +The secretary offered us a pilot, but we did not want one. We started +that morning, armed with legal papers, given us jocularly, but with +serious intent, nevertheless, and commanding father's presence with +Zetta in Miami the next day.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>It was eleven o'clock when we got away in the big Arctic A plane. A +black morning with swift, low clouds, and a wind from the north. Flying +southeast, we had scarcely left the Bahamas behind us when the weather +cleared. Cold starlight shone on a dark, cold ocean. Icebergs had been +seen down this far, but we did not chance to pass any now. But we saw +many scurrying steamships.</p> + +<p>In some four hours we raised the Morrow light of San Juan and I turned +southwest, to strike the coast beyond Arecibo. Flying low, we headed +in, over the line of breakers on the white beach. Columbus landed near +here, not so many lifetimes ago. Yet how different was the world then!</p> + +<p>The tumbled mountains rising behind the sea which Columbus had +described to Isabella rose before us now. The same shape; every tiny +peak undoubtedly the same. But they were not the vivid warm green which +had so enchanted the mariner. These were cold and blue gray, and the +tops of them were white with snow.</p> + +<p>It was mid-afternoon when, in the darkness, we dropped with a roar upon +Dan's landing stage at the foot of the knoll. We leaped from the plane +and hurried up the hill, to see Dan and father, and Hulda and the Cains +waving at us from the veranda, and a small, strange white figure of a +girl standing among them.</p> + +<p>If one could only glimpse the future, even for a brief moment! It makes +me shudder sometimes to think how blindly we are forced to tread our +way through life, raising each foot without the knowledge of what will +happen before it reaches the ground! That afternoon, for instance, I +was very happy to burst in upon father and Dan. If Freddie and I had +known what was impending, we would have done anything rather than +arrive at that moment. If we had delayed our arrival even an hour! +Yet, even in a seeming tragedy, there is evidence of some all-guiding +purpose. We may not see it, we may deny it, but I think that always it +is there.</p> + +<p>We came upon the plantation house within a moment after Zetta had begun +her narration. She had told it to father; she was beginning it for Dan +and the others, when the sound of our arriving plane checked her.</p> + +<p>The few remaining hours of that afternoon and evening were crowded +with the confusion of our arrival, our exchange of news and ideas, and +listening to the world news from the radio. Zetta did not tell her +story that afternoon or that evening. Father, with a quizzical smile, +looked over the legal papers with which we served him.</p> + +<p>"Good enough, boys! I'll obey. We'll take Zetta and go up to Miami +to-morrow morning." He turned to Dan. "You come with us. Zetta will +tell her story to the authorities in Miami, just as she's told it to +me. And I'll have some interesting scientific data for them, I promise +you."</p> + +<p>He gestured with a voluminous sheaf of papers—his scientific notes +on Zetta's narrative and on the girl's mental and physical being. He +gestured with the papers and then stuck them back in his pocket. Fate! +Providence! Call it what you will. He did not hand them to Dan or to +Freddie or to me—he stuck them back in his pocket!</p> + +<p>The news of Hulda's and Dan's engagement brought me pleasure. I shook +Dan's hand warmly and kissed my sister as she flung herself into my +arms. Little Hulda was radiant. Dan's handsome, tanned face was flushed +as he received our congratulations; and when they were over, he stood +towering over Hulda, with his arms around her as she clung to him.</p> + +<p>Happy lovers, snatching at their happiness even in the midst of the +world's turmoil! Happy that afternoon and evening.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>I shall never forget my meeting with Zetta as they introduced me to +her that afternoon. She stood in the center of the room, and something +momentarily diverted the rest of them from us; for an instant we were +alone. I stared at her.</p> + +<p>What futile words of greeting I may have uttered I do not know, and I +think that she said nothing. I saw a quaintly beautiful young girl, +curiously different in a way not to be defined from any girl I had ever +before beheld. A strange, weird beauty. I took her hand as she held it +out in the gesture they had taught her.</p> + +<p>I have mentioned Dan's feelings under similar circumstances. Dan was in +love with Hulda; the instinct of all that was upright and true within +him rose to cast out this surge of alien emotion. Not so with me—I was +wholly fancy free.</p> + +<p>I took Zetta's hand. It seemed then as though the contact might +suddenly become beyond my power to break. Her gaze held mine. I saw +a sudden startled look in her eyes, and then saw something else—the +mirrored play of emotions like my own.</p> + +<p>Her body seemed to sway toward me; I could see and feel her +withstanding its sway. An attraction between us. Do I mean that +literally? Scientifically? I do not know. There is, perhaps, between +the sexes on earth such an attraction. Or it may perchance be +psychological, emotional, nothing more.</p> + +<p>I felt it with Zetta, and I could see that she felt it and was +startled. But in her eyes there was more than surprise—a swift melting +look of tenderness.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cain bustled up to us. "Isn't she a darling little thing, Peter? +We all love her. Oh, dear me, these terrible, strange times!"</p> + +<p>Our hands broke apart. Was it love we had felt in that instant? Could +love be possible, could it be right between a man and a woman so +different? Does the Creator intend the worlds thus to be joined, or is +the isolation He has imposed upon each of them an evidence that such +cannot be?</p> + +<p>Love between Zetta and me? I do not know. But all that afternoon and +evening, I found my eyes turning to her, and found her somber gaze upon +me.</p> + +<p>We chanced to approach each other several times, and always I was +conscious of the attraction of her nearness. Not so strong as at +first. All my instinct, my reason, was prepared for it now; a thousand +barriers of conventionality and time and place and circumstance +contributed subconsciously to resist it. But it was there, invisibly, +intangibly holding us.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The evening's radio news brought a measure of relief to the world. +From New York came the report that the invaders had vanished. Moved +somewhere else, perhaps—but where it was not known.</p> + +<p>Father made one comment; his words, which proved to be true +enough, linger clear in my memory. "They left New York yesterday +afternoon, after the attack by Robinson and Davis. There are not +two vehicles—only one! It left New York and landed last night in +Venezuela! It may leave there presently." His glance turned to Zetta. +"I have reason to think that the invaders will voluntarily withdraw +from the earth. Very soon, I imagine—while Xenephrene is still +comparatively near us."</p> + +<p>True enough! At midnight that night the radio told us that the +Xenephrene vehicle, with all its people, had left Venezuela. The night +was heavily overcast, with a rain and wind storm all up through Central +America and the lower Caribbean; and north of sixteen degrees there was +snow. Where the invaders had gone, no one knew. The world was anxiously +awaiting news of their next landing place.</p> + +<p>We sat up for perhaps an hour. It was snowing outside, with a howling +wind that swirled the snow about the eaves of the little plantation +house. At about one o'clock we all bade each other good night and went +to bed.</p> + +<p>Ah, if we had but known!</p> + +<p>I awoke to find Freddie shaking me. He and I had slept together. It was +four in the morning, and the house was noisy with the storm outside. +Freddie was alarmed—he did not know why. Something had awakened +him—we decided it was a thumping which we now heard in the living +room, a door banging in the wind, with a queer, broken rattle to it.</p> + +<p>There is a sense of evil which comes to any one awakened unexpectedly +in the night. I felt it very strongly now. And Freddie's face was very +white and solemn in the glow of the night light which he had switched +on.</p> + +<p>"The door to the porch," I said. "It's blown open—it's banging."</p> + +<p>We went out to close it. The living room was very cold; snow was +blowing in through the outer doorway. We turned on the light. The +door was not only open, it was hanging askew, half torn from its +hinges. More than that, part of its wooden framework was gone. Not +broken—vanished—as if melted off. A leprous wreck of a door, hanging +there, banging with a thump and rattle in the wind!</p> + +<p>No need to tell us what had happened—I think we both knew then. The +door to father's bedroom stood open. He was not there. The bed had +been occupied; there was no sign of a struggle, no abnormal disorder +anywhere about the house, except for that dismembered front door, which +had been locked.</p> + +<p>Our light and our voices awakened Dan and his parents. They came out +from their rooms. But Hulda did not come, nor Zetta! Their bedroom +doors, like father's stood open; but the occupants were gone.</p> + +<p>Horrified moments followed, during which we searched the house and the +buildings near it. There was no evidence of any kind of how, in the +noisy night, while the rest of us slept, father, Hulda and Zetta had +been spirited away.</p> + +<p>The terrified elder Cains remained in the house. Hastily dressing, Dan, +Freddie and I rushed to the corral. The chilled little ponies welcomed +us. We saddled, and in single file, slowly against the wind and driving +snow, we rode out into the night.</p> + +<p>There was no surprise left for us when we reached the "Eden tract" in +the valley by the caves where once the Cains' treasured fruit trees had +grown so luxuriantly. It was all a dim gray expanse of snow, with the +naked tree branches showing in black, forlorn rows.</p> + +<p>The trunks of the coconut trees stood like huge black sticks in a +patch of white. But among them there was no small silver vehicle. The +guards had been withdrawn a week before. There was no evidence here of +anything.</p> + +<p>The heavy falling snowflakes would have covered up even recent +footprints; there was only the depression in the sand and snow to mark +where the vehicle had been.</p> + +<p>The last communication was broken. The last remaining evidence of +Xenephrene upon our earth was gone!</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</h2> +</div> + +<h3>MYSTERIOUS STAR, IMPERTURBABLY SHINING!</h3> + + +<p>More than twice seventeen months went by. For me and for Dan the +progress of the world, it seemed then, must always be in cycles of +seventeen months. That is the length of time which Xenephrene took +periodically to overtake and pass us in our orbit. Almost between us +and the sun, every seventeen months; and at such times she was at her +closest points to us, some sixteen to nineteen million miles away. Not +very far, in terms of astronomical measurement, but to Dan and me very +far indeed.</p> + +<p>Two of these passings came and went. We had hoped there might be some +sign from Xenephrene; even something hostile would had seemed to us +better than nothing. Dan and I often sat in the night, gazing at the +great purple-white star.</p> + +<p>Romantic, mysterious world, imperturbably blazing up there! It held +captive for Dan the woman he loved; for me, a beloved sister and my +dear father. Held them captive—if indeed they were alive, which is +the best we could hope—held them, and it gave no sign! Beautiful, +mysterious world—and sinister! Gazing up at it, my fancy roamed.</p> + +<p>What strange sights and sounds and beings were there! We had had but a +little glimpse, no more—and then it was snatched away.</p> + +<p>It is not important now for me to recount what these months brought +on earth. The adjustment to new conditions, new climate, new night +and day. Volumes of history describe it fully—the myriad shifting +events over the world's great surface, the new nations, new mingling +of races—everything new, it would seem. Everything but human nature, +the old characteristics, love, hate, jealousy, friendship, greed, +envy—nothing on earth has ever changed them, and nothing will.</p> + +<p>We did not know why father, Hulda and Zetta were abducted; but +that they were captured by the invaders and with them returned to +Xenephrene we felt sure. Why the invaders came at all, and then so +hastily withdrew, we could not guess. Zetta knew, and she had told +father. But the secret went with them. Perhaps, we decided, the Creator +intends this veil of mystery between the worlds. If that thought could +be spiritual consolation to Dan and me, we tried to make the most of it.</p> + +<p>Dan was distracted. Vainly he and I sought some way by which we might +get to Xenephrene. It seemed impossible. Before that terrible winter +when what they now call the "Great Change" began, any serious talk of +going to a neighbor planet was always laughed at. But no one laughed +now.</p> + +<p>Scientists told Dan and me that at present, for us of earth, the thing +was impossible. If father had left his notes, perhaps, instead of +putting them in his pocket that fatal afternoon; if some vestige of +apparatus had been left behind by the invaders; if only we still had +even a portion of the mechanism of Zetta's small vehicle, that our +scientists might study it, try to learn its secret—Ah, those ifs! They +are all encompassed in the one phrase, which each of us mortals at one +time or another in life has murmured sadly: "If only I had known!"</p> + +<p>I was far older now in spirit than that winter thirty-five months +before. We do not age in regular progression, but in spurts of stressed +mental and physical suffering. I aged, for though I lost a sister and +father, something else I lost, less tangible but unforgettable. The +girl Zetta—the loss of what might have been, for me and for her.</p> + +<p>Love born of a glance, now to stay with me always? It was not that. I +was not so youthful that I could cherish such romantic illusion.</p> + +<p>But this I knew. Something, that memorable afternoon when she and I +first joined glances, sprang into being. As though over the gap from +one world to another, from a man to a woman and back again, it sprang +and clung reluctant to be broken. And it left its mark upon my mind +and spirit. It was not to be; I believed that fully. But, it had been, +the consciousness was within me that it would have been a thing very +beautiful.</p> + +<p>And I was older; and, I think, a better man, just for the memory.</p> + +<p>Thirty-five months! A dreary, hopeless interval to Dan and me. Dreary, +for in the midst of all the world's turmoil we seemed to stand apart; +not actors, spectators merely, with our minds and spirits up there +where the great purple star was shining. Thirty-five hopeless months, +for it seemed that what we had lost was forever gone.</p> + +<p>On February 4, 1956, Dan and I were living in Porto Rico. Freddie +was in Miami. Father's post in Southern Chile was taken by one of +his fellow scientists. The world rolls on! Father was lost, his post +filled, and himself almost forgotten. How fatuously we mortals attach +importance to ourselves! We strut our little moment upon the stage, +some in the spotlight, some shrinking in the shadows by the back drop. +We miss our cues, fumble, and are abashed or terrified. But in a moment +no one cares. The curtain rings down; up again, with the old play, but +new scenes and other actors; and the changing audience forgets we ever +were on the stage at all.</p> + +<p>Father's post was filled. Freddie and I had been down there in Chile +one summer, but we did not like it and we came back. Summer! The very +word had lost its meaning. They were beginning now to call it the Day.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>We came back in June, chasing the daylight, and located in Porto Rico. +Dan and his father were engaging in the new agriculture. The daylight +and twilight months in the West Indies were found favorable for the +raising of vegetables. Every one was groping. What could or could not +be done was as yet scarcely known. But it promised to be a profitable +business. Food of any kind, anywhere in the world, at any time, found a +ready market. All the world governments were engaged in its purchase, +its storage, and its distribution.</p> + +<p>A new era was beginning; and in it some saw a more rational order than +in the old. I am no economist; yet now I could see quite clearly the +fallacy of much that the world had previously thought was best. Tariff +walls between the nations were gone now. The world in its necessity +became one big family, working to maintain itself as best it could.</p> + +<p>In the daylight in Porto Rico, we were raising vegetables to feed the +people who were living in the darkness and cold of the south. Six +months later, they would be doing the same for us.</p> + +<p>It is not my purpose to indulge in economic theories here, though Dan +and I often discussed them. Freddie was not interested. We wanted him +with us; but though he came to Porto Rico, he stayed in San Juan, +often going up to Miami. The National Capital was still there; and +Freddie had interested the government in his invention.</p> + +<p>The world catastrophe had brought a great stimulus to scientific +invention. New devices, born of the necessity of totally new world +conditions, were being developed. Every government was ready to help +with funds. Freddie had perfected his motor, financed by our government.</p> + +<p>More important than that, however, they were interested in producing +his heat-ray projector in more powerful form. His new projector, he +told us, was very nearly ready. Not for war purposes, of course. With +characteristic thoughtlessness, the world had already almost forgotten +the brief invasion from Xenephrene. Such a thing as that naturally +could never happen again. And after what the world had been through, +war between our own races was unthinkable.</p> + +<p>Freddie's heat-ray, he said, would be used in the six months' Night +against the cold. It had a myriad uses. With it, a ship might blaze a +path down a frozen river. Water power might be utilized further into +the long Night; why, a city might even be sprayed with its beams and be +kept spring-like despite the cold! Visions! But by such visions science +moves ahead into the realism of achievement!</p> + +<p>That long Night of '55 and '56 Dan and I spent housed in, with the +comparative comfort of our newly rebuilt and heated plantation house. +Throughout January and February it snowed heavily; the tumbled little +mountains of Porto Rico were solid white.</p> + +<p>Sometimes the leaden sky would clear; the stars and moon would glitter +on the snow, so bright one could almost read outdoors. Our winter moon +was magnificent. The moon's orbit about the earth was very little +changed from before; its plane had shifted with us, scientists said, +and the moon was pursuing very nearly its old path relative to us.</p> + +<p>Dan and I had a small Arctic A flyer, and sleighs. We did not use +the plane much. The indolence of the long night of enforced idleness +was upon us. Most of the world was learning how to work hard in the +daylight months, and to do nothing gracefully through the months of +darkness. We read our books; listened to the radio; studied, planned +and talked.</p> + +<p>It would have been very pleasant, had there not been that constant +sense of what we had lost. Father, Hulda—and Zetta. I had spoken very +little of Zetta to Dan. The dreams of what might have been, were my +own; even with him, I could not share them.</p> + +<p>And then came February 4, 1956. The long night was fully upon us, the +twilight days were passed—midwinter was in early April. Dan and I had +been out after breakfast for a drive in the sleigh. We had returned for +luncheon with Dan's parents; and I was on the veranda, enveloped in +furs, pacing up and down in the snow. Dan, with his cigar, came out and +joined me.</p> + +<p>There is sometimes a very queer directness to the fate which governs +our lives—and a very great unexpectedness. We walk in the dark, with +an open road or a chasm yawning before us, all unaware of which it may +be. Or we may be standing at the threshold of a shining garden of hope +and happiness, walking in the dark toward its gate, with heavy heart +because we do not see it, or realize it is there.</p> + +<p>Dan and I were like that now. January, 1956, had been the second time +that Xenephrene passed at its closest point to earth. We had hoped that +something might happen to give us news of father. But nothing did.</p> + +<p>Gradually our hope had been dying. The January days dragged through +their brief twilights into the solid winter night. We gave up hope. +Xenephrene was drawing ahead of the earth again, with millions of miles +of lengthening distance between the worlds. No sign from the great +purple star; and we both felt that now all hope of hearing from father +was gone.</p> + +<p>Thoughts like these possessed me as I paced the veranda that afternoon. +They were in Dan's mind too, I am sure; but when he joined me we +neither of us spoke of them.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>It was clear and cold. The snow on the veranda crunched and creaked +under our tread. Beyond the incongruous coconut railing the knoll-top +showed white, with a blue-white beam of light from one of the side +windows slanting out on it. There was no moon; a deep purple sky, with +the sharply glittering silver stars. To the south, below the horizon, +we knew that the sun at this hour was hovering. But it was too far +down even to pale the stars now. Xenephrene was down there near it, +invisible to us of the north—</p> + +<p>Dan and I paced in silence; or talked idly of the now commonplace +things of the new era of our world.</p> + +<p>"They claim they can keep the falls of the Iguazu open all year," said +Dan. "And send the power by radio—even up as far as here."</p> + +<p>The distribution of electric current by wireless had been greatly +improved recently. It seemed really practical now. In a few years +Niagara, in the Day, might supply power and light to the dark, frozen +cities of the south throughout their Night.</p> + +<p>There had been most disastrous floods throughout the world when, with +the coming daylight, the snow and ice had melted. Watercourses were +unable to handle the sudden, abnormal flow.</p> + +<p>But new channels were forming; nature and man alike were making +adjustments to the new conditions.</p> + +<p>"If they could send us heat from the south," said Dan. "I mean direct, +natural heat. These new transformers of the power-waves may be all +right, but—"</p> + +<p>"Freddie can—I don't mean send it, but produce it, at any rate—"</p> + +<p>"Some day," said Dan, "we'll be able to spray all our land here with +that contrivance of his. Hah! That would be a great idea, wouldn't it?" +He chuckled with an ironical gibe at the absent Freddie; but still he +was more than half serious.</p> + +<p>"Imagine us, Peter, getting out in the June twilight, helping the snow +to melt by spraying it with heat—warming up the frozen soil, getting +it plowed and planted a month earlier. If we could get our perishable +vegetables down to the Argentine ahead of the others, they would bring +mighty big prices—I was reading what might be done with tomatoes, +Peter—"</p> + +<p>He checked himself abruptly, gripped my arm with a force that whirled +me around. We stood at the veranda rail.</p> + +<p>"Heavens, Peter, look at that!"</p> + +<p>From overhead near the zenith, a shooting star came blazing down. I had +never seen one so brilliant. A great yellow-red ball of fire, with a +flame of tail. It seemed to take long seconds as it soundlessly fell +across the sky before us—down with a blaze to the northern horizon +where the Caribbean lay, a dim, dark purple in the starlight.</p> + +<p>We breathed again. "That didn't burn itself out," said Dan. "I'll wager +that was a meteorite—actually came down somewhere—"</p> + +<p>"Northwest," I said. "Florida way. It certainly seemed close to us, +didn't it?"</p> + +<p>We went back to our pacing. There was nothing particularly unusual +in seeing a meteor fall across the sky. But we were both silent, +wondering. We had caught just a glimpse of the gateway to our renewed +hope; we did not know it, but we both sensed it.</p> + +<p>An hour passed. From within the house, old man Cain called, "Oh, +Dan—come here, listen to this."</p> + +<p>The radio announcer was relaying an item from Curaçao. In the twilight +at Willamstadt they had seen what seemed to be a meteorite fall into +the sea near the Venezuelan coast.</p> + +<p>"Another!" exclaimed Dan.</p> + +<p>An hour later, still another meteorite was reported. It had fallen +somewhere in the region of Victoria Nyanza—in the lake, perhaps, or +along its shores.</p> + +<p>Still, this seemed nothing remarkable. But about five o'clock the +radio-phone rang with our private call. It was Freddie, in Miami. The +gateway to our hopes swung wide to receive us. Dan answered the call; +I stood at his elbow, trembling with excitement—at first premonitory, +then justified.</p> + +<p>In the silence I could hear the tiny sound of Freddie's voice.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Dan? Dan Cain?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. That you, Freddie?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Listen—I'm in Miami. A meteorite fell—they've got it—Okechobee +region. Listen—it cracked open. Was pretty well burned—but a big one. +Hollow inside! They cracked into it—they found—Oh, Dan, they phoned +me from Moorehaven just a little while ago. They"—Freddie's voice +broke with his excitement.</p> + +<p>"They—what, Freddie? Take it easy—can't understand you."</p> + +<p>"I'm coming, Dan. By plane—I'll get away about eight o'clock. Peter +there? Good! See you about midnight—soon as they bring it here to me, +I'll bring it to you."</p> + +<p>"Bring what? What, Freddie?"</p> + +<p>"The cylinder. Whatever it is—haven't seen it. They're bringing +it—they've got it. Heat-proof, insulated metal cylinder—they say it's +engraved 'Peter Vanderstuyft, Porto Rico—Rush.' I'm bringing it, Dan. +Tell Peter. It's a message from Xenephrene! It must be! A message from +Peter's father!"</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</h2> +</div> + +<h3>FROM ACROSS THE VOID</h3> + + +<p>We helped Freddie unload the cylinder from his plane. He arrived about +midnight, flying alone with his precious burden. It was a cylindrical +metal container, some ten feet long by three feet in diameter—a +strange looking, purple-brown metal, smooth and shining like burnished +copper. White metal handles were on the cylinder—and down one of its +bulging sides was crudely engraved the inscription "Peter Vanderstuyft, +Porto Rico. Rush."</p> + +<p>The thing weighed perhaps two hundred pounds. It was warm, yet clammy +to the touch, as though sweating. And though it appeared smooth, under +my finger tips I could feel that it was pitted and scarred—blistered +as though by tremendous heat.</p> + +<p>We labored up the hill with it, and deposited it on the floor in the +Cain's living room, gathering over it, wondering how it might be +opened. The message from Xenephrene! It had come at last; and abruptly +I seemed to feel that this was not remarkable. We had been waiting for +it; and here it was, at our feet here, strangely fashioned—mute, but +waiting passively to give up its secret.</p> + +<p>We were all trembling. Freddie had discarded his furs and helmet, but +his hands were stiff with the cold.</p> + +<p>"How do we get into it? They didn't want to open it—I didn't try +either. It's the message, Peter."</p> + +<p>Dan was on the floor beside the cylinder, running his hands over its +surface. His father and mother crowded upon him. Old man Cain's jaw was +dropped with his awe; Mrs. Cain chattered, "Land sakes! What next! Dan, +what is it? Is it from Professor Vanderstuyft? Is he all right? And +dear little Hulda? She's all right, isn't she, Dan? That's what this +means, doesn't it? My heavens, these queer times that have come to the +world—"</p> + +<p>Dan jumped to his feet. "Yes, mother, that's what we hope it means." +He kissed her; pushed her away; firm, but very gentle. "You go to bed, +mother. Father, you go too. We'll be working here some hours—in the +morning we'll tell you all about it."</p> + +<p>Freddie, Dan and I were left alone. The double doors and double windows +were closed against the cold; a broad coal fire burned in the grate; +the room was warm and silent; and blue with the light-tube, which cast +its beam down upon the cylinder. Freddie said, with a hush in his +voice: "We'd have been afraid to try and open it anyway, in Miami. +You—you don't suppose it would explode if we pound at it, do you?"</p> + +<p>The sweating thing was strangely sinister, for all its friendly +inscription. Dan was again bending over it. Freddie added:</p> + +<p>"It was in a meteorite—some strange rock, or metal. Evidently not +natural—artificially made. It was burned, fused and shapeless by the +heat of its fall through our atmosphere. You can see where the heat has +burned into the cylinder—"</p> + +<p>"Hush!" said Dan abruptly. "Listen!"</p> + +<p>With our ears close to the metal a tiny hum was audible. The thing +was humming inside. Alive! Vibrant! Humming with that strange, almost +gruesome whine which brought to my memory the crimson sound of the +Xenephrene invaders when Robinson and Davis had attacked them.</p> + +<p>It was half an hour before, with the utmost caution, we got the +cylinder open. Upon one of its sides we found four slightly raised +circles and four small depressions, numbered from one to eight. And the +words, crudely scratched on the metal, "Peter, press one, three, five +and eight."</p> + +<p>A lid came off. We had not seen the cracks where it fitted. It stuck, +fused by heat; but we carefully forced it, and at length it came away.</p> + +<p>The human mind is subject to queer vagaries. There was just an instant, +as we lifted the metal panel, that there flashed to me the vague horror +that this was a coffin; that we were about to behold a corpse—wrapped +and sent to us like a mummy. Hulda! Zetta! A ghastly gibe, sent to mock +us from this sinister unknown world!</p> + +<p>"Ah!" breathed Dan. My leaping heart quieted; but the cold sweat stood +in beads on my forehead from those fleeting, horrible fancies.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The interior of the cylinder was divided into orderly compartments. +Metal boxes; cones; cubes of metal; diaphragms; coils of white +wire—packed, wrapped and lashed in orderly array; each piece seemingly +set in springs to absorb the landing shock. A white lining was inside +the cylinder, smooth as mica—insulation against the heat, perhaps. +A strange, vague odor arose; and we could hear the humming now more +plainly. It seemed to come from several metal globes the size of a +man's head. Dead black metal; four or five of them were packed near the +center of the cylinder. Around them a dim radiance was hovering.</p> + +<p>"Wait!" admonished Dan. "Take it easy!" Freddie, in his excitement, +would have begun rummaging. "Wait! There must be some instructions +somewhere. Don't touch anything until you know what you're doing."</p> + +<p>We found the box of instructions; it was, indeed, the most prominent +thing before us, though we had overlooked it—a flat metal case some +twelve inches square and half as thick, packed edge-wise. Clipped to +its top was a white roll of what seemed paper.</p> + +<p>Dan gingerly removed it; unrolled it—a translucent white animal skin, +possibly. And with writing on it! Ah! At last the doubts and fears that +were within us all were dispelled. Father's handwriting—his firm, +smooth unhurried script.</p> + +<p>"To my son, Peter Vanderstuyft. In Porto Rico care of Ezra John Cain, +or the Amalgamated Broadcasters' Association, United States of America. +Please forward at once."</p> + +<p>And then the words: "Peter, detailed instructions inside. We are +safe—your father, Hulda and Zetta."</p> + +<p>Ah! Zetta! The gates to the shining garden were swung wide for me then! +Zetta!</p> + +<p>We sat around the table under the blue light-tube with father's +communication, which we found inside the flat metal case, spread before +us. A voluminous manuscript—nearly a hundred hand-written pages. +Part of it was an all too brief letter; then there were pages of +instructions, scientific data, notes and diagrams. We glanced at them +hurriedly, and in a voice which in spite of me I could not hold steady, +I read the letter aloud to Dan and Freddie.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p class="ph3">Under Gardens, Xenephrene,<br> +Earth-date, January, 1956.</p> + + +<p>Peter, I trust and pray that this, or one of its duplicates which I +am dispatching, may reach you. I am launching five cylinders. Any one +of them will answer the purpose, but if you can possess yourself of +more than one, so much the better. I suggest, before you read further, +that you guard against taking any stranger into the confidence of this +communication. I ex-Smith and Dan Cain. I want them with you to read +this; I know that I can depend upon them both, as I can upon you, my +son.</p> +</div> + +<p>I glanced up from the page to the solemn, intent faces of Freddie and +Dan. Neither spoke. Freddie's face was flushed with excitement; his +breath came fast between parted lips. But Dan was pale and grim; his +lean brown fingers gripped the table edge with whitened knuckles. There +was a brief silence.</p> + +<p>"Go on," said Dan tensely.</p> + +<p>I went back to the page. "He wants secrecy." Unconsciously I lowered my +voice. Freddie swung to the radio table to verify that the lever of the +outgoing audiphone was well off.</p> + +<p>I went on reading:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>If this should fall into other hands than those of my son, I beg that +you who read it will read no further than this paragraph. Or, if you +do, that loyalty to your nation—to your world—will bid you hold it +secret. And if you value your own welfare—the very lives of all those +who are most dear to you—at once you will deliver this cylinder and +its contents intact to the government of the United States of America, +with instructions that my son, Peter Vanderstuyft, of the Amalgamated +Broadcasters Association be located, and the cylinder delivered to +him. Or to Frederick Smith, Royal Dutch Astronomical Bureau, Anco, +Chile; or to Daniel J. Cain, Factor, Porto Rico.</p> + +<p>Peter, there is much that I would tell you—but I have no time now. We +are safe. Hulda and Zetta are with me, and well. I have been ill, but +am better now. The things, Peter, that I have seen and done! To name +them, even if I could find the words, would be to no purpose.</p> + +<p>I am trying to communicate with you—and Dan and Frederick—to allay +your immediate fears for our safety. But more than that, Peter! The +threat against our earth—as we saw it thirty-four months ago—is far +greater now! For that, I would caution you—or any one loyal to earth +who may read this—of the necessity for secrecy.</p> + +<p>Enemies of earth—of a character, a plane of being, oh, Peter, you +could not guess—may be on earth now. I do not know. I fear they are. +Some may have made the trip at the conjunction of seventeen months +ago. We suspect they did. Or if not, we fear some may be embarking +from here now.</p> + +<p>Guard yourself from them with secrecy of your actions and a constant +watchfulness. I can suggest no other ways. If I could come to you—if +I could bring Hulda back to you—I would make the trip instead of +sending this message. But we cannot, or at least I think it would not +be advisable.</p> + +<p>I am needed here. Needed by this world—by all in it which stands for +right and justice and adherence to the laws of the Almighty God who +rules all of us of every world. And I think also that the welfare of +our beloved earth can best be safeguarded by my remaining here for the +present.</p> + +<p>I will come to the point, Peter. There is so much for me to set down +beyond a mere letter to you with explanations which well may wait +until later. I want you here, Peter! And—if they think it advisable +to trust their lives to such an adventure—I want Dan and Frederick to +come with you. Will you come?</p> + +<p>I ask you as though I were inviting you across one of our little +oceans at home! Yet I—so much more fully than yourselves—realize +what this is that I so casually ask! You are young—all three of +you—and the spirit of adventure and recklessness runs high in healthy +youth. I am playing upon it. I need not ask. I know you will come, +if—as I pray may be the case—I have now provided you with the means—</p> +</div> + +<p>My hand holding his written page was shaking. Freddie burst out, with a +return of his old boyish enthusiasm, "I should say we would come. What +a question!" I heard Dan murmur: "At last!"</p> + +<p>Within me was a surge of emotion. A thrill of exaltation, mingled +perhaps with a thrill of fear at the unknown crowding now so close upon +me. And the thought of Zetta, mentioned so briefly in these written +words from across the void! Yet from every line her name leaped at me, +sang soundlessly in my head.</p> + +<p>The image of her was never more clear in my memory—here in this very +room where we had clasped hands and stood and swayed and wondered +what Nature might be doing to us who, an instant before, had been +strangers—an image of her seemed here now hovering in the shadows +of the room corner behind the tense, bent figure of Dan. So clear +that I almost felt something of her which had come with this letter; +some unspoken longing of hers which she had sent to me as, perhaps in +silence, she had watched father writing.</p> + +<p>I think there <i>was</i> something. I felt it; and within me, my spirit was +murmuring a welcome and an answer.</p> + +<p>"Go on," said Dan gruffly. "Read it, Peter."</p> + +<p>I shuffled the papers. "There isn't much more. He's evidently—"</p> + +<p>"He's sent us the materials—the mechanisms out of which to build a +vehicle," exclaimed Freddie. "It's evident that—"</p> + +<p>Dan murmured. "Too late this time! Seventeen months—seventeen months +more to wait—"</p> + +<p>I laughed; an intoxication was upon me at the thought of it. "Wait, +nothing! We'll be busy, don't worry about that! If we can—Freddie, +what the devil?"</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Freddie had leaped to his feet; he was standing with his head cocked, +listening. There was no sound, save the vague humming from the opened +cylinder stretched on the floor at our feet.</p> + +<p>"Thought I heard something."</p> + +<p>"You didn't," I said.</p> + +<p>"Where?" demanded Dan. "The audiphone? It's off—dead."</p> + +<p>"Where? Outside!" I suggested. I half rose from my seat and sank back. +Freddie looked puzzled; he went to the door, listened and returned. He +asked, "You don't hear anything?"</p> + +<p>"No," I said. "Where?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. Here—I mean here, right here with us. I—I guess I +imagined it."</p> + +<p>"I guess you did," said Dan. But his gaze swept the room with a tense +expectancy.</p> + +<p>My heart was pounding. We all three drew nearer together, as though for +instinctive protection against something we could almost but not quite +hear.</p> + +<p>"We're nervous," said Dan. "Imagining things. It's that damned weird +humming. Go on, Peter."</p> + +<p>I resumed the letter:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>You will find in this cylinder the vital element necessary to the +conquering of gravity. Reet, which a bountiful nature provides here, +is a very wonderful thing, Peter. With it, and with such materials +available on earth which my notes herewith describe fully, I believe +you will have no great difficulty in constructing your vehicle. I have +sent you the basic mechanisms already fully assembled in each of their +integral parts—</p> +</div> + +<p>Freddie again interrupted me. "Where's that draft coming from? It's +cold. You got some window open, Dan?"</p> + +<p>I was conscious of cold air in the room. The door to the adjoining +bedroom—the room father had once occupied, but which now was +unused—stood half open. The draft of chill air seemed coming from +there. And then we all three heard a bump in there; it brought us to +our feet.</p> + +<p>"Shutter banging," said Dan. "Mother must have left the window partly +up—shutter banging, there's a wind starting."</p> + +<p>We followed him into the room with a precipitous haste. It was in +semi-darkness. The window was partly raised from the bottom. Cold air +was sweeping in. But the shutter was fastened tightly back against the +outside wall; it could not bang. Dan closed the window. We none of us +made any comment. Back at the living room table I began the letter +again.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>There is very little I need say further, Peter. My notes, diagrams +and instructions explain everything fully. Attached to several of the +mechanisms, you will find individual instruction sheets.</p> + +<p>You will need funds. I would like your enterprise conducted with the +help and resources of our government behind you, if possible. You will +have less difficulty in that event. But, without such aid, you will +have to proceed on your own.</p> + +<p>No doubt, Peter, by now you will have been able to possess yourself +legally of my money. Perhaps you have been able to realize upon the +Washington property—though this I doubt, in view of the chaotic world +conditions. Use what you have freely, Peter. Take from Dan as little +as possible—Heaven knows what financial stress you all must have been +laboring under—</p> +</div> + +<p>The light over my head suddenly dimmed to half its volume. Freddie gave +a startled exclamation. Dan cursed.</p> + +<p>"Something seems determined to interrupt us," I said. I held the letter +up to the light. "I can read it."</p> + +<p>"What—" Freddie began.</p> + +<p>"Two o'clock," said Dan. "They only give us half strength light after 2 +A.M. New ruling in Porto Rico for the night months."</p> + +<p>Freddie sank back. I read:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Financial stress you all must have been laboring under. Do your +best. You ought to be able to start at the next conjunction. Your +start—your navigation—all that you will find in my instruction +sheets. Before you arrive here, open the special sealed envelope +marked "Landing instructions." Follow them implicitly.</p> + +<p>I will meet you. I have had fairly good facilities for scientific work +here, Peter. You will find my instructions accurate—all my data fully +explicit. You should have no trouble. Hulda sends love. She says, love +to Dan especially. Good old Dan! We feel very close to you all in +spirit, Peter—in spite, or perhaps even because of the void between +us. You will cross it—oh, my son, be very careful! Follow every +detail of my instructions. We will be waiting, impatiently. Zetta is +here, watching me as I write—</p> +</div> + +<p>Ah, that I had divined!</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Strange, dear little Zetta. So remarkable a friend—</p> +</div> + +<p>A cry from Dan interrupted me. I had been standing awkwardly holding +the letter up to the light. The room was dim, with shadows crowding +close upon us. At our feet the opened cylinder lay under the half +strength blue light. It was partly in shadow. At Dan's startled cry I +looked down. A red radiance hovered across the cylinder in the gloom +there! A faint glow of crimson! And there sounded a low guttural whine. +The crimson sound! In the room here with us!</p> + +<p>Dan leaped. From within the cylinder one of its metal boxes was coming +out! It came up with a jerk, as though raised by some invisible hand. A +small, dead-white metal cube. Enveloped in a vague red glow, it came up +to the level of my waist and moved away through the air.</p> + +<p>[Illustration: From within the cylinder one of the metal boxes was +coming out! Enveloped in a vague red glow, it began moving through the +air.]</p> + +<p>Dan went leaping over the cylinder; struck something solid; fell prone +on the floor with the metal cube clattering beside him.</p> + +<p>There was a confusion of sounds. A sudden unearthly scream. Dan's voice +shouting: "I've got it. Freddie! Oh, Peter—"</p> + +<p>Dan was struggling on the floor with something. I could see his arms +encircling it—something large. He rolled, fought. Freddie jumped for +him. I dropped the letter, dashed to where both Freddie and Dan were +rolling on the floor, gripping something in a glow of humming red sound.</p> + +<p>They both shouted: "Peter, watch out! Keep away! Watch him—grab him if +he slips loose—"</p> + +<p>I was standing over them. From the red confusion a naked arm emerged +for an instant. I seized it—a queerly light but solid arm of bone and +flesh and muscle. But it jerked away. There was a crash as the table +overturned.</p> + +<p>"Peter! Hold him! Peter—Freddie, let go of me—don't be a fool! Let go +of me, I tell you!"</p> + +<p>Something caught me in the face with a burning blow like a fire-brand. +I staggered back; my flailing arms hit nothing. The room was whining +with sound. On the floor Dan and Freddie in a fog of red glow, now +dissipating, were shouting and struggling to disentangle themselves +from each other. I heard a thump; the sound of running, padding +footsteps. Before I could recover my balance from the blow in the face +the sound was gone. A clatter in the adjoining bedroom, then silence.</p> + +<p>Dan and Freddie stood erect. Panting, shaking and confused. In the +bedroom, the window was again open. The intruder had gone. On the +floor by the cylinder lay the white metal cube which had so nearly +been stolen from us. We lifted it up. It seemed uninjured. On it was +a tag, with father's inscription: "Reet catalyst concentrated—B +Formula. Guard this well, Peter! Without it, your enterprise would be +impossible!"</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</h2> +</div> + +<h3>PIONEERS INTO SPACE</h3> + + +<p>June 14, 1957, I set down the date with my recollection that it was for +me the most momentous day of my life to that time. And I think, for Dan +and Freddie also—the day upon which, after more than sixteen months +of activity, we three were ready at last for the trip to Xenephrene. +The events of those sixteen months were to me the mere bridging of an +interval unimportant save in its consummation.</p> + +<p>There were times when we all thought we would fail. I am not of a +scientific trend of mind; nor is Dan. Upon Freddie both he and I +depended for a complete understanding of father's scientific data.</p> + +<p>Even so, there seemed to Dan and me in our impatience and futility +at our own lack of scientific training a great deal about father's +instructions that Freddie himself but half understood. And this Freddie +admitted. We would have failed, I have no doubt, had our government +disdained us. But it did not. From the first we had back of us not +only government funds, but the full resources of the government's +laboratories and technical staff.</p> + +<p>The whole enterprise was conducted quietly; and though some inkling of +it leaked out, the thing was kept fairly close. During most of this +period—these seemingly interminable months—Dan, Freddie and I were +in Miami, where in the government shops our vehicle was being built. +The government laboratories were there also. In them our mechanisms +were assembled; a thousand abstruse chemical and physical problems were +solved.</p> + +<p>The work progressed steadily, though with occasional maddening +holdups. Father had suggested that the outer shell of the vehicle be +constructed of alexite—that strange alloy, largely aluminium, after +the process perfected in 1943 by the Russ, Alexia. World conditions +made it difficult for some of the materials to be quickly obtained in +sufficient quantity. But they were obtained, and the shell was cast +almost on the date set for it in Freddie's schedule.</p> + +<p>The daylight months of 1956, in Miami, brought heat almost intolerable. +It is not my plan to describe that now. Weird change from what had +always before been the normal! The spring twilight thaws; the brief +period of lengthening days until soon the day and night were equal; +then, each twenty-four hours, a longer day, a lesser night. Swiftly +changing, until soon the sun never set. Blistering summer. Then again +the sun touched the horizon; rose; in twenty-four hours dipped a +trifle. Night a minute long! Queer cycle! But we were growing used +to it already, for human life springs swiftly to adjust itself to +environment.</p> + +<p>The summer of 1956 dragged itself past. In January, 1957, with the +fall twilight days passing and night again upon us, the vehicle shell +was cast. Assembling of the mechanism began in February. By April, in +the frigid darkness of midwinter, I think we could have been ready to +start. But Xenephrene was too far away. Daily now she was overtaking +the earth.</p> + +<p>We had to await the June conjunction when at her closest point for the +year, father's data told us the intervening distance would be some +seventeen and a half million miles. His notes named twelve o'clock +noon, June 14, as our best starting time. And in this, as in every +other detail, we were determined to follow his instructions to the +letter.</p> + +<p>We had been worried all these months over father's warning concerning +the presence on earth of enemies from Xenephrene. Indeed, that first +evening in the Cain plantation house when the storage battery of the +Reet Catalyst had so nearly been stolen from us, proved that father's +fears were fully justified. The precious white metal cube was unharmed; +and there was nothing else missing from the cylinder, as we had at +first feared.</p> + +<p>The intruder had left no trace of himself; but he was a man, human like +ourselves, undoubtedly. Dan and Freddie had come to grips with him; I +had felt his burning blow upon my face. There was a red, blistered welt +there for many days. Dan and Freddie were burned about the hands and +face.</p> + +<p>Curious marks! I say burned, for perhaps that best describes it. But it +was not that. A queer irritation of the skin and flesh where they had +been exposed to contact with the crimson radiance. It departed within a +week; and the ringing in our ears, which for a day we all feared might +presage deafness, was gone in a like period. Our eyes, too, were left +smarting and burning. For a day afterward I found my sight queerly +blurring at intervals; and any sudden light blinded me momentarily, as +one is blinded who steps abruptly from darkness into daylight. But all +these unpleasant sensations passed in a few days.</p> + +<p>This crimson radiance had been undoubtedly of a very weak intensity. It +had not been used as a weapon, but merely as a cloak of invisibility, +behind which the intruder had evidently felt he could steal the +cylinder and escape. This we realized, though of the nature of the +radiance we knew not much more than before; nor was there anything in +father's data to enlighten us.</p> + +<p>We feared a repetition of this encounter; but none was attempted. All +our work was done under guard in Miami; and everywhere in the world the +secret service of every government was alert. It was incredible, of +course, that upon earth there would be one man of Xenephrene—and no +more. We learned afterward that there were many, but at this time no +trace of them was found.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>It was the 4th of June when at last our vehicle was completely +ready—save its provisioning, some earth scientific apparatus which +father had bade us bring, and our personal effects. The assembling was +complete; the navigating mechanism was installed, tested and in working +order.</p> + +<p>It was then, but not until then, that success seemed assured. And with +the relief of it, we all realized what a strain we had been under. By +comparison, what lay ahead seemed simple. But that fancy passed; and, +though we never said so, apprehension soon descended upon us again.</p> + +<p>For myself a thousand doubts and fears assailed me. Could Freddie +successfully navigate us from one whirling world to another? By +mathematical formula which to me seemed incredibly abstruse, and +mechanisms in our vehicle which even he only half understood? Alone, +unaided, a pioneer into trackless space, with only father's complicated +notes to guide him!</p> + +<p>Freddie, during these last days, was very pale and silent. Not for +anything would Dan or I have voiced our fears; but Freddie was aware of +them, for they matched his own. Thin-lipped and solemn he sat for hours +each day within the vehicle; and sometimes he would slip away from Dan +and me during the hours of sleep, and we would find him there, poring +over father's data, or working at seemingly endless calculations.</p> + +<p>Spring twilight was mounting during the first two weeks of June. The +spring thaws were at hand. On June 13 we made our final inspection +of the vehicle to be sure its equipment was complete. It was a small +affair—as small as the one in which Zetta had arrived. And similar +in shape—a flattened globe twenty-one feet in vertical diameter and +thirty feet across its middle width.</p> + +<p>The thin shell of alexite gave it a dull gleaming white color. The +exterior was reinforced with a thick, rolled belt of alexite like an +equator around the globe's bulging middle.</p> + +<p>There were two vertical reinforcing circular bands; passing through +its poles they divided its surface into four equal segments. Into each +of these segments two small bull's-eye windows were set, one directly +above the other. And in one segment, near the bottom, was a small, +narrow door. The top and bottom of the globe were flattened to a level +area some six feet square, as though a section had been neatly sliced +off, to form a small lower floor and a small roof. Each was set with a +bull's-eye glass windowpane.</p> + +<p>Such was the exterior aspect of our vehicle. I chanced to stand alone +for a moment a few hours before our start, regarding it as it lay in +the small stone room which had been built to house it. A tiny little +world! Little white globe, so soon to be whirling through space with +its three human inhabitants! And I was to be one of the three!</p> + +<p>The globe's interior was reinforced with a lining of alexite ribs, +and a brittle wire mesh cast into the alexite shell. It was tested +for pressure; in the vacuum of space the outward pressure of our air +content would have exploded a shell less strongly built. Father had +calculated all this; his calculations proved correct; we had a wide +margin of safety.</p> + +<p>The globe inside was divided by two horizontal floorings into three +compartments. The lowest one, to which the narrow doorway gave +entrance, had a floor six feet square, bulging concave walls, and a +ceiling some seven feet above the floor.</p> + +<p>This compartment was our instrument room, and observatory. It had four +side windows, and the lower window which comprised its floor. Between +the side windows, the instruments were fitted in racks. The control +table was here, and a portion of the navigating mechanism.</p> + +<p>The middle story—much the largest of the three—contained our sleeping +cots, our meager cooking arrangements, our food stock, and most of +the mechanical apparatus for the navigating of the globe. The upper +compartment, in size and shape like the lower, held our personal +effects, our water supply, heating instruments, and the Regnalt-Dillon +air purifiers, with the pumps, fans and distributors. In flight, this +would always remain the upper segment of the globe; we would turn over +after leaving the earth and fall toward Xenephrene.</p> + +<p>I fear I give too much space to this pedantic description. The means to +which an end is attained are always less important than the attainment +itself. Certainly Dan and I, with our unscientific trend of thought, +were only interested in this little globe that it might transport us +safely to our destination.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The last day came. June 14, with its raw, thawing chill in the air; +its twilight at noon which almost promised a sunrise. Dan and I had +not slept for twenty-four hours, in the fever of our excitement. Nor +had Freddie. He had not left the globe; just sat there in the lower +compartment with the control buttons on his little table and a sheaf +of father's instructions, which over and over, he was studying. Once, +when I bade him sleep, he turned upon me so sharply that I retreated in +haste. I brought him a cup of coffee later.</p> + +<p>"Here, Freddie." I held it out, a peace offering. He glanced up with +his white face and tired eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, thanks, Peter—very much."</p> + +<p>An emotion swept me—between man and woman comes the human emotion most +strongly tempestuous, undoubtedly; but there can be between a man and +his friend an emotion wholly dissimilar, but of equally powerful bond. +I felt it then as I laid my hand upon Freddie's shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Thanks," he repeated. "Sorry I snapped at you, Peter."</p> + +<p>Men are most inarticulate with each other when deeply stirred. I nodded.</p> + +<p>Three hours later we left the earth. There was a pathos to our leaving, +mingled with the excitement of it. Any unusual adventure in life seems +to bring into play the whole gamut of human emotions.</p> + +<p>There stood Dan's old father and mother! Not for them did Xenephrene +hold any lure! They were giving their only son to what must have seemed +a mad tempting of fate. They had said little.</p> + +<p>What passed between them and Dan, I never knew. Indeed, with the +preoccupation of my own thoughts, I scarcely considered it. But they +came to the little stone house to see us start. They stood in a far +corner of the room, apart from the few government officials who were +there to speed us.</p> + +<p>A brief, strangely dramatic scene, our leaving!</p> + +<p>We stood there at the small doorway to our tiny world. Attendants +rolled back the roof of the room; the stars gleamed down upon us. The +room was dim. With my pounding heart, it seemed full of vague, moving +shadows—people I must hastily bid good-by now and leave—perhaps +forever.</p> + +<p>Some one called out: "Eleven fifty-four! Better get inside, Smith."</p> + +<p>Freddie glanced at his watch. "Yes. Well—good-by. Good-by, +everybody—wish us luck." His tone was queerly stilted.</p> + +<p>Abruptly men's hands were shaking mine; men were clapping me on the +back. And then I found myself with Dan before his parents. Trembling +old man and woman; a pity for them swept me.</p> + +<p>"Good-by, Peter."</p> + +<p>"Good-by," I said. Mrs. Cain kissed me. I added: "We'll be back soon. +Good-by."</p> + +<p>Freddie's voice was calling: "Hurry up, there!" I turned away. But Dan +lingered. From the doorway I had a glimpse of him as with his big arms +he caught his mother up to kiss her good-by, while his father clung to +him. Then Dan was with us. The small heavy door swung closed and locked +upon us.</p> + +<p>Eleven fifty-nine! Freddie sat at his table, his fingers on the row of +buttons. In the gloom, the only light was a glow upon the chronometer +face with its second-hand making the last circle. Noon! There was +a vague hum as the Reet current went on. The floor beneath my feet +stirred slightly, then steadied. Through the windows I caught a glimpse +of the room outside. It was silently slipping downward!</p> + +<p>We had started!</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Had our voyage been an adventure unique in modern history, I should be +constrained to describe it here in detail. But since these few stirring +years which I am describing, Interplanetary voyaging has become a +common thing. Father and Hulda were the first to leave the earth; +Freddie, Dan and I were next. Pioneers!</p> + +<p>We afterward gave the secret to our world; the history of +Interplanetary travel will make that plain. Space-voyaging soon will no +longer seem an extraordinary thing; already, the mere account of an +uneventful trip is not worth the reading. But an account of Xenephrene? +Ah! That is a different matter. I doubt if any world will ever be found +comparable to Xenephrene.</p> + +<p>As every one knows now, Mars is nothing like it; nor Venus; nor +Mercury. They talk already of going to Jupiter; to Uranus; to Neptune. +It is possible, of course. And in a few lifetimes beyond my own, +they will be striving to reach the distant stars, for the spirit of +adventure in man is insatiable.</p> + +<p>Our voyage to Xenephrene was remarkable only that we were pioneers in +Space-travel. To lay stress upon it here would be out of place. Those +days upon earth when the climate changed were more extraordinary. And +Xenephrene herself! The Wanderer unique! And those other terrible days +when we returned to earth—our world harried, wounded, bleeding, all +but beaten! But with spirit unbroken, fighting—</p> + +<p>So I hasten on.</p> + +<p>Our voyage was unmarked by any untoward incident. Our sensations at +first, the novelty of it, stirred us all as we had never been stirred +before. The first plunge into the dead blackness of space with the +stars and the sun and all the worlds blazing like torches, is an +experience never to be forgotten.</p> + +<p>The first look backward upon a dull-red crescent earth!</p> + +<p>Ah, the man or the woman who has had that look will feel very +differently ever afterward! A humbleness of spirit; a sense of our own +infinite unimportance in the great plan of the Universe! The traveler +broadens; it is only the man who revolves his mind in its own humdrum +little rut who thinks that he and what he stands for is the sum-total +of real importance and goodness in the Universe! What differs from +himself, from his own standards of thought and living, he thinks must +of necessity be inferior. The traveler knows it is not so. Distant +places, distant worlds, distant people—are different. Not necessarily +worse. Other races have different standards, different modes of thought +from our own; not better perhaps; not worse—just different. Our earth +poet once wrote: "Though patriotism flatter, still shall wisdom find an +equal portion dealt to all mankind." The traveler knows that it is true.</p> + +<p>I come now to that time when in our tiny voyaging world we found +ourselves, according to Freddie's calculations, at a distance of no +more than two hundred and fifty thousand miles from Xenephrene. As +close as our own moon is to the earth.</p> + +<p>Our vehicle had turned over soon after starting. The earth lay in the +star-field above us—a glittering red-white point, not very different +from a million others! Beneath us, seen through the lower window, we +were falling toward Xenephrene. It hung there amid the stars; to the +naked eye now it was a tremendous, moon-like crescent. Purple-red on +its lighted area. The shadowed part of its circle could be faintly +seen—a dull-red shadow.</p> + +<p>We sat in the lower compartment, Freddie, as usual, by his table, with +Dan and me beside him. Freddie was thoroughly rested now. At the start +he had worn himself to the verge of exhaustion. But once we were well +away from earth he found confidence in the verified correctness of his +calculations.</p> + +<p>We were upon our course. All was going well; and to our voyage, +with the novelty dulling, came that monotony which is the chief +characteristic of Space-travel. There was little to do, save sleep, +prepare our meals, and keep watch that no asteroid or meteor crossed +our path with dangerous nearness. Freddie's calculations were, from +then on, his only labor. Dan and I did the rest.</p> + +<p>We sat now with Freddie, who had called to us. The quarter of a million +mile point from Xenephrene was an objective to which we all three had +looked forward with keenest interest.</p> + +<p>"We're there," called Freddie. We came down to find him with sparkling +eyes and flushed face. "Two hundred and fifty thousand eight hundred +odd miles." He shoved his papers away from him. "I brought us, didn't +I? I did it!"</p> + +<p>We clapped him on the back. We all felt as though the Rubicon were +crossed. "Now," said Freddie, "we can open Professor Vanderstuyft's +last instruction sheet."</p> + +<p>Father had sent us in the cylinder one bulky envelope which expressly +he had stated was not to be opened until we were within two hundred and +fifty thousand miles of our destination.</p> + +<p>He called it "Landing Instructions." He had mentioned it several times +in a way almost ominously mysterious. Everything concerning Xenephrene +itself father had omitted from his other notes, as though not to +confuse our minds with details not then necessary. But now, we felt, as +we neared the other world, the mystery that clung to it would have to +be unfolded.</p> + +<p>The prospect made our hearts pound; for there clung always to our +thoughts of this other world a sense of the uncanny—we were plunging, +very soon now, into something weird, gruesome perhaps. But I thought +of little Zetta and I knew it would be a strange world; weird, perhaps +bizarre, but hardly gruesome.</p> + +<p>Freddie was holding father's envelope. "Here it is—we're entitled to +open it now. It's addressed to you, Peter—you read it to us."</p> + +<p>I took the envelope, broke its seal with fingers that were trembling in +spite of all my efforts to steady them.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</h2> +</div> + +<h3>LANDING TO FACE THE UNKNOWN</h3> + + +<p>To one of omniscience who could have observed us three as we sat there, +it must have been a very strange scene indeed.</p> + +<p>The tiny white globe which was our world, rotated slowly on its +vertical axis, a mere white speck hanging in the black intensity of +space. With its concave, encircling shell, that lower compartment, with +the iron ladder leading above; the three of us sitting there at the +table; Freddie alert, with keenly roving eyes, his hand out of habit +resting idly beside the control buttons; Dan's great length sprawled in +his low chair, his shirt open at the throat, a growth of blond stubble +on his face, his hair tousled—he lounged in an attitude of ease, +yet the tenseness of him was obvious; myself, sitting upright, with +father's papers in my trembling hands; shadows around us; one small +light casting its glow upon me; and through the window beneath our +feet, the upflung glare of Xenephrene, like a tremendous crescent moon +bathing us in its purple light.</p> + +<p>The silence! There is no silence like that of Space! Upon earth we hear +always a myriad tiny sounds and are unaware of them; without them, in +Space, the silence seems to scream its emptiness.</p> + +<p>Dan cleared his throat nervously. "Go ahead, Peter—what does it say?"</p> + +<p>I rustled the papers. Father's script began with characteristic +abruptness.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>"If you have done as I requested you are now within a quarter of a +million miles of this world. Comparatively so close to us—oh, my son, +I do hope that you are there! Soon, then, I shall see you—have you +with me. I am growing old, Peter. The ties of blood seem to strengthen +as we grow older. It has been lonely without you, my son, even though +I have had dear Hulda—and little Zetta, of whom we grow more fond +every day.</p> + +<p>"But this is no time for sentiment. I assume that Frederick and Dan +are with you, I must be brief, succinct. There are several things +which now I must make plain to you three. If there is anything here, +Peter, which Dan and you do not understand, Frederick will make it +clear."</p> +</div> + +<p>"Hah!" I exclaimed, "a little gibe at us, Dan!"</p> + +<p>Freddie smiled as Dan gestured. "Go on. Let's hear it."</p> + +<p>Good old dad! My heart warmed to him. I resumed:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>"The few astronomical facts concerning Xenephrene which now you should +know, are these: It is a globe flattened at the poles, expanded at the +equator. Rather more so than the earth. Polar diameter, sixty-five +hundred miles. Equatorial diameter, seventy-eight hundred miles. Thus +it is similar in size, though slightly smaller than our earth. Its +average density, I believe is about that of earth. Its mass, hence, +is but little less than earth. Gravitation, about the same. You will +notice, in this respect, hardly any difference.</p> + +<p>"Xenephrene's present orbit about our sun is an ellipse rather more +eccentric than earth's—more comparable to that of Mercury. I believe +it is not yet stabilized. There may even be a tendency toward a +breaking of the ellipse at its aphelion—I sometimes shudder at the +thought—if we should all be here on Xenephrene. Frederick will +understand—"</p> +</div> + +<p>I glanced at Dan. "Well, if he does, we don't."</p> + +<p>"Never mind," said Freddie. But he did not smile.</p> + +<p>I read on:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>"Xenephrene rotates on its axis once in twenty-two hours, thirty-seven +minutes, ten seconds, as we measure time on earth. This is very +similar to our earth. This axis is not inclined to the plane of its +orbit, but is almost exactly vertical. Hence we have here no change +of seasons. And throughout the year, the periods of day and night +alternate in exact and unchanging relative lengths.</p> + +<p>"Here in the country of the Garlands, we are situated at about eight +degrees south latitude. Thus, near the equator, our days are always +some eleven hours and nineteen minutes long; and our night but a few +seconds shorter.</p> + +<p>"Xenephrene has one moon. Pyrena, we call it. You will already have +seen it, even with your small telescope, no doubt. I will not go +into the elements of its orbit now, or describe its phases as we +nightly see them. A beautiful sight, Peter. It is really the sun for +Xenephrene—or at least it was, before Xenephrene came to bathe in our +own greater sunlight. It is a small world of incandescent gas—blazing +purple. You should see our dim purple nights—strangely beautiful.</p> + +<p>"You are now to proceed as follows:</p> + +<p>"I attach herewith a rough map of my own, giving the general +conformation of Xenephrene's surface. I drew it from my own sketches +made as I came down from outer Space. It is of necessity vague, and +inexact.</p> + +<p>"These people are not explorers. They know little about their own +world. And only a fraction—a very small fraction of the globe's +surface seems habitable. Much of it is fluid—not water, not air—you +shall see! The vast fluid areas, I have marked so on the map. And +there are areas of tumbled, jagged mountains of metal—naked metal. +And metal plains, smooth and barren as glass.</p> + +<p>"The country of the Garlands I have plainly marked. As you descend, +you will have no difficulty in recognizing the globe's larger fluid +areas, the larger configurations—and thus in locating, as you come +closer, our little land. It is very small—on earth we would call it +some three hundred miles, roughly oval.</p> + +<p>"We are only a million and a half people here—we of the Garlands. +The Brauns are scarce a hundred thousand. I have marked their one city +on the map, where it lies at the northern edge of our domain, with the +equatorial mountains and the fluid lake of Tyre and the Tyre plain +near it.</p> + +<p>"Beware this region, Frederick! Come up from the south! I suggest +now that you head for our south pole. If you have made the voyage in +my calculated time, you will find Pyrena ascending from her southern +swing. She rotates in retrograde, Frederick, this moon of ours—at an +average distance of eighty-nine thousand miles.</p> + +<p>"Head for the south pole, within Pyrena's orbital distance. Then come +up toward the equator, between our moon and Xenephrene. If you are on +time, you will find our moon at the full.</p> + +<p>"As you descend, you will go into Xenephrene's shadow, with her +between you and the sun. It is what I desire—there will be less +chance then of your being seen. In the area of our night, with Pyrena +shining full upon you, descend into our atmosphere. You will find +it extends outward some four hundred miles. Take it very slowly, +Frederick—be careful of the heat of your descent through it—judge +nothing from now on by earthly standards! Remember that!</p> + +<p>"You should be about over our ten degrees south latitude when you +descend into the atmosphere. Keep between us and Pyrena—and come +north to eight degrees S.</p> + +<p>"You will be in the night, with Xenephrene rotating under you as you +hover. Your altitude now should be about forty miles. If the clouds +bother you, descend to keep under them. If the night is too overcast, +so that from beneath the clouds Pyrena is lost to you, and the +darkness is too great for you to see our surface readily—wait until +it clears. Take no chances! Haste of that sort is too dangerous! Let +Xenephrene rotate for another day and night. I will see the weather +and understand.</p> + +<p>"When the country of the Garlands comes into view, watch for my light. +You will see it—a thin, steady white beam, pointing at the moon. +Occasionally I shall send a red flash along its length—at alternating +intervals according to the inclosed code. Thus there can be no +mistake—I fear treachery—one fears everything in such times as these +we are undergoing here!</p> + +<p>"When you are convinced that it is my light you see, descend toward +its source. At an altitude of ten thousand feet, cross into my beam +and hold there for a time, that I may see and recognize you. I will +send two swift red flashes. Leave the beam at once, and come back into +it. I will know then for certain that it is you.</p> + +<p>"Descend now, down the beam to its source. When I extinguish it, you +will see my glow of lights at your landing field. Descend there, and +land.</p> + +<p>"I caution you again. Take everything very slowly! You will be seated, +you three, in the lower compartment. When you land—when once you are +upon solid ground—extinguish all but one very small light. Then begin +to open your door.</p> + +<p>"I say, <i>begin</i> to open it! It is to be opened very, very slowly. You, +Frederick, understood, no doubt, that its queer construction was to +some purpose. I was very specific about that!</p> + +<p>"You are to undo its inner fastenings, and revolve its main circular +knob, a few turns at intervals of no less than five minutes each. I +want you to take fully thirty minutes to open the door.</p> + +<p>"Let the new air of Xenephrene in slowly, that you may grow accustomed +to it gradually as it comes upon you. This, of course, you have +guessed as my reason for such caution. But it is not only the changed +air you will be admitting! Other things will come in as well! To them +also, you must become accustomed gradually.</p> + +<p>"When the door is nearly ready to open wide, extinguish your remaining +light. Sit quiet! Do not attempt to move about! Let Frederick then +join you, when he has flung wide the door. Sit quiet, all three of +you. Do not be afraid! There is nothing to fear! It will be strange at +first.</p> + +<p>"I will give you a minute or so to gather your composure. Then I will +come in to you—oh, I pray now as I close, that this may all transpire +as I have outlined! God grant that you will come safely to me at last, +over such a distance! I will be waiting so anxiously for that first +sight of you in my beacon beam!</p> + +<p class="ph3">"Your affectionate father."</p> +</div> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>My voice trembled and broke as I ended. Emotion swept me; not only an +answering love for my father which sprang to meet his dear affection as +it came from the written words, but a fear as well. And an awe—what +was this into which we were plunging that he should be constrained to +caution us in such a fashion?</p> + +<p>I laid down the letter. Dan did not speak; his questioning eyes were on +my face. Freddie said huskily, "Well—" and stopped.</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "that's all."</p> + +<p>We stared at one another. As though by consent, with a common dread we +avoided discussion of what now lay before us—the landing, the opening +of our door to admit this strange new world. Its air, different from +that to which we were accustomed, would come in. <i>And other things!</i></p> + +<p>What other things?</p> + +<p>The three words abruptly held for me an uncanniness almost intolerable. +Something not to be faced—yet we would have to face it. "Absurd!" I +thought. "Why, father is there—and Hulda. And Zetta—" In truth, it +was more an unreasoning dread than fear; for, as I examined it, I found +that, more than anything in life, I desired now to reach Xenephrene and +my loved ones; and all the vague, mysteriously uncanny things in the +Universe could not have served to keep me from them.</p> + +<p>"Hey!" said Freddie. "You seeing ghosts already, Peter?"</p> + +<p>"Where's the map?" said Dan. "Let's look it over."</p> + +<p>We examined it. A crude drawing upon animal skin the same as served +for father's letter paper. It seemed plain enough. We discussed it, +and many of the other phases of father's letter. It all seemed very +explicit. We were, according to father's calculated time, exactly where +in imagination his hopes would now be placing us.</p> + +<p>If all went well—as, indeed, why should it not?—we would arrive upon +one of those nights in the full of the moon during which he would +expect us. As he surmised, our small telescope had long since showed us +Xenephrene's moon. A tiny blazing point—purple like the planet itself. +It showed now, just plunging behind its parent disk; a purple point of +light, with its leaping tongues of flame even to the naked eye a quite +visible corona.</p> + +<p>Our approach to Xenephrene! I might write for hours and barely touch +upon the beauty, the splendor, the wonder of it. A purple disk, a +tinging with red as we neared it. Convex now—a full, round, glowing +world, banked and mottled with clouds, beneath which the faint +configurations of its surface-marking gradually became visible.</p> + +<p>We headed for its south pole; rounded over it at some fifty thousand +miles' distance. We saw over us, hanging to the left, the blazing +purple moon. It was night, as father said, on this moonlit side of +the planet. For what would have been an earth-day of twelve hours or +more, we dropped downward into the shadow. The sun was hidden behind +Xenephrene now; the moon blazed on us in all its purple glory.</p> + +<p>[Illustration: It was night on this moonlit side of Xenephrene as we +dropped down toward it. The sun was hidden behind the planet and the +moon blazed up through the glass floor of our space ship in all its +purple glory.]</p> + +<p>Freddie, during these hours, was busy with constant observations and +calculations; Dan and I sat enthralled with the magic of the coloring. +As we slid upward toward Xenephrene's equator and gradually descended, +the planet's rotation showed quite visibly under us. I could see the +cone of Xenephrene's shadow as it swung off into space. It barely +missed the moon; a few more of her inclined swings and doubtless she +would pass into eclipse.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The time came when all the visual heavens beneath us were encompassed +by Xenephrene's bulk. There were at the moment but few clouds to hide +its moonlit surface.</p> + +<p>"Here," said Freddie, "take a look."</p> + +<p>He had been gazing through the floor window with our telescope. I +took it; gazed upon a purple area of what seemed a liquid haze; to +the left, a jagged mountain range—naked crags of gleaming metal +in the moonlight; to the right, and extending far up to the rim of +the northern horizon, a vast glassy plain, smooth, barely wrinkled, +motionless as a frozen sea congealed, while only a breath of air had +been scratching its polished top. It gleamed like burnished copper in a +purple light. Devoid of even a grain of sand, a twig, a blade of grass. +But there was one place where, in a depression, water seemed to have +gathered—an irregular crescent sea a hundred miles perhaps in length. +I mentioned it to Freddie.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said. "I've identified it on the map. We're on the other side +now from the Garland country, as your father calls it. He's in the +daylight now—"</p> + +<p>"Then to-night," Dan began.</p> + +<p>"Yes. To-night—eleven hours from now, approximately—our landing +place should be under us. We're eighteen degrees S now, I'll swing us +up to ten degrees S, and we'll wait."</p> + +<p>The full moon held level above us. As the hours passed, while we gently +dropped downward, cloud areas began forming beneath us. Freddie set his +jaw. "I'm going down—this is the night he'll expect us. If the clouds +will break away—"</p> + +<p>They did. We descended into Xenephrene's atmosphere. Our tiny globe +grew intolerably hot; then Freddie slowed us, and we kept the cold air +circulating. We went through the clouds. A dead purple mist, and then +they broke above us. A rift of moonlight came through. Land beneath us! +We could see it! A vague moonlight landscape, far down.</p> + +<p>Freddie was at the telescope constantly; Dan and I worked the controls +at his direction. Forty thousand feet, Eight South Latitude. We were +hovering in the dark over a rolling country of what seemed trees +perhaps—all vague and blurred and purple.</p> + +<p>"Know where we are?" I demanded anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Over the Garland country. The south middle of it, I should say. +That Braun city he mentioned—I got a glimpse of it, Peter. Up to the +north. We're all right—if only his light would show!"</p> + +<p>Then we saw his light! A thin, motionless white beam, standing up into +the clouds, where occasionally the full moon broke through a rift. His +light! We were sure of it presently. A red wave of color started from +its source at the ground and flashed upward. Then another, and others +at intervals. We timed them; compared them to father's notations.</p> + +<p>The time-intervals were correct. It was his light undoubtedly. His +welcoming beacon!</p> + +<p>Freddie had been keeping us cautiously away. But now at the ten +thousand foot altitude he swung us into the light. Its white glare +bathed us; came up through our floor window. Presently the two red +flashes came. We moved away, then back again. The moment which father +had awaited so anxiously had come. He knew now we had arrived safely, +we had answered his signal, and holding to the light, we slid slowly +down its motionless length.</p> + +<p>I do not know how long it took. It seemed an hour, while we sat in our +lower compartment, with the white glare streaming upon us. Then at +last, without warning, the glare vanished.</p> + +<p>We had extinguished our interior light; we were left abruptly in +darkness.</p> + +<p>I heard Dan's perturbed voice. "Freddie, shall I stop us?"</p> + +<p>Freddie was on the floor, peering down. I knelt beside him. He called +to Dan: "No, let us go. We're still pretty well up."</p> + +<p>I half whispered, "Can you see anything?"</p> + +<p>It seemed, for a moment, all quite dark. As though we were dropping +into a blank, bottomless pit. Then, as our eyes grew accustomed to the +absence of the glare, outlines below began to take form. The moon was +gone behind a cloud. But there was enough light left to show us a dark +ground, with a faint glow suffusing it, a thousand feet, not much more, +below us. It seemed a solid, open, flat area, flanked with small hooded +lights.</p> + +<p>Our landing field. There was nothing else to be seen; the purple +darkness crowded everything. The open space was directly under us. +Freddie made sure of that. He lighted our smallest table light, and at +the controls with his instruments before him, he brought us gently down.</p> + +<p>A minute; ten minutes. None of us spoke. There was a very slight thump; +our little world trembled, came to rest.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>We had landed! Xenephrene at last! Freddie stood up. His figure wavered +slightly—perhaps because of his excitement, and the new solidity +beneath his feet which made him momentarily unsteady.</p> + +<p>"You sit still—I'll start—I'll start opening the door."</p> + +<p>His voice held a quaver; he glanced at the chronometer, crossed the +room swiftly, and took a turn or so at the door wheel. A giant shadow +of him as he moved fell grotesquely misshapen upon our curved wall.</p> + +<p>He came back to us and sat down. "Nothing to do now, but wait."</p> + +<p>The minutes passed in silence. We did not speak; at intervals of five +minutes, Freddie made his noiseless trip to the door and back. My heart +seemed nearly smothering me; cold beads were dank on my forehead, neck +and chest. Waiting for the Unknown to make itself seen? Heard? Felt? +I wondered which; with every sense alert and straining, I sat waiting. +Fear? It was that, of course. I am not ashamed of it; there is no man +brave enough to front the Unknown with heartbeat undisturbed.</p> + +<p>Nothing—as yet. Or perhaps my panting, labored breath was from the +new-world air which now was coming in? The ringing in my head; the +flashes of red in the dimness before my straining eyes—were they +caused only by the tenseness of fear?</p> + +<p>Freddie sat down beside me. I heard his whispered words, "Peter! It's +almost open. One more turn will do it—Dan, you all right?—Peter, I'm +frightened—terribly frightened!"</p> + +<p>And Dan's gruff answer, "Yes. All right."</p> + +<p>Our side windows were black rectangles. What was out there? For a time, +thought of father had left me. He was out there; was he looking in upon +us? I could see nothing; but now the thought of father steadied me. And +Zetta. Was she here—near me at last?</p> + +<p>Freddie snapped out our light with a click, thundering, echoing in the +stillness. The darkness leaped upon us. Darkness and silence. But I +could seem to hear my beating heart. Or Dan's. And our breathing.</p> + +<p>And then I realized that this was no silence! Around me came thronging +a million tiny noises. Jostling things of sound in the darkness. Things +all alive with sound! I could hear them. Murmuring, whispering like +wraiths of jabbering things alive with sound. Or was it sound I was +hearing? So vague, unreal, it might have been some other sense. But it +was gathering strength; jostling sounds were whirling about my ears, +beating at me, gathering strength and mingling into a hum—</p> + +<p>All in the darkness. But there was no darkness! Shapes of color—moving +shapes of sound and color were here, crowding at my elbows. Formless +blobs, impalpable as colored shadows; formless, yet I could imagine +them into any form I chose. Jabbering, impalpable things pushing at +each other as though for a better view of me! Impalpable? Suddenly one +seemed to brush me; I could have sworn I felt it, light as a fairy's +wing, touching my hand.</p> + +<p>It may have touched Dan also. I heard his arm lunge; he cursed; an ash +tray on the table crashed to the floor. I jumped to my feet. Panic +seemed surging around us, out of which came Freddie's voice:</p> + +<p>"Easy! Sit down, you two! I'll get the door open wide."</p> + +<p>His padding footsteps were reassuring—something solid and real for my +confused senses to grip. I could see the moving blob of him, tinged red +with a faint aura that now suffused everything.</p> + +<p>The solid hum of him, unbarring the door, was steadying; the sound of +the door grating on its heavy hinges as it swung wide—</p> + +<p>"These damned Things." Freddie came back. The poise of him! He +laughed, with an odd, strained break; but still he laughed. "God! It's +queer! But it's nothing. Hold steady, everyone." His laughter seemed +contagious; I heard myself laughing. Was this madness stealing upon me? +A chaos of the undefinable, jostling us. A wild chaos of unreality in +which my confused senses seemed whirling away—</p> + +<p>"Peter!" Ah! Reality at last! Father's anxious voice, husky with +emotion! "Peter! Oh, Frederick? Dan? Are you all right?"</p> + +<p>Solidity, reality returned; my whirling senses came back. Father was +here! The solid thump of his heavy step sounded; the solid glow of the +purple light he was carrying filled our room. The reality of his voice; +his step; and then his arms were around my shoulders!</p> + +<p>And Hulda's happy, welcoming laughter. I kissed her; held the reality +of her dear little body in my arms; and all the red shadows and crimson +whisperings of a moment before were forgotten.</p> + +<p>Then came another voice—timorous, gentle, eagerly friendly; and a dear +figure in the doorway. Zetta! Her dear, quaint voice which for all +these months had been ringing in the ears of my memory, was sounding +now in reality at last!</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</h2> +</div> + +<h3>"UNDER GARDENS"</h3> + + +<p>"Well!" said father. "Well, you did come safely, didn't you? I'm so +glad, Peter. Light your light, Frederick. Well, Dan! I'm mighty glad to +see you. Here's Hulda! Come here, child—here is your Dan, at last!"</p> + +<p>Freddie snapped on our light. Even in the confusion of our joyous +greetings I was aware of how strange father and Hulda looked. Father +wore his hair, snow-white now, in a long, thick, shaggy mass about his +ears; a smooth and glossy black animal skin was draped about him, with +a white decoration on his chest; his arms and legs were bare, with skin +sandals on his feet!</p> + +<p>And Hulda! Her brown hair was shot now with pure-white strands. It +fell in waves upon her bare white shoulders, where her filmy robe of +light-brown silken fabric was caught with gay red ribbons. The robe +hung in folds nearly to her knees.</p> + +<p>I have seen pictures of the maidens of ancient Greece. Hulda looked +like that. Thongs of red crossed her breast, bound her waist and hung +dangling at her knees with tasseled ends. Her legs were bare. Her feet +in sandals like father's, but with pointed toes, the heel cut away, and +thongs of red crossing her instep. Her right arm was bare; but on the +left, her wrist was bound with a red ruching.</p> + +<p>Dan had infolded her in his first hungry embrace, kissing her without +thought of the rest of us, until she cried for breath. Then he held her +off.</p> + +<p>She was gasping, and laughing. "Do I—look so queer? Dan, don't you +like my looks? Don't you—like me—"</p> + +<p>"Like you?" His great arms would have wrapped her up again, but she +fended him off. She was radiant; I can imagine how Dan felt; I had +never seen Hulda half so beautiful. She was blushing; she laughed at +him archly.</p> + +<p>"The red, Dan." She indicated her tassels, and the ruching at her left +wrist. "You see, I wear it—for you. The sign that I am spoken for, and +pledged to a man."</p> + +<p>"Wonderful, Frederick, that you all got through so safely." Father +turned with Freddie, to me. "Frederick, you must meet Zetta—Peter, +have you seen Zetta? There she is—come in, child."</p> + +<p>Zetta was dressed very much as on earth I had last seen her. She stood +lingering in the vehicle doorway, eager to see us, but reluctant to +encroach on our family greetings. At father's words, she now shyly +approached.</p> + +<p>I stammered, "Zetta, I'm—very glad to see you again."</p> + +<p>"How do you do, Peter." She held out her hand, and I took it. A +confusion was upon me. This moment for which I had longed, came, and +passed. Perhaps, as once before, the barriers of conventionality rose +instinctively to hold my emotion in check.</p> + +<p>I think it was so with Zetta, too. Our fingers barely touched; but my +heart pounded harder, for I heard her murmur, "Be—careful, Peter. Be +ver' careful!" A warning against the power between us! Then I met her +glance as she eyed me sidewise. A roguish, impish look. This was a new +Zetta—here upon her own world, her real self. Little imp, mocking my +confusion with glee! She turned away, toward Freddie.</p> + +<p>"And this is Fred'rick? I am ver' pleas' to meet so good a frien'."</p> + +<p>I saw leaping into Freddie's eyes a swift surprise as he neared her, +took her hand and shook it cordially. Freddie's nature, from mine, or +from Dan's, is wholly different. Whatever surprise he felt, he gave no +further sign; shook her hand heartily, grinned at her, and swung on me.</p> + +<p>"Say, she's a little beauty, isn't she, Peter?" The old Freddie, +relieved now of the responsibility of commanding our voyage, his +characteristic breezy boyishness came back to him. I had not seen him +in this way since the first dreadful days of the Great Change came upon +us. He added, "You and I are going to be great friends, Zetta."</p> + +<p>Her gaze on him was full of undisguised admiration. "Yes," she agreed. +"I think so, too."</p> + +<p>We were ready to start. "Leave everything," said father. "I'll have it +guarded, and we're not going far."</p> + +<p>He took his lantern; shook it. It seemed to be a translucent +animal-bladder, possibly, filled with small objects that rattled. The +light from it was a glow of phosphorescence. He held it aloft.</p> + +<p>"This light is bad. Zetta, fix this up, will you? Can't they do better +than this?"</p> + +<p>Strange thoughts to spring to my mind! As Zetta took the lantern, held +it near her face, I fancied that she murmured to it. And as though in +answer to her command, the purple light grew stronger! I fancied so.</p> + +<p>"Thanks," said father. "Give it to me. I'll lead the way. Put out your +light, Frederick. You lads took your landing very well. Strange and +disturbing—this unreality just beyond our reach—isn't it, Peter? +You'll grow used to it—you'll forget it."</p> + +<p>He started away, with the rest of us following in the shadows behind +his upheld lantern. At his words, the crimson murmuring things in the +darkness again began crowding me. But I was not afraid of them now.</p> + +<p>On earth, always there are a million tiny sounds, audible if we will +but listen, and things constantly to be seen which, through habit, we +look at but cease to see. This was like that. With attention upon it, +this unreal sub-world of Xenephrene was strange and fearsome. But it +never obtruded; and already, as father said, I found myself ignoring it.</p> + +<p>There was, indeed, so much of strange reality spread now before +me! We stepped from our small doorway, upon the solid ground of +Xenephrene. The moon was beneath a heavy cloud. The landing lights were +extinguished; darkness enveloped us. It seemed a haze; the swinging +purple rays of father's lantern showed it as a swaying mist in the air.</p> + +<p>The night was warm, almost steamingly oppressive. But this feeling, +too, soon passed, and I found it wholly comfortable. The lantern, I +learned later, was what I had thought—filled with phosphorescent +insects, like fireflies; and Zetta had commanded them to shine more +brightly!</p> + +<p>Father led us slowly. The ground was level beneath my feet—a +corrugated, metallic surface. Sometimes there seemed a soil, and in +the darkness, the deeper shadows of giant vegetation. Great leaves +arched up over us, and soon we were under them, walking now on a soft, +moldy turf. A heavy, earthy scent rose from it; the damp smell of +molding vegetation. In the air, too, there seemed the scent of distant +blossoms. A fragrance. It lay in strata, seemingly; for occasionally it +was heavy, exotic.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>A moving shadow came up to us—a white-skinned man, darkened by the +purple glow of father's light.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Kean?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Professor." He spoke our language!</p> + +<p>"We're going down. They came safely. Have the guard placed as I +directed."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Master."</p> + +<p>"Not Master—Professor. You had it right the first time."</p> + +<p>"Yes—Professor."</p> + +<p>"Come to me after sunrise, Kean. I'll have plenty to say then."</p> + +<p>A man gestured. "They are checking too many of them in. A hundred or +two more came to-night."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" exclaimed Hulda.</p> + +<p>Zetta said quickly. "That woman, Brea—I saw her to-day—"</p> + +<p>This fellow Kean seemed a young man, my own age or less. His face was +serious. "Yes, I saw her. They checked her in—for how long it is they +would let her stay I do not know. Too many Brauns are here now. They +come, but there seems no record of their going—"</p> + +<p>"Place the guard," said father. "And after sunrise I'll see you, Kean."</p> + +<p>Zetta said abruptly: "Kean, will you seek out Graff? I wish to see +him—"</p> + +<p>"No!" father protested.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said quietly. A clinging, soft little vine I had thought +her, but obviously it was not so. Kean met father's glance. Evidently +he also did not approve of Zetta's wish.</p> + +<p>"I may not see him," he returned evasively. Before Zetta could speak +again, he vanished silently into the shadows. I fancied he made a leap +upward; I did not see him come down. We started off.</p> + +<p>We were descending now down a gentle slope. The verdure grew thicker +as we advanced. The perfume in the air turned aromatic, as though +scented by a million spiced blossoms. Abruptly the moon came out for a +moment, a small purple sun. The darkness lifted. We were in a jungle of +vegetation. It arched over us—great leafy spires, interlocking to a +network through which the moonlight straggled.</p> + +<p>There seemed few trees; it was all a network of stalks, and giant vines +and great huge lacy leaves. Pods and flowers hung in clusters. Over our +heads the foliage was solidly interwoven. I gazed up, and in the open +moonlight up there, it seemed to me on top of this tangled vegetation, +an artificial roadway—a street perhaps—was resting. There were moving +shapes up there, as though people might be passing along a city street.</p> + +<p>"Here we are," father called back over his shoulder. He shook his +lantern vigorously, and raised it over his head. "Here we are, '<i>Under +Gardens</i>,' Hulda named it. Our home—yours too now, while we are here." +He chuckled. "You might almost think you were back on earth, mightn't +you?"</p> + +<p>[Illustration: "Here we are," father told us. "This is 'Under +Gardens'—it is our home. You might almost think we were back on Earth, +mightn't you?"]</p> + +<p>He had stopped to let us come up with him. We had been following a +narrow, winding path, which like a tunnel, had been cut downward into +the jungle. It opened now unexpectedly into a small clearing. Not +that, rather should I call it a cave. The vegetation had obviously been +hewn away to form a circular opening—a cleared ground space in an oval +of a few hundred feet, walled in by the jungle, with the heavy network +closing overhead fifty feet or more above us.</p> + +<p>The moonlight straggled down, to mingle its purple light with father's +purple lantern. I saw here in this cave-like space, a little house +built in earth fashion, a solidly square, two-storied structure of +metallic blocks. Its walls gleamed smooth and burnished. Its windows +had shutters sticking out at an angle. Behind one of the windows a dull +interior light showed.</p> + +<p>There was a front veranda, with a railed balcony over it. Flowers were +massed upon a flat roof. A few of their stalks had climbed and mingled +with the vegetation arching above the house. On the ground there was a +front garden with a metallic fence. Flowers growing; and low things in +the ground which might have been vegetables.</p> + +<p>Altogether, it was a friendly-looking little dwelling place, neat, +orderly, and for all its fantastic surroundings, of wholly earthly +aspect. It was, I think, just for that reason, as surprising a sight as +anything Xenephrene ever showed me.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Father was laughing at our amazement. "The government built it for me. +They were very kind—built it exactly as Hulda and I directed. They +think it is the most bizarre affair in their world—as no doubt it is. +Zetta lives here with us but she hates it. You do, don't you, Zetta?"</p> + +<p>"No," she said. Her gaze at him was affectionate, and again I saw that +roguish, sidewise glance. A little witch, fascinating. "Oh, no," she +added. "I grow used to it now. But at first it was ver' terrible."</p> + +<p>We were at the garden gate, which father had flung wide.</p> + +<p>"Come in," said Hulda. "Dan, when you see how father has fixed +it up—the trouble everybody went to, trying to make things look +like earth. Oh, if we could only welcome you all at a time less +critical—frightening. Xenephrene is really very beautiful around here, +Dan—"</p> + +<p>We mounted the metallic veranda and entered the living room. It held a +soft illumination of yellow-white light. Grass matting on the floor. +A polished wooden table—wood queerly porous; on the table a fabric +doily; a lamp of skin like the lantern father was carrying; and his +writing materials.</p> + +<p>Furniture about the room, chairs of wood, with cane seats. A metallic +bowl, with water and flowers. Cushions on some of the chairs. On the +floor, a huge cushion bound circular with a fabric rope; I surmised it +to be a seat for Zetta. On a chair near an inner doorway lay a feminine +garment which Hulda snatched away.</p> + +<p>Father gazed around him proudly. "Not bad, is it? Come on. I'll show +you the rest of the place, and then put you to bed. You must, all of +you, be exhausted—"</p> + +<p>"I'm not tired," Freddie declared. And added, like a child: "I don't +want to go to bed."</p> + +<p>"Well, you're going," said father. "I'll give you till dawn."</p> + +<p>Dan demanded, "How long is that?"</p> + +<p>"Five or six hours. It will be dark when I wake you up." His arm went +around my shoulders affectionately. "It's good to have you with us, +Peter. There is a great deal I have to say—but more which we'll have +to do." His voice turned very solemn. "Things have reached a crisis +here. It has come—more quickly than I thought."</p> + +<p>Zetta said: "My people have made a mistake—if now they will listen to +you—"</p> + +<p>"They'll listen to me to-morrow," he said grimly. "If it isn't too +late. We mustn't get into any discussion now—get these poor travelers +to sleep."</p> + +<p>It did not seem to me that Freddie or Dan or myself could possibly +sleep, with all these new, strange things whirling in our heads. But we +certainly did. In an upper bedroom, upon beds which might have been on +earth, with bedroom windows open wide to the scented night, I closed +my eyes and in a moment drifted off. In the silence and darkness, the +crimson unreal things lurked around me. But they now seemed friendly +visions; my closed eyes shut them out; my ears heard their faint +murmurs, but they lulled me.</p> + +<p>The last thing I remember was thinking of how we had said good night +to Zetta and she had left us. On Xenephrene, gravity was almost the +same as earth; in walking, I had noticed no difference. Zetta said good +night to us at the doorway of one of the upper rooms. She turned and +went through the doorway with a graceful leap.</p> + +<p>I think she knew it would startle us—I think she did it just for that +reason. It carried her past the head of the stairs; she touched the +balustrade lightly with a hand for balance as she went over it, and +dropped the fifteen feet to the floor below. A fairy's leap, Dan had +called it that in the moonlight of a Porto Rican night. But it seemed +even more fantastic in these conventional interior surroundings of the +house, the halls and the stairway. I drifted off to sleep, thinking of +it.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</h2> +</div> + +<h3>AT DAWN</h3> + + +<p>"We have an hour," said father. "There is a great deal I must tell you, +but we must make it brief."</p> + +<p>"Kean will be coming at sunrise," Hulda said. "I'd have got you up +earlier."</p> + +<p>"I slept like a watchman," said Dan jovially. "Your air here must have +a drug in it—Hulda, what's the matter with your hair?"</p> + +<p>"The matter? Don't you like it?"</p> + +<p>"Well, but—it's turning gray. I mean—white!"</p> + +<p>Father said: "Look at mine—wholly white. There's something in the air +here—it kills the pigment coloring. There's no one in this world with +hair other than white."</p> + +<p>With father and Hulda, we were seated on the roof of Under Gardens. I +had, I thought, been asleep only a moment when father came to awaken +us. "Hulda is getting breakfast. Get up, you three." He added when we +were fully awake, "You'll find you don't need as much sleep here as on +earth."</p> + +<p>Hulda served us breakfast in a quaint simulation of the way she would +have done it on earth. I would not pretend to describe the food. I was +reminded of Dan's describing the involuntary grimaces Zetta had made at +the food they served her in Porto Rico.</p> + +<p>There was a beverage which might have been either tea or coffee—a +sweetish mixture of some herb; and the cooked flesh of what I hoped was +an animal—and eggs. They were small, and queerly oblong in shape; I +did not think it best to inquire into them too fully.</p> + +<p>"It's a very nice breakfast, Hulda," I said lamely, as we were +finishing.</p> + +<p>"You'll get used to it," said father. "Come upstairs."</p> + +<p>It was dim on the roof top; the full moon was evidently low to its +setting horizon; shafts of its purple light slanted down through the +thick arch of vegetation. The flat roof of the house had a low metal +parapet; paths between gleaming basins of flowers; and a small open +area with comfortable chairs. We seated ourselves and father produced +what were evidently home-made cigars. But they were not bad.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Dan, "this is mighty luxurious." In the moonlight I could +see his great lazy length stretched in his chair. "Hulda, sit here by +me."</p> + +<p>She sat beside him, with her hand on his. Dear little Hulda; she would +make any man happy to whom she gave the true steadfastness of her love. +Freddie was alert and eager to hear all that father had to tell us. So +was I, but my mind was divided by thoughts of Zetta. She had not yet +appeared; and no one had spoken of her.</p> + +<p>Father gazed around us. "It's been comfortable here. It must seem very +strange to you."</p> + +<p>Within the vault of this encompassing wall and ceiling of vegetation, +the air hung heavy upon us. I had been convinced that a street was +overhead; if so, it was untraveled now—in the moonlight up there I +could not see the moving figures.</p> + +<p>There seemed nothing living in sight. A moment later I was not so sure. +Vines ran up like ladders from the rooftop of the house to the jungle +ceiling. I thought, far up there, a figure was clinging. A brown shape; +a man—an animal? Or was it some giant brown insect lying motionless +on a great stalk of the vines? And then, down on the ground in front +of the house by the front fence, I saw unmistakably a brown crawling +thing. The length of a man—crawling prone with several legs; it +raised an eye toward our roof—a spot of dull red light with a circle +of smaller lights around it.</p> + +<p>I stared; it came crawling to the gate; raised itself up, standing +the height of a man upon a tripod of jointed legs; then sank back and +crawled slowly on, following the line of fence.</p> + +<p>Father remarked my awed, half-frightened gaze. He laughed. "One of +our guards. We've half a hundred of them on the ground here, and in +the foliage. We're just a little alarmed over Zetta's safety—you'll +understand presently."</p> + +<p>I took advantage of that. "Where is Zetta?"</p> + +<p>"Sleeping," said Hulda. "They do not sleep very regularly, here on +Xenephrene. She'll be up presently—I didn't want to awaken her."</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Father settled himself in his chair. "Before I can make you understand +conditions here, I'll have to give you an idea of the history of this +world—this race of humans so unlike ourselves physically, yet in their +human qualities so very similar. Don't be impatient, Frederick. I know +what you want are the cold scientific facts—I'll be as brief as I can.</p> + +<p>"They have always called Xenephrene 'the Wanderer.' It was their name +for their world. Our ancient earth astronomers in their ignorance +termed our planets of the Solar System 'wanderers.' They are not. They +are chained to our sun. Xenephrene has always been free. Wandering +free among the stars. Thus you will understand that the astronomical +conditions we have here now are all new to Xenephrene. What they were +before is immaterial. Nights of wan starlight; purple days of Pyrena's +moonlight.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps in the remote past most of Xenephrene's surface was habitable. +That is not known. Very little of it is habitable now, and there is +only one main race—these Garlands. Only this one habitable region; +they call it and the city here 'Garla.' The land very possibly is +shrinking slowly to a lesser area; the race certainly is dying. Ten +thousand years from now—" He shrugged. "What difference what the +outcome may be then? Ten thousand years ago the Garlands were evidently +a very progressive, 'modern' people. Their records show it."</p> + +<p>Father gazed at us earnestly. "I want you to understand this; it +explains much. On earth we are climbing now from savagery to what we +might call civilized modernity. The achievements of science—modern +life—a growing complexity of existence—all that, to us on earth, has +come to stand for advancement.</p> + +<p>"These Garlands passed that era of their development centuries ago. +Their history, their records, their traditions speak eloquently of a +past age when they lived in a machine-made world of science—the sort +of world we are building so rapidly on earth. There is, not far from +here, the ruined shell of one of their great cities. I fancy that in +its prime our present-day New York or London would have seemed very +primitive indeed. It is abandoned; in moldering ruins now.</p> + +<p>"There came a time when, growing decadent, or perhaps with a greater +wisdom, the Garlands began to feel that they were in error. Leaders +rose among them to preach a new philosophy of life.</p> + +<p>"You understand, I am speaking of changes that came, not quickly, but +spread over centuries. These people—a single race they were then—were +isolated upon their wandering world. Their science made them understand +it more thoroughly than we understand our earth. They had built for +themselves a complex civilization. They lived in bustling metal cities. +Machines did their work.</p> + +<p>"But they found, strangely enough, that the more 'labor-saving' devices +they invented, the more work there was to do. The cities were racked +with disease. A hundred million people, crowded upon too small an area, +living a complex artificial life, began to die faster than they were +being born. There was little happiness; life was too complex; the rush +to keep up with it was too great a strain."</p> + +<p>Father was smiling with a faintly ironical twist, but his voice was +very earnest. "It is queer that one must come to another world to +have a revealing mirror held up to one's self! They found out, their +Garlands, that they were on the wrong track! It may have taken them +centuries to become convinced of it—but when they decided they +evidently did it very suddenly. In a lifetime or so.</p> + +<p>"Their wonderful modern cities began to decay. The machines which they +had built to do their work began to stand idle—and instead of there +being more work to do, it seemed that there was less! They began to +remove complexities of life; the restless urge to 'advance' into some +vague golden age of achievement, died out. They realized that happiness +in life did not lie that way; they saw in Pyrena's purple moonlight a +greater beauty than all their man-made splendor had ever given.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>"They fell—if you want to call it that—back to simplicity. With the +greater knowledge of what they had passed through, with the stress of +'modernity' no longer harrassing them, a new altruism came. A primitive +race climbing upward is in no sense comparable. The savage has no +knowledge; his simple life is for him one of struggle; the survival +of the fittest is the only law he knows. Up to so-called civilization +the survival of the fittest governs everything; the Garlands, at their +complex, scientific pinnacle of civilized life, were inherently as +barbarous as at their savage beginning.</p> + +<p>"But once they began to revert—ah, then it was very different! They +had the knowledge of how to wrest from nature a comfortable existence. +As their wants grew fewer, humans looked at each other, not like +mistrustful predatory animals, but with a new kindliness.</p> + +<p>"That is the present condition. The Garlands live now only for +happiness. Their life, their government, their whole mode of thought +and living, is designed upon a basis of as little struggle for +existence as possible. They live for one thing only; to enjoy their +world, not as they might mold and change it, but as the Creator made +it, and gave it to them.</p> + +<p>"It is a benign world. Not to my mind, of course, as benign or +desirable as our own. But once they began to enjoy it, the Garlands +found it very blessed. There are fires within Xenephrene which, +for all her wanderings, seem to keep the surface temperature at a +pleasant warmth. Food grows readily; rains are frequent. There is, +fundamentally, no tendency toward human disease.</p> + +<p>"The few wants that the Garlands now realize they need for happiness +and health are easily supplied. No one works very much; there is plenty +of time for pleasure. The struggle for a high civilization was perhaps +necessary. It gave an experience of what to accept and what to reject; +and a knowledge of how to control the forces of nature. I'll explain +that more fully later.</p> + +<p>"There is evil in nature here—a danger which on earth we have not. +The Garlands have preserved enough of their science to enable them to +control it. Enough science also to guard against any attack. They're +not fatuous! There is a scientific body—they call it by a word I +translate as Guild. A small body of scientists who are 'modern' in +every respect. Their work is secret—so that what they do may not +contaminate the people with any desire again to 'achieve.' They are +thoroughly trustworthy, these scientists—"</p> + +<p>Hulda said suddenly: "Or at least you hope so."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said gravely. "I hope and believe so. They hold in their +hands the power of this world. In their grottos they have weapons ready +and waiting—and controlled power which holds in check the evil forces +of nature—the great sub-world of Xenephrene which lies here within the +cognizance of our human senses, as you knew when you landed and first +opened your door to let it in."</p> + +<p>I exclaimed: "These crimson things—this sound!"</p> + +<p>It was around us, murmuring in our ears as we sat there.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he agreed. "It is harmless, if controlled."</p> + +<p>It was what his look implied, what he refrained from saying, that +brought me a shudder. He changed the subject abruptly.</p> + +<p>"The animal and insect world is very interesting here, Peter. It is not +comparable to what we have on earth at all. You'll understand that very +shortly. There are few animals. The insects—" His glance involuntarily +went above us; that great brown thing was lying motionless up there in +the foliage. "The insect world plays a very large part in the scheme +of things here. These Garlands have a very well ordered world. All +designed for a pleasant existence. All this that the Guild of Science +does is never obtruded in the Garland's happy life. There is no +stress—no struggle—"</p> + +<p>Freddie interrupted: "I'm hanged if I understand you, Professor +Vanderstuyft. You talk as though this were some Elysium here. +Utopia—something like that. But you sent for us because of impending +danger. Last night when we arrived Hulda talked very differently.</p> + +<p>"Even awhile ago—and look at Hulda now—"</p> + +<p>Hulda's face certainly was very solemn; Dan put his arm around her. +I said: "I feel the same—what Freddie says—father, if there is no +stress, no struggle here—"</p> + +<p>He gestured. "I meant, in fundamentals. This is no Utopia. There never +has been any Utopia in human existence, and there never will be. Human +nature, wherever you find it in the immensity of God's Great Universe, +will have its human failings. If it had not, it would not be human. +There are good people—and bad people. Most of us are a blend of both +qualities. There is nothing wholly good short of Divinity, and nothing +wholly bad save our conception, perchance, of Satan."</p> + +<p>"Your father is in a philosophical mood," Dan commented to Hulda.</p> + +<p>But she did not smile. Father said:</p> + +<p>"Perhaps. But in reality I'm trying to make clear to you the causes +which have brought forth here a serious condition. It affects this +world—and you, all of us—for you are now plunged into it with me. And +the safety of our own earth—" Father's voice turned vigorous. "Why do +you suppose I sent for you? I could not leave here—I would rather, +infinitely rather, have come back with Hulda."</p> + +<p>"Tell us," said Dan.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Freddie prompted: "There are two races here. You mentioned the Brauns +in your letter. Are they the race which menaces the earth? Who invaded +it before?"</p> + +<p>Dan said: "That night in our house in Porto Rico—who took you away? +What was Zetta doing there? Who was the man with her we found dead? She +had just told you everything that afternoon you both disappeared—what +was it she told you—"</p> + +<p>"You see, there is so much, father, which we are eager to know—" I put +in. He raised his hand against our outpouring of questions.</p> + +<p>"I'm trying to tell you as best I can. There was only one race +here—the Garlands. They were not all of one mind in giving up +modernity. No race of people can ever be all the same. Some continued +to lust for achievement; some desired personal power—conventional +riches; some were just plain bad. Criminals. Only in Utopia would there +be a complete lack of crime.</p> + +<p>"Out of this diversity the Garland rulers strove to weed the discordant +element. Generations ago it was found expedient to exile criminals. A +region north of here, at the edge of the metal plains, was set aside as +a penal colony. Criminals were banished to live there, and there they +bred their kind.</p> + +<p>"Then, later, it was made by law a crime here in Garla to preach +modernity. The element—outside of the legalized scientific Guild—who +still lusted for the old achievement, were classed as criminals +and were banished also. As a matter of actuality they were largely +criminals at heart.</p> + +<p>"There were a few well-meaning crusaders who felt that the world was +going wrong—who actually believed their doctrine of 'hustle, bustle +and get rich.' But for the most part this element was composed of men +of criminal instinct who thought they could gain power by such a stand. +They preached, sought followers, tried by every means to foster a +discontent. Some were clever, learned men; one even tried to foment a +revolution and seize the government; another started a little city and +culture of his own.</p> + +<p>"Gradually they were weeded out and exiled. Thus, to the north of here, +the race of the Brauns was created. Of criminal stock, primarily—and +constantly absorbing all the criminals from Garla. They have one large +city—nearly all of them live in it. They are progressive—modern, as +I term it. Fundamentally, of course, they are not intellectually the +equals of the Garlands. But they think they are. They number now about +a hundred thousand. Somewhat more than that, perhaps. They have their +own government; they punish and imprison their criminals according to +their own standards of justice."</p> + +<p>"I should think," said Dan, "that they would object to having the +Garlands dump criminals upon them."</p> + +<p>"If they do, they have no other recourse. They could, naturally, +banish them to some other region. But they do not. The Brauns are few +in number. They welcome new citizens. Their city is very progressive. +Their chief occupation is industry. They have commercial intercourse +with Garla; they bring us clothing, implements, various manufactured +articles, which we exchange for food. They do not go in for +agriculture—indeed they have very little, and very poor land.</p> + +<p>"The Garlands, you understand, are the ruling race. They are ten +or fifteen times more numerous than the Brauns. And for all their +voluntary, rustic simplicity, they are far more intelligent. The Brauns +are not allowed here, except when they are checked in through our +frontier guards. They are given a permit, if their desired visit seems +justifiable; they are allowed to stay only a limited time to transact +their business, and then are checked out.</p> + +<p>"Their government now, for all their civilized talk of democracy and +freedom, is an autocracy, almost a despotism. It is controlled by one +Graff, a giant of a fellow who calls himself a scientist. As a young +man here in Garla, he tried to gather followers about him, and to seize +our government. He was exiled. Among the Brauns, he rose rapidly into +a very solid power. He is a genius in his way, no doubt. Certainly he +has a genius for organization. A magnificent physique—he is larger +than you, Dan—and possibly stronger. They tell me, too, he is a great +orator. He can sway people—he talked himself where he is, as did many +a man in our own earthly history.</p> + +<p>"A few years ago—just before Xenephrene wandered into our solar system +to be entrapped by our sun—Graff had stirred his people into thinking +they could conquer the Garlands and thus rule Xenephrene. The most +progressive, most civilized race—why could they not overcome these +fatuous peasants? The Braun civilization, as you can imagine, has +developed all the extremes of riches and poverty. They have factory +workers who are miserably downtrodden. Graff, largely responsible now +for it all, yet poses as a patriot and a hero. His ignorant class +follows him, hoping blindly to better itself.</p> + +<p>"Graff came here with a sudden coup to war against the Garlands. With +all his diabolical science—by every inhuman means he could employ. +And he was very much surprised to be abruptly repulsed. The Garland +Scientific Guild was ready; the Brauns were horribly slaughtered; +chastened, and things went on as before."</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>I had been aware for some time that the scene around us was +brightening. The moon evidently had set, or nearly so. A luminous +quality of yellow color seemed in the air; the purple haze was going. +Dawn was at hand. Our first day upon Xenephrene! What would it bring +forth? My breath came faster at the thought.</p> + +<p>The vault of foliage around and over us was taking clearer form; new +colors were coming to it. Down on the ground the crawling thing was +coming back past our gate. It met another of its kind. They rose up, +stood for a moment together, and then parted, crawling their separate +ways. Had they spoken to each other as they passed? They had seemed, +to my quickened, stimulated fancy, almost like two shapes of men, +guards, exchanging a low word as they passed on their night patrol. +I shuddered. Men! That crawling thing down there in the shadow by the +burnished metal fence might have been a giant ant; certainly nothing +human.</p> + +<p>Father leaned forward toward us; his earnest gaze held my wandering +attention. "I come now to the more recent events which directly concern +us of the earth. Xenephrene wandered in to join our little family of +planets gathered about our sun. Graff, with his science, in which +astronomy evidently is further progressed than ours of earth, was well +aware of what had happened. His telescope showed him earth—showed him +very possibly things on earth which gave him a new lust for conquest. +Here was a great, fair world, ready to his hand for the taking. He +could never be master of Xenephrene—of that he was convinced.</p> + +<p>"He gathered a small force and went to earth. His intention then was +not to try to conquer it—the trip was merely experimental. He wanted +to make sure of conditions there—"</p> + +<p>"To know what he was up against," I put in.</p> + +<p>"Exactly, Peter. He is a clever, resourceful fellow. He landed, as +we know, near New York. Then went South, to investigate the warmer +climate—the snow and cold were disconcerting to him.</p> + +<p>"To give you an idea how carefully he plans things—he speaks now both +our English and Spanish, making ready for his future earth campaigns +when he may need them. He captured—this he told me very blandly—an +earth man near New York. Learned English from him. And also captured a +Venezuelan—who supplied the Spanish. Both captives, as Graff blandly +says, unfortunately died when he was through with them. It was not a +great task for him to learn our tongues. The Xenephrene mind absorbs +new things—learns—more readily than ours. And Graff is perhaps even +exceptional in that."</p> + +<p>"Zetta—" I began.</p> + +<p>"Zetta and her father were here in Garla. The news that Graff had +invaded earth aroused great interest here. The Garlands doubtless might +have stopped him if they had known of it sooner. But they did not. +Also, the government here decided that they would not interfere—it was +really nothing to them."</p> + +<p>"I'd think," said Freddie, "they'd have been pleased to get rid of him +and his tribe."</p> + +<p>"That was the general idea. Indeed, perhaps it still is. That's +what I'm working against. Zetta's father—alone of all the Garland +government at that time Graff made his first invasion of earth—was +anxious to stop him. Zetta's father preached the doctrine, 'Do as you +would be done by.' He wanted to protect the earth people, or, if not +that, at least to warn them.</p> + +<p>"Zetta, of course, felt the same. Her mother is dead—she and her +father, without other near kin, were very close and dear to each other. +They got nowhere in trying to persuade the Garlands to help our earth. +Zetta, had she found the opportunity, might even have tried to join +Graff's expedition, a wild, girlish idea—she felt she might have some +influence with him—get him to give up his scheme of conquest—"</p> + +<p>"In Heaven's name, why?" Dan demanded. "Why did she think she might +influence him?"</p> + +<p>"Because he is in love with her," father replied gravely.</p> + +<p>"In love—" I exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Yes. He has pleaded for her many times. He never comes here that he +does not try to get her to return to the Braun city with him. He's very +gentle with her—she seems not to fear him."</p> + +<p>"Well, I would," said Hulda; and father nodded. And added: "An +unscrupulous scoundrel, beyond question. I have felt for months that +Zetta was not safe from him. Whenever he is in Garla, I keep our place +here well guarded."</p> + +<p>"He's in Garla now?" I asked. My heart was beating fast. "Didn't Zetta +tell that man last night that she wanted to see this Graff?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. But I will not let her. She thinks she might be able to stop him +going to earth. A foolish girl's idea." Father waved it away.</p> + +<p>"I learned very recently, though we have suspected and feared it for +some time—Graff's real expedition to attack earth is now ready! Do +you understand me? He's going to earth with all his force to make his +real play to conquer it—not seventeen months hence—but now! Graff is +ready now to attack the earth. Oh, Peter, if I had only known!"</p> + +<p>That miserable phrase again! That accursed phrase!</p> + +<p>"Peter, I should have sent for you sooner. I could have used every +effort—sent for you seventeen months ago. Well, it's too late now to +think of that. In a few days! Unless we can stop him! Or persuade the +Garlands to do something about it—"</p> + +<p>"Which they won't," said Hulda. "He's here in Garla buying food for his +expedition. And making public speeches to our people—promising them +heaven knows what kind of rewards when he returns from conquering the +earth. The Garland public is half won to him now. And the woman Brea is +here—"</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>"Who is Brea?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"A woman who wants to join him," said father. "Call it marriage—I +haven't time now to go into the social laws of this world."</p> + +<p>"You were telling us how Zetta went to the earth," Freddie prompted. +"Was that her father who went with her?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. They could get no help from the Garlands, so they started +alone—to warn us on earth—to do what they could to help us. Zetta's +father was ill. The trip was bad for him. He died, just as they +arrived. And Zetta carried on his plans."</p> + +<p>Freddie persisted: "The Garlands gave them the vehicle?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"What weapons have they available here? Now, I mean. Suppose they gave +us some—"</p> + +<p>Father smiled somewhat ruefully. "The Scientific Guild here takes me +only partially in its confidence. Smiling, polite, courteous—but I +am a stranger—they never forget that for a moment. What weapons they +have, I confess I don't know. Graff's method of attack on earth—that, +too, I don't know. His weapon, which we called the 'Crimson Sound'—I +can only guess its real nature. It is allied with the Infra-Red +world—that is obvious.</p> + +<p>"At all events, when I learned that Graff was planning to attack our +world again, I demanded of the Garlands a vehicle with which to go to +earth. They told me they had none. We're building one—it may be ready +now. As a matter of fact, I did not feel it best to leave here. I still +may be able to persuade them to help us. They were willing to have +you come. They provided me with the cylinders—and the mechanisms—so +readily that I was forced to suspect that in reality they have +everything on hand which we would need. Zetta has done everything she +can do. But she is only a girl—the government pays little attention +to her. She has made several speeches to the women of Garla—but they +availed nothing."</p> + +<p>Father's fists were clenched on the arms of his chair. "When I sent for +you three, I thought we would have seventeen months. I thought with +your presence—your words and pleadings to add to mine—to make them +help us, and—I'll confess it—I was lonely for you. I'm getting old."</p> + +<p>"You thought something else, father," said Hulda quietly. Strange +little Hulda! A will of iron, beneath her soft, dovelike little body!</p> + +<p>Father lowered his voice slightly; his glance around us in the growing +twilight of dawn had a surreptitious aspect. "Yes, I did. I thought +that with your youth and strength and daring we might perhaps be able +to thwart Graff here on Xenephrene before he started. Or, failing +that"—his voice fell lower—"we might even dare try and make away with +the Garlands' weapons—get them to earth."</p> + +<p>Dan leaped to his feet; his height towered over us. "Well, it's not too +late for that, is it? See here, why can't we—"</p> + +<p>"Sit down," said Freddie. "There's a lot we don't know about this thing +yet. Professor Vanderstuyft, how did you and Hulda and Zetta happen to +disappear that night in Porto Rico?"</p> + +<p>"Graff knew Zetta was on earth," said father. "He came to get her—I +was up, and Hulda was awake. The man Graff sent captured all three of +us. We went back in the vehicle Zetta had arrived in. Our captor's +name was Kean—that same young fellow who spoke to us last night—he's +coming here shortly now to see me."</p> + +<p>"Then he was a spy—not really one of Graff's men?" Freddie suggested.</p> + +<p>"No. He was in Graff's service. But a very decent fellow. He had been +convicted of a crime here in Garla. A theft. Convicted unjustly, he +says, for he still maintains his innocence. They're trying him again +now—at his request—even though he has recently been pardoned and +reinstated in Garla. He was exiled, and, in his resentment, he joined +Graff. He captured us in the Cain plantation house. He was supposed to +take us to the Brauns. But he didn't. He brought us here."</p> + +<p>"Why?" asked Dan.</p> + +<p>Father was smiling at Hulda. "Well, Dan, I think you'd better ask Hulda +that. But don't be angry with her. She is—"</p> + +<p>A woman's scream brought us all to our feet. My blood chilled; a wave +of ice seemed sweeping up to grip my heart. A scream from within the +house below us! A scream of terror! Zetta!</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</h2> +</div> + +<h3>"EMPEROR OF THE EARTH!"</h3> + + +<p>In the flat light of dawn we must have looked ashen as we stood there +on the roof top with Zetta's scream ringing in our horrified ears. I +remember standing transfixed just an instant. Father made a leap toward +the stairway that led down into the house, but a cry from Hulda checked +him.</p> + +<p>"Look! The guards—look there!"</p> + +<p>[Illustration: The Braun with the knife sprang at Zetta, and she called +on her insect guards for help.]</p> + +<p>We were at a corner of the roof where it projected and gave a side +view of the building. In the twilight I could see the ground—a garden +path between flowering shrubs; the burnished side wall of the house; +the lower windows, with shutters slanting out; and an upper window, +diagonally beneath us, Zetta's room! It seemed so. It was opened; +another scream from Zetta came through it.</p> + +<p>I recall that my confusion was mingled with a sense of relief—this cry +seemed to hold not so much terror as anger and words of command.</p> + +<p>It all happened in no more than an instant, while we hung over the roof +parapet, watching. From the ground a figure leaped upward—a great +brown thing with spindly legs, shining shell of jointed body and a head +with thin waving arms beside it.</p> + +<p>From within the room a commotion now sounded, a struggle—the +scratching of giant insect legs, the pad of human feet. The thing on +the ground outside came sailing up with its leap; it clutched the +casement, went scuttling in the window.</p> + +<p>Father left us and ran down the staircase from the roof, but we did +not heed his going. Then from the window a man's body was tumbled out. +The grotesque forms of two great insects showed there; they were in +the room, pushing the man through the window. He fell lightly to the +ground; lay huddled, writhing in a heap. From the window they leaped +down after him. A thing with brown spreading wings came sailing down +from the foliage; a dozen others were leaping from unseen places.</p> + +<p>Zetta appeared at the window. Zetta, unharmed. She gazed down but +behind her, father appeared and drew her back into the room. On the +ground a score of the insect guards were writhing, scratching, pawing +over the body of Zetta's assailant. One scuttled away with a fragment, +and two others chased it.</p> + +<p>"It's perfectly clear to me," said father. "Kean, this blackguard Graff +tried to abduct Zetta. What will your government say to that, when I +tell them this morning? Are we to have these Brauns committing crimes +right here in Garla?"</p> + +<p>We were all in father's living room, half an hour after the attack on +Zetta. Kean had come; he stood now before us respectfully listening +to father's indignant words. He was a slim young fellow, as short as +Freddie and as slender; a smooth, white-skinned youth, in leather, +sleeveless jacket and short, wide-flaring leather trousers. Bareheaded, +his thick, white hair hung long to his ears, with a thong binding it +about his forehead. His face was pleasant, with a delicacy of cast +suggesting girlishness, but his mouth was wide and firm-lipped, his +chin strong and thoroughly masculine.</p> + +<p>I liked him at once, this Kean. He smiled at us and shook our hands. He +spoke English, like Zetta, with that quaint, clipped accent.</p> + +<p>Zetta had not been hurt. She had been awakened by an intruder at her +window. An insect guard evidently had followed him in, had attacked +him. The rest we witnessed.</p> + +<p>"Who was he?" Kean demanded.</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "I do not know."</p> + +<p>Father said: "You never saw him before?"</p> + +<p>"No, never. I think not."</p> + +<p>"A Braun?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes."</p> + +<p>Kean gestured. "If we had him, we could tell—"</p> + +<p>"He is—gone now," said Zetta. I shuddered at the memory. Gone indeed!</p> + +<p>Father repeated: "Graff evidently sent him to abduct her. Is the +government going to do nothing—"</p> + +<p>"They would want proof," said Kean quietly. "I was thinking—Zetta, was +he trying to get you away, or—"</p> + +<p>"Or what?" Hulda demanded.</p> + +<p>"Or kill her. I was thinking—it might not be Graff who sent him." He +waved away his words. "It would be a very serious problem—other days. +But not now—there is too much else."</p> + +<p>It struck me that Zetta's face bore a queer expression. She said +suddenly: "I will tell you the truth."</p> + +<p>We turned on her; she was smiling a faint, quizzical smile. "I was +sleeping, as I said. The insect guards caught a man who leaped for my +window. A Braun—I had never seen him before. They would have torn +him—but I made them stop. I tell them, bring him in. And when they +did, I sen' them, the guards, outside, for I wish to speak to him +alone."</p> + +<p>Hulda exclaimed: "Zetta, you did not!"</p> + +<p>"I did," she returned calmly. "The insects wanted to attack him—so I +force them away. I thought then he was from Graff—I thought he want to +carry me off—steal me for Graff. I was not afraid of him—" Her smile +broadened. "Especially with my guards jus' outside. So I stood agains' +the wall, with him across the room, to talk to him."</p> + +<p>"But why?" father demanded. "Child, why would you do a thing like this?"</p> + +<p>"I think to find out if really he was from Graff; and if so, then I +wanted to send a message. If Graff would give up his attack upon the +earth, I would marry him as he wants. That was my message."</p> + +<p>She said it so calmly! I could picture her standing there in her room, +trying to bargain herself for the safety of another world. There was +not one of us who could find a word to comment. I saw the tears spring +to Hulda's eyes.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Zetta went on unmoved, heedless of our expressions. "I tell the Braun +this. But he was not—that seems sure—he was not sen' by Graff. He +stood of a sudden with a knife—a long knife of the kind we use in +Garla to cut the pods. He jump for me—he would kill me. It was then I +screamed. In the room I avoided him for a moment—and then my guards +came in." She gestured. "The res' you know—and there you have now the +truth—all of it."</p> + +<p>Hulda took Zetta in her arms. "You strange little thing Zetta, you +mustn't do anything like this—"</p> + +<p>Father said: "If Graff had got your message, he would trick you. Zetta, +promise me you won't try that again. Will you promise?"</p> + +<p>She eyed him. "I think perhaps I may not get the chance."</p> + +<p>Kean said: "He tried—that Braun—to murder her. He was from Brea—not +from Graff."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Zetta. "I think that is so."</p> + +<p>"I'm going before the Council at noon," said father. "I'll have this +out with them—Zetta, if you're going to force me, I'll put you under +guard so you won't be able to do anything foolish—Kean, I want you +to tell the Council I'm bringing my son, and two young friends. +Earthmen—they must hear us now—"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Kean solemnly. "The people are excited, interest' that men +of earth are here. But most interest' in Graff. He promises big things +for Garla—" Kean was very solemn. "The gov'ment is making mistake. +There are too many Brauns here. At the border—I tell them jus' now +that out of our border something mus' be wrong."</p> + +<p>He was talking mainly to father, but his gaze seemed involuntarily +swinging to Hulda. "At our border they are not checking the Brauns out +as they should. Or at leas' not sending the reports back to us. All +night—none have come. I have sen' messengers to see what is wrong—"</p> + +<p>Father turned to us. "You understand? The authorities have grown +suddenly lax—"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you why," said Freddie. "They're satisfied, since Graff is +going to attack earth, that they have no immediate cause to fear him, +or his people. Maybe, too, they think that when he comes back, laden +with spoils, Garla will benefit—"</p> + +<p>"That is it," Kean interrupted. "He tells our people that—exactly +that. It is not our gov'ment which is tempt' into greed—it is the +people—"</p> + +<p>Father said: "Well, the authorities are making a mistake, Kean. This +Graff—you believe it as well as I do—is playing a double game. You +know he means no good to Garla. The insect workers—you say there are a +great many of them missing?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am order to-day a checking of them. Many—a thousan' as you say +it—seem gone—"</p> + +<p>"Gone?" I echoed. "What does that mean? Gone where?"</p> + +<p>Kean waved his slim white hand. "Over the border? Per'aps—I do not +know. It is ver' strange—"</p> + +<p>"Smuggling them out!" said father to us. "You understand? There are +no insect workers in the Braun city. Graff is here, talking—blandly +protesting friendship, with his insidious lures of gain from his earth +conquest—and all the while he's secretly smuggling out our insects—"</p> + +<p>Kean had turned away momentarily to Hulda. "My trial, it finish last +night. They gave the verdic' jus' now—I am said, innocent."</p> + +<p>Hulda's face brightened; she took his hands. "Oh, Kean, I'm so glad. +Father, the verdict has cleared him!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said quietly. "Thank you, Hulda."</p> + +<p>I whispered to Dan: "Father said you'd have to ask Hulda why Kean +brought his captives to Garla instead of delivering them up to the +Brauns. I can tell you why."</p> + +<p>It was obvious, seeing Kean's earnest, flushed face as Hulda +congratulated him.</p> + +<p>"Why?" demanded Dan.</p> + +<p>"Because he's fascinated by her. Look at him—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, he is?" Dan's expression was a study. "He is, is he?" And then he +laughed. "Well, you can't blame him, can you?"</p> + +<p>"No," I said, "you can't."</p> + +<p>Kean left presently; and Dan made a studied, but very graceful +attempt to be friendly. Both Hulda and Kean knew what he meant. +Kean's handclasp was firm and cordial; his gaze into Dan's eyes was +unfaltering. He carried himself then—and indeed, always—with a very +manly dignity worthy of any one's admiration. When he was gone, Hulda +turned to Dan, flung her arms around his neck and kissed him.</p> + +<p>"Dan, you're a darling."</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The morning was well advanced when we started with father from "Under +Gardens." He wanted to show us the city; we would finish at the +government house—I call it that for the want of a better term—and +make our plea to the Council. I was not aware then what thoughts and +vague plans possessed Dan and Freddie; but for my own part, my mind was +roaming upon what father had said: "With your youth and strength and +daring we might even try to make away with the Garlands' weapons. Get +them to earth—"</p> + +<p>Why not? I determined that what was shown me of the city and the +government this morning, I would see with eyes and mind open to watch +every opportunity. And I must get a chance to plan alone, with Dan and +Freddie.</p> + +<p>Hulda and Zetta were determined to appear before the Council with us. +Just as we started, Freddie said abruptly: "Professor Vanderstuyft, fix +it so we can go through the Scientists' Grotto, will you?"</p> + +<p>His thoughts were running in the same channels as my own! Dan gave him +a very significant nod of approval; and father said firmly: "I intend +to. But it will likely be after the midday meal. I want you to see the +Infra-red Control. The greatest power for good or evil in this world."</p> + +<p>Zetta and Hulda stood apart from us at the doorway. Zetta called: +"Shall we start? The guards are here, Professor Vanderstuyft—they say +you insis' on having them with us."</p> + +<p>A group of the brown insect things were ranged before our gate! I could +not approach them at first without an inward shudder—a reluctance +wholly involuntary, which made me revolt at their nearness. Jointed +brown things crawling prone on the ground. Gruesome. Not alone because +their size was full that of a man—gruesome, in the way they sometimes +stood upright upon three hind legs; other legs dangling like arms; +head, grotesquely wearing a single, multiple-lens eye; antennae, like +arms waving above the head.</p> + +<p>Gruesome for all this—and more gruesome for a crude leather jacket +strapped around them in the fashion of a garment. Things—living +things—more than giant insects as we of earth would conceive the term; +yet less than humans. Some stood erect now; they eyed my father as one +to whom they must look for commands. Others crawled unheeding along the +edge of the fence—ghastly! Horrible! One stopped, half raised itself, +and eyed me with a calculating stare that turned me cold.</p> + +<p>We started. Some of the insects remained about the house; eight went +with us, four of them slithering along on each side of us. It was +full daylight now. The sunlight came down through the jungle ceiling +in a subdued yellow glow. There was a street up there; I could see the +straight lines of a causeway laid upon the top of the foliage; figures +moving along it. We were under a portion of the city. Father had said +so; and now, almost at once, we came to the foot of an incline which +led us upward.</p> + +<p>"This way," said father. "Take it slowly. These cursed things will hold +our weight, but I never feel very comfortable on them."</p> + +<p>We left the solid ground upon which Under Gardens was built, and I +confess I never felt comfortable either, until we were back again. The +inclined causeway was some twenty feet wide. It wound steeply upward +through the forest growth, with a ten-foot space cleared over it like a +tunnel.</p> + +<p>It was built of porous tree-trunks, lashed together with a heavy +vegetable fiber laid on them for a walking surface. Its framework was +bound to the trees and the thick vines which grew everywhere throughout +this gigantic forest tangle. The whole structure bent and swayed +beneath our weight as we advanced up it. I was reminded of the old-time +giant bamboo bridges of Japan.</p> + +<p>We went up through some two hundred feet of the jungle and came +abruptly into the broad daylight of its upper surface. We were in the +heart of the city they called Garla; this small locality where we +emerged was the center of population of all Xenephrene.</p> + +<p>"Here," said father, "come up here for a minute—I'll show you how it +lies—Zetta, keep them back."</p> + +<p>A crowd of people already was gathering, staring at us silently. Father +waved them away; and murmured a queer guttural command to our insect +convoy. The things lay quiet in a group. Near at hand, on a tree-trunk +framework, was a small platform some twenty feet in the air with a +ladder leading up to it.</p> + +<p>"Come up," said father. "We can see better—a jumping platform, as I +call it."</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>We mounted, and gazed upon as strange a scene as ever I could have +imagined would be spread before me. The surface of Xenephrene here was +covered, for an area of perhaps five miles square, with this dense +forest growth. Its top—two hundred feet above the ground—was tangled +and matted into an undulating upper surface.</p> + +<p>Upon this forest top, the main section of the city of Garla was built. +The streets—we seemed now to be on one of the main ones—were narrow, +crooked roadways of split porous logs, bound with matting. The tops of +the jungle vines projected with waving branches between them.</p> + +<p>Houses lined the streets, fiber shacks of every size and shape, +with large empty areas like gardens between them. Cubical, oval, +triangular—some low like a bungalow—others tall and narrow as towers. +Flimsy vegetable structures, with matted roofs to shed the rain; with +windows, doorways, sometimes twenty feet above the roadway. Some of the +houses were set like nests below the street level, in the vegetation +itself, with entrance from the roof. Others clung between the trunks of +taller projecting branches, bound there with living vines, half hidden +by leaves and giant flowers.</p> + +<p>At intervals were platforms like the one upon which we stood. The +street nearest to us was most closely lined with houses; the fronts +were open, with what seemed food displayed. The business district. +Further away, with a great circular open space before it, was a large, +broad structure. "The government house," said father. "An incline there +leads down to the ground—the grottos are down there."</p> + +<p>It was an amazing, colorful scene—I fear my words are futile, wholly +inadequate to picture it. The familiar blue vault of the heavens was +above us. White clouds, tinged with a vague purple. The familiar +sun—with a dim purple haze in the air breaking its tropical heat and +glare.</p> + +<p>This five mile area of city, laid upon the jungle top, all seemed +incredibly flimsy. It swayed everywhere in the gentle morning breeze. +All the vegetation was gigantic, and flimsy—porous like our bamboo +stalks, or banana trees.</p> + +<p>Father commented: "Nothing living weighs very much here. All living +organism seems constructed with strange lack of solidity compared to +our earthly standards."</p> + +<p>The lack of weight was everywhere apparent. Great brown vines and +trees, branches with giant green, red, and purple leaves, huge colorful +flowers. But with a machete I could have hacked it away, slashed +through the stoutest trunk with a single stroke. The houses! I felt, +gazing at them, that I could rip them apart with my naked hands!</p> + +<p>Zetta, both on earth and Xenephrene, weighed some eighteen pounds. +There were white-faced, white-haired, half naked little children gazing +now at us from the near-by houses—children who weighed a pound or +two. Women passed us—in aspect save for their flowing white hair, +not unlike peasant women of the primitive, tropical cities of earth +as they were before the Great Change—but these women weighed twenty +or twenty-five pounds! Men in crude leather garments, bare-legged, +bare-armed, white hair flowing about their ears, some with small oval +kindly faces, with no hairgrowth on them; these men might weigh from +twenty-five to thirty pounds—no more.</p> + +<p>All flimsy! Everything—it brought me a sudden sense of power. Why, in +a hand-to-hand fight I could smash a dozen of these men! We of earth +were solid; the platform bent beneath our weight as we stood there; +Dan's bulk tipped its unrailed corner until he nearly fell, lurching +backward hastily to safety. Had he fallen, I felt he might have crashed +on through the street itself, down through the forest to the ground. No +wonder father had demanded his home built down where it was!</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>I have not pictured the strangest aspect of all. The city was busy with +its activities. There seemed no vehicles here. Pedestrians only—moving +about their daily tasks. Strange, weird movements! They walked along +the streets in easy, graceful leaps. Fifteen feet at a stride. They +climbed down into the vegetation; or leaped to a housetop. A man came +from a house doorway. It was in the upper story—thirty feet from the +street. He stared at us—waved his hand in a gesture of greeting to +father and Zetta; then he leaped into the air, over the road, landing +in the notch of a tree; and from there dropped soundlessly down out of +sight.</p> + +<p>From other platforms like the one on which we were standing, +occasionally a man would take a greater leap. Not far away, there was +one high tower, with platform at its top. Beyond it, the upper surface +of the forest sloped down to where, half a mile away in that direction, +the city ended at the ground level. There were broad fields of loam off +there, evidently under cultivation.</p> + +<p>"Look!" said father. "There's a man climbing the tower—he's going down +to the ground-fields."</p> + +<p>He stood poised on the platform a moment, and then leaped. It was +more the sort of leap Zetta had made in Porto Rico. This man spread +flaring folds of his leather garment. They hung like wings from his +outstretched arms. He sailed horizontally, head first, from the tower +top, over the forest slope and landed down on the ground nearly half +a mile away. I have seen, in Switzerland, a ski jumper parallel the +sloping ground in a leap something like that.</p> + +<p>"Quite some jumper," Freddie commented.</p> + +<p>"That is Rowlande," said Zetta to father.</p> + +<p>"One of Garla's athletes," father explained. "They enjoy sport +here—the sail jump is a favorite contest. Over there—" He gestured. +"That open area, with the curved line of branches standing up—that's +what you might call our stadium."</p> + +<p>"Graff speaks there to the people to-night," said Zetta.</p> + +<p>Father did not comment on that. He pointed out where in the distance +the vegetation ended, and the open fields began; with other distant +patches of jungle here and there; and at the far horizon a purple line +of metal mountains.</p> + +<p>Hulda said: "This is the city, here around the government house. But +most of the population lives in the rural section. You can see the +houses."</p> + +<p>Down in the fields were occasional structures like farmhouses. They +dotted the distant landscape; and I could see that the other patches of +jungle had houses and streets on them, villages like this larger one of +Garla. Father said: "You think all our agriculture is down there on the +ground level. It isn't. Those pods, for instance—see them?"</p> + +<p>A street or so away there was what I had thought was a large open +square. The vine tops were covered with great brown pods. I saw now, as +father pointed it out, that the pods grew everywhere under us in the +forest.</p> + +<p>"The pith is one of our staple vegetables," said father. "Those +pods grow there because they are planted. Grafted, so to speak. The +seedlings are raised in the ground soil, then grafted into vine fiber. +The vines are used as a soil. The agriculture is here in the air, as +well as on the ground. There are several vegetables grown in the vine +soil."</p> + +<p>Men and women were working in the field he indicated. And insects were +there. I could see them crawling up from beneath, carrying pods; men +and women were picking the pods also—and a line of insects, dwarfed by +distance to look like ants, were carrying the pods along a street.</p> + +<p>We presently descended from the platform and walked, with our insects +again beside us, along the causeway streets toward the government house.</p> + +<p>The people crowded around us. Once, the press of them added to our own +weight, caused the street and half a dozen of the neighboring houses +to sag alarmingly. No one seemed to mind but ourselves; but when Zetta +shouted to disperse them they went willingly enough—dropping down into +the foliage, or leaping nimbly away with their uncanny movements. My +self-satisfied sense of power was somewhat marred by the realization +of how we must have appeared to them. Chained by our weight to a slow, +dragging walk, fearful every moment that we might fall.</p> + +<p>As we went along, father explained the city activities. All normal +enough for a primitive, peasant civilization. He told us, too, how most +of the workers sold their products to the government, exchanging their +credits by buying from the government other things they needed. One +of our ancient Indian civilizations of earth had a somewhat similar +system. And these super-modern people of Xenephrene had chosen it as +best of all! Strange commentary!</p> + +<p>We saw the government storehouses. A huge building set in an excavation +of the forest, with its foundations on the ground; we passed through to +its top floor. Food of every sort was stored here; merchandise of every +kind involved in this primitive life was here on display.</p> + +<p>"The manufactured stuff comes mostly from the Brauns," said father.</p> + +<p>It was obvious to me why these Garlands did not want to champion +the earth against Graff and his Brauns. Here on Xenephrene—however +much the Garlands might differ from the Brauns in ideals and ways of +living—the two races had their interests closely interwoven.</p> + +<p>We of earth were the real aliens. What did they care for us? I could +even imagine that the Braun conflict with earth might serve to draw +the Garlands to them, rather than estrange. Families of our earth +people often quarrel, reuniting only when an outside enemy comes in +conflict with one of their factions.</p> + +<p>It was, I fancied, upon this human instinct which Graff now was +playing. Coupling with it an appeal to the latent cupidity which lies +in every human breast. He was succeeding. I knew that at this moment +the Garlands—people and government—felt more friendly toward the +Brauns than they ever had before. Father and Kean were convinced that +Graff was playing a double game. What could it be? He might be trying +to trick the Garlands to serve his own ends. But how?</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Strange walk we had that morning through the city of Garla! My words +convey the merest sketch of its strangeness. Insect workers everywhere. +Patient, silent, methodical as well-trained domestic animals, yet with +a far higher intelligence. I gazed at what might have been a double +line of giant red ants, carrying boxes down an incline into the forest. +Patient workers; suddenly I was struck with the feeling that there +was a sullen resentment upon them; a smoldering hate for their human +masters.</p> + +<p>We saw a few Brauns; swaggering fellows flushed with a new sense of +their importance. They were dressed in many complex garments. At sight +of them the cynical thought came to me that in clothes and manner they +might have been a burlesque of us on modern earth. They eyed us with +hostile stares.</p> + +<p>"There's Kean," said Hulda. We were beyond the storehouse, back on the +street. The government house was only a block or so away.</p> + +<p>Kean approached. "I have been sen' to you from the Council. They will +see you, Professor, but no one else."</p> + +<p>Father was taken aback. "You mean, not my son—nor his friends—"</p> + +<p>"Jus' you. So they sen' me to say. They would have you come now."</p> + +<p>"I'll come," said father grimly. "Look here, Kean—"</p> + +<p>"They tell me, Professor, they will have nothing definite to say to you +this morning. After Graff's meeting to-night, they will decide."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by that?" father demanded.</p> + +<p>Dan spoke up. "The idea is, if the Garland public seems enthusiastic +about Graff's invasion—then they'll turn us down. Isn't that it, Kean?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I fear that is it. But if our people would favor helping earth—"</p> + +<p>"Don't worry," exclaimed Freddie. "They won't."</p> + +<p>A commotion near us checked him. Zetta murmured: "Graff!"</p> + +<p>A huge figure of a man was coming slowly along the cross-street, with +a half admiring, wholly awed throng of the Garlands around him. He +saw us, waved the crowd back and, with a leap over the thirty feet of +intervening street, he stood before us. Our insect guards rose upright, +eyed father, and stood alert. Behind me I saw three young Garland men, +with metal objects like small projectors in their hands. Government +street guards. They were watching Graff narrowly, but they did not +interfere.</p> + +<p>"Professor Vanderstuyft—" He spoke English; his manner was courteous, +but authoritative. "I wish to speak with Zetta—one moment."</p> + +<p>The man who was about to try to conquer our earth! I stood tense, +and an awe of which I was secretly ashamed swept me as I gazed at +him. A giant fellow, six and a half feet tall, at the very least. +Broad-shouldered, slim-hipped, straight and muscular.</p> + +<p>He wore a tubular leather garment, strapped in at the waist, falling +like a short flaring skirt to his bare knees. A short, gaudy jacket +over it; shoes with broad, flat heels, and pointed toes, curled up and +fastened to his ankles with ornamental metal chains. A heavy metal +triangle hung at his chest; chains of gleaming metal hung from his +shoulders to his elbows; his muscular forearms were bare, with heavy +metal bands at the wrists. A metal band circled his forehead, with the +close-clipped white hair under it.</p> + +<p>A man of perhaps forty years. Deep-set blue eyes; heavy white +eyebrows—a beardless face. A strong, handsome face. He was smiling +now, but I could see a ruthless determination in the set of his square, +cloven jaw, and more than a hint of cruelty in the lines of his thin, +firm lips. A swaggering, arrogant fellow. But he was more than that. +In his voice, his bearing, I read a consciousness of his own power, +a dignity about him, more than a mere arrogant swagger. A kingly +scoundrel, contemptuous by instinct of all his fellows.</p> + +<p>He was saying something to Zetta in his own tongue. She stood before +him, gazing calmly up into his face—a child in stature beside his huge +bulk.</p> + +<p>Father said sharply: "Speak in my own language, please! What you can +have to say to Zetta need not be secret from us."</p> + +<p>Graff smiled again—a smile of faintly amused tolerance. "As you +please. Zetta, I hear there was an attack made upon you this dawn. A +Braun, they say, came to carry you away." His voice was very gentle; +hate rose in me for the gentleness of it—the calm dignity of his +regard.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said.</p> + +<p>"I want you to know, Zetta, I was not concern in that. Do you believe +me?"</p> + +<p>She hesitated. "I think so."</p> + +<p>"I want you to think so, for I was not concern in it. I would not harm +you. That you know?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said.</p> + +<p>"That is all. Excep'—Zetta, I am to-morrow going to earth—I want to +conquer it for you—I want all its riches and its pleasures to be for +you. Won't you come with me? You are master of yourself by the laws +here. This earthman, who thinks to control you—"</p> + +<p>"Enough!" interrupted father. "She doesn't want to hear that kind of +talk, Graff."</p> + +<p>[Illustration: "Zetta does not want to hear your kind of talk, Graff!"]</p> + +<p>The gentleness faded from his voice. "I speak with her, not you. Let +her answer."</p> + +<p>Zetta burst out: "What you plan to do on earth is wrong, Graff! If you +think to please me, stay here! Stay here on Xenephrene—"</p> + +<p>He interrupted her gently: "You are misled, Zetta. You live with earth +people—they mislead you. Zetta, will you come with me—"</p> + +<p>"No," she said.</p> + +<p>Regret swept his face. If this were acting, it was a good brand. A very +kingly scoundrel, this! "You hurt me ver' deeply, Zetta." A faint irony +tinged his words and his glance.</p> + +<p>Her quiet gaze was measuring him. "You want me to love you—that you +have always said. You go about it wrongly, Graff."</p> + +<p>He was openly amused. "Do you think so? When I am succeeded—then you +will be proud of me." His tone changed. "Oh, Zetta, you know that then +I will do anything for you. Everything I have shall be yours."</p> + +<p>I could see her hesitate, part her lips to speak, then close them +again. She was on the verge, here before all of us, of trying to bribe +him with herself. A shudder must have swept her. But she said: "You are +willing to please me—when you have had your way on earth—but not now."</p> + +<p>No fool, this frail little girl! Her own smile was ironical. "If I +could trus' you, Graff, we might—" She checked herself.</p> + +<p>"What?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"Nothing. I am finish."</p> + +<p>Abruptly he swung from her. His gaze roved me as I stood suddenly +conscious of my clenched fists; Freddie beside me; Dan towering over +us, yet shorter than Graff. Hulda, angry and half afraid, clinging to +Dan. And Kean, a little apart—Graff fastened upon Kean, and his thin +lips twisted with contempt.</p> + +<p>"Ah, there is my little criminal traitor!"</p> + +<p>I saw Kean stiffen; for an instant I thought he would hurl himself +bodily upon his accuser. Graff evidently thought it, also. He added +calmly: "You are quite safe here, Kean. If you attack me, you would be +stopp'—I am guest here of Garla, as you know. And for the same reason, +I cannot do as I would like with you." His lean fingers were working; +he raised his large hand with a twisting gesture, and dropped it. "You +are quite safe here. Some other time—"</p> + +<p>"Come," said father to us. "Enough of this. Come, Zetta."</p> + +<p>Again Graff's glance swept us. "So these are some more of my little +earth enemies? Look well upon me! I am Graff, future Emperor of the +Earth!" He said it in a way hardly to be described. An amused, an utter +contempt. My hot anger boiled. Why, this fellow, for all his insolence, +his giant stature, was a flimsy thing of forty or fifty pounds! I +became aware that I had launched myself at him, and Freddie was holding +me.</p> + +<p>"Easy, Peter! Stop it! You'll have us all in jail!"</p> + +<p>Graff had not moved, his expressions unchanged save that perhaps his +amused contempt was greater. "Your littlest fellow seems to have the +mos' sense. Zetta, perhaps I will see you again."</p> + +<p>He turned slowly, and with a lazy bound vanished down the cross-street.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</h2> +</div> + +<h3>BRAVE, FOOLISH LITTLE ZETTA!</h3> + + +<p>It was a crowded day, with our morning walk through the city and our +meeting with Graff. And from a distance we had seen the woman Brea. +An arrogant giantess. A fitting mate for him, no doubt. "Empress of +the Earth"—she was already calling herself that. Kean informed us she +was going to address the meeting to-night—to tell the people of Garla +what wonderful things would be brought back to them by Graff when he +returned.</p> + +<p>Father visited the Garland Council. He returned discouraged and +indignant. They would have none of our pleas now. They did not want to +see me or Dan or Freddie officially, to talk politics. Politely, they +requested father to leave their affairs alone. After Graff's meeting +they would give us their decision.</p> + +<p>"I warned them," father exclaimed. "What will happen at this meeting +to-night, I don't know. But I feel it bodes no good for Garla. Graff is +treacherous to the very core of him. You'll see—they'll all see!"</p> + +<p>Freddie, Dan and I, had a brief consultation while father was at +the Council. "What we'll do," said Dan, "will have to be on our +own. Your father, Peter, has lived here, and likes these people. +Even he can't see them as they are. Doubtless they did grow +altruistic—peace-loving—all that he told us. But humans are humans. +They think they see a way to personal gain. This government is greedy +to get whatever it can out of Graff—"</p> + +<p>Freddie commented: "I wouldn't trust a shock from any of these people +with a broken battery. Graff is the worst. Imagine little Zetta trying +to bargain with a villain like Graff!" Freddie's admiration for Zetta +was profound. "But she ought to be watched. Heaven knows what a girl +like that will try and do!"</p> + +<p>"I'd trust Kean," said Dan. "He's the only one."</p> + +<p>We argued to very little purpose from a dozen angles. I think all three +of us were sorry we had not leaped upon Graff—made an end to him at +once, up there on the Garla street corner.</p> + +<p>"It would have been simple," said Dan. "But—killing a man in broad +daylight—they'd have had us locked up by now—I wonder how they punish +murder in this place."</p> + +<p>We had Kean to ourselves later in the day. It was before we went to the +Scientists' Grotto. Kean said he had never seen the Garland weapons, +though he knew where they were kept, under heavy guard. But he thought +that during the evening meeting Graff was to hold, he would perhaps be +able to plan a way to get into the grotto arsenal. With the physical +force we three of earth were capable of using we could break into it.</p> + +<p>During the meeting, attention would all be centered there. Most of the +guards would be at the meeting. Kean planned to investigate conditions +at the arsenal—and report to us. If we could get the weapons—get them +to our vehicle—We would try attacking Graff first, here in Garla. Or, +preferably, as Kean pointed out, catch him on his way to the Braun +city. And then, if we brought the wrath of the Garlands upon us, we +would all escape to earth. Kean said very solemnly: "I trus' Zetta's +woman conscience on this. She heard you talking of it this morning. Did +you know that?"</p> + +<p>"No," I said.</p> + +<p>"Well, she did—we Garlands have ver' sharp ears. I ask her advice. +You see, that man Graff called me traitor. That hurt—I was traitor, +from the way he sees it. Not again would I be traitor—mos' of all, not +to my own worl'. But I ask Zetta. She says for us to take the Garland +weapons to save the other worl' is just." He was very earnest. "Not to +take anything which by losing my Garla would be hurt. There is such a +thing. If you planned to steal it, Zetta and I would not permit—"</p> + +<p>"The Infra-red Control?" said Freddie.</p> + +<p>"Yes. That, Zetta and I would not let you touch. The ordinar' +weapons—of those Garla has many. The loss of some will help your +worl', and cannot harm mine."</p> + +<p>A very manly fellow—quaintly dignified as he stood earnestly +explaining. One Garland at least, whom we could trust. And Zetta.</p> + +<p>We said nothing to father, or to Hulda, or Zetta. In mid-afternoon, +before starting on this visit to the grotto which father had arranged, +he took an hour and told us more of the strange science of this world. +I feel that it would be out of place for me to set it forth in detail +here. It is not my purpose to encumber this personal narrative with +scientific data. Volumes of scientific text books will be written +concerning Xenephrene, with father's voluminous notes as a basis. So I +have summarized here merely such fundamentals necessary to make clear +the strange adventures on earth, so briefly on Xenephrene and back +again on earth, into which my family, friends and myself were plunged.</p> + +<p>The basis, father told us, of all natural scientific phenomena on +Xenephrene was an entity called <i>Reet</i>. An "etheric fluid." A "movement +of detached electrons." He used both phrases. In its essence, Reet, +he said, was an enigma. A force "akin perhaps to our electricity." +It existed in nature—in the rain, the clouds, the air. It was the +growing, life-giving essence of all vegetable and animal organism.</p> + +<p>Just as we of earth, in a wide variety of forms, had learned to harness +electricity, so on Xenephrene, Reet was harnessed. On earth a common +electrical current, a bolt of lightning, a magnetic field, fluorescence +of a Crooke's tube, the heat of an electric coil, a giant, leaping +electric spark, the X-ray, radio waves—all are akin. We know that +now; we learn it more surely every year. On Xenephrene, a score of +scientific phenomena were all manifestations of Reet, in various forms, +under various abnormal conditions.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Our earth now is using Reet for the anti-gravity vehicles which now are +adventuring into Space; and our scientists say that Reet itself is but +another form of electrical force.</p> + +<p>Father told us how our vehicle operated. The force of gravity itself +is merely a vibration flowing between two material bodies, connecting +them with a tendency to draw near, to coalesce—a fundamental tendency +in all nature when in vibratory contact. The Reet current, applied in +a form abnormal to nature, slows down and stops this gravitational +vibration.</p> + +<p>It is, to me at least, a deep subject; I leave it to father's text +books. But with several of the Reet rays, we were to have diabolical +dealings! Their control of the hidden, unseen forces of nature—we saw +a little of it that afternoon in the Scientists' Grotto.</p> + +<p>The grotto, at least this one to which we were admitted, seemed to be a +series of underground passages; converging into a number of underground +rooms. Workshops; laboratories; storehouses, perhaps, of weapons and +equipment of war. We were shown none of that; we saw, indeed, but one +room. Enough to leave us shuddering.</p> + +<p>On the ground, beneath the forest, we came to the tunnel entrance. A +guard—a man standing there, with half a dozen of the insect things +lying watchfully beside him, passed us in. A tunnel sloping downward; +smooth, gleaming, metallic walls; shifting purple and red lights; a +steady movement of artificially controlled air for ventilation; vague, +pungent smells; in the distance, ahead of us, the murmur and throb of +machinery.</p> + +<p>It was like plunging into yet another brand new world. Outside the +grotto, the Garlands seemed a primitive, pastoral race. This was like a +plunge, centuries into the future. An inferno of the future.</p> + +<p>From a cross tunnel, the sudden whine of a dynamo tore at us. A wave +of gas, not unlike chlorine, Freddie said, brought us up gasping and +choking, until a blast of fresh cool air fortunately dissipated it. +A place of shifting lurid lights; workmen passed us—sometimes with +masks, but all wearing what seemed heavy insulated garments.</p> + +<p>An inferno, frightening in its strangeness. Frightening, also, in +another way. The half-seen world of the Infra-red had never left my +consciousness since I first set foot upon Xenephrene. It was with me +all that morning in the upper streets of Garla, but I had ignored it.</p> + +<p>Here, in the gloom and weirdness of the grotto, the crimson chattering +things seemed to gain reality. My imagination perhaps. I do not know. +But when once we entered the tunnel, I was newly conscious of them. As +though this were their home—their very breeding place. Or perhaps, +their jail, where they were held imprisoned—sullen, resentful, +watchful of any chance to escape. All fancy, yet as I was soon to +learn, it had a very real basis of fact.</p> + +<p>My fancy was oversharp; my nerves taut. An insect loitered idle against +the burnished tunnel-wall; a purple ball of light was over it. I +fancied the thing tensed itself as though to spring upon me. I did not +breathe again until we were past it.</p> + +<p>A scientist was leading us now. Freddie, Dan, myself and father—we +had left the girls at home. We came to the barred entrance to a room. +Its heavy metal door suggested the circular door to a vault in a New +York bank. Nothing flimsy here; solid metal, everywhere. My heart sank. +Kean had said that with our great physical strength we might be able to +force our way in; it did not seem very reasonable.</p> + +<p>A scientist met us. He smiled gravely at father—a short, slim man, +garbed in smooth, dull black. His white hair was clipped close; heavy +bull's-eye goggles made his face grotesque. His ears were clasped with +a device in appearance not unlike a radio headphone; he removed it, +stepping over its dangling wires as he laid it aside.</p> + +<p>"Come in," said father softly to us. "This is the control room. I +wanted you to see it."</p> + +<p>A low, black-vaulted room. I could see nothing but a small railed +area on a two-foot metal platform in the room's center. Within this +low metal railing, on a bare flooring of burnished metal, two small +mechanisms stood side by side. Two transparent globes, each about a +foot in diameter. Within one, a fluorescence of purple; the other held +a crimson glow. Wires connected them to near-by batteries; wires ran +to a bank of indicators—dials and pressure gauges. Above the neck +of each globe, fastened to it, was a small grid of wire; from one, a +vague, violet-purple beam streamed out; and from the other, the beam +was crimson.</p> + +<p>I could barely see the scientist as he moved about us; there was no +light save these purple and crimson beams.</p> + +<p>The man seemed adjusting his goggles, and replacing his headphone. Then +he moved a switch. The crimson globe sprang into greater intensity. +The beam from it deepened; it seemed streaming out across the room, +through the further wall of metal rock—streaming out and opening to +my gaze a blackness of distance unfathomable. A murmur was coming +from it! A myriad tiny growls and screams! The crimson sounds! The +red things lurking around me responded to it! Or were they making the +sounds? I could not tell. They seemed rushing out from the unseen, into +visibility—searching—one almost seemed plucking at me.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Father murmured, "It is bringing the Infra-red nearer to us. Or +swinging us nearer to it—all the same. Bringing the two planes +closer together. That ray permeates the whole of Xenephrene. Like a +broadcasted radio wave on earth—it goes everywhere! If it persisted—a +day—an hour—the Infra-red would be let loose upon us! Possessing us—"</p> + +<p>The scientist was saying, "Let one of them try it. This is very weak—"</p> + +<p>"Try it, Peter." Father drew me forward. "Stand, there in the red +glow—just a moment. When you—feel too queer—come back out."</p> + +<p>Every instinct in me revolted, but I yielded to him as he shoved me +gently into the red glow. It bathed me with a tingling warmth. Or was +it burning?</p> + +<p>The red things were howling around me. One came up—a great crimson +shadow. It seemed condensing into the form of a man. Suddenly I heard +myself laughing. Why, this was funny! It looked like me! A crimson +shadow of Peter! Or was it my evil spirit? Its face, malignant, like +some diabolical travesty of my own, came close and leered at me. I was +trying to get into my body. I laughed; but I was thinking, "Why, this +is madness—"</p> + +<p>[Illustration: "As I stood in the Ray, the red things were howling +around me, and their faces and actions were so grotesque that I laughed +aloud. But I thought mirthlessly, 'Why, this is madness'"]</p> + +<p>Father's hands jerked me back into the darkness. I stood trembling; my +face and hands were flushed, as though inflamed.</p> + +<p>"Madness indeed," said father, and then I knew that I had shouted +the words aloud. "They think that the Infra-red is perhaps the evil +nature of man held submerged. A greater intensity of the crimson +sound would have burned you." I recalled how Freddie and Dan had +been burned in their fight with the intruder that night the cylinder +arrived. "And a still greater intensity would reduce you to the plane +of the Infra-red—dissolve you into Nothingness—the fate of Davis and +Robinson, when they attacked the crimson sound. Near New York, with +their aeros—remember?"</p> + +<p>I did indeed. The scientist moved back the switch; the red glow +faded. Father said, "On earth we have no such condition. Here on +Xenephrene, the sub-world is always striving for mastery. The purple +glow from Pyrena is nature's adjustment; it holds in check, banishes +the sub-red world. But since Xenephrene came into our sunlight, things +are changing. Our sunlight seems favorable to the Infra-red. So an +artificial adjustment has to be made. The purple haze you see in +Xenephrene's air—it all comes from this little globe."</p> + +<p>The purple globe now was active—the beam deepened. Around me the red +things seemed vanishing. A great peace, a stillness came to the vaulted +room. I had not realized under what subconscious strain I had been +laboring until it was removed.</p> + +<p>Freddie said, "Why use the crimson ray at all? Why not just the purple +ray, and banish the red things completely?"</p> + +<p>"The red-world cannot be banished completely, here on Xenephrene," +father answered. "Too great a use of the purple—it would swing our +plane too far toward the Ultra-violet—be injurious to human life. The +best balance which can be maintained—that is the purpose of these two +globes—this control room."</p> + +<p>A solemnity, greater than I had ever heard before came to father's +voice. "The Brauns had no spreading rays on earth, like these. They +tell me, here in Garla, that these two little globes are the only ones +of their kind in existence. Without them, in a month, or a few months +at the most, Xenephrene, bathed in our sunlight, would be overrun with +the demons of the Infra-red! A world gone mad!"</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>"A world gone mad!" His words rang shudderingly in my head all the rest +of that afternoon; echoed through the evening meal, and those tense +hours while we waited for the time when we were going to hear Graff's +speech in the stadium. "A world gone mad!" Father meant Xenephrene. But +with what diabolical, prophetic vision, my thoughts kept swinging to +earth! A world gone mad!</p> + +<p>From our visit to the grotto we returned home where we had left the +girls. I was suddenly impatient to get there. A feeling was upon me +that it had been wrong to leave them. Would Zetta take this opportunity +to slip away? To attempt to see Graff?</p> + +<p>My fears were dispelled. The insects were quietly patrolling the +grounds. The girls were busy about the house. Hulda whispered to me, +"We're getting ready to leave."</p> + +<p>"Leave?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. If you should be successful to-night—if you get the weapons—you +might want to leave for earth at once."</p> + +<p>And we had thought to keep our secret from these girls! Hulda added, +"Zetta is coming with us. Kean also. Neither has any ties here—"</p> + +<p>Zetta coming! If only everything would work out like this—</p> + +<p>With the afternoon passed, I thought no more of Zetta's threatened +attempt to see Graff. After the evening meal, we all tried to sleep for +a time. But I was restless. After an hour in our room with Freddie and +Dan, I slipped away to the roof to smoke alone. I found it vacant; dim +with straggling moonlight.</p> + +<p>I had no thought of Zetta, save that she was resting beneath me in the +house. She was coming back with us to earth. When these terrible times +were over, I would take her in my arms—claim her—I wondered if she +loved me. I am not unduly vain; truly it seemed at once impossible, but +inevitable—</p> + +<p>I have no idea how long, with roaming fancy, I sat there. Half an hour +perhaps. Above me a figure suddenly came fluttering down from the +foliage, landed lightly on the roof, within a few feet of where, in a +stunned surprise, I was sitting. It was Zetta. Her face was flushed; +she was panting.</p> + +<p>"Zetta!" I sprang to my feet.</p> + +<p>"Oh—is it you, Peter? I did not know you were up here."</p> + +<p>"Where have you been? I thought you were downstairs. Zetta, have you +been up to see—"</p> + +<p>"Let go of me! Peter, don't do that! You hurt me! You—forget how +strong you are!"</p> + +<p>I had gripped her shoulders; I cast her hastily off. "Where have you +been? What have you been doing?"</p> + +<p>She eyed me. The impish smile was twitching at her lips. "You are ver' +much like a master—you deman' knowing where I have been?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I do."</p> + +<p>"Sit down." I sat in my chair and she sat crosslegged at my feet. +"There. This is better."</p> + +<p>"How did you get out?" I demanded. "Father said he was having you +watched."</p> + +<p>"He is. But he forget—those insects know me better than himself. I +took them with me."</p> + +<p>She was smiling broadly. She added calmly, "I have run away from them, +coming back. They will be here soon—I have been up to see Graff."</p> + +<p>I knew it! I made no comment. She went on, as calmly, evenly as before. +"I thought—before to-night when you three men try to get the Garland +weapons—I thought I would make one las' try for Graff." She gestured. +"I met him—up there on the street. We were alone—"</p> + +<p>She saw my expression. She laughed. "Oh, no, Zetta is not a fool! We +were alone so that none could hear us. But many were near. My own +insects—and I made sure the city guards were close by, watching. I was +quite safe."</p> + +<p>She paused. But when I did not speak, she went on quietly.</p> + +<p>"I have fail'. I tol' him openly that he—could have me for his wife, +as you call it—" She was stumbling, but only for a moment. "I tol' him +that. But when I tried to bargain—I am no fool—I tol' him I would +have to be satisfy he would not trick me—then I saw it could not +succeed. I could not trust him. That I could tell by the way he talked. +Yet I believe he really thinks he loves me—"</p> + +<p>She added the last words as though to herself.</p> + +<p>I exclaimed: "Why would you make a sacrifice like that? Or perhaps it +isn't such a sacrifice?"</p> + +<p>Unworthy, churlish thing for me to say! The impulsive words were no +sooner out than I hated myself for them.</p> + +<p>Her wide eyes searched my face. "I forgive you—for saying that, Peter. +I would almos' rather die than be his wife." For just an instant she +yielded to the shuddering emotion she was holding in check; then again +she was calmly imperturbable.</p> + +<p>"You say, would it be a sacrifice? Of me—yes. But what am I? Jus' +one small woman. I am thinking of your earth—all those millions of +people—"</p> + +<p>Brave, foolish little Zetta!</p> + +<p>If she could have trusted Graff, of course, it would have been best. +But I did not feel it so at the moment. She was more to me, this one +small woman sitting now at my feet, than all the millions of distant +earth. I interrupted her gently.</p> + +<p>"You were going to sacrifice some one else, Zetta. Some one—"</p> + +<p>Her face turned quickly up; her wide eyes were on mine. I found myself +holding her against my knees. Ah, then I felt the strength of the force +between us! "Zetta, don't you know I love you? Can't you feel it—as I +feel it?"</p> + +<p>She forced herself back from me; did not rise, sat leaning backward, +pushing at my knees as though holding us apart against the surge that +was drawing us together.</p> + +<p>"Peter! Peter, don't say that yet!"</p> + +<p>"Why not? It's true. I love—"</p> + +<p>"No! You can't be sure. It—will sweep us if you talk like this."</p> + +<p>Sweep us, indeed! Love! It was that! Love physical, mental and +spiritual. The trinity—complete. I knew it! I heard my pleading voice +telling her so.</p> + +<p>"No, Peter! Trus' me—I understan' better than you. Peter—smile at me! +Smile! Do not be so serious!"</p> + +<p>She was so pathetically earnest! I strove for calmness. I smiled. "All +right. There you are, Zetta."</p> + +<p>I could feel her relax. Her hands left my knees; she sat on the +roof-floor a few feet away from me.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Peter."</p> + +<p>I laughed. "You're quite welcome." The stress of our emotion was +broken. I lighted a cigarette. I felt quite calm, master of myself—and +of her. Masterful, because now in my calmness, I knew I was unchanged. +It was love, and I knew she loved me.</p> + +<p>"I'll say it differently, Zetta. Listen: I love you. When we get +through all this mess we're in—your world and mine—I'm going to marry +you. There—that's calm enough, isn't it? Nothing peculiar about that, +is there?"</p> + +<p>Her surprise made me laugh again. She stammered. "Peter—you—do not +ask—if I love you!"</p> + +<p>"No. Why should I? I know it."</p> + +<p>"But I am not sure, Peter."</p> + +<p>"Of course, you are."</p> + +<p>"I am not. Perhaps on earth your girls are able to judge when they feel +a swift heap of emotion—"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I said blandly. "That's it."</p> + +<p>But I could not make her smile. She shook her head. "We of Xenephrene +are different. The emotion—is not always to be trusted, Peter."</p> + +<p>"Let's trust it," I said.</p> + +<p>"No. I cannot—yet."</p> + +<p>She was on her feet and I stood beside her.</p> + +<p>"I think—I'm very glad we had these moments together, Peter."</p> + +<p>She was about to leave me; I could not let her go. "You do love me, +don't you? Say it!"</p> + +<p>"I think—mos' likely—I do!" She gave a little jump; her lips brushed +mine. Before I could catch her she was gone, down into the house +leaving me alone.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</h2> +</div> + +<h3>GRAFF'S TREACHERY</h3> + + +<p>"It's time," said Hulda. "Shall we start?"</p> + +<p>Another hour had passed. Zetta had not mentioned her escapade into the +city to meet Graff; nor had I. We were ready now to start for Graff's +meeting. It was our first adventure abroad at night on Xenephrene. We +had been twice before up this incline into the streets of Garla; but +this time it seemed very different.</p> + +<p>A sense of evil lay heavy upon me. It was a cloudless night, with +Pyrena, the moon, a great purple round disk. The forest was full of +purple shadows; the red murmuring things were abroad, and I blessed +with a new understanding, this purple light which held them in check. +We ascended the incline and came upon Garla's main street. The two +girls were shrouded in cloaks of white. Father the same. Once, Hulda +raised her cloak like a hood over her head until Freddie asked her to +lower it.</p> + +<p>"You look like a ghost in this moonlight." He laughed, but it was +high-pitched and nervous, unlike him.</p> + +<p>Dan whispered to me: "Kean is to join us at the stadium entrance. Do +you think he will, Peter? If anything goes wrong—"</p> + +<p>"We'll sit near the back," I whispered. "He'll find us. You and Freddie +and I must sit together, where we can slip away."</p> + +<p>Freddie edged toward us as we walked along; the street swayed and bent +beneath us. "This cursed flimsy city! Where did Kean say he'd join +us? Peter, give me my knife and revolver—thank Heaven for these dark +cloaks—"</p> + +<p>We three had seen cloaks of a dark woven fiber lying in one of the +rooms of Under Gardens. We had wanted to wear them, and father had +acquiesced.</p> + +<p>I raised my cloak, surreptitiously handed Freddie the weapons. We each +had a short, wide dirk—and an Essen soundless automatic—the only +weapons we had brought from earth. They were very welcome now!</p> + +<p>"Move back," I whispered to Dan. "Father will wonder what we're talking +about."</p> + +<p>We were determined to get into the grotto by whatever desperate +expedient Kean would think possible of success. Father would +approve—we did not doubt that. But he would want to go with us. That +we did not desire. In the event of failure, we wanted him, at least, +to remain in safety. He would not, very probably, be blamed by the +Garlands for our attack. He would be left to look after Hulda. And—I +added to myself—look after Zetta.</p> + +<p>Shrouded in our cloaks, we hastened through Garla's tree-top streets. +In the purple moonlight the dark houses seemed giant birds' nests; +the giant leaves which occasionally hung over them were motionless in +the still night air. A breathless silence brooded over everything. +The houses showed occasional glows of light; but most of them seemed +unoccupied. There were many pedestrians. All were going our way.</p> + +<p>From a doorway a woman clutching a baby at her breast, gazed down on us +with an obvious hostility. "A Braun," I thought. But she was not.</p> + +<p>Hulda pointed her out—a Garland. From over us, as a crowd of young +people went past in a leap, some one dropped a flower. A heavy +thing—it struck Dan a blow on the shoulder which brought a startled +curse from him. Hulda waved her white arm upward in a friendly gesture; +but her face was very solemn.</p> + +<p>"I don't like this," father murmured. "They're hostile—in all the +months we've been here, it's never been like this."</p> + +<p>Father had stopped. "I think we'll go back." He drew me aside. "It's +only curiosity taking us here—we know what Graff will say to the +people. The Garland government will decide against us to-morrow. The +time is short, Peter—if we're going to do anything."</p> + +<p>Father lowered his voice. "Look here, I want to get you three +alone—without the girls. We'll have to try something desperate. Peter, +if we let Graff get away from us—if he gets to earth—whatever we do, +we ought to try it to-night."</p> + +<p>I drew him along. Good old father—he would have plunged into the most +desperate adventure with us. It went against me to let him down, but I +thought it best.</p> + +<p>"Let's go—just a little while. And Kean is to meet us—right ahead +here, at the entrance." A Braun went sailing by with a menacing, +derisive shout; but father did not notice him. I called to Dan and +Freddie; warned them with a significant word and glance. They joined +their urging to mine, and father yielded.</p> + +<p>We went on. The crowd began pressing around us as we approached the +stadium gate. Out of the moonlight Kean came sailing at us; landed +lightly beside me. Dan and Freddie crowded up. I whispered: "It's all +right, Kean?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. They are remove most of the guards to atten' the meeting here. I +will get you seated, then go back and see how it is. In half an hour, +we will be ready to try it."</p> + +<p>Father approached us. "You coming with us, Kean? The Garlands are +hostile; I've never seen anything like it. Have you heard from the +border?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Kean. "Something is wrong. No Brauns have left. There are +many, oh, ver' many, around here in Garla to-night—"</p> + +<p>Freddie asked: "You seen Graff? Where is he now?"</p> + +<p>"Inside," Kean gestured. "On the upper platform leap. The woman Brea is +with him—and many Brauns." He whispered aside to me. "Are you guarding +Zetta well? When we leave, only the professor will be with her and +Hulda, so I order' your insects to come—yes, here is one."</p> + +<p>An insect appeared upright at our elbows. Then another. Kean told +father he had ordered them. "Good," said father. "Tell them to stay +close to Zetta. But we'll be with her anyway."</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The stadium was a great moonlit area on the tree-top surface. A high +wall of latticed boards surrounded it. We passed through a gate. +Inside, banks of seats swung around a great circle. They were jammed +with people—tiers of seats, one above the other, with giant projecting +trees serving as uprights to hold them.</p> + +<p>The branches, too, were crowded. Upon a thick vine, swinging like +a cable across one end, men clung like flies, dark blobs in the +moonlight. The seats everywhere seemed built in disorderly array, +banked high or low according to the contour of the growing vegetation. +At intervals around the outer circumference small jumping platforms +were set. They were all black with people.</p> + +<p>An oval running track was perched on stilts at one side; another track +stood vertically, as though races might be held on its inner surface +like a squirrel cage. People clustered both structures. There was a +single row of flimsy fifty-foot high poles, set upright in a line; ten +of them, at intervals of ten feet or so. Gymnasium apparatus. A man +clung now to the bending top of each of them.</p> + +<p>Upon every point of vantage, people were clinging. The top of the +lattice fence, which was at least fifty feet high, held a fringe of +young men and girls perched precariously there, laughing. Occasionally +one would fall off and come climbing nimbly back.</p> + +<p>In the purple moonlight it was a scene of confusion. The audience was +assembling, leaping from the gateway, climbing to where space seemed to +offer. A man and girl leaped hand in hand. They missed their intended +perch and fell a dozen feet in a heap. A great shout of laughter went +up.</p> + +<p>We entered with our heavy, dragging tread. People craned to see us. A +murmur rose. A few girls called to Zetta, or to Hulda. Some shouted +derisively. We were in a deep shadow of the gate. In the gloom, father +stumbled, fell heavily. A flimsy empty seat broke where he went down; +Dan kicked another seat to fragments as he jumped to pick father up.</p> + +<p>"I'm all right, Dan. Thanks." His words were almost drowned in the +jeers around us.</p> + +<p>"We'll sit here," I whispered to Kean. "Here near the gate. Go ahead +now, we'll wait here. Come back as soon as you can."</p> + +<p>We took these first empty seats, just inside the gate. Platforms and +poles partly obstructed our view; but we could see enough. The rostrum +from which Graff was to speak was in clear sight—a platform in the +center of the stadium, raised about a hundred feet. A bank of soft +lights up there cast a lurid purple glow which did little more than +intensify the moonlight. Brauns were crowded up there; among them I +could see the towering figures of Graff and Brea.</p> + +<p>We sat in a line; father, Hulda and Zetta were at one end, we three +conspirators nearer the gate. Behind Zetta, our two insects were lying +prone on the surface of a vine. The thought occurred to me then, as +it had several times before—these insects were not armed. There were +police guards all over the stadium; some seemed to have a single small +weapon—it was the only weapon I had ever seen in Garla. I had my dirk +in its sheath at my belt; and the Essen automatic in its holster—with +the black cloak shrouding them. But I wondered what was the nature of +the police guards' weapon.</p> + +<p>Zetta was next beside me. In all the turmoil of my thoughts, I was +wholly conscious of it. I leaned over her. "Zetta, when he begins +talking, you'll have to translate for us."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she whispered. Her long white hair lay on the seat between us. +In the darkness my fingers found a lock of it and clung. She did not +know it—or perhaps she did? I fancied her shoulder bent toward me.</p> + +<p>"Peter," she whispered, "be ver' careful what you do to-night—keep out +of harm if you can. I did not tell you, I have arrange' with Kean that +if you are successful, your father, Hulda and I will meet you out in +the open country, where your vehicle can pick us up—"</p> + +<p>An abrupt hush had fallen over the audience. The towering figure of +Graff had come to the edge of the platform facing us. Some one had +turned a light full upon him; he stood etched in the darkness, a lurid +purple figure. A hush. He raised his arms; he was smiling benignly +as he regarded the sea of upturned faces beneath him. A very kingly +scoundrel!</p> + +<p>A moment; and then he began to speak. His voice, with its words +unintelligible to me, rolled out over the silence. Soft, persuasive, +yet powerful. It evidently carried to every far corner of the +amphitheater. Sometimes he turned to regard those behind him. Speaking +quietly. Then, with a sudden, explosive, thundering statement; then +a gentle, persuasive question. All the tricks of the orator! A very +kingly scoundrel! He was carrying them.</p> + +<p>Applause broke out; his gesture was deprecating as he silenced it. I +wondered when Kean would return for us. We could easily slip away from +father.</p> + +<p>My thoughts were roaming; Kean ought to come shortly. Now was our +chance, with most of the guards here at the meeting. Graff was +unconsciously playing into our hands—drawing all the guards away from +the grotto to hear him talk.</p> + +<p>Kean dropped before me! I looked up to meet his white, agitated face. +"Peter, don't cry out! Get your father—all of you get out of here!"</p> + +<p>Something was wrong! I recall that I felt a little tug as the lock of +Zetta's hair pulled from my fingers. Just a little tug—I forgot it at +once, gazing into Kean's horrified face.</p> + +<p>"What—" Freddie and Dan were shoving toward us to hear. It made a +slight confusion. I repeated, "What—" Half rose to my feet.</p> + +<p>A shout stiffened me. It came from a small house by the gate, where +officials as the crowd assembled had been directing the seating. A +shout from there. An official's voice, bellowing. Accents of horror, +and command.</p> + +<p>Kean gasped his news: "The Infra-red Control! The crimson and purple +globes—they have been stolen!"</p> + +<p>The news was already here! The frightened voice from the gate was +bellowing it. Graff's voice died away. There was an instant of +horrified silence. Kean murmured: "I found the tunnel guards murdered! +The controls are gone! These Brauns—"</p> + +<p>The amphitheater broke into a pandemonium. Shouts; the thump and +rattle of scrambling, panic-stricken Garlands. Figures leaping up. The +official voice was bellowing. A police guard near me raised a weapon +toward the platform where Graff was standing. But he did not fire. The +lights up there were suddenly extinguished. A red glow took their place.</p> + +<p>The crimson barrage Graff had used on earth! His Brauns had smuggled +it into Garla—they had its apparatus now on the platform. A great +circular red curtain enveloped the rostrum up there. From a dozen +points about the amphitheater the police guards were firing their short +purple stabs of flame at it.</p> + +<p>A panic of confusion was around me. A sailing figure—a man trying +to leave the stadium—came down and landed full on me. I was knocked +sidewise; kicking, trying to disentangle myself from him. We crashed +through a seat, and with my weight we fell half my height to a lower +level. I got to my feet, fighting the press of frightened people who +were shoving me. I could still see Graff's barrage; I could hear its +squeals above the pandemonium of shouts.</p> + +<p>Up there in the purple moonlight, over the barrage, a black object was +descending from the sky. A vehicle? A flying platform—I could not see +it clearly. It dropped swiftly down within the barrage circle. In a +moment it came sailing up. It passed high over me. A flying platform. +The escaping Brauns crowded its rails. The crimson barrage faded out; +the rostrum was empty.</p> + +<p>Graff's treachery was laid bare. He had stolen the globes of the +Infra-red Control!</p> + +<p>Without them, Xenephrene in a month or two was doomed. These frightened +officials of Garla, these panic-stricken people, all knew it. A world +gone mad! But my thoughts were not concerned with that; the cold horror +within me sprang from another thought. A realization. Graff had stolen +the Infra-red Control to use on earth! My shuddering imagination leaped +ahead. A world, our blessed earth, gone mad!</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</h2> +</div> + +<h3>ON OUR WAY TO CONQUER THE EARTH!</h3> + + +<p>In the confusion I found myself pushed a considerable distance, +separated from all our party. I could not see any of them; with the +scrambling throng, the changing scene I could not at first determine +where we had been sitting. Then I saw the place; it was empty. I strove +to get there, fighting my way. The amphitheater was fast emptying. The +official voice was still bellowing. Guards were leaping away, perhaps +rushing to the grotto. In the distance across the city a siren was +sounding—a long electrical scream.</p> + +<p>I thought, over near the gate through which a press of people were +surging, that I saw father. I forced my way in that direction; went +through the gate. They ought to be waiting for me here. But they were +not.</p> + +<p>A cross-street ran down at an angle here into the forest vegetation—a +narrow, shaky-looking causeway of fiber. It was unlighted, dark with +straggling moonlight—a purple, ghostly-looking street. It seemed at +the moment empty of people—the throng surged past it, keeping to the +upper level.</p> + +<p>From behind me as I stood there a dark-cloaked figure darted past me +and plunged down it. Dan! It was as tall as he; seemed moving with our +earthly heavy tread. I started down after it; I would have shouted, but +the words choked me. It was not Dan—not anyone of earth, for all its +solid gait! It passed through a shaft of moonlight; from the cloak, I +saw a white arm hanging. Waving.</p> + +<p>This was a man, carrying some one; I caught a glimpse of the bulk +of the other body he was holding in his arms, under his cloak. He +disappeared down into the purple darkness. Memory of the little tug I +had felt in my fingers as Zetta's hair was withdrawn sprang to me now. +Was that Zetta under that cloak? Her arm I had seen waving from beneath +it?</p> + +<p>With the Essen automatic in my hand, I found myself plunging, half +falling, down the flimsy street. Beneath the strain of my incautious +descent, it bent and crackled. Houses like nests were set here in the +dark, pod-laden foliage. They sagged with me as I passed. A woman came +to the window of one of them and shouted.</p> + +<p>I reached the ground. A vaulted, tunnel-like street was cut through the +jungle. Ahead of me, a hundred yards or so, the moonlight showed clear +where the jungle ended and the open country began. I thought I saw the +hooded figure hurrying out there. I ran—I wondered if I would get a +chance to shoot. If that were Zetta he was carrying I would not dare.</p> + +<p>I think now I have never been, before or since, so incautious. I came +with a rush out of the dark depths of the forest, into an open moonlit +area. A red glow hovered like a circular curtain near at hand. Within +a dozen steps of me, a small railed platform lay upon the ground. Men +were on it. Brauns! A black-hooded figure was standing holding Zetta! +Zetta, with fear sweeping her face as she saw me appear.</p> + +<p>I must have stood for an instant in confusion. I remember casting off +the impediment of my cloak. A dozen men came leaping at me. I fired +the Essen, but hit no one. It was knocked from my hand as one of the +leaping bodies struck me.</p> + +<p>They closed in on me. I turned and swung at them. Flimsy things! My +dirk tore into the shoulder of one. He went down with a scream. The +dirk had buried, hilt and all; I let it go. I wrenched an arm loose +from around my neck; hit another man full in the face. Two others I +knocked aside with a sweep of my arm. Another leaped astride my back, +but I heaved him off as though he were a child clinging there. They +must have been without weapons. They clung, bit and tore at me—a ring +of them struggling to hold me.</p> + +<p>I burst through them; but, like birds, they were at me again. One I +lifted bodily and hurled a dozen feet. Another I caught by his legs, +whirling him, a thirty-pound bludgeon to knock the others away. I +had almost reached Zetta. I shouted to her—I do not know what. She +answered; but it was a scream of warning. I turned too late. Some one +from behind crashed a block of metal stone on my head. I went down into +soundless, empty darkness.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>When I recovered consciousness I was lying on the platform. It was in +mid-air; I could feel it sway, feel the rush of the wind past me on +that thirty-foot square, railed platform. Some fifteen men crowded near +its center, where in a small pit, its anti-gravity, lifting mechanism +was installed. It was this pit—a white glow there—which first I saw +when I opened my eyes. The glow shone upward upon the faces and figures +of the seated men. Brauns. I sat up unsteadily. One of my captors was +beside me. He murmured an unintelligible command; but when he saw I +only intended to sit up, he relaxed.</p> + +<p>The platform was sailing through the purple moonlight. I was too far +from the rail to see over it to the ground, but in the distance I could +make out a line of the metal mountains—naked crags glistening under +the stars.</p> + +<p>From behind a platform a yellow fire streamed out, like a vessel's +wake; we were being propelled forward by the impulse of its thrust +against the air. Vertical and horizontal rudders were back there. In +front also, and to the sides, were small lateral wing-rudders.</p> + +<p>A gentle hand touched my shoulder. Zetta was seated beside me. +Unharmed, her face lighting with relief that I, too, seemed uninjured. +My head was roaring from the blow; blood, now drying, matted my hair. +But it seemed only a scalp wound.</p> + +<p>The man guarding us called to his fellows; two of them came and looked +me over, and then went back. The guard moved to seat himself between us +and the rail. Zetta and I were left free to talk. She had been seated +beside me in the Stadium; when the panic began she had turned to see +our two insect guards vanishing under a tiny red beam.</p> + +<p>She had leaped up, unnoticed in the confusion, and had seen me fall. +Hulda was nearest her. She called, but a hand over her mouth stifled +it. She was carried off. Her captor had crouched hidden near the gate, +with his cloak over them, waiting his chance to get unobserved down the +little street. At the forest entrance, when they were about to take her +on the platform, I had burst upon them.</p> + +<p>This was not the platform upon which Graff and his men had escaped from +the amphitheater. "That is much larger," said Zetta. "It is ahead of us +now."</p> + +<p>"They're taking us to the Braun city?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. It is not so much farther. Oh, Peter, you have been lying here +like death so ver' long time!"</p> + +<p>Zetta's account of her abduction, it suddenly struck me, did not ring +wholly true. I eyed her.</p> + +<p>"Did you try to escape from the man who seized you in the Stadium?" I +demanded.</p> + +<p>She understood me at once. She shook her head. "No. Mus' I confess +it? I will, Peter. I heard that the controls were stolen—doom for my +worl'—perhaps for yours."</p> + +<p>She stopped. I said: "So you gave yourself up? Is that it?"</p> + +<p>"No. Not jus' that. The man had me—but you ask me frankly if I try to +escape. I said no."</p> + +<p>"You mean you're glad you're here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said solemnly. "In what other way possibly could I help my +Garla, or your earth?"</p> + +<p>"You think you can help them?"</p> + +<p>She shrugged. She was almost unbelievably calm, but I knew it was a +pose. "Perhaps. If there is any way I can influence Graff—I am no +fool, I will do my best—oh, Peter, not you would I have sacrificed! I +did not know you were following—did not know you would be taken—"</p> + +<p>"But Zetta, darling—"</p> + +<p>"Peter—please!"</p> + +<p>She was building a wall up between us! "I am not pledge' to you yet, +Peter—"</p> + +<p>I thought it best to drop the subject then.</p> + +<p>There were many other such small platforms escaping from Garla. +They came presently, converging in upon us. We sailed high over the +border—a thin, very tall latticed wall stretched over the country to +mark it.</p> + +<p>Zetta pointed. "The border searchbeams are gone. Our guards all +dead—it was what Kean feared. These platforms came into Garla +unseen—taking back the Brauns and what they have stolen."</p> + +<p>The Infra-red control globes! They were on Graff's platform, +undoubtedly.</p> + +<p>"See!" exclaimed Zetta. "There are the city lights!"</p> + +<p>Ahead, a great yellow radiance illumined the sky. The full moon was +low to one side of us; to the other, the dawn was coming. Almost +soundlessly we swept on. Over a sea of deep purple water, with a barren +metal plain beyond it.</p> + +<p>The city came up into view. Tremendous metal buildings, set in terraces +upon a barren metal rock surface. Fantastic structures, aerial like a +giant hive. Spider-web bridges of gleaming metal; giant ladders; metal +causeways swinging from cables at heights tremendous. All aerial, +spiderlike, fantastically unreal. Glaring with blasts of yellow light; +roaring with the noises of industry.</p> + +<p>We swept over it at a considerable height and dropped into a broad +metallic pit in the plain beyond. A pit two hundred feet deep and +several miles across. It was flooded with yellow radiance. Brauns +crowded close around us; but I caught glimpses of a great activity. A +thousand men at least were busy here. Platforms were landing, like ours +from the direction of Garla. A large one was already here.</p> + +<p>Zetta and I were pushed to the ground. A dozen or more space-flying +globes of various sizes—somewhat similar to the one Dan, Freddie and +I had used coming from earth—stood about. At a distance one gigantic +affair—a great terraced cylinder with banks of windows like a monster +modern steamship—lay on a raised stone platform. Leaders led up to it +from the pit-bottom. Our captors shoved us, though not ungently, in +that direction.</p> + +<p>Graff's expedition to earth! His forces, embarking now! I saw very +little of it as with a crowd of Brauns around me I was shoved toward +the monster vehicle. The sloping ladders had wide steps one above the +other at nearly ten-foot intervals. At a word of command, Zetta bounded +up.</p> + +<p>They let down a cable, hooked it on me, hauled me up the fifty-foot +height. I saw them leading Zetta away. She turned toward me, but they +forced her on. A Braun abruptly threw a metal hook around me, pinning +my arms. I was jerked through a doorway, down a long echoing metal +passage and thrown into a metal room, which had a single bull's-eye +window. The door slammed upon me. I was left alone.</p> + +<p>[Illustration: A cable they let down was hooked onto me; I was hauled +up the fifty-foot height. . . . In an hour, I knew, the great cylinder +would embark for Earth]</p> + +<p>Within an hour, in the light of my second dawn upon Xenephrene, we left +the purple planet on our way to conquer the earth.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII</h2> +</div> + +<h3>PLANNING THE CONQUEST</h3> + + +<p>"Well," said Graff, "I had not thought to have you with me, but you are +welcome. A pleasure—"</p> + +<p>I got to my feet; I had been lying on the bare metal floor. We were +well beyond Xenephrene's atmosphere now. And so insistent are the human +mundane needs—amid all my perturbed thoughts of the future, my worry +over Zetta, my aching head with a miserable gash and lump on it—my +chief trouble at the moment was an almost intolerable hunger.</p> + +<p>I swayed as I stood up; Graff put out his hand to steady me. "You're +not hurt?"</p> + +<p>"No. I'm hungry."</p> + +<p>"That is good. Zetta said you would be. Well, you shall be fed. Come +with me." He stood off, regarding me. I must have been a disheveled +enough figure; wide-flaring, corded gray riding trousers, tight over +the knee; heavy rolled stockings; a white shirt, open at the throat, +torn and with Braun blood upon it; and with my own blood matting my +tousled hair.</p> + +<p>"You are a strong-looking little fellow," Graff chuckled. "My men, +worse luck to them, told me how you fought them. It is my idea—now +that you are here with me—you would not run wild like that again. Is +it so?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I agreed. Why not? Of what use for me to try to fight, penned up +here? I added: "Besides, your men took my weapons."</p> + +<p>He was leading me down a long metal passage with closed doors along +it at intervals. "Yes. They look interesting—the mechanical one +particularly. I mus' get you to explain it to me. Zetta says you will +be ver' helpful to me. I think she is right. A clever little girl, +Zetta."</p> + +<p>His words made my blood run cold! But I kept silent. We entered a wide +room, set amidship of the vehicle; through its windows I could see the +black firmament on both sides—the great, star-filled void of Space.</p> + +<p>Zetta was here, perched on a bench before a high table littered with +parchment sheets. She flashed me a smile and a warning glance. Food was +on the table near her.</p> + +<p>"Your breakfast, Peter," she said calmly. "Sit here."</p> + +<p>I ate. Strange meal! Strange food of Xenephrene, but stranger still we +three as we sat there. Graff sat pleasantly talking. He seemed in a +high good humor; wholly frank and sincere. But I wondered; sometimes I +fancied he was gently ironical.</p> + +<p>"There were two or three other earthmen besides yourself who came into +my hands, Peter. All of them—unfortunately—died. You—I think—may +not die. Do you know why? Firs', because Zetta has ask' me to let you +live—and I would do anything to please her. That is—almos' anything. +Second, because she has promise' me you will help with my campaign. +Will you?"</p> + +<p>At his brusque question, I hesitated; Zetta's warning glance decided me.</p> + +<p>"Yes," I said.</p> + +<p>"I mean, really help. I will be able to guess at once you try to fool +me. Do not try it, frien' Peter!"</p> + +<p>I began: "I don't see how I can help you—"</p> + +<p>"He'll help you," Zetta put in.</p> + +<p>"Information about your worl'," Graff explained. "There are many +things you know, which I do not. Zetta and I have been talking over my +plans—I will be the greatest man on your earth, Peter—"</p> + +<p>It decided me. A vain glory was his weakness. He wanted to impress +Zetta; he seemed even to take pleasure in impressing me. Zetta was +playing upon it. We would give him information, authentic enough, which +would help him undoubtedly. But we would learn his plans, too. Work +with him, as he wished; and once on earth—</p> + +<p>I said: "I can see no harm in helping you. Especially if it will +benefit me." I smiled shrewdly. "Will it?"</p> + +<p>I thought perhaps he swallowed my bait, but I could not be sure. +He said emphatically: "If you work with me, I will make you secon' +greatest man in your worl'."</p> + +<p>And Zetta? I wondered. I had only an instant alone with her that day. +She whispered: "You were perfec', Peter. Work with him—learn what you +can. Tell him truthfully what he asks. It is necessary—best in the +end."</p> + +<p>"But Zetta, you—"</p> + +<p>"I can take care of myself. He would not harm me. He wants to make me +love him. That, truly, he desired. I am letting him try."</p> + +<p>"He won't give up his plans—he'll give up nothing for you—"</p> + +<p>"No, of course, not. But I preten' I think maybe he will—move! There +he comes! In a few days perhaps he will leave us more alone."</p> + +<p>"When we get to earth—"</p> + +<p>But she had moved away from me as Graff approached.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>We were twelve days reaching earth. Dan, Freddie, and I had made the +voyage in eleven days. In this great ship we were traveling faster; but +the distance, with Xenephrene drawing away from the earth, was greater +now.</p> + +<p>It was a monotonous voyage. I was housed alone in a cabin with fairly +comfortable furniture. Three times a day, Graff personally came and +took me to that larger room where invariably I found my meal waiting +me. Of all the rest of the ship—its men, its equipment—I saw nothing.</p> + +<p>Zetta very often was in the cabin when I was brought in to my meal. +Occasionally I saw the woman Brea. Once, when for a moment Zetta and +I were alone, I glanced behind us to see Brea's giant figure lurking +in the doorway. Watching us; I caught a glimpse of her face—white, +thin-lipped, with eyes that seemed smoldering with fury. There is a +menace in the aspect of a man who is a scoundrel; but it is mild and +meek indeed compared to the scoundrel woman!</p> + +<p>"Zetta, is that Brea ever left near you? Alone with you?"</p> + +<p>"No. Oh, no. I watch her."</p> + +<p>"She's there now in the passage doorway."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I see her."</p> + +<p>"Don't forget. She tried to have you murdered! Does Graff know that?"</p> + +<p>"I think so. She would not dare harm me here—he would kill her."</p> + +<p>"Don't you be too sure. A woman—a jealous woman—might do anything."</p> + +<p>But Zetta only laughed. "Perhaps we may use her, Peter. When we get to +earth—" She would not say any more.</p> + +<p>Graff was constantly questioning me. The chaos Xenephrene's coming had +brought to earth seemed intensely interesting to him. He understood +astronomy far better than I did, undoubtedly. We talked of the changed +inclination of earth's axis; the changed climate. He questioned me +about the different countries—most of them were only names to him. He +wanted to know the distribution of the people; the different races; the +present great centers of population; the agricultural areas.</p> + +<p>"You are ver' helpful, Peter." He seemed to mean it. "It is all quite +confusing. So big a worl'—populate' over all its surface. A ver' great +conquest for me, Zetta, don't you think so?"</p> + +<p>I tried to get information from him. It was not easy. He only wanted to +talk generalities, both about earth, and about himself. He had asked me +nothing about airplanes or warships—nothing at all about the weapons +of war on earth. Except the Essen automatic of mine which he had taken. +He laid it on the table before us. I explained it to him; the whole +theory of explosives.</p> + +<p>"That is mos' interesting." But he did not seem greatly impressed. "I +suppose you make these things quite large?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I agreed. And since he asked no more, I volunteered nothing +further.</p> + +<p>From Graff I learned that there were already on earth several hundred +of his men. Hiding, as he put it. They had with them only a very small +hand battery with which they could fling around them the crimson +barrage. The fellow who had attacked us at Cains', trying to steal the +Reet battery, was one of them.</p> + +<p>I said: "That crimson barrage—in a larger form—was all you had +yourself, when you were on earth before?"</p> + +<p>He laughed. "I had other things—it was no time to use them."</p> + +<p>"But now—you have other things with you now?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I have other things, Peter."</p> + +<p>He had in this expedition some ten thousand men—and nearly a thousand +of the Garland insects. And there were several thousand women and +children. The Braun race—earth's future ruling race—these were to be +the pioneers. They were not all on this vehicle; there were others, +equally as large. And several small globes. This vehicle held only the +main equipment—the scientific apparatus for war. He mentioned flying +platforms, more mobile for low-altitude air transportation than this +great Space-liner; I gathered that they were platforms similar to the +one on which Zetta and I had been brought from Garla.</p> + +<p>"How are the other Space-vehicles going to find you?" I suggested.</p> + +<p>"We are leading. I shall pick out an earth base and then signal them +where it is. Soon, Peter, before we get to earth, you and I mus' talk +some serious details. You will help me pick our earth base—"</p> + +<p>I saw then the wisdom of Zetta's plan that we should be in Graff's +confidence; here, at least, I could influence him. His landing place +on earth; I would urge him as best I could to where he would do earth +least damage. Perhaps I might even be able to sway his whole campaign +into a channel least damaging to us.</p> + +<p>Once I mentioned the Infra-red Control. He shut me up very sharply.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>There was one time during the voyage when by chance I overheard +Graff and Zetta when they thought they were alone. It was Graff in +a new light. Amazing scoundrel! I thought at the time—and I still +think—that in this one instance at least, every word that he uttered +was truthful and sincere.</p> + +<p>I could hear and see both him and Zetta plainly. They were in Graff's +cabin, where I ate my meals; I was in the length of passageway leading +to my room, which now was freely allowed me. I cannot claim I did not +try to eavesdrop; for most assuredly I did.</p> + +<p>Graff was saying: "If you insis' I talk in English I will do it. For +the practice, as you say." Did Zetta know I overheard them? Did she +want me thus to realize upon what basis they were? I think so; but I +have never known it for a certainty. "And if we are to live on earth, +Zetta, it is best. The race which speaks English is greatest on earth. +Is it so?"</p> + +<p>"I think, yes."</p> + +<p>They were sitting by the table; I saw him reach out and touch her arm, +saw her involuntarily shrink away.</p> + +<p>"Zetta! You hurt me much when you do that."</p> + +<p>"I cannot help it, Graff."</p> + +<p>He leaned toward her. I could see his face. Sincere—for the moment +absolutely sincere.</p> + +<p>"You are afraid of me?"</p> + +<p>"No, I am not."</p> + +<p>"Do not be, Zetta. I love you—I want you to marry me in whatever +fashion they use on earth." His voice was impassioned. "Oh, Zetta, what +a future there will be for you and me! Cannot you see it? Look ahead! I +will be greatest man of this great worl'."</p> + +<p>He suddenly stood up before her, drawn to his full height, his great +bare arms with the dangling chains extended up before him with a +gesture of power. A kingly figure indeed! A white-haired, blue-eyed +Viking of old; but there was about him as well, an aspect of +modernity—a modern, conquering scientist.</p> + +<p>"Look at me, Zetta! A man of whom you will be proud! You—jus' a little +girl—to yourself you will say: 'There is my man, greatest in the +worl'. I love him.'"</p> + +<p>"Ah!" she said. "If I did, Graff."</p> + +<p>"You will. I treat you gently." Abruptly he held one of his huge hands +before her. "With this hand, I could twist the neck of that Peter."</p> + +<p>I doubted it very much!</p> + +<p>"I do not do that, because you ask me not to, Zetta."</p> + +<p>"And because he will always be of great help to you," she retorted +slyly.</p> + +<p>He was taken somewhat aback.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that is true. But for the other reason also. I try to please +you—"</p> + +<p>I could see her gaze measuring him. She looked so small, sitting there +before him; but I knew that with her keen woman's instinct she was +planning how to handle him best.</p> + +<p>"You captured me, Graff. Brought me here, by force. When we get to +earth, will you let me go?"</p> + +<p>"No! I had to bring you—I mus' keep you with me. How else, if you are +not with me, can I make you love me?"</p> + +<p>She said gently, "Perhaps you go about it wrongly."</p> + +<p>"No. I think not. I tried leaving you alone. I was a ver' great man +among my Braun people—but you say you have never loved me. It is the +love I want—nothing else! You know that! Your love—without that, you +are nothing!"</p> + +<p>I must admit he said it with regal dignity which to the woman must have +been impressive. For just that moment, Zetta's emotion must have been +touched. Her hand went impulsively toward him.</p> + +<p>"I believe you, Graff. It is why I have no fear of you."</p> + +<p>He did not follow his advantage. He said, "I am glad. In a few days we +will land upon earth. I shall be ver' busy—we will talk no more of +this for a long time. But I want you to know—everything I do will be +for you."</p> + +<p>She said slowly, "If you want to please me, give it up. You have +stolen the Red Control. You have doomed your own worl' and mine to +disaster. And now you would attack the earth, which never has harmed +you. Wait, hear me this time, Graff! Perhaps—if now we were—to turn +back—perhaps back on Xenephrene I might find—I loved you—"</p> + +<p>He checked her; he was frowning. "You have said that before—do not say +it again! I love you—but I am a man—a ruler. You are nothing but a +woman. Do you think my love is so unworthy of us that I would let you +wreck our destiny? I will not! The man who is mastered by a woman no +longer is a man! You would not love me! That is a lie! You will love me +as I am, and I am made for great deeds. Enough of this!"</p> + +<p>He strode away from her; stopped and turned. "When I am master of the +earth we will talk of this again. You say woman's love comes unbidden? +Perhaps it does—we will wait then upon its pleasure. But remember +this: No woman ever loved a man who was a weakling. I want not that +kind of woman's love!"</p> + +<p>He strode from the room.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>"Let us get to the details," said Graff. My supper was finished; he +pushed away the dishes. We were approaching the earth; slowing down +now; in another twenty-four or thirty-six hours we would be ready to +land. Zetta was seated across the cabin. Graff had drawn two long +tables together; a bank of parchment insect lamps was over them with +the illumination shaded downward.</p> + +<p>Graff added, "Zetta thinks you might be able to draw me a map of your +worl'. Could you?"</p> + +<p>Geography had been rather my hobby. "I think so," I said readily. "I +can draw you one, fairly accurate, on the old Mercator's projection."</p> + +<p>"What is that?"</p> + +<p>I explained it; the surface spread flat; the lines of latitude and +longitude at right angles rather than in a simulation of the globular +surface. He nodded.</p> + +<p>"That will do all right. Try it now. I will watch you, and you mus' +explain as you do it. We mus' pick our landing place and plan the +general campaign. Here, Zetta, help us."</p> + +<p>He unrolled a white opaque parchment some four feet by six. Zetta +fastened it flat to the table. For a pen, I had a metal point in a +small handle, with a dangling wire. The point glowed and etched a +thin dark line on the parchment. And there was a very serviceable set +of drawing instruments—one for measuring angles, the equivalent of +a ruler, a compass—and an intricate affair which drew at will every +variety of curve—circle, ellipses of every eccentricity, parabola, +hyperbola, many other curves which Graff named, but which were +unfamiliar to me. And there was a pantagraph—</p> + +<p>He explained the uses of these various instruments. "Go ahead," he said.</p> + +<p>I took perhaps two hours. It was doubtless a very crude world map I +drew from memory. But in its broadest features it was fairly accurate. +I laid down the horizontal equator; spaced parallel lines, above it, +and below; drew the Greenwich meridian and the others at ten-degree +intervals.</p> + +<p>There was a time, in my university days, when I knew with fair +exactitude the latitude and longitude of most of the world's great +cities. I marked them now as dots; and from them, the coast lines grew.</p> + +<p>Graff was intensely interested. When I had the main national boundaries +sketched in, he stopped me. "That will do us ver' nicely. Show me where +the daylight is now."</p> + +<p>I calculated. It was now by earth-time, the noon of July 7, 1957; +almost exactly mid-spring in the north and mid-autumn in the south. The +equator was pointing toward the sun. The days and nights were now about +equal at the equator—each some twelve hours long, shading off into +twilight at the poles.</p> + +<p>"And next month?" said Graff.</p> + +<p>"The nights are lengthening in the south. The days are lengthening in +the north."</p> + +<p>He made me mark it all on the map; the changes of daylight and +darkness, and the approximate climate from now until early October, +when the North Pole would point to the sun. Then it would be all heat +and daylight in the north, shading to equatorial twilight, down to the +night and cold of the southern hemisphere.</p> + +<p>"My campaign may run until then," he said. "It is these months I am +mos' interes' in." He added abruptly, "Where would you advise me to +land?"</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>It was my opening. "That depends on many things—there's a great deal +you'll have to tell me, Graff," I said frankly. I smiled. "You can't +have a council of war, with your chief councillor wholly ignorant of +everything."</p> + +<p>"Ver' true, Peter. I will tell you what you want to know." My heart +leaped with exultation. I had his confidence at last!</p> + +<p>"Our weapons," I said. My first inclusion of myself with him! He took +it without notice. "Our weapons. Our method of warfare. What countries +we think best to attack first. We'll have the whole world against us, +you know."</p> + +<p>"I know it."</p> + +<p>"Our defense—"</p> + +<p>"That is simple, Peter. We have only one, but it is impregnable against +anything they have on earth."</p> + +<p>"The crimson barrage?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Can you lay it over a widespread area? How wide? Graff, is it your +idea to capture a great spread of country—devastate it—"</p> + +<p>"I cannot," he said. "I can include within the barrage an area that you +would call a circle of ten-mile diameter. Four such circles, if I wish +to divide my forces. Not much more."</p> + +<p>He described how his batteries supplied projectors of the crimson +light. It would extend some fifty thousand feet into the air and +sidewise some five hundred feet on each side of its source. A projector +thus must be set about every thousand feet. He had enough of them to +include four ten-mile areas. His storage batteries would last, he said, +for continuous use some three months.</p> + +<p>"I can stand the barrage up into the air, or tilt it forward, level +with the ground—it is then a beam which will annihilate what it +touches—"</p> + +<p>"With about fifty thousand feet—ten miles—effective range," I +finished.</p> + +<p>"Exactly so, Peter. But with it in that horizontal position we have a +barrage height of only five hundred feet. It is my plan to select a +base, in some area not ver' crowded. From there we can move within our +barrage over any area of country we wish to take."</p> + +<p>"Move how, Graff? On land? Sea?"</p> + +<p>"And in the air—over land and sea. We can mount the barrage projectors +on our platforms. They will fly; and they will float upon earth's +'water'—I have made sure of that."</p> + +<p>We discussed it for another hour. Midnight came; Zetta served us with +food and hot drink. Graff was planning to destroy what he could of +earth until such time as the leading governments would acknowledge his +supremacy.</p> + +<p>"I will have them bring all their weapons before me—we will send them +into nothingness with our crimson sound. Our Braun weapons then will +rule earth indeed! I shall build my city upon your faires' land, and +all your nations will pay me tribute. My Garland insects will work for +me. The earth people will work for me. Our Braun race will spread—"</p> + +<p>His plans after conquest were of a rosy hue. He dwelt on them, while +Zetta and I listened in silence.</p> + +<p>"Your colony will be small," I said finally. "Your five thousand +women—"</p> + +<p>"A new race will come on earth. The blending of the two worl's."</p> + +<p>"Won't you bring more of your people from Xenephrene?"</p> + +<p>Zetta said suddenly, "Xenephrene is doomed."</p> + +<p>Graff frowned at her. "That was necessary, Peter. Ver' unfortunate. No. +We who have left, plan not to return. Nor send for others—the best of +us are here, Zetta is a silly child—silly with woman sentiment. Why +should we bother with Xenephrene? A ver' small worl', so little of it +habitable. I was master there—"</p> + +<p>He had not been master, save of his small minority, themselves in +subjection. "But it was not big enough for me. I have lef' it to its +destiny."</p> + +<p>Left it to its fate—its doom! But I only smiled. "We must decide where +we are to land upon earth," I suggested. "Do you want the daylight or +darkness?"</p> + +<p>He ran his finger along the line of the equator. "Here. In the equal +days and nights. It will be warm?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"That I want. How warm?"</p> + +<p>"Like Garla. Warmer probably."</p> + +<p>He nodded. "And from there, I will go north, following the warmth and +daylight. What is here, Peter?"</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>His finger was on the equator in South America. My heart quickened. +Our new great cities of the Western World were springing up, there +in Ecuador, Venezuela, the Guianas, northern Brazil. This area was +thronged now with colonists. They were planning, at the Falls of +the Iguazu, to supply light and heat through all the Americas. Vast +industrial plants were planned for these new cities. It would be the +industrial and mining center of our western hemisphere. He must not +land there!</p> + +<p>"It used to be jungle," I said casually. "And small rather backward +nations. Down there in Bolivia and Peru—all the equatorial Andes +region—there were great mining possibilities, largely undeveloped. It +has changed a little now."</p> + +<p>I led his interest elsewhere. The East Indies, where my great Dutch +Islands were thriving now with a new activity, drew his attention. +But I distracted him. We determined at last upon the plains north of +Mombassa, in British East Africa. A fair land with the new climate, but +as yet not densely settled, except to the north and north-west.</p> + +<p>In the north were Abyssinia and the Egyptian Sudan—the great valley +of the Nile. To the northwest, the Libyan and Saharan deserts. These +were springing into fertile, temperate areas. The governments of Great +Britain, France and Spain were locating down there. But I felt I could +keep Graff away from this region. Graff would want to move north. I +would make him move northeast—up the African coast, over Eastern +Abyssinia and get him across the Gulf of Aden, into Arabia, Persia +and thence to the sparsely settled, still barren lands of the Central +Asian Socialists.</p> + +<p>"What about your food supplies?" I demanded. "You can't maintain your +people very long with what you've brought, can you?"</p> + +<p>"No," he said. "But I will get food from the country we capture. +You must show me where at this season the agriculture is under way. +Perhaps, too, you have some large gov'ment storehouse now which I could +seize."</p> + +<p>He listened carefully as I pointed out the route into Socialist +mid-Asia. "What we want," I said, "is to frighten the world—bring +it to our feet. Not to devastate it completely, with nothing to rule +afterward but a chaos. You must be careful, Graff, as future emperor, +not to wreck the food supply of your new domain. It's precarious at +best now."</p> + +<p>"I understan'," he said gravely.</p> + +<p>"You are right in that, Peter. We will bring them to yield—ver' +quickly, I hope. Tell me in detail what they will use as weapons +against us."</p> + +<p>He seemed tireless. For another hour or two, I explained as best I +could the armament of the great nations. It was all chaotic since the +Great Change. Indeed, I was sure of very little I said. Most of the +world capitals had moved; all the races and centers of population had +shifted. Nations were disintegrating, blending as their people moved in +wholesale flight to new areas.</p> + +<p>In a few years most of the world would be united almost like one +big family. There had been no thought, since the Great Change, of +maintaining national armaments. The worst possible time to have an +invader from another planet attack us! But this latter, I did not +explain to Graff.</p> + +<p>Still another hour. "Graff," I said abruptly. "You never mention the +Infra-red Control. What part will it play?"</p> + +<p>I expected he might frown his displeasure. He did not. He met me with +an imperturbable smile. "You are tired, Peter," he said calmly. It was +nearly dawn; Zetta had been listening to me silently, but keenly aware +of my motives. But she, too, now was tired. She flashed me a warning +look when I mentioned the Control.</p> + +<p>Graff's slow smile continued. "Peter, you go to your cabin. I will work +this out."</p> + +<p>I slept. It must have been noon when I was awakened, not by Graff, +but by a Braun I had never seen before. In Graff's cabin my meal was +waiting. Zetta was not there. Graff was still poring over my map; I +think he had not left it.</p> + +<p>"Sit down, Peter."</p> + +<p>When I was fairly eating, he gestured at the map. "I have made my +decision. We will land in north Brazil. I will also sen' a force to +Central Africa. It can move north over the Sahara grain fields, into +Europe. And from Brazil we can move north and south. I think that North +and South Americas and Europe and Africa are mos' important places to +attack, Peter. We will frighten them, if we attack them there!"</p> + +<p>Irony was in his voice and in his smile! And I had thought to influence +this fellow!</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII</h2> +</div> + +<h3>THE EARTH AT BAY!</h3> + + +<p>History will record that the forces of Graff, the Xenephrene, landed +upon earth at 2 A.M., July 9, 1957, in north Brazil, at one degree +fourteen minutes north latitude, and sixty-one degrees twenty-two +minutes west longitude. There was no one person on earth who saw more +than a fragment of what followed during those frightful weeks; out of a +myriad accounts, history will piece a pallid, dispassionate vision of +the whole.</p> + +<p>For myself, I witnessed many horrible things. But only fragments—as +an ant with its tiny viewpoint sees the forest through which it +crawls, and might futilely try to describe it. I can only name facts; +imagination must supply the rest, and even then inevitably fall far +short of the grim, tragic reality.</p> + +<p>I was crouching with Graff and Zetta at a floor window of the giant +Space liner when, that July 9, we slowly settled to within a thousand +feet of the ground. A dark, tropic, overcast night.</p> + +<p>From beneath our bow a crimson, howling radiance, one of the barrage +projectors, sprang downward. There was no one left alive over the +ten-mile circular area around which our barrage was flung that +night, to tell what happened. I saw the houses of this newly-settled +agricultural area melt and vanish as we swept them with the radiance.</p> + +<p>The barrage went up. By dawn, all the country near us was deserted of +its people, who fled in terror as far away from us as they could get. +The tropic jungle had wilted since the Great Change. The land here +was cleared; broad, fertile fields, planted now with grain, corn, and +garden produce. Prosperous farms, crowded with settlers in their small, +new houses. New villages. Several small cities. Over a hundred mile +area they were deserted in a day.</p> + +<p>Graff's other vehicles arrived. One was dispatched to Africa. It landed +in the French Sudan, in latitude fifteen degrees five minutes north +and longitude three degrees nineteen minutes west—not far south of +the city of Timbuktu, which had tripled in size and importance since +the Great Change. The red barrage was flung up here, but it was on the +flying platforms. Within a day it began moving directly north.</p> + +<p>Around our encampment in north Brazil, the barrage projectors were +mounted on the ground for a permanent stay. A ten-mile circle. It +included a stream. I found Graff had apparatus for distilling the +water, for drinking supply. He foraged out for food, even though he had +a three months' supply with him. He began building dwelling houses for +his women and children—using materials he had brought, and materials +his insects dragged in from neighboring, abandoned villages.</p> + +<p>An incredible activity. By the end of July his permanent base was well +established. We had been attacked. I can only hint at the surprise, the +panic, our landing caused all over the world. Since the Great Change, +the last thing that had been thought of was war.</p> + +<p>The nations were concerned with their bare existence—the welfare of +their people. War between them was an impossibility. The great battle +fleets of Britain, the United States, France and Japan were no longer +armed for combat. Most of the vessels had been dismantled of their +armament, converted into transports, for the people in distress and for +the transportation of food.</p> + +<p>Armies were organized now as government industrial and agricultural +workers. Every government was in the business of producing, +buying, storing, and selling food. The war airplanes were used +for transportation; thousands of the great Arctic A type were in +commission—but few of them were armed.</p> + +<p>The world was wholly unprepared and unequipped for war. Nevertheless, +Graff's base in north Brazil was attacked. Railroad lines were near us. +They were abandoned to traffic within fifty miles of us. But an armored +train was run up in the night. It shelled us with a long-range gun. One +of Graff's foraging parties outside the barrage was struck and most of +its members killed. But the screaming shells—they came all one night +at twenty minute intervals—exploded harmlessly against our barrage.</p> + +<p>A few planes came up cautiously to inspect us. One must have risen over +the ten mile height of our barrage. It dropped bombs. One of them +fell within our lines. It killed a dozen men and working insects, and +wrecked some of our apparatus; it barely missed our group of vehicles, +lying on the river bank in the center of our encampments. I doubt if +that aviator ever knew how true was his aim of that one bomb.</p> + +<p>The train with its thirty-mile range gun was gone at dawn. But it came +again the next night. I went with Graff, aloft on a small platform, +high over our lines. Through the red glow of our barrage we could see +the train in the distance—a blur of moving lights. We carried a single +small projector. At dawn we sailed out, through a momentary break +in the barrage. The train saw us coming. It retreated, swinging and +swaying over its rails at an eighty-mile-an-hour gait. It was a Garga +locomotive, and a flat car. Puffing, snorting, careening through the +country to avoid us. But we caught it. There was nothing there in a +moment but a tumbled heap of its heavier steel parts. We sailed back.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The world during these days must have been frantically assembling its +armament. Our Brazil base continued to be harassed. By July 15, our +river quite suddenly went dry. We found that some fifty miles up the +course on a distant rise of ground they had mounted a queerly-fashioned +projector. It might have been from Xenephrene itself!</p> + +<p>It was Freddie's heat-projector, sent here from Miami by the United +States government. It had an effective range of some two miles, and +its heat—they must have been applying it continuously for several +days—had dried up the small water-course, sending it up in clouds of +steam.</p> + +<p>Graff ordered an attacking platform out. It never returned. +Miraculously, a long-range gun must have hit it. Then we found that, +still farther up, they were damming our stream. Graff let them alone. +We sent out foraging parties at intervals for water. They were +frequently attacked.</p> + +<p>From Zetta, I sometimes had translated accounts of these hand-to-hand +engagements. Graff had a variety of small hand weapons with which +his foraging men were generally armed. Hand batteries of the purple +Reet-current. They shot very short, purple stabs of flame. I recalled +seeing the guards use them that night in the Garla Stadium.</p> + +<p>There were hand knives, not unlike the Spanish machete. And +occasionally Graff used a lethal gas. It clung its weight close to the +ground. The wind would sometimes sweep it over a village.</p> + +<p>The small purple flame projectors interested me particularly. I +persuaded Graff to show me one. The crimson barrage was a form of Reet; +so was this purple light. The one a low vibration rate; the other, a +high. Both, of course, were akin to the Control-globes. I tried again +to mention the Control, but Graff shut me up. He was not using it, as +yet. I found out soon afterward that, by every artifice in her power, +Zetta was holding him back.</p> + +<p>But he explained the purple flame. It stabbed into the crimson barrage, +neutralized it. With one of these small projectors, a man at a distance +of ten feet or so could stab a small hole through our red radiance. +Graff used this small hand projector to blind the earthmen at short +range, and to explode their gunpowder weapons in their hands—both of +which it evidently did with great efficacy.</p> + +<p>I said casually: "The Garlands had these purple projectors?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, Peter."</p> + +<p>"And, Graff, why couldn't that be made in a larger form? A giant purple +beam?"</p> + +<p>"It could. The Garlands have it."</p> + +<p>My thoughts were running tumultuously. Father, Dan, and Freddie were up +there in Garla. I said, still casually: "Then the Garlands could have +penetrated our barrage—neutralized it?"</p> + +<p>He smiled lugubriously. "Yes. That is what they did to me when I +attack' them years ago."</p> + +<p>Graff was in a good mood this day. He showed me some of the defensive +apparatus he had brought along. "I do not need it here, Peter. But I +have it, jus' the same."</p> + +<p>Insulated garments which one might wear and be protected, at least +partially, from the red barrage. Infra-red goggles to protect the +sight; ear-grids to bar out the sound—to raise it again to the normal +vibration to which our human ears are accustomed.</p> + +<p>"Why," I said, "with these one might walk through our barrage!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he agreed, "I should not care to try it—but one might get +through safely."</p> + +<p>He put them away.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>We had no reports from Africa. But it was over there that in these +early days the greatest damage to earth was done. The flying ring of +platforms, with the vehicle in their midst, had immediately begun +moving northward.</p> + +<p>Slowly some two or three hundred miles a day, but inexorably, +impervious to every attack that could be sent against them, they blazed +a ten-mile twisting trail, northward across Africa—a trail of queerly +blank, dead-gray surface of empty earth.</p> + +<p>It was as though some giant finger of death were dragging, trailing +itself over the continent. It cut a swath through Timbuktu, trailed +over the newly settled, newly fertile Sahara, swung east over the +mountains into the erstwhile Libyan desert; then north over the +Mediterranean. It was there by July 20.</p> + +<p>A fleet of warships, hastily assembled from every nation, was in the +Mediterranean. The red enemy flew high. Its barrage was downward. The +ships, at a fair distance, withstood the red glow. Especially at night. +The world was learning the nature of this gruesome enemy.</p> + +<p>The crimson screaming radiance seemed more deadly, more uncanny in the +darkness of night. But it was not. Our sunlight was favorable to it; by +day its range was greatly increased. Graff knew it. He had told me he +would follow the daylight northward!</p> + +<p>The great steel ships in the Mediterranean—if they kept off several +miles—were safe, especially at night. Safe from annihilation! But on +them must have been queer, uncanny scenes!</p> + +<p>One, just south of Malta, was caught in a fringe of outflung red beam. +Those on board have told what for a minute or two they went through. It +was night. The ship's lights went out. Its dynamos were burned. There +were several explosions aboard. But the ship escaped. Its men were +half deafened; eyes red, smarting and strained; a queer irritation of +the skin. And many were laughing with an hysteria which no one could +explain.</p> + +<p>The invaders turned east from Malta. They were never unduly aggressive, +the barrage generally was closely held for defense—save that over +the land it blighted always that ten-mile swath. They passed over the +isles of Greece and again turned north. Heading up into mid-Europe. +Before them—as well as their course could be guessed for it always +was erratic—the country was deserted. A rout, with occasionally an old +fortress, or a group of armed earth planes, or a railroad line with an +armored train, making a brief, futile stand.</p> + +<p>During this period the few Brauns whom Graff had sent previously +to earth now began to make their appearance. A few, scattered +individuals; they were found in various localities, and by the earth +people summarily killed. In mid-Europe a group of them—a hundred or +more—suddenly appeared and made a stand. Graff's expedition rescued +them, took them aboard the flying platforms. They were the last, I +think, of the scattered Xenephrenes; no others ever appeared, anywhere +on earth.</p> + +<p>The last week in July saw us spreading out in South America. Our +permanent camp housed the women, children and the older men. They +maintained the barrage. The insects were working with the men building +the town.</p> + +<p>With a ring of flying platforms, we made a sortie north. A week up and +back. We laid waste a swath through central Venezuela to the coast; we +returned with a western swing, through Colombia, Ecuador, north Peru +and back to our base. By July 30 it was evident that the earth people +were doing their best to evacuate all the territory inclosed by the +circle we had cut. Graff saw it; a new idea gripped him.</p> + +<p>"We can patrol it, Peter. With a few platforms I can hold this +territory—and spread farther."</p> + +<p>It was an area roughly from five degrees south to seventeen degrees +north latitude, and from sixty degrees to seventy-eight degrees west +longitude. A small Space-flying globe was now dispatched with a message +to the east. It joined Graff's other force in mid-Europe. Together they +moved in one leap to the Orient, landed in Java, and began sweeping the +East Indies. They attacked the rich Dutch islands near the equator, +which with the new climate we Dutch had proudly thought would become +the fairest places of the earth.</p> + +<p>From an island there was no swift escape for the multitudes of +panic-stricken people—I have read that they flung themselves into the +sea by thousands.</p> + +<p>I have seen the great Javan temples, which in the 1940's before the +Great Change, we Dutch were using as a lure for the tourist trade—seen +them in ruins as they looked when the Xenephrenes had passed. They say +that the Banda Sea, in August, reeked with the bodies floating in it.</p> + +<p>Fair, green islands, metamorphosed from the tropic to a temperate +zone, were laid waste without a living human remaining. From twenty +degrees north to twenty degrees south—down into the best land of +the Australian continent, up beyond the Philippines—the East was +devastated.</p> + +<p>Graff's plan was to drive the world's people away from the equator. +There was only mid-Africa left, and his force now went back there.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>"We'll see," said Graff. "Perhaps—long ago, who knows, they are +willing to yield. You can go with me, Peter. We will deliver them a +message and see what they have to say."</p> + +<p>It was the first week in August. We took a small Space-flying globe. +Just Graff and I, with three or four of his men to handle it. Then +Zetta wanted to go. Graff agreed. He was always pleased to have her +with him; his vanity was pleased that she should see his triumphs.</p> + +<p>I think, too, that he would not have cared to leave her in the camp +with Brea. The woman was a snake-like menace. Graff seemed contemptuous +of her. He told me once he had promised long before, to marry her, but +had since decided it was not to his liking.</p> + +<p>We started in the globe, and sailing high, watchful that no airplane +could get up to attack us, we went to Miami. At a twenty-mile height, +we waited for nightfall. The nights were brief now in this northern +latitude. We had prepared a small metal cylinder. I wrote the message +to go in it.</p> + +<p>"<i>To the governments of the earth, from Graff, the Xenephrene.</i>"</p> + +<p>We told them that if they wished to yield, we would name our terms, and +give directions for the destroying of all their armament. One condition +of surrender we named now, in advance.</p> + +<p>From ten degrees north to ten degrees south latitude, all the land +in the world was permanently to be evacuated—to be held by the +Xenephrenes.</p> + +<p>Graff, with his fifteen or eighteen thousand people, could not possibly +be expected to use or need more than a fraction of this land area, +as I had pointed out to him. But he had great, if somewhat nebulous, +colonization plans. Earth men and women from several different earth +races chosen by him, were to be sent, to be selected and judged by him +as the old Eugenic sect once thought to judge the applicants for future +parenthood.</p> + +<p>A hundred thousand such earth people would come and swear allegiance +to his ruling government. With his Brauns they would build new cities; +populate this most benign central region of earth; build their new and +greater civilization—breed their new race, the best of the two worlds.</p> + +<p>We directed the Miami authorities that if this message were received, +they should notify us by a swaying white searchlight beam from Miami +Beach the following night. We would then wait another two nights. +Then, the night of August 7, if the beam showed again, swaying, we +would know they desired to yield. But if it stood straight up into the +sky, motionless, we would understand they still defied us. We made no +threats—our deeds, not our words, would speak for us.</p> + +<p>We dropped the cylinder into the outskirts of Miami. It went down, +flaming like a beacon from the blazing gas we had ignited in its top. +It fell, as close as I could judge, near the Greater Miami—Fort +Lauderdale line. By daylight we hung fifty miles high, waiting.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>I have been told, and I can fairly imagine, the scene at the conference +which was held in the Miami War Department during those three following +long days with the brief nights between them.</p> + +<p>At this daylight season there was a freight and passenger air line +flying from Miami to the Canaries, with connections at the Canaries for +the recently established capitals of Great Britain and France, near the +Barbary Coast.</p> + +<p>Upon one of these liners representatives of all the European +governments came hastily to assemble at Miami; from Japan came leaders +of the Oriental powers; and from Caracas—greatest capital now of Latin +America—came the newly elected President of the Pan American Union.</p> + +<p>Graff and I, in our devastating swing up through Venezuela late in +July, had passed not far west of Caracas; those had been anxious +moments for me.</p> + +<p>I need not picture that grave, solemn conference of the World Powers in +Miami that August 6. I understand it lasted without intermission for +some thirty-six hours. They had determined to yield.</p> + +<p>A giant searchlight was erected at Miami Beach. It swayed its answer +that the cylinder had been found—that Graff's message was being +considered. We saw it. We hung far, inaccessibly far aloft, waiting for +the decision.</p> + +<p>The night of August 7 came. The conference was ending. The definite +decision to yield had been reached. From the War Department a telephone +was connected with the little house at the beach where the operator was +ready to flash the signal. Our War Secretary rose to his feet.</p> + +<p>"Shall I phone him now, gentlemen?" They say his voice nearly broke.</p> + +<p>There was a silent assent. From the adjoining room a telephone rang +sharply; then another. A confusion in there. Telephones ringing, and +the government radio sounding a peremptory incoming call. A confusion, +while the War Secretary stood irresolute. Then an Under Secretary burst +into the room. "A globe from Space has landed in the Everglades!"</p> + +<p>A few moments, and fromen sources came the details. Professor +Vanderstuyft had arrived from Xenephrene! With his daughter, and Daniel +Cain, Frederick Smith—and a young man, a Xenephrene friendly to +earth—named Kean. They had weapons with them with which to fight this +invader! They were no more than fifty miles from Miami, and were being +rushed to the conference by a government Arctic A.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>We were crouching over the floor of our hovering globe, gazing down at +the shadowy outlines of the Florida coast. The twilight of August 7 +deepened into night. No searchlight beam showed. We waited. We did not +see father's globe come down: I did not know anything about it until +afterward.</p> + +<p>The hours passed. "They will yield," said Graff confidently. "They +postpone now the humiliating hour. But before the dawn we will see +their searchlight beam. It will waver, tremble—jus' as in their own +hearts they are wavering and trembling."</p> + +<p>And Zetta and I thought so, too. The short night passed; the twilight +of dawn began showing. And then the white beam from down there sprang +up. It stood vertical. Motionless!</p> + +<p>For a moment we stared at it, almost unbelieving. Moisture clouded my +sight of it; my brave world, firmly shining its defiance!</p> + +<p>Graff sprang to his feet. "Why! Incredible! They have not yielded?"</p> + +<p>Anger contorted his face—chagrin was in his voice. I think he felt the +chagrin more strongly from Zetta's presence.</p> + +<p>"So they will not yield? The worse for them! You shall see now the Red +Control, Peter!"</p> + +<p>"No!" burst out Zetta. "You mus' not do that, Graff!"</p> + +<p>His laugh was grim.</p> + +<p>"You shall see! The Red Control—I will loose it now upon them!"</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX</h2> +</div> + +<h3>RED MADNESS STALKING THE EARTH</h3> + + +<p>Days of grim activity in Graff's camp followed. I think Graff had no +intimation of the reason for the earth's defiance; he seemed to feel +that our governments were fool-hardy, stupid—stubborn beyond the point +of human reason. He had been in a towering rage, but that passed. He +moved about his tasks now with a cool, careful efficiency. But I could +see a certain almost awed grimness about him for the diabolical nature +of this thing he was doing.</p> + +<p>His mood was reflected in all his men. And they changed toward me. +Never more than contemptuously tolerant, they were now openly hostile. +Gibing at me, the earthman.</p> + +<p>I was passing one morning down the line of flimsy houses which was the +main street of the camp. A woman leaped from a doorway and struck me +in the face. My guard was at hand. Graff never let me move anywhere +without an armed man to watch me. He said to protect me, especially +from the giant insects which lurked about the camp, and which, in +truth, I always feared; but I knew Graff's motive was to watch that I +did not try to escape. The woman struck and reviled me until my guard +pulled her away.</p> + +<p>Graff had sent a globe at once to Africa, to order back his force +operating there. It came in, crowding our camp. Near the north line +of our barrage Graff built a small stone house. Within it the control +globes were being erected. He would never let me or Zetta near it.</p> + +<p>The barrage throughout its entire circumference was strengthened. +All our projectors were in use, triple-banked in some places. Graff +had built a chemical laboratory in the camp. His scientists had for +weeks been working in it, endeavoring to produce the Reet current on +earth for a renewal of the storage tanks which had been brought from +Xenephrene. I was now barred from this building; they were working in +it on the Control-globe mechanisms.</p> + +<p>Above our camp a flying platform now constantly hovered at a +ten-thousand foot altitude. It spread a thin, red barrage like a +ceiling above us. Graff anticipated that he would be attacked more +vigorously than ever before; he said so to me once, with his sardonic +smile—and he had not forgotten that one aviator who had dropped a bomb +upon us.</p> + +<p>By August 14 our force had returned from Africa, our lines about our +base were strengthened, the Control-globes were erected in the little +house, and everything was ready. About the camp, and at intervals five +miles out to the barrage line, small projectors the size of a man's +hand had been erected; wires in conduits ran from them back to the +laboratory. There must have been fifty or more.</p> + +<p>On the afternoon of August 14 a current was turned into them. They +hummed gently; when the twilight and night came, I saw them emitting a +faint purple radiance. Within an hour it hung over the camp—over all +the inside area of the barrage—like a purple haze. The haze I had seen +in the air of Xenephrene. It was to protect us here, in our enclosed +area, from the effects of this thing we were about to broadcast over +the earth!</p> + +<p>A week from that night over Miami when we were defied—and now Graff +was ready. An anxious week for me. A thousand times I had thought of a +thousand vague plans of something desperate I might do. But what? I was +more closely guarded than ever before. A very pseudo-liberty was all +that was permitted me.</p> + +<p>Zetta, in a few snatches of talk I had alone with her, still seemed +to think she might persuade Graff to stop. Futile hope! Her brave +endeavors had from the first been futile. At last, she seemed +convinced.</p> + +<p>A wariness of manner, an alert, calculating look whenever she was with +Graff, came upon her. I can only guess now, what thoughts and plans +were behind that grim, masklike little face. She said nothing of her +thoughts to me; there seemed suddenly an added estrangement between us.</p> + +<p>During the evening of August 14, while I was watching the purple haze, +Graff sought me. Zetta was near him.</p> + +<p>"We are ready, Peter. I thought that you and Zetta would like to see +these little globes that are so powerful to triumph for us."</p> + +<p>"Walk out to the Control house?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I am going now to turn the current into the Red Globe."</p> + +<p>I strove not to show my emotion; I thought he might dismiss my +guard—and he, Zetta and I might take the walk alone. If I could watch +my chance and spring upon him.</p> + +<p>But he bade the guard follow close behind us. It was a dark, overcast +night. Our little town by the dried river bank was almost in the center +of the circular barrage lines. From here it was some five miles to the +north of the barrage.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>We walked over the slightly undulating dead-gray waste of what had been +the Brazilian farm country. The ground was covered with a gray dust, +like burned powder. Graff and Zetta and my guard could have leaped over +the distance in a few minutes. Graff was impatient, contemptuous of my +slow progress. He forced me forward at a trot.</p> + +<p>We passed the occasional towers he had built; a few sailing platforms +on the summits of the slopes. The purple projectors standing on the +ground at intervals were all humming, casting up their purple haze into +the still night air.</p> + +<p>Ahead of us loomed the red curtain of the barrage. The night now was +filled with its howl. A Braun appeared from the darkness—one of the +interior ground guards. His white, half-naked body, with bullet head of +clipped white hair, was edged, lurid with the reflected crimson glow. +Goggles were on his eyes—thick glass cones projecting out grotesquely; +his ears were muffled with small wire grids. He spoke to Graff, and +stood deferentially aside to let us pass.</p> + +<p>The stone house was set close behind the barrage, bathed in the +crimson—a small, one-storied house with a single door and no windows. +At the door two guards stopped us. My personal guards waited outside. +The room we entered was tiny, with one small white light. Evidently +the sleeping room of these two interior guards. They wore goggles and +ear-grids, and tight trousers and smock of black, insulating fabric; +a cap with a black mask, now raised; and black gloves. Here, near the +broadcasting of the Infra-red Control, exposed to its nearness over a +long period, the men needed utter protection. A rack on the wall held +other similar protecting garments, masks, goggles and ear-grids. "We +will not need them," said Graff. "We will be here but a moment. Jus' a +moment—but long enough!"</p> + +<p>The room had one interior doorway—a small, round opening with a +heavy bull's-eye door. We stooped to pass through; emerging into a +low, black-vaulted room. On a small railed platform stood the two +little globes. Another man was here, robed in the tight-fitting black +garments; gloved, masked and goggled. Grotesque executioner! He +murmured to Graff, and stood aside.</p> + +<p>There was a tense moment. The room was dim, and dead silent. No +windows. No opening save the round doorway into the room through which +we had entered.</p> + +<p>Graff said slowly: "We will give them a few hours of the Red +vibrations—to-night and to-morrow perhaps, and then broadcast from the +purple globe—restore normality." He added grimly: "We will see then +what they say, Peter."</p> + +<p>The two globes were white, opaque and silent. Graff turned to a switch. +For the first time that evening Zetta spoke; an involuntary cry of +protest.</p> + +<p>"No! Graff—no!" She gripped him, but he thrust her roughly aside. I +was tense; I think then I was about to leap upon Graff. But from the +hand of the black-robed man a weapon was pointing quietly, menacingly +at me.</p> + +<p>Graff's face was grimly inscrutable. He reached up suddenly and +threw the switch. The dim light from somewhere in the room faded and +vanished. A crimson glow from one of the globes took its place; the +other globe stood milk-white, silent, alert.</p> + +<p>A humming. From the grid over the active globe a faint red beam was +streaming. It spread; it deepened; it streamed out through the solid +black wall of the room. I stared after it. Sidewise—upward; I seemed +to be gazing out into a black illimitable distance, red-tinted. Long +unearthly vibrations, broadcast now around our world! They were already +around and back again and starting anew.</p> + +<p>"Come," said Graff's voice abruptly. "That's all."</p> + +<p>The black-masked operator was seated at his little table, watching +his dials. The red globe had settled to its steady hum as we left the +room. Strangely brief, undramatic scene! I sensed that Graff had made +it so—a cloak to hide what emotions sweeping him, only he would ever +know. A matter-of-fact casualness.</p> + +<p>Yet I have never witnessed a scene of such potential horror. A small +stone house, black-vaulted room with its lone, black-garbed man. Just a +single small globe, faintly humming, glowing crimson. But I knew that +within a day or so our great earth would be at its mercy!</p> + +<p>Back on Xenephrene, in Garla that evening at the Stadium, there had +followed a night of confusion. With the Infra-red Control stolen, the +Garlands were in a panic. The frightened people had rushed for the +grottos; by the time the authorities were able to bring order, the +night had passed. At dawn, pursuit had started for the Braun city. +Too late. Graff's expedition had left for earth. The Brauns remaining +on Xenephrene learned now their leader's duplicity. They, too, were +stricken with fear and horror.</p> + +<p>There is an old saying on earth, "When the devil is sick, the devil a +monk would be!" The Garland authorities were very ready to listen to +father now! They sent at once for him and Dan and Freddie. They begged +his advice; there was nothing they would not do to help him, if only he +could suggest a way to get back the Control.</p> + +<p>Their scientists had spent years refining by slow process the vital +elements necessary to its construction. The work had started when +Xenephrene came within the first faint rays of our sunlight. There +was no time now to repeat that process. Unless they could remove the +Control, within a few months, at most, they were doomed.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>They had been truthful in telling father that there was no +interplanetary vehicle ready in Garla. And Graff had left none in his +Braun city. There was only the small vehicle in which Dan, Freddie and +I had arrived. It was decided that father and his earth people were +to return in this globe to earth at once, taking Kean with them. Kean +could be taught by father how to navigate the vehicle. If on earth the +Control were recovered from Graff, Kean would bring it back to Garla.</p> + +<p>They waited about a week, gathering weapons and equipment with which to +fight Graff on earth.</p> + +<p>The globe was too small to take very much. They brought to earth four +giant projectors of the purple ray with which to stab neutral openings +in Graff's barrage; a projector of the crimson barrage itself; and the +insulating equipment for some four hundred persons—black-hooded suits, +masks, gloves, Infra-red goggles and ear-grids.</p> + +<p>It seemed very little, but the best that could be done. The Garlands +promised to rush another vehicle to earth with other weapons. But the +vehicle would be some weeks yet in construction, and the distance +between the worlds was daily lengthening.</p> + +<p>It was, even now, a long voyage for father's party. They +arrived—dropped into the Everglades on the evening of August 7—as I +have told. Father, at the conference, would have none of the idea of +surrender. And the delegates from the World Powers, heartened with the +weapons now at hand, with Freddie and Dan vigorously stating that they +knew how to use them—reversed their decision. The searchlight beam +held steady with its defiance.</p> + +<p>Both Dan and Freddie have since told me how forcefully father spoke in +Miami that night. On Xenephrene an ineffectiveness had seemed to be +upon him. I had noticed it. A strange world, among strange people where +he had lived and worried all those months, had beaten him down. He had +seemed years older; an almost querulous, ineffectual old man.</p> + +<p>Subconsciously realizing this, Dan, Freddie and I had discarded him +from all our planning. But back on earth, among his own people, his own +environment, his forceful character returned.</p> + +<p>He told them, that night at the conference, about the Control. It was +disturbing news. But Graff obviously had not used the Control as yet. +Perhaps on earth it would not operate.</p> + +<p>There was much to do before Graff could be seriously attacked. Four +Arctic A warplanes were to be equipped with the four purple ray +projectors. They were to be armed with long-range Essen-Bloc guns. +These guns, developed in the early fifties, just before the Great +Change, were for aircraft use in war.</p> + +<p>They fired a peculiarly destructive shell which, it was thought, would +be most effective against the light Xenephrene structures—Graff's +space-vehicles and his flying platforms. There also was the crimson +barrage projector to be assembled and mounted. And a fighting force +of some two hundred planes, whose pilots and gunners were all to be +black-garbed and goggled.</p> + +<p>It would take a week or two for these preparations. The attack would +be made against Graff's Brazilian base; it was found now that his +mid-African force had withdrawn and returned to Brazil. All the +Xenephrenes were concentrated there; it was exactly what the earth +leaders most desired.</p> + +<p>There was a week of complete inactivity from Graff. Scouting planes, +ordered not to approach too close, reported that his barrage seemed +deepening in color and sound; and he had placed a red radiance +overhead. His inactivity seemed threatening to the Miami authorities. +All the earth preparations were going hurriedly forward in Miami.</p> + +<p>It seemed an ominous lull, while both sides were preparing. Graff, +it was hoped, did not know what the earth was planning. He would be +taken completely by surprise. One great surprise rush, by night. They +believed in Miami that they would be ready by about August 20.</p> + +<p>The world publics waited, expectant. The news of the arrival of weapons +from Garla was hushed and suppressed lest by some chance it get to +Graff. The world public was fed with radio propaganda; the invaders had +withdrawn from Africa because they feared the earth's attack; they were +concentrated in Brazil—their power to harm earth was lessening; soon +the earth forces would fall upon them; destroy them. Or perhaps even +now, the Xenephrenes were planning to withdraw from earth, as they had +before.</p> + +<p>Upon such opiate as this the public was fed. It is always so in times +of war! Newspapers printed pages of learned technical explanation of +what would happen, by all the laws of mathematics and logic, when once +the world powers went into battle. Newspaper experts analyzed the +scientific facts from every angle, reaching always the same triumphant +solution—experts who knew no more of the real facts than did their +readers. And the public waited expectant.</p> + +<p>Freddie and Dan, chafing at their forced inactivity, persuaded the +Miami authorities to let them try Freddie's heat ray, in advance of +the main earth attack. It was Freddie's plan, and father also agreed +to its merit. Graff would be suspicious at this long silence from his +enemy—just as Miami was daily growing more suspicious of him.</p> + +<p>Freddie's projector could create, with a two-mile range, a heat of some +three hundred degrees Fahrenheit; it had a three-mile range, if the +heat were concentrated to a six-foot striking area. Graff's barrage was +vertical. Its horizontal area of danger was no more than five or six +hundred feet.</p> + +<p>In a muffled, unlighted plane, selecting a dark night, Freddie and Dan +could get within a few miles of the barrage; the heat might wreck some +of the barrage mechanism. There was no one to say whether these heat +vibrations would penetrate the crimson glow or not. It had never been +tried. And at least it would create a diversion which Graff would think +a normal earth attack. He would expect none other for a time.</p> + +<p>Freddie and Dan planned to start on the night of August 15. By evening +of August 14 they were in the Miami War Department, receiving last +admonitions. The official radio was droning its routine messages.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>There was a sudden interference. A chaos of weird voices such as only +the radio—particularly in the old pioneer days—could produce. The +interference grew worse; then the radio went dead. The telegraphs, +telephones and undersea cables all had sudden interference, but they +kept in operation. The new "Invisible light-beam" phones, as they were +popularly called, withstood it, but service was maintained under +difficulty. The electric lights went dim, almost out; then brightened +suddenly; and dimmed again.</p> + +<p>This, all within a few minutes, that evening of August 14. In Miami, +and all over the world it was the same. And then, almost unnoticed at +first, slowly, insidiously, inexorably, the reign of the Red Madness +began. The great mass of people throughout the world did not understand +it, had no idea what was happening to them. They called it, they still +call it, the Red Madness.</p> + +<p>It began with a feeling of uneasiness. An oppression. The feeling +one has sometimes when the barometer falls in the lull before a +coming storm; the feel, as they would say, of electricity in the air. +Thousands said that, undoubtedly. A growing uneasiness. The countries +in the daylight felt it most.</p> + +<p>The sick, the weak, the nervous, were most quickly affected. In +hospitals there was a sudden hysteria among the patients. In a Miami +hospital early that evening an old woman patient ran screaming and +laughing, screaming that red demons were after her. Perhaps, of all the +millions, she was the first.</p> + +<p>She leaped into the street; Freddie and Dan recall her shuddering +scream and eerie laughter as it floated into the open windows of the +War Department.</p> + +<p>At the War Department the reports from abroad were increasingly +alarming. Within an hour every official channel of communication was +cluttered with news. A diversity impossible to picture! At first, +abnormality in the sick, the old, and the very young. Infants wailing, +unable to sleep; old people stricken with hysteria, a morbid, weeping +melancholia, or a wild frenzy of madness.</p> + +<p>A lone old man suddenly gone mad; then, not only old people—a +mob rushing screaming down a city street; a great airliner very +nearly plunging into the China Sea because its pilot was laughing +uncontrollably, and then weeping with realization of the tragedy he had +so nearly caused.</p> + +<p>People in crowded Oriental villages running amok, shot down by the +police. A Miami surgeon at an operation killed his patient with a +sudden vicious stroke and cried like a child that he had done it. A +thousand incongruous, horrible incidents.</p> + +<p>From every quarter of the earth, medical authorities, scientific bodies +and governments were demanding an explanation of Miami. And then the +world of the Infra-red began showing. Not only to the infirm—to every +one. The strongest man was frightened—terrified, sometimes, at his +own mad desire to laugh. Vague red shapes were in the air, murmuring, +chattering.</p> + +<p>I personally did not experience any of this. Father and the others say +it was at first like the sensations we had felt on Xenephrene. The +red things were not so tangible or visible—nor so clearly audible, +perhaps. Not at first. But every hour, every moment, they were +intensifying. Soon, it was far worse.</p> + +<p>The world could not understand, but the authorities in Miami knew at +once what was happening—that Graff was using the Red Control. It +promised disaster; worse, a fate unspeakable—the world gone mad.</p> + +<p>The confusion of the Miami authorities now hastily assembled again in +conference, was intensified by the red hysteria which was affecting +them, as every one else.</p> + +<p>Hulda was there; she says it was a bedlam within an hour. She sat +quietly watching and listening to the red things coming out from their +invisible world. She sat there terrified, not of them so much, for to +her they were familiar things—terrified at what they were doing to our +world.</p> + +<p>A bedlam surged around her, in which father, Freddie and Dan strove to +hold a sanity. The President of our United States, listening to what +was being reported from abroad, burst into tears. He had never been +in robust health; the strain of the past few days had worn his nerves +nearly to the breaking point. They took him away, and by then he was +laughing and raging alternately.</p> + +<p>Out at the beach some one had given orders for the searchlight to +signal a world surrender. There was no enemy to see it; but no one +thought of that. It was wavering up into the sky; but no one in the War +Department heeded it. Then it held steady. Then a shouting throng of +people rushed it; smashed it.</p> + +<p>Father, Freddie and Dan were busy getting the equipment they had +brought from Xenephrene into hasty use. The insulated suits were +unnecessary. The Infra-red glasses and ear-grids were able to bar out +this storming red world. The officials donned them. With normality +regained they sat together trying sanely to determine what should be +done. A world going mad around them.</p> + +<p>Even as they sat, news of the glasses and ear-grids had spread into the +city; a mob was surging around the building, shouting demands that the +glasses be distributed to them. A few hundred glasses and ear-grids, +needed by our fighting aviators, and now the hundreds of millions of +people would be demanding them!</p> + +<p>An official at the conference seized his telephone to call the head of +the Government Research laboratories, demanding that this necessary +equipment be manufactured in quantity at once, for world distribution. +The very madness in the air made the conference burst into gibing +laughter at the futility of it.</p> + +<p>Freddie and Dan had had the heat-projector hastily transferred to +a Nungess monoplane-type flyer. A tiny affair—nothing, for their +purpose, like the huge Arctic A. But it was capable of some four +hundred miles an hour under favorable conditions. They donned suits of +the black insulated fabric; they had the glasses and ear-grids; the +heat-projector, and a small Essen-Bloc airplane gun.</p> + +<p>Within two hours they left the chaos of the War Department, took off +from an adjacent stage for Graff's Brazilian encampment. This now was +no mere test attack to create a diversion! They were determined, by +whatever desperate means, to stop the Red Control.</p> + +<p>They left with the assurance that the earth's main attack would follow +them in a few days. A few days! If the workmen assembling the weapons +could hold their reason. The War Secretary laughed a little wildly as +he said it. White-faced Hulda flung her arms around Dan, and wept. +There was in her mind no other belief but that she would never see him +again.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX</h2> +</div> + +<h3>THE NIGHT PROWLERS</h3> + + +<p>"Where the devil are we?" demanded Dan. "I can't see anything—much +less with these cursed glasses."</p> + +<p>"Put them back on!" said Freddie sharply.</p> + +<p>They had run into a gale from the north, soon after crossing over +Cuba. It would have been accounted a storm-wind, before the days +of the Great Change. But such winds now were common. A steady, +fifty-mile-an-hour blow. Flying with it, they had made great speed. +Over Jamaica, across the Caribbean, to strike the Colombian coast near +the mouth of the river below Baranquilla.</p> + +<p>It was a race against the dawn; by daylight they would be seen by +Graff's watchers, before they could get near the barrage; and to wait +another day, with the Red Madness stalking the earth, was unthinkable.</p> + +<p>At Baranquilla they were flying low. No lights showed. From Baranquilla +to Cartagena had been one great city of small farms. It was deserted +now. Graff and I, in that swing up to the coast, had cut a swath +through it; and the people all fled.</p> + +<p>Freddie and Dan swept southeast. A vast territory; mountains, with +mines all abandoned; and the forests, and lower farm lands, uninhabited +now.</p> + +<p>The dawn must have been very near. Dan was anxiously, fearfully +watching for it. The Infra-red glasses turned everything a dull, dead +gray; the ear-grids muffled sound to an annoying hush.</p> + +<p>Dan occasionally would cast them off. The red things were riding the +night with the plane. They hovered outside the small inclosed cabin +in which Dan and Freddie were sitting. They seemed crowding the cabin +itself, their voices jabbering over the muffled motor-throb.</p> + +<p>"Keep on those glasses!" Freddie repeated sharply. "Think I want to +take any chances, cooped up here with you!"</p> + +<p>"I'm all right," Dan growled. "Where the devil are we? You said we were +almost there."</p> + +<p>"We'll see it shortly. I'll look." Freddie raised the goggles from his +eyes. Faintly, far ahead through the overcast night, the crimson glow +of Graff's barrage was streaming above the horizon.</p> + +<p>"It's there, Dan! Don't look! I'll descend—"</p> + +<p>They swung down, barely skimming the tree-tops; over the roofs of +dark farmhouses, white lines of fences, empty fields—abandoned farm +country. The barrage came fully over the horizon; they could see the +points of concentrated light at intervals around its base where the +ground projectors stood. With the glasses on, it seemed to vanish. +It was soundless through their ear-grids; without them its howl was +plainly audible.</p> + +<p>They were over devastated country now—a dead gray, blank waste. +Skimming close over it. Three miles from the barrage. Dan had taken the +controls. Freddie was fumbling with the heat-projector and with the +Essen-Bloc gun beside it. They donned their black gloves, dropped their +masks over their faces; their heads were black-hooded.</p> + +<p>"Easy, Dan! Not too low!"</p> + +<p>Dan swung them up. Freddie lifted his glasses. He hoped he would see +some sign of the Red Control ray streaming through the barrage. They +must determine the location of the Control—And then rush at it—</p> + +<p>"Off, Dan! Close enough!"</p> + +<p>"Too close!" Dan murmured. "If they spot us—"</p> + +<p>It would be failure; they must locate the Control first. They swung to +the left, paralleling the barrage. Every moment they feared it would +tilt suddenly down with its beam darting at them. They could withstand +it, but their plane could not—</p> + +<p>"Freddie! What's that?"</p> + +<p>On the dead-gray surface of the ground ahead of them, figures showed. +Two black blobs. The crimson light faintly edged them. Dan swung the +plane up, then down, undecided. Two black-garbed figures, running +along the ground, away from the barrage. Men! A man, and a half +grown boy. The boy leaped ahead; then waited. The man was running +steadily—heavily—</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>From the Control house—that brief scene when Graff had turned the +current into the crimson globe—Zetta and I were led back to the +encampment. Graff gave orders to my guard, and left us, busy with his +other duties. The guard was alert, but he seemed out of earshot. I +whispered:</p> + +<p>"Zetta, you never want to talk to me any more! I must do something +to-night—stop that damnable thing—"</p> + +<p>"Peter, hush! He'll hear you!"</p> + +<p>"I can't help it. Zetta, listen—"</p> + +<p>In truth I had no clear idea of what I wanted to say. Some desperate +plan! To remain idle and let that crimson globe broadcast madness upon +our world was dastardly. My hand went to Zetta's arm, but she drew away +sharply.</p> + +<p>"Hush, Peter! Do nothing! Go to bed—jus' trust me—"</p> + +<p>Trust her! The barrier she had built up between us seemed to fall.</p> + +<p>"Zetta, dear, what do you mean? Have you some plan—something, later +to-night—"</p> + +<p>She knew so much more of conditions here in the camp than I did; she +had had more freedom, living almost unguarded in a house with one old +woman. And she spoke the language of these Brauns. If she had a plan it +would be more rational than mine!</p> + +<p>"What is it?" I demanded. "What did you mean by that?"</p> + +<p>"Peter, hush! Trust me." She shook me off. "You go to bed. Please, I +ask that of you! Trust me—I know best."</p> + +<p>She leaped away, leaving me standing there.</p> + +<p>I occupied alone a little house which had been built for me by Graff. +It stood at an end of one of the cross-streets, where the gray blank +waste land stretched out to the distant line of barrage. The dry river +bed was near it.</p> + +<p>My bedroom had one barred door and two barred windows. My guard, +relieved by another at intervals, sat by the door. Occasionally at +night I could hear him prowling about the house.</p> + +<p>I went to bed, but could not sleep. The darkness of my room seemed +luminous with purple haze—the protecting purple glow which hung +throughout the camp. The world outside had no such protection. The +broadcast crimson vibrations were seeking out every tiny corner of the +earth.</p> + +<p>I must have drifted off—I was awakened by a hand over my mouth; a dark +form was beside me in the blackness; a voice murmured in my ear.</p> + +<p>"Peter! Be quiet! Don't struggle!"</p> + +<p>Zetta's voice! I relaxed. Then I sat up. I could see her dimly. She +was dressed in a tight-fitting black smock; tight, long trousers to +her ankles, joining black cloth shoes. A black hood, pushed back with +dangling mask. Black gloves pulled up over her tight black sleeves. +The insulating fabric!</p> + +<p>"Quiet, Peter! Here, put these on. Hurry!"</p> + +<p>She thrust garments at me. In a moment I was dressed like herself. We +carried our Infra-red goggles and ear-grids in our hands. There was no +time for me to question; she gave me a long curved pod-knife.</p> + +<p>"If you have to, use it, Peter. I will lead—hurry—"</p> + +<p>I sensed her shudder. The knife was wet. I knew why; in the darkness +outside, my guard lay motionless, sprawled face down on the ground. +Zetta leaped, I stepped over him. She waited for me; then leaped +lightly forward again.</p> + +<p>The camp was dark and silent; we avoided a low-humming purple +projector. I ran, with Zetta leaping ahead of me. We got safely past +the houses. The insects were quartered at the opposite end of the +town. None were allowed abroad at night; I was thankful for that. The +night was overcast, darker, it seemed, than before. I wondered how +near dawn it was; probably very near. Zetta came to the bed of the +dry water-course; jumped down into it. I climbed down, thirty feet, +perhaps. In the blackness I ran forward.</p> + +<p>Zetta now was at my side, holding one of my hands, trying to draw me +on. Miles of this; it seemed hours. A guard from the bank appeared +suddenly over our heads. He called softly. Zetta answered. She leaped +up and stood beside him; spoke to him; held his attention. I crept up +through the gloom, lunged with the knife. He fell.</p> + +<p>The barrage line at last was before us; its red glow bathed the bottom +of the river bed. Zetta stopped me.</p> + +<p>"You mus' get your breath, Peter. Then, run fas'. We will be through it +in a few minutes. Oh, Peter, you go so slowly!"</p> + +<p>"You run ahead," I told her. "Get through as fast as you can—then wait +for me." We were adjusting our glasses, strapping on the ear-grids. +"Zetta, where did you get these?"</p> + +<p>"From Brea!" The red illumination showed her faint, ironical smile. +"We have been planning it for a long time. She was afraid again to try +and kill me. But she wants that I never see Graff again. Jealous—and +so she has help' us escape. I did not tell her—naturally not—that we +would try for the Control house."</p> + +<p>"And me? Why help me escape?"</p> + +<p>"You, Peter—I tol' her you love me. If she help you escape, then you +would marry me. You see? Brea wants that—then I will be los' to Graff +forever. So she waited a chance and steal these things—"</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>My arms went around her. What a time for love-making! But my emotion +took no account of the time.</p> + +<p>"Marry you, Zetta? Oh, if you will let me! You said 'I am not pledged +to you yet, Peter!'" Those words of hers had been like a weight on my +heart; a weight which I wanted now to dispel forever. I held her close. +"Zetta, you love me—"</p> + +<p>She pushed me away; more rational always than I. "That I said—because +then the sacrifice to Graff might have been necessary."</p> + +<p>"But now—it isn't?"</p> + +<p>"No. Not now. Peter—come—run fas'."</p> + +<p>At the edge of the barrage a guard was standing on the river bank. He +flung a tiny white beam down on us. Zetta called up to him, tried to +lure him down. But abruptly he shouted an alarm. From across the river +another figure came in a leap, sailing over our heads. We ducked into a +hole; above us the two guards stood consulting.</p> + +<p>"Zetta, call again! Talk to them—I'll climb up."</p> + +<p>I got behind them on top of the bank. I could hear Zetta calling up +something about Graff. I lunged at them. One stabbed at me with a short +purple flame; but it missed, or my black garments killed it. I struck +into them as they stood together; struck with my knife and flailing +arms. I could feel their flimsy bodies crack. They sank at my feet.</p> + +<p>There seemed no general alarm given; these two guards doubtless were +the only ones within hearing at this section of the line. We went +through the barrage. Running. With the glasses on, it was all the dead +gray of night, and soundless. But I could feel it plucking at me; once +I got the impression I was almost wading through it, fighting it. A +panic of fear seized me; I laughed to ward it off.</p> + +<p>I was laughing when Zetta gripped me, jerked off the glasses and my +mask. "Peter, stop that! You are all right!"</p> + +<p>The cool night air steadied me. We were in the darkness, well beyond +the barrage. It was a mile, perhaps, to the Control house. We followed +the barrage line, creeping, running, taking advantage of every gully, +every hillock. Garbed in black, we were doubtless not easy to see. +There was no alarm given.</p> + +<p>The dawn was near. We got back through the barrage, inside the line +again. A guard near the Control house came up to us. Fortunately he had +not seen from which direction we came. He was less suspicious than the +others; our masks, glasses and black garments were more to be expected +here by the Control than elsewhere. Zetta told him we were from Graff. +He sank soundlessly as my knife slashed at his throat.</p> + +<p>The two guards in the outer room were almost equally easy. But one +screamed. The Control-keeper came out at us. My fist crushed his face.</p> + +<p>We were in the Control room! The crimson globe stood there murmuring. +Diabolical thing! With my gloved hands I ripped at it; tore its wires; +tumbled it down; kicked and wrecked it with a passionate frenzy.</p> + +<p>[Illustration: With my gloved hands I ripped at the wires of the +diabolical crimson globe; and I kicked with passionate fury at the +instrument of destruction.]</p> + +<p>"Enough, Peter! Here, help me with this."</p> + +<p>Zetta had been swiftly unfastening the inert purple globe. She gathered +up its mechanism, handed it all to me.</p> + +<p>"Here—be ver' careful."</p> + +<p>It weighed only a few pounds. It seemed not unduly fragile, and I put +it under my arm. We were outside again in a minute or two. No one +accosted us this time; there seemed no one about but the three sprawled +figures; one was twitching as he lay there.</p> + +<p>Again we ran. At the barrage I stuffed the globe under my jacket to +protect it. When we were outside the red area I could feel the skin of +my stomach and chest burning where the light had entered. But we were +safe. We ran north, over the gray empty country. The barrage faded to +a radiance in the distance behind us. A mile—two miles—I was on the +verge of exhaustion. I could not run much further now. But I forced +myself. If we could get far away before the dawn we would escape being +seen. Then, rest. And by daylight, travel on.</p> + +<p>But what a distance! I figured that heading northeast was our best +chance, but it might be a hundred miles or more before we encountered +any one. The wrecked Control would be discovered by Graff. Pursuit +would overtake us. Perhaps I had better send Zetta on ahead with this +purple globe. Send her on to safety.</p> + +<p>To one side of us, up in the darkness, a shape suddenly took form. A +small aero, flying low. An earth airplane! This could be no enemy! +Zetta had been leaping ahead of me, waiting after each leap as I plowed +my heavy way along. We stood together. I waved my arms.</p> + +<p>A small white searchlight caught us as the plane passed close over us. +I flung back my hood and mask to meet the light. The plane circled, +came back, landed on the level gray expanse.</p> + +<p>In a moment we were with the amazed Dan and Freddie; the precious +purple globe was safe on board. The twilight of dawn was silvering our +plane as we headed northwest, flying for Miami.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI</h2> +</div> + +<h3>A NEST OF VERMIN</h3> + + +<p>There are some things which may be pictured by a shuddering +imagination. But one does not voluntarily put them into spoken words; +certainly they are never printed. History will say that for twenty-four +hours, August 14 and 15 of 1957, our earth was swept by a wild insanity.</p> + +<p>The burning of Cape Town by a maddened mob will be mentioned—the glare +of the city against the night sky, the thousands who, bereft of reason, +cast themselves with screams into the flames. The wrecking of the two +great surface liners, with three thousand lives lost. The major riots +of a dozen great cities.</p> + +<p>The attack by crazed men and women on the Biskra arsenal; the frenzied, +half-crazed soldiers who waded heedlessly into the mob, wildly firing; +the ten government planes circling over the city whose aviators, crazed +by what they saw in the streets and the red madness of the air, firing +down with machine guns and then plunging their planes to crash headlong +into the crowd.</p> + +<p>All high lights. History will only hint at the million individual +incidents. Marauding, lustful men, breaking by night into dwellings. +Lone criminals, crazed into thoughts unspeakable, prowling the dark +streets, seeking victims.</p> + +<p>But the details, the full or the real truth will never be known. They +revolt all but an imagination most morbid. The Red Madness of 1957 had +best be forgotten.</p> + +<p>It was late in the afternoon of August 15 before the frantic chemists +in the government laboratories at Miami could assemble the purple globe +and begin the broadcasting of its healing waves. All that evening they +were flung out into the ether. The radio was again working—though +badly, because the purple vibrations also interfered with it. The +world was assured by radio that the danger was over—the Red Madness in +a few hours would be gone.</p> + +<p>By midnight, August 15, the "ether-plane," as scientists now term it, +had regained normality. The current was cut from the purple globe. The +world rested, exhausted, bewildered, gazing back stupefied at what it +had been through.</p> + +<p>For hours more, governments, soldiers, police, with sanity come at +last, fought sanely with the eddies and backwash of the storm. It wore +itself out. Order was restored. There remained the smoking ruins of +property destroyed, and the dead, the maimed, and the thousands of poor +miserable creatures with reason permanently gone.</p> + +<p>A single day of the Red Madness! May there never be, on this or any +other world, another day such as that!</p> + +<p>On the night of August 15 we were all with Kean in the Miami War +Department. He was ready to start back to Xenephrene with the purple +globe. Zetta and I were sure that we had destroyed the Red Control; +Graff could not use it again. Earth had no further need of the purple. +Nature would hold our ether-plane at normality, as it always had +before. But not so on Xenephrene. Its Infra-red world would not, like +earth's remain hidden. What we had been through soon would be coming +upon them. Xenephrene was very far from earth now; it would take Kean a +month to get there.</p> + +<p>Opposition developed in Miami to our sending the purple globe away so +soon. But it was overruled; Kean was told to take it and go. He stood +before us, bidding good-by. The same quiet dignity he always bore was +on him. He turned to our officials who were gathered in a group to wish +him well.</p> + +<p>"My worl' has brought great disaster upon you. I am sorry. I think you +will defeat Graff easily now. I hope so."</p> + +<p>Our air force was to start at Graff within a day or two; we were +all tense with the thought of it. Kean said good-by to Zetta; shook +her hand in our earth fashion. "You choose a ver' wonderful worl', +Zetta—and a man ver' good."</p> + +<p>A wave of color swept her, but he turned away. His gaze went to Dan +and Hulda, who were standing together. "I shall never see you again. I +think now, Dan, at the las', you will not mind if I say how ver' much +I—love Hulda."</p> + +<p>Dan's hand went out and gripped his heartily.</p> + +<p>"No, of course not, Kean. You—you are very complimentary. I mean, +Hulda and I appreciate how manly—"</p> + +<p>Dan was floundering. Good old Freddie came to the rescue. He clapped +Kean on the back.</p> + +<p>"Kean, listen. You think you're going back to Xenephrene to eat your +heart out over a girl you didn't get. That the idea?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I—"</p> + +<p>"Well, listen. Look at me—I'm a bachelor."</p> + +<p>A gleam of humor came to Kean's blue eyes. "I understan', Freddie."</p> + +<p>"Good. Now, listen. I've got some advice for you—the advice of a man +who's a bachelor and always will be. I've got some deep theories about +women—"</p> + +<p>Freddie winked broadly at Zetta and Hulda. "All women are marvelous +things, Kean—one is as good as another, and maybe better. Remember +that! You'll save yourself a lot of trouble in life. And if you miss +out with one, just stand still—another one will be along in a minute!"</p> + +<p>The strain we had all been under for so long made us laugh +immoderately. All but Kean. He was twinkling; but his voice was quietly +solemn.</p> + +<p>"I thank you, Freddie. It is ver' good advice."</p> + +<p>He bowed quaintly; his fingers barely touched Hulda's outstretched +hand. He left us hastily.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>From the roof of the War Department we watched his tiny globe ascending +into the star-filled night. Would he ever reach Xenephrene? We never +knew; to this day we do not know. But we think so. Father told us +then what astronomers, just before the Red Madness, had discovered. +Xenephrene had broken the orbit of her eclipse about the sun! She +seemed heading outward again. Leaving our Solar System, perhaps? Father +thought so.</p> + +<p>He had suspected, back in those days of Garla, that it might happen. +He had mentioned it in his letter to us, saying that Freddie would +understand. It had now probably occurred. Xenephrene, the wanderer, +might soon be gone from our ken forever.</p> + +<p>Best for them—without our sunlight, their purple moon would hold the +Infra-red in check, even if Kean, with the purple globe, never reached +them. I have wondered since if perhaps those scientists of Garla were +not capable of directing, to some extent, their planet's movements? +Perhaps their departure was their own method of saving themselves from +the Red Terror.</p> + +<p>There was another thing which father hinted at now. He believed, with +Xenephrene gone, our earth's axis might swing back to its former +inclination. He thought—but this no one yet knew—that it was already +swinging. The old order of the day and night, the familiar progression +of seasons, would return to us. Our great cities—New York, London, +Paris, Buenos Aires—now almost abandoned but not yet fallen into ruin, +would come back into their own.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Peter," he exclaimed, "if you lads can now overcome this enemy! +Stamp out these vermin! I will live yet to see my old familiar world +restored!"</p> + +<p>On the morning of August 18, our air force was ready to start. From +Brazil news came that Graff's encampment outwardly showed no change. +But it was thought, and afterward we decided it was a fact, that he +was planning a new flight of devastation with his flying platforms. It +never took place; our attack was first.</p> + +<p>Our expedition consisted of a hundred and fifty Arctic A warplanes, +each with two or three men, pilot and gunners. We were all garbed in +the black garments, with glasses and ear-grids. One plane carried +nothing but our lone crimson ray; four other planes carried the four +purple-ray projectors and Essen-Bloc long-range guns. The rest carried +guns only—the Essen-Blocs and the short-range, old-fashioned machine +gun.</p> + +<p>Dan, Freddie and I were to fly together. Our plane carried a purple +projector, an Essen-Bloc, and a machine gun. We were chosen to lead +the expedition because of our familiarity with the Garland weapons, +and my knowledge of Graff's lines. The most skillful, most daring +young aviators of the world—the pick of a dozen nations—comprised +this force we commanded. The plane carrying the crimson projector was +flown by Davis and Robinson, sons of the men who had given their lives +attacking the Xenephrenes near New York during Graff's first invasion.</p> + +<p>We were all linked together by the modern Rand system of air +phones—the first time it had been given a practical demonstration. For +a test we circled that morning above Miami. Dan ordered them to wheel, +to loop, to execute a variety of movements which they did with the +skilled precision of a regiment on parade ground.</p> + +<p>The people thronged Miami's streets and roof-tops, and cheered. +Biscayne Bay was crowded with boats, as at a holiday festival. People +everywhere cheered us to battle.</p> + +<p>I had just a moment alone with Zetta before we started. How many +warriors, in all the ages, of every race and every time, have parted +thus upon the eve of battle from the woman they loved!</p> + +<p>Zetta at first held out her hand timorously. "Be ver' careful, Peter."</p> + +<p>She had said it like that, back in Garla!</p> + +<p>"Zetta, aren't you sure now?" I pleaded.</p> + +<p>"Of what, Peter?"</p> + +<p>"Your love for me. Our love—Kean said. 'You've chosen a good world, +Zetta, and a good man.' Do you think that? Have you—chosen—me?"</p> + +<p>My arms were outstretched. Oh, it was sweeping me, this love for her, +as always it did when I would let it! But I would not force her. +"Zetta—haven't you—aren't you sure, now?"</p> + +<p>She came suddenly drawn into my arms. Unresisting at last; our +love sweeping her into my opened arms; her lips seeking mine. And +whispering, "Yes, Peter—I am sure now."</p> + +<p>All my dreams of all my life came into reality with the coming of her +love.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>In the sunlight of that morning of August 18, our shining planes left +the Miami airport, and, like silver birds soaring with motionless +spread of wing, flew southward.</p> + +<p>It was full night when, out of the star-lit sky, we sighted Graff's +barrage. Our four planes with the purple ray were leading, the others +were massed behind and below us. Graff had a brief warning no doubt. We +were several miles off when one of his red beams swung down. We could +see it coming—a broad band of crimson, like a giant searchlight beam.</p> + +<p>It missed us with its first swing. Dan roared his orders into the +Rand-phone. I was at the controls. I headed the ship down, in advance +of our line, to protect the planes behind us. Freddie leveled our +projector. Its narrow purple beam sprang forward at the barrage. +Behind us the planes were strung out. Davis and Robinson were well +behind.</p> + +<p>We were determined not to use the crimson projector in the mêlée of +battle. It would confuse our other planes, and be too dangerous to +them. We also wanted to protect it, for use in case of last, desperate +need. Davis and Robinson were ordered to keep close behind our purple +rays.</p> + +<p>This showing of our purple ray was Graff's first real knowledge that +here on earth the Garland weapons were to be used against him. There +must have been panic sweeping the Xenephrene camp at that instant!</p> + +<p>Freddie evidently had caught the range. Our purple light mingled with +the crimson—mingled and merged into a vacant blackness through which +the farther stars showed dimly. The whole front crescent of the barrage +swung down at us now; but our four purple beams held it. We roared +forward. Black holes of neutral emptiness were ahead; the front face of +the Xenephrene red line was broken by our rays.</p> + +<p>At two miles we began firing the Essen-Blocs. Graff's crimson beams +were waving confusion now from every part of his line. Some of our +shells were caught and fired in mid-air; but some got through, +undoubtedly. It was soon a chaos, as we darted in. It was to be one +brief, desperate, reckless attack; there was not a man of us who had +been willing to plan it otherwise.</p> + +<p>At a mile we could no longer hold our phone communication. The air was +snapping and hissing with its mingling, warring vibrations; the phones +went dead. Each plane now had to act for itself.</p> + +<p>I headed ours straight in. Freddie was firing the Essen at swift +intervals. Our purple light held steady before us, boring its black +hole in the confusion of crimson—a black hole into which Freddie was +firing as I headed our plane into it.</p> + +<p>A few minutes only. It seemed hours. We were so close now that beams +from the side angles of the barrage were coming at us. The edge of one +caught one of our wing-tips, melted it off. We wavered, but I steadied +us.</p> + +<p>I had taken off my glasses and ear phones for a moment. The night was a +confusion of hissing, crossing beams. Vivid glares—crimson and purple, +merging black; a myriad sparks snapping around us; and ahead, a growing +yellow-red glare of distant buildings burning. Our shells were finding +their mark!</p> + +<p>A chaos of color and of sound! The throb and thrum of our motors; the +steady click and sharp report of our Essen; the screaming howl of the +stricken barrage; the whistling of our shells; the distant crash of +their explosions.</p> + +<p>Dan was busy passing up the shells to Freddie, and tossing out the +falling empties. Once he growled at me: "Look over us, Peter! Damn that +fellow Davis—look where he's going!"</p> + +<p>Our other three planes, carrying the purple projectors, were flying +level with me. But most of the others had climbed.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The barrage beams were all swinging out and downward. I could see a +hundred of our planes in a group mounting to climb over the camp. Davis +and Robinson were up there. The crimson beam of their projector showed +for a moment, then went out. They seemed climbing higher than all the +other planes—spiraling now, straight up. I lost sight of them.</p> + +<p>A stray red beam caught some of the soaring planes; they came wavering +down, spirals of light, vanishing. One melted as it passed near us; +flickered into nothingness like a flame dying.</p> + +<p>Our planes up there were firing downward. And then, coming over Graff's +line, they were dropping bombs. The yellow glare from the camp village +was spreading.</p> + +<p>We were now well over Graff's lines. Every one of our planes, save +those which we had lost, were over the line now. The very desperation +of our attack was irresistible. Graff had no time to prepare a defense. +Once within his lines, his immobile ground projectors were impotent to +harm us. The barrage was flickering; in sections now it was dark even +when our purple rays were turned aside. It was broken, flickering out. +Our shells doubtless had hit many of its ground projectors; the planes +from high up had hit others with their bombs. The distant south segment +of the barrage was still active. Suddenly the whole barrage vanished +completely, as one of our shells must have hit its power house. I knew +the location of that low frame building in by the river bank; I had +been trying to direct Freddie's aim at it.</p> + +<p>Five hundred feet above the dead gray ground we flew in toward the +camp itself. The barrage was gone; a single last beam came up from the +river, caught one of our planes full, and suddenly vanished.</p> + +<p>Below us now the ground within Graff's lines was glaring yellow-red +from the conflagration of the village. We could see the figures of +people and the giant insects running in aimless panic. Our planes shot +them down.</p> + +<p>Flying platforms were standing in a long line, where Graff had had +them ready for his new attack. Panic-stricken Brauns were crowding +onto them. Our planes swung low, firing now with machine guns. Across +the river most of Graff's Space-vehicles were wrecked and burning from +our shellfire. But, at intervals, the small Space-globes were rising. +And from everywhere the flying platforms were trying to get away. +Our planes attacked them; and far overhead I could now see Davis and +Robinson's crimson beam. They were up there, waiting, and any vehicles +which escaped us they caught and annihilated.</p> + +<p>From the river bank Graff's huge cylindrical Space-liner now struggled +up. Its end was gone; smoke and flame were rising from its interior +fittings. It rose laboriously, painted red-yellow with the lurid glare +from below. I have often wondered if Graff were on it! Making his last +effort to escape!</p> + +<p>It evidently had no weapons; it rose heavily, with our planes darting +after it like wasps, circling it, stabbing its huge vitals with +shellfire. It did not get very high; it came down presently, turned +completely over, crashed and broke into leaping flames and black smoke +rolling up in a cloud.</p> + +<p>I had guided our plane across the encampment and back, then circled, as +a score of our other planes were circling. We kept firing steadily with +the machine gun. We had long since abandoned the purple beams. Most of +our planes were now flying low, using the machine guns only.</p> + +<p>There were scenes down there in the burning town—where half an hour +before more than fifteen thousand people had been living—scenes which +now I do not like to remember. They filled us at the time only with +triumph—for the memory of the Red Madness was too vivid upon us. No +quarter to be given here!</p> + +<p>We had determined upon it—all four hundred of us—when we had planned +our desperate assault which was to win salvation for our world, or +bring death to all of us. No quarter here! A nest of vermin and we were +stamping it out.</p> + +<p>But Freddie suddenly flung off his glasses; with his hood pushed back, +I saw that his face was pallid, and wet with sweat.</p> + +<p>"Peter, fly higher! I'm done—I can't do it any more! By God, there are +women and children down there! I've been—shooting them down—"</p> + +<p>I headed into a climb. Dan tried to use his phone to order the others +to stop. But the phone seemed permanently dead.</p> + +<p>And then Davis and Robinson's plane abruptly appeared below us. Its red +beam sprang downward! Under its crimson light the ground was turning +blank! The burning village; the wrecked and burning vehicles; the +panic-stricken people left still alive; the dead bodies now strewn +everywhere about—all melting, vanishing into nothingness.</p> + +<p>Dan with a growling curse had fumbled with his phone and then cast it +aside. Perhaps Davis and Robinson, sitting grimly behind their crimson +projector, steeling their hearts with memory of the Red Madness, with +memory, too, of their fathers, and with no desire save to protect their +world—perhaps they were right in doing what they did. It is not for me +to judge.</p> + +<p>We climbed, and for a long time I did not again look down. When I did, +the yellow-red glare of the conflagration had vanished. A circular +ten-mile spread of blank, dead-gray ground lay beneath us. Over it, +some of our planes were circling low, with white searchlights examining +it. Vacancy complete—where so short a time before had been the most +diabolical enemy, the greatest menace which ever had assailed our earth!</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII</h2> +</div> + +<h3>PEACE ON EARTH</h3> + + +<p>It is common knowledge now how the great purple star departed as +inscrutably as it had come. Throughout those concluding months of 1957, +it steadily faded until at last it was gone. The Wanderer! It is out +there now, wandering somewhere among the stars. With our imaginations +we may follow it, but no way else. It has left the name we gave it +written large across the most tragic pages of our history—but itself +is only a memory.</p> + +<p>It would be superfluous for me to recount familiar world events as +the old order of day and night, the old progression of the seasons +gradually returned. By September, 1957, astronomers had announced +that the earth's axis was swinging back to its normal inclination. It +reached there, they told us, in June, '58.</p> + +<p>There was another year of adjustment—storms, torrential rains, floods, +a disarrangement of all our earth activities newly established since +the Great Change. But fortunately, the new conditions had existed for a +very short time—it was not difficult to return to the old. I saw, in +our Western World, swift evidence of that. Property in the north was +reclaimed. Settlers in the tropics began returning. By the end of '58, +New York and all the other great cities of the temperate zones, both +north and south, were well on their way toward rehabilitation.</p> + +<p>With us of human mold, lifelong habits are not easily broken, and are +quickly resumed. It is good to feel the warm summer of July, with +daylight and darkness coming as they should! Welcome autumn days, +merging into winter—with the knowledge that spring will come again!</p> + +<p>Within my own lifetime I suppose, there will be slight evidence left +anywhere on earth of the Great Change. They say that the tropics +will always be more densely populated than before; that some of the +industry started there will remain. But on the whole, those fearsome +tragic months will linger only as a memory; and soon, when all of us +on earth now have passed—they will fade from memory into tradition; +then into legend. And the world will go on into the other great changes +perhaps—and even legend of this one will be forever forgotten and lost +forever.</p> + +<p>But now as I write, with the curtain so recently rung down upon its +horror, it is all too vivid. The old routine is come back to earth. +Father and Freddie are with the Dutch Astronomical Bureau, in Chile, +where I am to join them when I have finished helping reestablish the +A.B.A. in New York. Dan and Hulda are in Porto Rico. Things are very +much as they were before. Our world, for me, for every one, is hardly +different.</p> + +<p>But there is a difference. Out of the tragedy and horror of those +months, has come, I think, a benefit to our world. The Great Change +brought all the nations, people of every race, into a sudden community +of interest. Like brothers in a family sorely pressed, they fought +united against a suddenly wrathful nature. And then fought the invaders +from Xenephrene.</p> + +<p>We four hundred young men—the pick of the world united—when we flew +against Graff that night in Brazil, I think we raised then a monument +to a new earthly spirit. It was our united world against another world. +Our united life, or death! We cannot soon forget that.</p> + +<p>A lesson from Xenephrene! Economists sometimes use that phrase. There +was much that the Garlands had come to realize which we of the earth +might well heed! Economists are saying it.</p> + +<p>And we are heeding it; I see it now in little things all around me. +The nations are planning now to establish a working basis of industry +and agriculture whereby each may produce without competition from the +other, what it can give the world best and most cheaply. An economy of +effort! It will decrease enormously the world's work.</p> + +<p>They had been planning a gigantic municipal subway to run the length +of Long Island, to handle the new population which is coming steadily +from the tropics. But the subway plans were yesterday defeated. New +York, they claim, will not grow so large. The new radio power-sending +stations will make every farm a small factory if need be.</p> + +<p>The age of steam flung us into roaring infernos of cities; the age of +electricity will send us back into God's green country. They say that +is happening now. And I have read in newspaper editorials—and heard, +just this evening in the Government radio broadcast—that we would do +well, by ourselves, and most of all by our children, if we heeded the +lesson from Xenephrene.</p> + +<p>I have been just now in Zetta's bedroom, standing in the dimness gazing +down into the cradle where our little son lies sleeping. Xenephrene +brought tragedy upon our world—a lesson for good, perhaps; but to me +it brought a great happiness. I see Zetta lying there, like a little +child herself, so early asleep to-night. She gave up everything for me. +I mentioned it to her once, soon after we were married. She smiled her +quaint smile and held me close.</p> + +<p>"Back in Garla, Peter, your father used to read from his Bible. A ver' +wonderful book—for the Garlands, for all, it is all the same. There +was a place in the Bible, I memorize' it. You say, Peter, for you I +have given up my worl'. And I answer, like Ruth:</p> + +<p>"'<i>Whither thou goest, I will go; thy people shall be my people</i>—'"</p> + +<p>I sit here to-night finishing these pages. A great thankfulness is upon +me. Out of the horror of the past, I have come to-night with a dear +father still holding his health and strength; a loving sister, happily +married to a man I respect and admire. I have a bachelor friend, joyous +with his chosen lot.</p> + +<p>I have a beautiful, adoring wife, to realize every romantic dream of my +boyhood, to mother our lusty little son growing up to personify all the +good which is within us both.</p> + +<p>I am very singularly blessed.</p> + + +<p class="ph2">THE END</p> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77608 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/77608-h/images/cover.jpg b/77608-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..224d74b --- /dev/null +++ b/77608-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c72794 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e231c01 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #77608 +(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77608) diff --git a/newworld_txt.txt b/newworld_txt.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..469e8b1 --- /dev/null +++ b/newworld_txt.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8957 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77608 *** + + + + + A Brand New World + + By Ray Cummings + + Copyright 1928 by The Frank A. Munsey Company + + _A new planet in the solar system! And in its wake + come mystery, danger--and a most amazing confusion._ + + This story appeared originally in The Argosy All-Story Weekly, + beginning serialization September 22, 1928. + + [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from + Famous Fantastic Mysteries September 1942.] + + + + + CONTENTS + + + I. THE COMING OF THE WORLD + II. THE WHITE GIRL IN THE MOONLIGHT + III. THE CROWNING TERROR + IV. ZETTA + V. CRIMSON SOUND! + VI. "IF I HAD BUT KNOWN!" + VII. MYSTERIOUS STAR, IMPERTURBABLY SHINING! + VIII. FROM ACROSS THE VOID + IX. PIONEERS INTO SPACE + X. LANDING TO FACE THE UNKNOWN + XI. "UNDER GARDENS" + XII. AT DAWN + XIII. "EMPEROR OF THE EARTH!" + XIV. BRAVE, FOOLISH LITTLE ZETTA! + XV. GRAFF'S TREACHERY + XVI. ON OUR WAY TO CONQUER THE EARTH! + XVII. PLANNING THE CONQUEST + XVIII. THE EARTH AT BAY! + XIX. RED MADNESS STALKING THE EARTH + XX. THE NIGHT PROWLERS + XXI. A NEST OF VERMIN + XXII. PEACE ON EARTH + + + + +[Illustration: As if affected by laughing gas, thousands of people were +seized with an insane mirth, following a period of strange depression. +A world gone mad! Actions were aimless, horror and suicides were +spreading everywhere! And always that terrible laughter. . . . What +would happen to the human race?]] + + + + + CHAPTER I + + THE COMING OF THE WORLD + + +The new Star was first observed on the night of October 4, 1952, +reported by the Clarkson Observatory, near London. A few hours later +the observers at Washington saw it also; and still later, it was found +and identified as unknown upon one of the photographic plates of the +great refracting telescope of Flagstaff, Arizona. By observers at Table +Mountain, Cape Town, and the observatory near Buenos Aires, it was not +seen, for it was in the northern heavens. + +The affair brought a brief mention in the Amalgamated Broadcasters' +report the next day; and the newspapers carried a few lines of it on +their back pages. Nothing more. + +I handled the item. My name is Peter Vanderstuyft. I was twenty-three +years old, that autumn of 1952, a newsgatherer for the Amalgamated +Broadcasters, attached to the New York City headquarters. The item +meant nothing to me. It was the forerunner--the significant, tiny +beginning--of the most terrible period of the history of the earth; +but I did not know that. I tossed it over to Freddie Smith, who was +with me in the office that night. + +"Father's staff has found a new star--wonderful!" + +But Freddie's freckled face did not answer my grin. For once his +pale blue eyes were solemn. "Professor Vanderstuyft phoned me from +Washington awhile ago. It sure seems queer." + +"What's queer?" I demanded. + +Then he grinned. "Nope. Your father says you'd sell your soul for a +news item. When we've got anything important to tell the world--we'll +tell you." + +"Go wrap up an electric spark," I informed him. + +He grinned again and went back to studying his interminable blue +prints--his "thermodyne principle," as he called it, for a new heat-ray +motor. Father was financing him for the patents and working model. +Freddie was father's assistant in the Washington Observatory. But he +was off duty now in New York arranging for the manufacture of his model. + +This was in October. I was tremendously busy. A sensational murder +case developed, and I was sent out to Indiana to cover it. A woman +had presumably murdered her husband and a couple of children, but it +looked as though she were going to be acquitted. + +She was a handsome woman, and a good talker. She was taking full +advantage of the new law regarding free speech, and every night from +the jail she was broadcasting little talks to the public. + + * * * * * + +October passed; and then November, and still I had not been able to +get back to New York. Freddie occupied my rooms there, busy with his +invention; father was at his post in Washington, and my sister Hulda +was in Porto Rico, visiting our friends the Cains. Our plans--father's +and mine--were to join the Cains and Hulda in Porto Rico for Christmas. + +Father was leaving the Washington Observatory to assume charge of +the Royal Dutch Astronomical Bureau, which had just completed an +observatory in extreme Southern Chile, with the largest telescope in +the world soon to be installed there. Freddie Smith was going with him +as his assistant; and the A. B. Association had appointed me their +representative, to live down there also. + +None of these plans worked out, however. Christmas approached, and I +was still engaged in Indiana with this accursed broadcasting murderess. +And father wired me that he was too busy in Washington to leave. + +During all these weeks there had been continual items in the news +concerning the new star--issued by father's Washington staff, and by +most of the observatories of the northern hemisphere. Father is a queer +character; the Holland blood in us makes us phlegmatic, silent, and +cautious--characteristics which apply more to father than to me. He is +a true scientist, calmly judicial, unwilling to judge anything, or form +any decisive opinion, without every possible fact before him. + +Thus it was that during those weeks, neither Hulda in Porto Rico, +nor myself had an intimation from father of the startling things he +was learning. As he said finally, of what use to worry us until he +was sure? Like the public in general, I became aware of conditions +gradually. A news item here and there--items growing more insistent +as the weeks passed, but still all crowded aside to make room for the +sensational murder trial. + +I recall some of the items. The new Star was approaching the general +region of our solar system with extraordinary velocity. A star of the +fortieth magnitude. Then they said it was the thirtieth. Soon it was +visible to the naked eye. I remember reading one account, not long +after the star's discovery, in which its spectrum was reported to be +sunlight! Our own solar spectrum! Reflected sunlight! This was no +distant, gigantic, incandescent star blazing with its own light. It was +not large and far away, but small and close. As small as our own earth, +and already it was within the limits of our solar system. A dark globe, +like our earth, or the moon, or Venus and Mars--dark and solid, shining +only by reflected sunlight! + +By mid-December, at a convention of astronomers held in London, the new +world was named Xenephrene. Father went over in one of the mail planes +and read his afterward famous paper, suggesting the name, and giving +his calculation of the elements of the orbit of this new heavenly body. +It was the most startling announcement which had yet been made, and for +one newspaper edition it got the first page. And I was ordered to give +nine minutes of broadcasting time to it. + +"Xenephrene" was a globe not quite, but very nearly as large as the +earth. It had come whirling in like a comet from the star-filled +regions of outer space; presumably like a comet to encircle our sun and +then, with a hyperbolic orbit, to depart from us forever. + +It had come visually into our northern heavens, and crossed the earth's +orbit on the opposite side of the sun from us. It encircled the +sun--this was in December--made its turn between the orbits of Mercury +and Venus, and now was supposedly departing. + + * * * * * + +But according to father's calculation of its new orbital elements, +it was not about to depart! Its orbit had become an ellipse--a very +nearly circular ellipse similar to those of Venus and the earth! A new +planet--a brand new world--had joined our little solar family! A world +only a fraction smaller than Venus and the earth; larger than Mercury, +larger than Mars. An interior planet, its orbit would be within that of +the earth--between the earth and Venus. + +On this date, December 20--so ran father's announcement--Xenephrene was +proceeding in its elliptical orbit, and the earth was in advance of it. +We could see Xenephrene in the sky now--any one could see it who cared +to look. It was no more than thirty million miles from us now. A new +morning and evening star, which at times far outshone Venus. + +See it indeed! Xenephrene, the magnificent! For weeks it had been +visible throughout its erratic course as from the great unknown realms +of outer space it swam into our ken. During October and November it had +been visually too near the sun--and too far away as yet--to be much +of a spectacle. But I saw it in early December--a morning star it was +then--just before dawn, rising in the eastern sky. A glowing purple +spot of light, blazing like a great sapphire in the pale gray-blue of +the dawn. + +Xenephrene, the new world! I stood gazing up at it, and a flood of +romance surged over me. A new world, strange, mysterious, beautiful! I +had occasion several times during those terrible, fearsome days which +so soon were to come to all of us on earth, to recall my fleeting mood +of romance at first sight of Xenephrene. Mysterious globe! Romantic! +How well could I have added--sinister! + +What the scientists were thinking and doing during these weeks of +December, 1952, and January, 1953, I did not know until later. Their +fears--gropings--unceasing labor to verify their dawning suspicion of +the truth--they withheld from the public. Until father's culminating +discovery, which on February 10, 1953, he made public. + +Christmas that winter was a depressing time for all of us. I think, +everywhere in the world, a sense of ominous depression was gradually +spreading. A great catastrophe impending, even though unheralded, must +inevitably cast its forerunning shadow. I know I felt depressed. Away +from father and Hulda--alone out there in Indiana on my job, with +father inexplicably too busy to let me join him. + +Hulda's Christmas letter from Porto Rico was depressing: + + Miserable winter. Peter, it's positively cold. Imagine--we had it + 54 degrees yesterday. In Porto Rico! Mrs. Cain says we wish you'd + keep your icy blasts of the north to yourself. + +Trying to be jocular, but Hulda, too, was depressed that Christmas. It +was indeed a miserable winter. Extraordinarily cold, everywhere. For +a week or two, the papers had been commenting upon it. Zero weather +around New York and all out through Indiana to Chicago. A succession +of gray, snowy days--gray afternoons with the twilight seeming to come +in mid-afternoon. And at nearly eight o'clock in the morning it was +still the twilight of dawn. The newspapers commented on that, jocularly +remarking that the weather man was making our winter days very short +this year. + +The weather, in truth, was so abnormal that it occasioned an increasing +newspaper comment. Even by Christmas, Canada was enveloped by constant +sub-zero temperatures, which occasionally swept down as far as Virginia +with heavy snowfalls. Florida, in December, had its greatest freeze +since 1888; damage to the fruit was enormous. In the West Indies, an +unprecedented cool wave was experienced. + +Everywhere in the north temperate zone was the same. And from South +America we had the reverse reports. The summer in Rio and in Buenos +Aires was unusually hot. Cape Town reported an abnormal spell; +Australia and New Zealand were sweltering. + + * * * * * + +For every unexplained condition of annoyance something must be blamed. +In the United States some enterprising feature man gathered the +information that authorities considered the radio broadcasters were +responsible for the bad weather. The World Press sent it out, and it +was widely used. + +Many persons--so it said--had addressed the Anglo-American Radio +Commission and other governmental radio agencies stating that the +myriads of ether waves--the "electric waves"--sent out by the +broadcasting stations were the cause of the extreme weather conditions. +The "ether" was disturbed, so it was claimed; who could say what +dangerous floods, blizzards, torrid heat, wind storms, and icy blasts +might not be caused if this radio condition were not checked? It was +suggested that the world governments take action to restrict the output +of broadcasters. + +Newspaper jealousy of us, of course! It had been growing for years, +ever since those early days when we first engaged in the audible +dissemination of news. Our organization now was prompt in repudiation. +The Amalgamated Broadcasters Association appealed immediately to the +Federated World Weather Bureaus. + +Within a week we were enabled to broadcast that the weather bureau +physicists were emphatic in their declaration that the weather could +not be blamed on radio waves. In order to affect the weather, radio +would have to exert an influence on temperature, humidity or barometric +pressure--which emphatically it does not do. Even in radio laboratories +where the waves are most intensely produced, there never has been any +such recorded effect. + +We also pointed out that in the past, freaks of weather were always +complained of; the coldest day in the history of Washington, D.C., +which this December of 1952 had almost but not quite equaled, was +February 11th, 1899--which was long before there were any broadcasting +stations. + +Nor did any of this take into account the obvious fact that radio could +scarcely be blamed for what seemed our abnormally short winter days. +It was not fancy; it seemed an actual fact. And from the southern +hemisphere reports gave reverse conditions. The days were growing +unnaturally long; sunset and twilight extended abnormally far into the +evening. + +It occurred to me as strange that our A.B.A. never broadcasted a +mention of this; that there were never any scientific, authoritative +reports concerning it. Surely the scientists could determine with +exactitude whether our sun were rising and setting at the times it +should! They could, indeed! They could--and they were calculating +it only too exactly! But, as I learned afterward, there was a world +government censorship upon the whole subject. + +This censorship was lifted on that memorable February 10, 1953, when +father made his startling statement to the world. + +On February 9th, my job in Indiana ended; the murderess was acquitted +amid applause and public rejoicing. But the verdict only held a divided +first-page place now with the planet Xenephrene. The new world had +steadily been nearing the earth; it was now only twenty-odd million +miles away--a magnificent, startling spectacle, a purple point of light +blazing near the sun; with the naked eye it appeared twice the size of +any star. + +In the afternoon of February 9th, Freddie phoned me from New York. I +had never heard his voice so oddly solemn. + +"Peter, your father wants you to come to Washington at once." + +"What's up?" I demanded. + +"Nothing. He wants to see you and me. You come to New York--join me +here--leave to-day. Will you?" + +"Yes," I agreed. "I'm through out here, fortunately." + +"I'll wait for you here at your place. I wouldn't try the planes, if I +were you--not with storms like this--" + +"No," I said. "Besides, they're jammed since the railroads are hung up." + +"Wait your chance--come by train, it's--safer." + +He was so oddly solemn! It wasn't like Freddie Smith to bother about +safety--a dare-devil, if there ever was one. But he was right about the +planes; the surest way to get to New York at the moment was to take it +slowly. + + * * * * * + +For a week the whole northeastern United States had been locked in the +grip of a blizzard. The railroads were hung up; the strain of traffic, +and the fearful weather had been too much for the passenger planes. +Every one was jammed; and several failed to get through and were +stalled in the storm along the way. But the railroads now were getting +their tracks cleared; service was improving. + +"I'll see you to-morrow," I told Freddie. + +"Yes," he said. "I've got our accommodations on board the +Congressional. Get here if you can." + +I got through, and we took the Congressional Limited that February 10th +for Washington. New York City was an almost unprecedented sight that +dark-gray afternoon we left. A snowbound Canadian city it might have +been by its appearance. A heavy, silent fall of snow; thick, soft, +pure-white flakes. + +The north wind of the past few days had died away. The snow sifted +almost vertically down between the canyons of buildings. Without a +wind, the afternoon seemed only moderately cold. Freddie and I passed +a street thermometer at the corner where we had gone to join our taxi, +which could not get into the cross-street. The temperature was five +below zero. + +Freddie caught my expression. He said, "This isn't New York cold. Can't +you tell the difference? This is the cold of the north," still with +that oddly solemn voice. + +Our taxi with its clanking chains rumbled its way down Broadway and +across Thirty-Fourth Street to the Pennsylvania Station. I had never +seen Broadway like this. A white street, piled with soft, white snow +which covered up its familiar configurations, buried its curbs, leveled +street and pedestrian walks into one flat white surface. A strange +Broadway; featureless, blankly expressionless, like a man's face +without hair or eyebrows. + +There was little traffic. Pedestrians in a crowd tramped the street's +center. In the still cold the snow creaked and crunched under their +tread. A few enterprising sleighs, brought down these past weeks +from upstate, went by us loaded with people. The crowd was laughing, +shouting. + +At the shop windows, almost closed in by huge piles of snow left over +from the storm of the week before, disconsolate proprietors gazed out +from under the shadow of the overhead pedestrian levels. Three o'clock +in the afternoon; the street lights were all winking on, turning the +pure white of the snow a pale lurid green with their glare. + +The crowd seemed taking it like a holiday, gay with shouts of laughter +as it romped and shoved its way through the drifts. But there was no +laughter within me. "The cold of the north," Freddie had said. It +brought me a vague shudder. + +"Look there." Freddie pointed to the second level at Forty-Second +Street. At a department store entrance crowds were coming out and going +in. A huge sign in moving electric lights gave the information that +here Canadian winter equipment could be purchased. And as I gazed, a +man in gaudy flannel costume of brilliant colors came from the store +entrance. An advertisement, no doubt. He swung out to the pedestrian +level on skiis; poised, and came sliding gracefully down the incline to +the main street level, amid shouts and applause from the crowd. + +We humans adjust ourselves very quickly to new conditions. And, for all +the pessimists to the contrary, the human instinct is to laugh. . . . +I saw a canvas sign over a small store, on a cross-street impassable +at the moment with snowdrifts. It bore the ancient quip, "_Whether the +weather be cold or hot, we've got to have weather, whether or not. Buy +your Arctic overshoes here._" + +New York City, that February 10th, thought it was all a good joke. . . . + + * * * * * + +Freddie and I had a compartment on the Congressional. We anticipated +it would be nearly midnight by the time we got to Washington; Freddie +flung himself moodily on the lounge as though he were prepared to sleep +all the way, except when we might perhaps order in dinner. + +Freddie at this time was twenty-seven. I had always liked him, though +physically and temperamentally we were quite opposite types. I am +typically Dutch, short and wide, heavy-set and stocky. But not fat. +Built, as Freddie once told me, along the general lines of a young +cart horse. And, as he has also remarked, I have the Dutch phlegmatic +sparseness of speech, which in my case, he insists, often turns surly. + +Freddie, not much taller than I, was slender almost to thinness. +But wiry; I have wrestled with him, and he twists like an eel, with +surprising strength. A sandy-haired, pale-blue-eyed, freckle-faced +fellow, usually grinning, and with a swift, ready flow of speech. + +His mind not only was alert, but keen. Scientifically inclined; and an +extremely good mathematician. He had made good at astronomical work +from the start. As a clocker of delicate star-transits, in father's +opinion he had no equal; and he could sit all day over tedious routine +mathematics and never tire. + +I eyed him now as he lay on the lounge in our train compartment. It was +wholly abnormal for Freddie to be so morose. + +"Whatever it is father's got to tell me," I commented, "it sits like +lead on you, doesn't it?" + +"Yes," he said abruptly. And he added, "He ordered me to say nothing, +so I'm doing it." + +I found father equally solemn. It was eleven o'clock when, after +crossing the snow-filled Washington streets, we reached my home. Father +greeted us at the door with what was a very sick attempt at a smile. + +"Come in, boys. You're lucky to get here at all. Hello, Frederick. +Brought your model? That's good--we'll look at it presently. . . . +Hello, son--I understand you've been pampering a murderess." + +In the study, when we had discarded our overclothes, his manner +abruptly changed. We sat down, and he stood facing us, and then began +restlessly pacing the little circular room, as though undecided how to +begin telling me. + +"Peter," he said at last, "you'll think it's queer that I've said +nothing to you--my son--of this--this thing that is upon us now--this +catastrophe to the world--" + +My heart leaped. Yet it was hardly a surprise. Knowledge of it all +had been coming to me little by little for weeks; fragments here and +there, like the meaningless parts of a puzzle which now his words, +adding nothing new, pieced together to make my premonitions a complete +realization. He spoke swiftly, fronting me with his squared, heavy +shoulders; his dark eyes holding me with his somber gaze. + +"No use to worry you, son, or to frighten Hulda--you could be of no +help--and we're all in it together--the whole world. . . . They've +lifted the censorship. The time has come when it is best for everyone +to know it--this inevitable thing. Peter, you can give it to your +organization to-night, and to the world. The widest publicity--this +statement from me and my organization--" + +He stopped abruptly, seeming to realize the incoherence of his words, +striving to master his emotions and tell me calmly. He seized a chair +and sat facing me, smiling at Freddie; and he lighted a cigar. + +But his fingers trembled. He was a man of sixty at this time; a +squarely solid, commanding figure; a smooth-shaved face, square-jawed, +dark, restless eyes, with gray-black, bushy brows and a shock of +iron-gray hair. A crisp, forceful speaker. But he had not been so +to-night. I have never seen him look so old, almost haggard. And the +usual clear-white of his eyes was shot with blood. + +I understood it as he talked; past weeks of anxiety, nights of +sleepless observation at the telescope, watching Xenephrene, the new +world; watching it come in to join our little solar family; observing +by night--and all day busy with unending calculations of Xenephrene's +changing orbit as it rounded the sun and took its place among us. + +Watching. At first with interest, surprise, awe; then with a dawning +fear. Then, his hurried conferences with other scientists. He had been +three times to London, I now learned--and once, a consultation of +astronomers was held at the Chan observatory, in Tibet. + +And then, conferences of the scientists with the world governments, +at which time the censorship was ordered. And father went back to +his post, to observe and calculate the daily abnormal changes in our +sunrise and sunset. Until at last the truth could no longer be escaped. +The future could be prognosticated, to a mathematical certainty; the +censorship must be lifted and the world told. + +Father's voice, with its old dominating ring now, boomed at me. + +"The world must be told, Peter. We cannot, dare not, hide it any +longer. This new planet Xenephrene--I'll give you all the technical +details; I have them here." He waved a sheaf of typewritten papers at +me. "Your office can prepare it in any form you like. The coming of +Xenephrene--its new bulk so near us--has disturbed, is now disturbing, +our earth. You know it--everybody knows it instinctively, though they +do not realize it or understand it." + +"The weather--" I began; and my pounding heart seemed nearly smothering +me. + +"Yes--the weather. And our queerly shortened winter days. All these +abnormal conditions which have come upon us this winter. Xenephrene has +affected us astronomically--in just one way. The inclination of the +axis of our earth is altering! Do you know what that really means? Can +you explain it to the public?" + +"He can," Freddie burst out. "He will." + + * * * * * + +The axis of the earth! Our seasons--our winter and summer--our +climate--our days and nights--changing, permanently changing? It seemed +for an instant, nothing. And then it seemed a thought too amazing, +too unnatural to encompass. The basic order of everything from time +immemorial now to be changed? And as I listened to his swift, brusque +words my head reeled with it. + +The axis of the earth was slowly swinging so that eventually our South +Pole would point directly to the sun and there become stabilized. This +would occur on April 5 next. Our new seasons, our new astronomical +year, would begin on that date. + +"Can you realize what that will mean, Peter? When our South Pole points +to the sun there will be a torrid zone in the southern hemisphere. +The great Antarctic polar continent will blaze into a tropical glory. +Patagonia, the Magellan Straits, Australia, the Federated Cape +Provinces, far southern Chile and the Argentine--all in the blazing +tropics. Six months of that, with days months long in which the sun +never sets! Then swinging back to winter. + +"The new temperate zone will be at our equator. Not very temperate. +Snow and ice alternating with months of blazing heat. And all our +northern hemisphere--it will have six months, beginning next April, of +total darkness and frightful cold." + +His voice rose to a grim power. "Ah, you're just beginning to realize +what it will mean to us! New seasons, and new periods of day and night! +Blazing noon at the South Pole! Dark, silent, congealed midnight in +the north. Darkness like a cold black shroud over most of our northern +hemisphere. Our greatest cities are here, Peter. London, New York, +Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Peking--from forty to fifty North Latitude. All +will be buried for months in the darkness of arctic night!" + +He laughed just a little wildly. "They think it is a joke now, this +strange new winter which has descended upon us. They're beginning, in +New York, to treat it like a Canadian winter carnival. Fun while it +lasts, and then spring and summer will come soon again--because they +always have before. But this time, Peter, spring and summer won't come +soon again. + +"The winter will grow colder. They have only seen its carnival aspect +so far. But the cold of the north has fangs. It's a monster--a +hideous monster whose congealing breath is death. It's lurking up +there, ready to creep upon us. It's in Canada now--in north Asia, in +northern Europe. You don't know that because our government has been so +carefully suppressing the news. + +"They're laughing in New York because it gets dark so early in the +afternoon. It's fun to tumble in the snow in the early afternoon +twilight. But they won't laugh in another week or two. The +blessed sunlight for New York is almost gone. Shorter days--still +shorter--until soon there will be no day at all! + +"Our huge cities here in the north, all buried in the snow and ice and +darkness of a polar winter! The greatest catastrophe in the history of +the world--we're facing it now! No power on earth can help us to escape +it, for it's inevitable!" + + + + + CHAPTER II + + THE WHITE GIRL IN THE MOONLIGHT + + +The plantations of the Cains in Porto Rico lay back from the north +coast, some thirty kilometers from San Juan. Bisected by the railroad +and by the main auto road, they spread green and fragrant in the vivid +sunlight. Rows of orange and grapefruit trees, stretching over the +undulating sand, with pineapples between the rows of trees. + +Here and there, thickets of banana trees, encouraged to grow and break +the force of the trade wind from the sea; a tall spreading mango--a +sapling perhaps back in the almost forgotten days when Spain ruled +this island; clumps, occasionally, of giant coconuts rising on the low +hillsides; trees with smooth brown trunks and feather-duster tops, the +trunks all bent backward from the coast by the wind. + +The main auto road, lined with its majestic royal palms, was oily black +and sometimes very noisy; the railroad with its metal ties was a dark +streak like a double pencil line amid the green of the trees. But the +plantation crossroads were white ribbons of sand in the sunlight, and +whiter still at night, under the white glory of the moon. + +It was then--at night--that the magic romance of the tropics was to +me always most poignant. At sundown the brisk trades were stilled. A +quiet, brooding somnolence fell upon everything. The native shacks, +palm-thatched, burned brown by the sun, turned darkly mysterious. Off +beyond the distant coast, as it showed from the commanding height +of the Cains' veranda, the sea at night was dimly purple under a +gem-studded purple sky; and sometimes the moon-beams shimmered off +there in the silent magic darkness. The scent of the orange blossoms +hung heavy in the still air, exotic, stirring the fancy to a million +half formed dreams that one may tell but never express. + +Upon the highest knoll--an eminence of perhaps a hundred feet--stood +the Cains' plantation house. A white road led up the slope to it. A +broad, spreading frame bungalow, with a peaked tin roof, and a wide +flat veranda around three of its sides, with coconut posts set at +intervals. A bunch of bananas always hung there, ripening; a box, lying +against the house wall, was filled with oranges at intervals by a +native boy. + +Beyond the house, at the edge of the knoll-top, a corral with open +sides and a heavy-thatched roof housed the saddle and workhorses. The +Cains' one concession to modernity--the garage, and a small hangar for +Dan's sport plane--stood well beyond the foot of the knoll. In the +evening, lolling in the wicker chairs of the veranda, one could not see +the garage, and if the traffic on the main road chanced to be dull, one +might go back in fancy half a century, to when this magic land must +have been at its best. It was still very beautiful. Sunlight and color +and warmth. + +But the blight, here as everywhere else in the northern hemisphere, was +already at hand. + +"To-morrow," said Dan, "we'll ride over to Arecibo. Want to, Hulda?" + +"On horseback?" + +"Yes," he said. "Of course. You don't think, knowing you as I do, I'd +insult you with a car or a plane?" + +Hulda can drive a car or handle a plane as well as any one. But for +all our Dutch stolidity, there is a strain of romance in us. Hulda's +greatest pleasure was riding astride the little Porto Rican horses; +and though there seems nothing hotter on earth than a white sand road +at noon in the cane fields, Hulda would always ride through them with +delight. + +"Good," she said, and laughed. "Señor Dan, that will please me much." + +But her mocking laugh was forced, for this was February 10th of that +fateful winter. An unknown fear lay upon Hulda, as on us all; and the +cane fields on the way to Arecibo might have been hot other years, but +they certainly were not hot now. + +This evening, for instance, as Mr. and Mrs. Cain and their son Dan, and +Hulda, sat in the living room of the bungalow, the shutters were all +closed and a huge brazier of charcoal burned beside them for warmth. +Already it had smoked up the ceiling; and Mr. Cain, despairing that the +cool spell would soon moderate, promised his wife for the tenth time +that he would get a stove from San Juan and rig it up all shipshape +with a pipe--"Like in Vermont, eh, Ellen? Hulda, I'm going to radio +your father to-morrow. This local weather bureau's too dumb to tell me +anything. Your father ought to know--he's a scientist; they're supposed +to know everything." + +The Cains were what, a decade or so ago, were called plain folks. New +Englanders, Cain had made his money on a Vermont farm. Their only son +Dan had grown to manhood; graduated from college with one of the new +agricultural degrees; and partly because of Mrs. Cain's frail health +they had taken Dan and established themselves in Porto Rico. + +Dan now was the brains and the energy of the business. I had gone to +school with Dan Cain. A big, rangy, husky six-footer, with crisp, curly +brown hair, blue eyes and a laughing boyish sun-tanned face. + +A handsome young giant, I should imagine any girl would love him at +sight. Demure little Hulda--a brown sparrow of a girl--loved him, I +felt certain, though nothing as yet had been said of any engagement +between them. I rather hoped it would come to pass; and I think Dan's +parents did also, for Hulda was very lovable. + + * * * * * + +Life often holds odd coincidences. At eleven o'clock, this night of +February 10, I was in Washington with father and Freddie. What father +was telling me I thought then the most important event of the world's +welfare. + +But at almost the same time, Hulda, in Porto Rico, was sitting in the +living room with Dan Cain. And another event, wholly different in +significance yet of equal importance to the world, was impending. The +elder Cains had retired. Dan and Hulda, characteristic of them of late +when alone, had fallen into sober discussion. + +Dan was really perturbed over the weather. The temperature had gone far +into the forties the night before. Florida citrus trees might stand +that for a limited period, but it certainly was not good for Porto +Rican trees. And the Florida citrus industry was wiped out this winter. +It had snowed last week all over the peninsula; a fall of snow with a +following freeze that had killed everything which the December freeze +had spared. And now--into the forties in Porto Rico! Ten degrees lower +would be freezing. If this kept on-- + +The sound of a pony thudding up the knoll at a gallop broke in upon +Hulda's and Dan's gloomy reflections. They stared at each other. + +"What could that be?" Dan was on his feet. + +The pony came up to the front porch entrance, stopped, and on the +wooden steps bare feet sounded. Dan flung open the door. The pale-blue +vacuum light newly established in the Porto Rican rural districts was +behind him; the doorway was a dark rectangle of brilliant stars and +cold moonlight, and a rush of chill air swept in. + +A peon was on the porch, dirty white trousers and white shirt, ghostly +in the moonlight. He was barefooted and bareheaded. His little white +pony stood at the foot of the steps in a lather of sweat, drooping and +panting. + +"Ramon!" Dan exclaimed. "What the devil! Come in here!" + +It was one of the Cain's house boys. He came in, chattering, but not +from cold. His coffee-colored face had a green cast with its pallor. He +was frightened almost beyond speech. + +"What the devil!" + +Dan shook the boy with annoyance. Hulda stood apart, staring, and +a nameless fear was on her; an unreasonable shudder as though this +thing--in its outward aspect the mere fright of a native boy, which +probably meant nothing important--were something gruesome, horrible, +unutterably frightening. + +"Ramon--" Dan shook him again, and the boy suddenly poured out a flood +of Spanish; broken, incoherent--Hulda could not understand it. She saw +Dan's face grow grave, and then he laughed. But it struck Hulda then +that the incredulous laugh had a note of fear in it. + +"Ramon, _que dice_?" The boy understood English. Dan added, "Don't be a +fool, Ramon! Tell me--" + +Hulda gasped, "What--what is it, Dan?" + +He swung on her, and as he saw her face, the solemn fear in her dark +eyes, his laugh faded. + +"Hulda, he says he was riding home from a fiesta over at the Rolf +plantation in Factor. Coming back--you know the hills back there where +the bat caves are--what we call our Eden tract? He saw something--a +woman like a ghost, he says--a woman's figure that jumped--it's out +there now!" + +Ramon had shrunk against the wall, shuddering; the whites of his black +eyes glistened in the blue glare of the vacuum tube. + +"Ramon, you been drinking?" + +"No! Oh, no--no, señor!" + +"What--else, Dan?" + +Hulda wanted to laugh. It was funny, taking seriously, paying attention +to a native's devil story. Other years, an Americano señor would +laugh derisively at any peon who talked of a ghost he had seen in +the moonlight. But not now; there was an uncanniness in the very air +everywhere in the world this winter. + +The boy was quieter. He told Dan more and Dan soberly translated it. A +thing like a great round silver ball--big as a native shack--glistening +with the moonlight on it as it lay in a coconut grove, a mile from the +Cains' plantation house, near the hills where the bat caves are. + +Ramon's pony had suddenly shied, and then Ramon had seen the gleaming +white thing lying there. And then he had seen a figure--like the white +figure of a woman or a girl--a white girl, with flowing white hair. + +It was quite near him. Standing beside the sloping trunk of a big palm +tree that grew on the hillside. Twenty feet away, perhaps, and ten feet +higher than the trail along which he was riding. + +Ramon was stiff with fear. His pony had halted; it stood with upraised +head and pointing ears. It saw the white woman's motionless figure +and suddenly raised its head with a long shuddering neigh of fear. +The sound must have startled the white woman up there. Ramon saw her +crouch; then she leaped from the hillside. + +His pony bolted. And then he lashed it for home, fearing the thing was +chasing him. + +Dan was very solemn. "That doesn't sound like a ghost tale, Hulda. +Ramon, saddle our ponies. Mine--_Parti-blanco_--and the señorita's. Not +with the _aparejo_--with the man's saddle." + +He glanced at Hulda, her trim figure in leather puttees and brown +riding trousers; and her face was now almost as white as her white +blouse. + +She stammered. "You want to go out there--go and see--" + +Ramon whimpered, "Señor, I'm afraid, here at the corral--if it followed +after me." + + * * * * * + +Dan strode to the porch. The broad spread of the plantations lay solemn +and still under the cold white moon. The thatched roof of the corral +was dark, with inky black shadows beside the building. The banana trees +arching up over the house waved gently in the night breeze. Everything +was sharply white and black. But there was no sign of any intruder, +human or otherwise. + +"I'll go with you to saddle the ponies, Ramon. We'll go--you want to +go, Hulda?" + +"Yes," she said. She felt at that moment too frightened to stay in +the house without Dan, and thought of the elder Cains asleep in the +adjoining room never occurred to either of them. + +With sweaters donned against the midnight cold, they saddled the ponies +and started. + +Dan rode ahead, with Hulda almost beside him, and Ramon, his pony +reluctant as himself, following after them. It was a brief ride, during +which they hardly spoke. Down the knoll, past the silent garage; past +the somnolent group of shacks of the plantation workers. + +The road was narrow--white sand like a trail; coconut trees arched it +in places, and beside it spread the tracts of fruit trees. It wound +back toward a low-lying range of hills and up a steep declivity, where +it turned stony from the rain water which daily washed down it. + +Dan was flinging watchful glances around them. "Don't see anything yet, +Hulda. Do you?" His voice was a cautious half whisper. + +The sure-footed ponies picked their way carefully up the stony trail. +They went through a little ravine and emerged into a small valley, a +plateau almost flat on this higher land. Hills a hundred feet high +fenced it in; its table-like surface of white sand was ruled off with +the dark green lines of fruit trees. It was the Cains' two-hundred acre +"Eden tract." It lay brooding and drowsy under the moon, without a sign +of human movement. + +Dan halted; Ramon's pony came beside him. + +"Where were you when you saw it, Ramon?" + +The boy gestured. He was trembling again. He held his pony forcibly +from wheeling to run back. The other ponies seemed to sense the terror; +they raised their heads; one whimpered; and they were all quivering. +But Dan forced them slowly forward. + +The trail skirted the hills to the left. Above it, halfway up a steep +ascent, three black yawning mouths of the bat-caves showed. Hulda +had often been in them with Dan; a guano deposit in them was used as +fertilizer for the trees. Hulda saw them now, round and black, with the +moonlight on the rocks beside them, fifty feet above the valley. + +Ramon suddenly chattered: "There! You see it? _Ave Maria_--" + +Off at the edge of the fruit trees, in the shadows of a clump of +coconut palms, a great round thing gleamed. A silver sphere, like a +white ball some twenty feet high, lying there. A broken ball! It was +several hundred feet away, but Hulda could see a black rift in it. A +crack? A doorway! + +She knew it then. Not with conscious reasoning, but she knew then what +all this was to mean. A silver sphere lying there, with a black rift in +it like a doorway. And a small black patch on its side--like a window! + +"Hulda! Look!" Dan's hand went to her arm with a grip that both hurt +and steadied her. The three ponies were standing with braced feet in +the sand. Dan's flung up its head to neigh; but his fist thumped its +head and stilled it. + +And then Hulda saw the figure, as the native boy had seen it half +an hour before. It was standing now near the trail, ahead of them; +standing there between two orange trees; and just as Hulda saw it, the +thing moved over, and stopped in the moonlight on the white trail, +as though to bar their passage. It was not far ahead of them. Hulda +could see it plainly. A white figure. But it did not shimmer; not +ghostly--white only because of the moonlight on it. Uncanny, weird, yet +not gruesome. + +It was the figure of a girl; small, as small as Hulda. A slim, +pink-white girl's body, with flowing draperies which in daylight might +have been sky-blue. Long white hair flowing over pink shoulders. + +Dan's grip on Hulda tightened; then he cast her off and his hand caught +her bridle reins and held her pony firmly. Behind them Ramon and his +pony were thudding away in a panic. + +Dan breathed: "It--she sees us!" + +The girl's arms went slowly up as though with a gesture. It seemed a +gesture not menacing; a gesture of fear perhaps. Pale-white arms, of +delicate human shape. They were bare, but as they slowly raised, the +folds of the drapery clung to them. + +Abruptly Dan called: "Hello, there--" + +The figure did not move further. But the ponies were becoming +unmanageable, Dan exclaimed hastily: "Dismount, Hulda! You'll be thrown +off--I can hold them." + +Hulda and Dan dismounted. But Dan could not hold the ponies. They +jerked away from him. He and Hulda were left standing in the sand of +the trail, gazing after the two terror-stricken little animals as they +galloped away toward home. + + * * * * * + +Dan remembered later that there came to him then a fleeting wonderment. +Why were these ponies so afraid of this white figure of a girl in the +moonlight? From this distance there seemed nothing about the figure +unduly to frighten an animal. The question was not answered until long +afterward. But there were indeed things about this white shape which +the ponies evidently saw and felt--things which were denied to Hulda's +and Dan's human senses. + +Hulda gasped: "Oh, they've gone!" She stood by Dan, clinging to him. +The white figure in the road was gone also. But in a moment more they +saw it again. Near to them now--not more than thirty feet away. It was +standing off the trail among the fruit trees. + +Dan murmured: "It's human, Hulda. Nothing to be afraid of--see, it's +only a girl. You call to her." + +Hulda's quavering voice floated out: "We see you. Who are you? We're +friends." + +The figure moved again; backward, floating or walking soundlessly but +swiftly, as though with sudden fear. + +"Come on," said Dan. He started briskly forward along the trail, with +Hulda close after him. But within a dozen steps, he stopped. And then, +to both Dan and Hulda came amazement, and the thrill of real fear. + +The figure had been retreating. But the hill was close behind it. +Suddenly it stopped; seemed to gather itself; to crouch; to spring. It +left the ground, and came sailing up into the unobstructed moonlight +above the orange trees. Sailing up in an arc it passed almost directly +over their heads and landed soundlessly in the road behind them! + +As it passed overhead, outlined against the stars, they saw it more +plainly. It seemed a girl of human form, cast in a fashion which might +well have been called beautiful. She poised, not as though flying, but +sailing. Face toward the ground, white hair waving behind her, arms +outstretched, with the folds of her drapery robe opened fan-shape, +fluttering like wings. There was a brief glimpse of her lower limbs, +human of mold with the robe wound by the wind close around them. + +A thing of beauty, had it not been so uncanny. She floated in a sailing +arc as though almost weightless; and with a flip, dropped to the ground +upright upon her feet. A fairy's leap! Soundless, graceful! Romantic, +yet uncanny. A figure of enchantment from the dream of a child. + +[Illustration: A thing of beauty, she floated in a sailing arc against +the star-studded heavens, directly over the heads of the astonished +couple.] + +Dan tried to laugh. Fear seemed incongruous. As he and Hulda turned, +the figure stood again in the trail facing them. And they could see it +was a slim young girl, strangely beautiful, fearful as a fawn at their +approach; yet she lingered, seeming--Dan wondered if his fancy were +playing him tricks--desirous of conquering her fear and encountering +them. + +"Hulda--nothing to be afraid of. Don't move--you'll frighten her!" + +They stood motionless. The white girl in the moonlight down the road +took a step forward. They did not move. She came a little further. +Paused. Then another step. Not floating. Walking--they could see the +outlines of her limbs moving beneath the drapery. + +And now they could see her face. Queer, strange of feature, yet in what +way they could not have said. And certainly beautiful; gentle; anxious, +and afraid. Youthful, a mere girl; and with those flowing waves of +snow-white hair framing her face and falling thick over her pink-white +shoulders. + +She stood, twenty feet away. Dan and Hulda were almost holding their +breaths. Dan murmured: "Speak to her again. Softly--don't frighten her!" + +Hulda said gently: "Can you understand me? We're friends." + +The strange girl stood birdlike, trembling. Hulda repeated: "We're +friends--won't hurt you. Shall we come nearer? Who are you?" + +There was a moment of silence. And then the girl spoke. A soft whisper +of a voice, ethereal as the fairy voice of a child's enchanted fancy; +a wraith of sound, but it carried, and Hulda and Dan heard it plainly. + +"_Zetta! Zetta! Zetta!_" + + + + + CHAPTER III + + THE CROWNING TERROR + + +There was so much happening everywhere in the world during those +fateful weeks that followed February 10, 1953--events so startling, +amazing, so stupendous of import, and of such diversity that I scarce +know how to recount them. Of necessity my mention of many must be +brief; and my picture of the whole, I fear, will be at best incoherent. + +Yet in that quality, at least, it will be a true picture; the world +was incoherent, chaotic--everywhere a chaos of events unprecedented, +uncontrollable. And in the chaos which swept Freddie and me away, the +news from Dan Cain in Porto Rico, important though it was, at the time +concerned us little. + +Father was in constant communication with the Cains; and later, after +father had gone to Miami when the Federal capital was moved there in +flight from Washington, he went to Porto Rico. + +The announcement that our world was to have such different days and +nights, and a climate so utterly changed, struck the public with horror. + +It is not my purpose to try to detail or to picture it. The chaos +everywhere; the paralyzation of industry throughout the northern +hemisphere which so far had been proceeding by man's will against all +the invading efforts of nature to wreck it; the panics that took place +in all the northern cities--crowds of refugees struggling to get south; +inadequate transportation; accidents; and a horrible crime-wave that +swept unchecked over every one of the large population centers. + +Human activities in our modern world are very widely diversified; more +widely varied--and yet more intermingled, more interdependent--than any +one realizes until there comes an upset from the normal. + +There is, in these modern times, nothing that anyone does which does +not almost immediately affect what some one else is doing. Had the +change come slowly, spread over a hundred, or a thousand or a hundred +thousand years as other great world changes have come and passed, +conditions would have adjusted themselves. No one would even have +noticed the change. + +But this was happening in minutes where others had taken centuries. +New York, London, Paris and all the cities of the north were doomed +to six months of twilight and night and blighting cold. Snow now was +upon land, millions of acres of land, where crops soon would have been +growing if millions of people were to have food. Yet now we know those +millions of acres would be for months snow-buried. + +Millions of homes soon would be without adequate heat or light; and the +people without adequate clothing. Rivers upon which the great power +plants depended were congealing into ice. + +This for the north, with business, industry and nearly every human +activity paralyzed by the sudden public horror. But in the south, from +the Equator to the South Pole, lay the land of promise. Or at least the +public thought so. + +Life lay there; life and the promise of food and warmth and the blessed +sunlight. For in the far Antarctic south, with the new light and heat +coming, millions upon millions of acres of land would be springing into +a new fertility to replace what the north had lost. But this, too, was +a fallacy; for after a few months, the pendulum would swing back; the +far south would go into night and cold. + +Many hundred million people, suddenly giving up all their accustomed +work in the world's activities and trying to move to another region! +A migration greater than the sum total of all others in the world's +history. In a hundred years of systematic, careful planning and +execution it might have been accomplished without disaster. But now it +was a panic, a chaos, a flight, with distracted governments trying to +cope with it, impotent to bring even a semblance of order. + +Our office of the Amalgamated Broadcasters was maintained in New +York City until well along in February. With government affiliation, +we broadcasted only what might be of help to the public; news of +conditions, generally censored to allay too great a fear; advice as to +what to do; information concerning transportation, and news from the +south. In this work, Freddie now joined me. There were days--almost +dark now except for a brief time before and after midday--when he and +I were in our cold office, one or the other of us at the microphone +throughout the twenty-four hours. + +It was an office of incoherent men and disorganized service; without +light, some of the time; with frozen and burst heating pipes and no +one to repair them. We sat bundled in our overcoats, with snow piling +against the windows. + +News came of crowds surging in the dark, snow-piled streets; food +giving out, with paralyzed transportation; news of raids by the public +upon all the markets; news of people trampled to death hourly at every +steamship dock, every bridge leading out of the city; uncontrollable +crowds at the tunnels, the railroad and plane terminals. + +State troopers vainly patrolled streets made almost impassable by +snow which now could not be cleared away; people froze in the cold +with which they were not equipped to cope; crime was everywhere, with +criminals, like ghouls, battening on the tragedy. + + * * * * * + +In those terrible days there were few concerned with astronomy. Yet I +recall that one of my orders was to detail--for such as might still be +listening--a simple version of how, astronomically, all this was coming +to pass. + +"Perhaps," I broadcasted, "when we know the fundamentals of this +change--the scientific reasons for it--the thing may hold less terror +for us." + +Useless words! Nothing could mitigate the terror! + +"You all know in a general way," I went on, "the astronomical reasons +for our alternating day and night--our succession of seasons, spring, +summer, autumn and winter. Yet if you follow me closely now, and +picture what I tell you, the subject will be clearer to your mind, and +you will understand the change which is now upon us. Some of you, our +government has advised, should remain in the north and withstand the +rigors of the new climate. New York City will not be abandoned! That +is absurd! It is the sudden change, the upset to our normal routine, +which has now caused suffering. + +"When we are equipped for the new conditions, New York and other cities +in its latitude will be perfectly habitable. We will have winter nights +several months long, and an arctic cold. Then spring, and a summer +with the sun giving us months of unending daylight. Those must be our +productive months--we must grow food then, to supply the southern +hemisphere, just as in the other months they must grow food down there. + +"Do not be too hasty! We cannot all--every one on earth--rush at +once to the Equator! Even there at times it will be too hot, and a +twilight winter fairly cold. Cold enough, a month or two from now, to +disorganize everything. + +"It is your panic--your haste--which is our greatest danger. Be calm! +Meet the conditions as they are. Help our government to maintain order, +here in the north. The world's work must be done--the new conditions +must be coped with sanely. We are not in desperate distress; only +through panic can real disaster come!" + + * * * * * + +These were our broadcasted words of government appeal. And then I +went on: "There is no need for panic. We want you to understand the +astronomical reasons for our new climate. I want you to imagine +yourself standing before your round, empty dining room table. Conceive +that the room is dark and that you have placed, almost in the center of +the table, a circular vacuum globe of yellow light. That represents the +sun. + +"Take now an orange, and through its center put a lead pencil. The +orange is the earth. By holding in your fingers the ends of the lead +pencil, you can rotate the orange. The lead pencil then represents the +axis of the earth. + +"Can you picture yourself in your darkened room under these conditions? +As you stand facing the round table with the light near its center, you +hold the orange on its lead pencil to the right of you near the edge +of the table. You hold the lead pencil vertical; its point, standing +directly up to the ceiling would be then our North Pole; its eraser, +pressed against the table edge, would be our South Pole. + +"You will find now that the light from your 'sun' illuminates about +half the orange--the half which faces toward the sun. The orange is +lighted from the North Pole to the South Pole--on the sunward side. The +other side is in shadow. + +"Now, rotate the orange, holding the pencil exactly upright. You will +see that the moving surface brings its shadowed side into the sunlight. +This rotation gives us our alternating night and day. + +"Still holding the pencil upright, begin now slowly carrying it with +the orange around the edge of the table. You will realize, if you +think for a moment, that, _with the pencil held exactly vertical_, it +makes no difference whether the orange is on one side of the table or +the other. The sunlight on its surface is exactly the same in every +position around the table. Under this condition, therefore, we would +have uniformly alternating days and nights of equal length; and _no +change of season_. You can see the most intense light would always be +at the equator, and the least intense, down to perpetual twilight, at +the Poles. Thus it would always be midsummer at the equator, temperate +to the north and south equally, and winter equally and always at both +Poles. + +"But this, of course, was not our condition. The axis of our earth +was not vertically upright, as I have asked you first to picture it. +Conceive now that you hold the orange and pencil again to your right at +the table edge. Instead now of having the pencil point directly upward, +slant it off _to the right_--_away from the sun_--toward the edge of +your ceiling where it joins the wall, for instance. To be more exact, +you are to tilt it over until it is about one-quarter of the way to a +horizontal position. Mathematically, this is twenty-three and a half +degrees from the vertical. + +"The top of the pencil--the North Pole--is now tilted away from the +sun--the bottom is tilted toward the sun. You will realize now that the +sunlit half of the orange is not from Pole to Pole. The light extends +beyond and around the South Pole to the other side--and the light _does +not reach the North Pole at all_. + +"Rotate the orange with the pencil held at that tilted angle. There are +points at and near the South Pole which do not leave the light; and +points at and near the North Pole are always dark. That is our _normal_ +condition in December. In the northern hemisphere we call it winter; in +the southern hemisphere they call it summer. + +"Now move your orange around the edge of the table, halfway around +until you are on the other side. If you have kept the pencil tilted at +that same angle toward your ceiling corner, you will find now that its +top is pointing _toward the sun_. All the conditions on the orange's +surface are reversed. That is June; summer in the North, winter in the +South. + +"Those days are gone. We are now faced with an axis change--disastrous +only because it is changing so quickly. And I want you to know just +exactly what the change is. Conceive again your orange at the right +hand of the table, with the pencil point tilted away from the sun at +that twenty-three and one-half degree angle. We were like that last +December. But since then a new world has come into the solar system. +Its coming has disturbed the old order of things with us. The eraser of +that lead pencil--our South Pole--is moving up further toward the sun! + +"Take the orange a short distance along the table edge, and tilt the +pencil still further. That is where we are now, in February! Don't you +realize that more of our southern hemisphere is now in the constant +light, and more of the northern in the constant darkness? And now, tilt +the lead pencil further until it is horizontal to the table. + +"The eraser--the South Pole--points directly to the sun! That is the +position we will reach next April. Rotate the orange, holding the +pencil level. You will see that the light remains on the southern half +of the orange, and the northern half remains dark! On April 5, we will +have no day and night! + +"Six months later the earth will be halfway around its orbit. The axis +will remain in that new fixed position. The reverse condition then will +exist. Our North Pole will point to the sun! Light and heat in the +North! Darkness and cold in the South! So do not be too hasty in trying +to get away! These next few months will be bad, but after that we will +learn how to weather them. We cannot all live on the equator! Stay +where you are and help us fight it through!" + + * * * * * + +Futile words! But it was the panic of flight--the attempted rush of +so many millions of people--the disorganization of all those myriad +activities upon which life depends--which was our greatest danger. + +Futile words! Impotent governments, themselves disingenuous, for they +were all preparing for hasty flight to warmer, more equable regions! +On February 22 the National Capital of the United States was moved +from Washington, District of Columbia, to temporary housing in Miami, +Florida. And even there, the great Florida city was disorganized, +snow-covered, with very nearly zero temperature. + +The deaths throughout the northern hemisphere that February of 1953 +will never be counted. A million? Many millions--I would hesitate to +guess. + +There were some nine million people within the limits of Greater New +York on Christmas. By mid-February I suppose there were no more than a +scant fifty thousand left--and these, most of them, were trying to get +away. A dark, almost deserted, buried city--buried in a white shroud +which mercifully hid its tragedy. + +I caught one last glimpse of the sun--the one clear day; the sun at +noon just creeping above the southern horizon and then plunging back. +The Arctic night was on us. + +I saw the roads between New York and Washington--the great highways for +the through auto traffic. Refugees were trudging along them on foot, +carrying lights in the darkness. Plunging through the snow; walking +blindly southward when they could go no other way. Falling by the +roadside; all the traffic lines were littered with frozen bodies, soon +hidden by the snow. + +We were not in Washington long; soon we were ordered to Miami. There +was a gray twilight there, which, with the buildings arranged for +temporary heating, were at least tolerable. And here we set up our +headquarters. The first of March came. Father was in Porto Rico. I +knew, by then, what strange things were transpiring there in the Cains' +plantation house. + +I knew, too, what the astronomers--gathered now at Quito, Ecuador, +as the best place in the Western World for twilight observation--had +discovered. + +Xenephrene was inhabited! + +Father was convinced of it the day after that momentous February 10. +But the news--and the news from the secluded little plantation house +of the Cains--was withheld from the public. But on March 2, everything +was disclosed. For our distracted world one culminating blow remained. +As though all that had gone before were not enough, fate held one +crowning terror. + +On March 2 it was broadcast that a hostile race of people in human form +had come from Xenephrene and landed on the earth! Invaders from this +brand new world! Landed two days before, north of New York; and now +were moving south upon the city! + + + + + CHAPTER IV + + ZETTA + + +That midnight of February 10th, Hulda and Dan stood on the small +Porto Rican trail, facing at a brief distance the white girl in the +moonlight. She answered Hulda's call; in a queerly small voice her +words came to them: + +"_Zetta! Zetta! Zetta!_" + +There was a brief silence. Dan murmured, "Let's go nearer." + +Slowly, carefully, they advanced; fearful of again frightening her. But +this time she did not move. She stood watchful, trembling slightly, +but held her ground. And presently they were confronting her. She +was shorter even than Hulda; very slim and frail. A young girl just +reaching maturity. A rose, not yet full-blown. The thought occurred to +Dan. But the comparison was wrong. Not a rose, for this was a flower of +young womanhood of a species no one of earth could name. + +She seemed, aside from her snow-white hair, no more than a strangely +beautiful girl of earth. But to both Dan and Hulda came again, more +strongly than before, the feeling of her strangeness. There was +something singularly unusual in her aspect. And this they both recall +clearly; as they stood there for a silent instant confronting her, both +were conscious of sensations indescribable, as though they were feeling +something within themselves--something vague, elusive--something +no mortal of Earth had ever felt before. And, perhaps, hearing +something--so faint, so ethereal they could not define it--faint as +though it were sound heard not by their ears, but by their minds. + +And they saw something, too, which perhaps no mortal eyes had ever seen +before. An aura, a dim, very faint red radiance shone around the three +of them as they stood there together in the moonlight. Hulda and Dan +remembered it was something like that. + +They stood for a moment, stricken with wonder at their sensations; and +perhaps the strange girl was less timorous as she saw their attitude +of awe. She stared up into Dan's face, and smiled. Queerly wistful; +trusting. A gentle little creature! And he stared down into her dark +eyes and found them shimmering pools of iridescence. Then again she +spoke, other words in a strange, liquid tongue, soft, with curiously +clipped, intoned syllables. + +Dan shook his head. "We can't understand you. Can you understand us?" +He smiled; and Hulda smiled. + +"She's not afraid of us," said Dan. The girl was waving a hand with +what they knew was a gesture of negation. She could not understand +their language; and when Dan tried Spanish--realizing it was futile; +and tried his imperfect French--her gesture continued. + +He tried again. "Dan! Dan! Dan!" he said, and struck his chest. And +Hulda indicated herself with "Hulda! Hulda!" + +The girl's eager face brightened. They had established communication; +the first communication between Xenephrene and our earth! + +The girl cried, "Zetta, Zetta," and laid her hand on her breast. + +It was the first communication between the worlds. What dire events, +tragedies, amazing things to transpire before the last communication +was over! + + * * * * * + +It is not my purpose, and again, I have no space in which to narrate +all the details of these days. The girl was persuaded to follow Dan +and Hulda, and through all that February she lived with the Cains in +the plantation house, guarded and kept hidden, though the news of her +presence could not be entirely concealed. + +The silver ball in the coconut grove was a vehicle in which, by +some method unknown to earth, this girl--this Zetta, as she called +herself--had come from her world, to ours. And she had not come alone. +A man had come with her--he seemed to be of middle age. He lay dead +near the vehicle. Perhaps the victim of an accident; or perhaps the +girl had killed him. + +There was no one, as yet, to say. Zetta could not, apparently, +understand any earth language; and her language sounded hopeless to +fathom. She seemed intelligent, docile, willing and anxious to be kept +with the Cains; eager, it seemed at first, to be in the room with +them--to hear them talk. But after that first night, she did not speak +again; and they thought she had fallen into a sullen silence. + +There is so much I have to tell! Astronomers at Quito had seen this +silver vehicle enter the earth's atmosphere that night of February +10th; and had seen another, infinitely larger, which they believed had +started from the surface of Xenephrene. + +Dan notified father of his strange visitor, of course. Father sent +instructions. The authorities of Porto Rico buried the man's body, +and set a guard to watch constantly over the vehicle as it lay in the +grove. Scientists came to inspect it, and could understand but vaguely +its mechanism. + +Two weeks passed. Father was in Miami then; and near the end of +February he started by government plane for Porto Rico. + +Conditions all over the world were far worse now. We only had a vague +picture; the radio and television were operating intermittently--but +all the regular channels for the dissemination of news were paralyzed. +And, too, the governments withheld, or distorted to a less terrible +aspect such reports as were available. + +Europe was enveloped in snow to the Mediterranean; the Barbary coast +was jammed with refugees. London and Paris, like New York, were +threatened with complete abandonment. + +In Canada, they said--like Scandinavia, north Interior Europe and Asia +of the far north--there was less panic, less disaster. These people +were accustomed to intense cold and equipped to withstand it. + +In the Canadian rural district, the farmers shut themselves up with +their winter fundamentals of food as had been their custom, and were +said to be making out fairly well. But the big centers of population, +dependent upon transportation and industry, were devastated. Greater +Montreal was abandoned in February. + +Transportation everywhere in the United States was kept partially open, +but only by efforts born of the frantic desperation of necessity. +The new Arctic airplanes, recently developed, were being hastily +manufactured in quantity, in government plants established in Florida +and Southern California, and were as hastily put into service to bear +the people southward. The railroads of our northern States kept open +for a while with snow plows loaned by the great Canadian trunk lines +which had long since succumbed. + +Steamship service along the Atlantic Coast ventured no farther north +than Charleston, South Carolina. The North Atlantic was filled with +ice floes driven south by the constant storms; the Polar ice field was +reported now as extending nearly down to the former New York-Liverpool +steamship lanes. + +The St. Lawrence River was frozen solid, from Montreal past Quebec and +down to its mouth, before Christmas. In January the middle Mississippi +was solid with an ice bridge which one day broke and swept away three +railroad bridges. The Hudson, from Troy to New York harbor, was solid +by mid-February. Within a week after that even the Savannah River +became impassable, and the port closed. + +Yet, for all that, by whatever desperate expedient possible, the +people were being transported south, and were cared for in their new +locations, in the best fashion that could be managed. + + * * * * * + +What formerly had been our tropic zone was thronged with new arrivals. +Daily they poured in from the north. And from the far south, as +well--in spite of government's pleadings and commands to the contrary; +from Buenos Aires, Rio, Santiago, people were striving to get north, +nearer the equator, fearful of this new heat and blazing daylight which +was coming upon them. + +Nor was it only a disturbance of the world's normal temperatures. With +the abnormal climate came other inevitable disturbances. From widely +divergent localities, devastating windstorms were reported. A typhoon, +wholly out of season, swept the China Sea. A hurricane in Central +America. From Peru and Chile they told of heavy rains flooding the arid +coast. Rain fell at Biskra with torrential rainstorms sweeping up and +across the Sahara. + +I had been saying that father, near the end of February, went to +Porto Rico. The two weeks previous to his arrival there were weeks of +amazement growing daily into awe as Dan and Hulda were brought into +closer contact with their beautiful, unearthly visitor. + +It came upon them gradually, the strangeness, weirdness of this girl +so like themselves at first glance, yet obviously a being wholly +different. They treated her as a visiting guest, though in reality +she was a captive. Upon father's advice--for he guessed, at least +partially, what the outcome was to be--the Cains were content to do +nothing with Zetta save to have her live with them in seclusion; and to +make her comfortable. + +That she was extremely intelligent, Dan saw at once. She evidently +realized that they were wholly friendly. Whatever her purpose, living +there with them seemed all she desired. + +She had her own room, next to Hulda's. She seemed to appreciate Hulda's +efforts for her comfort. She ate with the family, making whimsical +faces at the food which she obviously disliked at first. For the rest, +she seemed content to sit in the living room, watching them, listening +to them talk. + +To Dan, her constant presence was at once fascinating and disturbing. +Fascinating, for Zetta's beauty was queerly magnetic, but disturbing, +too, for there was about this girl always that uncanniness indefinable. +For hours she would sit in the living room, apart from the family +group. She did not like the chairs, preferring to sit crosslegged on +the floor, on a cushion. She was very silent, although she would answer +when spoken to, with a smile or a strange, friendly gesture, and with +her eyes following each person who spoke. + +Her complexion was the creamy, pink white which we of earth call +beauty. She blushed, or flushed, readily. For no apparent reason a +wave of rose color would suffuse her face, throat and neck. It even +extended sometimes to her arms, and to her legs as they showed amid +her half-revealing drapery--the smooth white of her skin flushing with +deep rose color. For no reason; and then Dan noticed that it generally +happened when the outer door was opened and a rush of cold air swept +in. Nature automatically protecting against the cold! + +Dan often would furtively watch her. He was sitting in a far corner of +the room one evening; the elder Cains and Hulda were gathered about the +radio. + +The small, clear voice of the announcer was giving a summary of the +world's tragic news, this middle of February; on the small television +screen which the Miami Central Office was connecting with various +localities to illustrate his words, vague, fleeting pictures were +mirrored. + +Zetta was seated on the floor, in an opposite corner from Dan. He saw +that she was not listening to the radio. But she was listening to +something! Her head was tilted alert; across her face a succession of +her emotions was mirrored--a frown; whimsical pleasure; a smile. + +She was listening; and Dan realized suddenly that she was hearing +things he could not hear! A world of things, perhaps; something +displeased her, she gestured disapprovingly; and then smiled again. + +Uncanny! She was wholly absorbed, unaware that Dan was watching. +Hearing things no mortal of earth could hear! Like a dog, Dan thought, +which hears faint sounds denied its master. But Dan knew it was more +than that. + +And then his heart leaped. Zetta was seeing something he could not see! +Something in the room. Her eyes followed it, as evidently it moved. She +turned her head to gaze after it; she smiled, with breathless parted +lips, then laughed. + +Was she, perhaps, irrational? Conjuring visions in an unbalanced mind? +The explanation occurred to Dan, but he did not believe it was so. +Rather, it seemed to him, this girl's perceptions were more acute than +ours. + +She saw and heard things beyond the range of our human senses. Here on +earth they were things strange to her. She was listening and watching +them; surprised, often pleased, as one with normal senses gazes upon +new sights and finds them interesting. + +Dan found opportunity to regard the girl more closely. Her eyes, when +she looked at him, seemed normal. But at other times he saw that her +pupils became suddenly abnormally large; or again, contracted to +pin points, even in the dimness of indoors. At once, a dark veil--a +film--seemed to creep over the eyeball; but she became aware of the +scrutiny, and it was gone before Dan could make sure. + +Her ears, in outward shape a trifle rounder than ours, were generally +hidden--pink shells in the waving mass of her white hair. Dan fancied +that they moved at her will--that sometimes they expanded. + +Her fingers, and her toes, were long, slim and tapering, with +pink-white, pointed nails. The joints were more numerous than with us; +it gave them a prehensile aspect; and Dan fancied, too, that the arch +of the bottom of her foot was cup-shaped as though it might serve as a +vacuum for walking upon inclined surfaces. + +Father had told Dan that Zetta probably was from Xenephrene. But no +one could be sure. An idea occurred to Dan, and a few days later, just +before dawn, he and Hulda tried it. Xenephrene, on clear days, was +visible just before sunrise. The weather, here in Porto Rico now, was +generally below freezing. Once it had snowed. The Cains' fruit groves +were killed; but with all the world's catastrophe for comparison, Dan +and his father thought little of it. The Porto Rican day now was but +two hours long. The sun made a low arc in the south, descending within +two hours, not very much to the west of where it had risen. + + * * * * * + +It was mid morning when in the darkness before dawn, Hulda and Dan with +Zetta stood outside the plantation house. To the south Xenephrene would +soon rise. + +"Do you think she'll recognize it?" Hulda asked. + +Dan smiled; how could one guess? Zetta stood between them, puzzled, +looking first at one, then the other. She had walked out with them +quietly. She always walked quietly, carefully, as though trying to +imitate their own slow steps. And though Dan, with gestures, had often +tried to make her leap into the air, she never would. + +It was cold, this mid morning before dawn; Dan and Hulda were dressed +in heavy, northern garments. Zetta wore the filmy robe in which they +had first seen her. She seemed to prefer her own garments, a number of +which had been brought from the vehicle, and installed with her at the +Cains'. To the cold she was utterly oblivious; the cold of outdoors, or +the warmth inside--she seemed not aware of the difference. + +They stood on the knoll. The sky to the southward was brightening. +The stars there moved in a low arc. Then Xenephrene came up. Blazing, +purple-white star. + +"Look!" said Dan. "Zetta, look! We call that Xenephrene. Can't you +understand me? Do you recognize that star? Your world? Did you come +from there?" + +At sight of the great purple star, a queer emotion swept her face. Dan +pleaded: "Zetta, haven't you learned anything of our language? We call +that Xenephrene. Your world? You came from there? Speak, Zetta!" + +She said slowly in English, with an accent quaint and indescribable: +"Yes. My worl'--I came from there." + + * * * * * + +"But what's the matter with you, Hulda?" + +"Nothing." + +"But there is!" + +"Not at all, Dan. Why do you say that?" + +"But there is! You're angry, or hurt. At me? What have I done?" + +"Nonsense. You haven't done--" She stopped; and he saw that her eyes +were filled with sudden tears; she tried to protest, but the words +would not come. + +They were sitting alone late one evening in the Cains' living room. Dan +had noticed that for some days Hulda was abnormally quiet, and she no +longer treated him with her usual comradeship. A reserve had come to +her. And now, when he asked her why, she burst into tears! + +She sobbed openly; he tried to put his arm around her, but she pushed +him away. + +"Hulda!" A light broke on Dan. "It's Zetta--why, you silly little +girl--" + +"You were--were kissing her this morning!" + +"I was _not_! Nonsense!" + +"Well, I s-saw you, with her in your arms, l-lifting her up--" + +"Yes. Lifting her up. But not kissing her. But I'm kissing _you_! +Now--like that! And _that_--Hulda, darling--" + +It is not my part to reconstruct the scene that followed between them, +although both have described the wonder of it all to all of the family +who would listen--wonder and awe at the voicing of love which all of +us knew they had felt for a year or two. They were engaged when ten +minutes later they thumped on the elder Cains' door to tell them the +wonderful news. + +Dan maintained that to Zetta he owed a great debt of gratitude; for +without Hulda's jealousy of Zetta, Dan says he might have been too +stupid ever to propose. The episode with Zetta was simple enough; Dan +explained it readily to Hulda's entire satisfaction. + +He had been alone with Zetta that morning, trying to make her talk more +of our language, which now he knew that she was learning. With a mind +wholly different from ours--this Dan now realized--she undoubtedly was +learning with extraordinary rapidity. But, quite evidently, she had her +own method. She would not speak again; but when he began naming objects +in the room, trying to aid her by systematic teaching, she showed +approval and listened attentively. + +During the course of this lesson, Dan had touched her. He laid his hand +on her arm. Curious sensation! He felt at once, not a lack of solidity, +but a seeming lack of weight. She had risen to her feet as though +startled by his touch. He stood, from his much greater height looking +down at her. Still holding her arm. + +And this Dan confessed to me, but most assuredly he did not confess it +to Hulda. As he stood here, staring into the glowing dark depths of +Zetta's eyes, it occurred to him that he should release her. But he +did not. Instead, he caught her in his arms. Lifted her up. Not, to be +wholly truthful, because scientifically he wanted to test her weight. +Rather was it because, at touching her, an instant of madness swept him. + +It passed. She was pushing him away, smiling, startled, but unafraid. +And, with the madness gone, he tossed her into the air as one would +toss a child. Caught her; tossed her again to the ceiling and let her +fall, to land lightly on tiptoe as her feet came down to the straw +matting of the floor. And in the doorway, he became aware that Hulda +was standing, silently watching them. + +When father arrived at the Cains' he weighed Zetta. Had she been a +normal girl of earth, by her appearance she would have weighed some +ninety or a hundred pounds. Zetta weighed eighteen pounds! + +There were several scientists in Porto Rico who, at father's +invitation, came to see Zetta. They were with her hours each day. Dan +and Hulda were excluded. Father's manner, Dan said, was very solemn, +and he seemed to be laboring under a suppressed excitement. Then came +the news of March 2, that invaders from Xenephrene had landed on the +earth near New York. The scientists at the Cains' house hastened to San +Juan, but father remained. + +One afternoon--it was the afternoon of March 4--Hulda and Dan listened +at the door when father was with Zetta. She was talking to him now! +Talking in low, slow tones; haltingly, and often he would question and +prompt her. Abruptly he rose to his feet and came out. + +"Hulda! Dan, where are your father and mother?" + +Dan called them; they came hustling in. The excitement of these days +was too much for the elder Cains; they lived in a constant confusion +and bewilderment. + +"Sit down, all of you," father commanded. "Zetta--come out here, child." + +She came at his call, wide-eyed, gentle; but she, too, was trembling +with excitement. Father seated her gently on a cushion. He said: + +"Our earth lashed into turmoil by this extraordinary change of climate, +is far worse off than that. These invaders--well, what Zetta has to say +will at least give us information--aid us in doing what we can to repel +them! It is a bad condition--it may prove serious--possibly complete +disaster!" + +He regarded Zetta with a gentle tenderness. "This girl has come from +her world to help us. Yes, she has learned our language, with what +strange qualities of mind, and senses so different from ours you will +be amazed to hear. A very gentle little creature. I think all of you +have grown to love her--she says you have been very kind to her, and +she loves you very much, particularly Hulda." + +It struck Hulda with a guilty pang, hearing this after her own jealousy +of Zetta; for Hulda was no more than human, and there had been days +when secretly she hotly resented the strange and beautiful girl's +presence in the house with Dan. But that was over. Hulda exclaimed +impulsively, "I do love her!" + +The two girls' glances met affectionately. "Yes," Zetta said suddenly. +"We do love ver' much." + +Father went on: "She is here--came here to help us. All this time, in +her own way, she has been striving to learn our language that she might +tell us. She has told me everything. Zetta, tell them--just what you +told me--" + +Father stopped his nervous pacing and sat down abruptly. And without +preface, quietly, sometimes haltingly, in her strangely small voice and +curiously clipped syllables, Zetta began her amazing narrative. + + + + + CHAPTER V + + CRIMSON SOUND! + + +On the afternoon of March 3, Freddie and I, in Miami, were summoned +by the War Department, which was installed here in temporary quarters +after the flight from Washington. We were greeted by the secretary, who +introduced us to a dozen or more grave-faced officials who were seated +around a large table in a cold, badly illuminated room. They were under +the impression that I had recently been to Porto Rico with my father; +they wanted further details from me, as an eyewitness, to supplement +the information which had been furnished them concerning the captive +girl from Xenephrene. + +I had not been to Porto Rico; I could tell them nothing, but I remained +at the conference with Freddie. Of him, they wanted a demonstration of +his invention. The War Secretary laughed, but it was a very hollow, +mirthless laugh. + +"You see, young man, we are almost in the position of grasping at +straws." + +By the general public, who reads of war conferences and grave official +decisions given with calm dignity in times of national crisis, the +inner workings of a government are never understood. The people +naturally picture men of great intellect, calmly, judicially weighing +problems of international law, and quietly giving their decisions, +as though the whole matter were controlled by some giant, insensate +machine of precision, incapable of error, undisturbed by human feeling. + +It is not so. Or, at least, I can vouch for the fact that in the +darkness of this afternoon of March 3, 1953, in the United States War +Department at Miami, it most certainly was not so. + +These gray-haired men were very human. Most were unshaved, with rumpled +hair and reddened eyes. Distraught, harassed; undecided; doubtful of +everything; striving to do the best they could, with the welfare of +millions of their people at stake. Conditions of unprecedented disaster +had for weeks assailed them. Under this culminating blow--invaders from +another world landing to attack what was once our greatest city--they +were all but broken. + +Very human indeed! The Secretary of the Navy sat savagely chewing on +the stump of an old cigar, blowing on his hands, cursing the cold +intervals. The Air Secretary was pouring hot coffee at the end of the +table, shoving a litter of papers out of his way to make room for the +cups. The stooped, middle-aged, haggard gentleman pacing the floor was +our President. + +"Grasping at a straw," said the War Secretary. + +In a sudden silence, through an open doorway to the room adjoining, I +could hear the clatter of the southern telegraphs, telephone bells, the +hiss and splutter of the radio and television instruments. + +"Close that door," the secretary added querulously. "You've brought +your model, Smith? Put it here on the table--tell us about it." + + * * * * * + +Freddie opened his apparatus and explained it briefly. His so-called +thermodyne principle. Though ultimately he had hoped to adapt it into +a motor of revolutionary design, his present model was merely a small +projector. + +"Projector of what?" demanded the President irritably. + +"Of heat, sir," Freddie answered. "I'll show you. This is a very small +model, of course, but it demonstrates the principle." + +They did not want any technicalities from Freddie. He explained only +that his apparatus, in this present small form, took a tiny electric +spark and built it up into a new form of radiant heat. + +"It is," said Freddie, "heat of totally different properties from +the kind with which we commonly deal. It travels--radiates, by the +diffusion of its electrons, more like light than heat. At a great +speed--I think possibly, at over a hundred thousand miles a second." + +He opened his apparatus. It consisted of a small, flat, metallic box, +curved to fit a man's chest. A disk, like a small electrode, to be +pressed against the skin. Freddie bared his chest and strapped it on. + +"I use," he said, "the tiny electrical impulse which the human body +itself furnishes. This, I amplify, build up and store in a battery." +Wires from the generator led to a small box which he opened to show +his audience--a box of coils, and a tiny row of amplifying tubes. He +put this in his pocket, with wires leading to the battery and the +projector. These were both in one piece--the projector a small metallic +funnel, with a trigger; a grid of wires was across its opened end; it +had a long metallic handle, in the hollow interior of which was the +battery where the charge was concentrated. + +"Electrons of heat under pressure," said Freddie. + +"Show us," said some one. + +Freddie erected a screen across the room--an insulating screen to kill +the heat-beam so that it could not injure the wall. The men moved aside. + +Freddie, after a moment to generate and concentrate the charge, raised +the muzzle. + +The thing hissed slightly; a dull violet beam sprang like light from +the projector. It struck the screen some twenty feet away, in a large +circle of fluorescence; in the dimness of the room it seemed like +phosphorescent water, landing in a spray and dissipating as it struck, +like a dissolving mist. + +Freddie cried, "Peter, hold something in it!" + +I took a sheet of paper, held it carefully into the beam. It shriveled, +blackened and burst into flame. Then a lead pencil--it melted off +midway of its length as I held it up. + +[Illustration: "I held a piece of paper in the beam. It shriveled +immediately, blackened and burst into flame."] + +Freddie snapped off the apparatus. "That's all, gentlemen. With +a large model, I would use a high voltage current for my original +impulse, instead of the tiny impulse of the human body." + +"How far will that beam carry?" the President demanded. + +"This one?" Freddie asked. "Or a maximum, full-sized projector?" + +"This one. Why talk about what you haven't got?" + +"About thirty-five feet, sir. Further, perhaps, if I concentrate +it--keep it from spreading. Say fifty feet. But at that distance its +temperature would not be very great." + +"How great?" + +"Two hundred degrees Fahrenheit." + +"How much is it at the muzzle?" + +"About twelve hundred." + +An effective range of thirty-five or fifty feet! They were all +disappointed. "We can't," said the War Secretary, "figure this thing in +the light of a large model we some time might be able to build. What +good is that?" + +The man beside me said abruptly: "This thing is useless to help us now, +gentlemen. But, in the future--do you know, I wouldn't say but what +this young fellow has hit upon something not unlike what our enemies +seem to be using--" + +The door from the adjoining room opened. A man said: "Davis has started +his flight. He's almost within sight of them now--shall I bring in the +screen?" + +"Bring it in," said the President. "Get these lights down--put that +away, Mr. Smith--we'll discuss that some other time--it's been very +interesting." + +Freddie hastily gathered up his apparatus. The lights in the conference +room were turned out; it was illumined only by the blue reflection +through the doorway. Men brought in a tel-vision screen some two feet +square; placed it upright on the table and we all gathered before it. +The instrument room door was closed. We were in the darkness save for +the vague silver radiance that came from the screen. + + * * * * * + +From the whispers around me I soon knew what was transpiring. The +invaders had landed on the east bank of the frozen Hudson, near the +suburb of Tarrytown. Xenephrene was at its closest point to the earth +now, which is what doubtless prompted the invasion. Xenephrene was +passing us; beginning to-day, the distance between the worlds would +grow greater. + +Presumably the invaders had landed on the night of February 28. It had +been snowing around New York City steadily for a week; but that night +was clear. Reports said that a great silver ball had been seen floating +down from the sky; later, from the ground, strange beams of colored +light were seen, moving slowly southward. And strange sounds were heard. + +But the information was confused and unauthentic. This last blizzard +had cut off all the New York area from the world. There was practically +no transportation; no wires remained standing; no radio-sending +stations were operating within all that region. + +How many people remained on Manhattan Island, no one could say. Very +few, probably. A deserted, congealed city, snow-buried, with its huge +buildings nothing now but giant monuments to a greatness which once had +been. The cold was worse than scientists prognosticated. Nothing could +get to New York now, save possibly dog-sleds, and the new type Arctic +planes; and very few of those were available. + +War against the invaders from Xenephrene! + +Our government bulletins of the day had assured the public that these +invaders would be held in check, attacked, held from moving further +south, and very soon exterminated. What deaths to our people they +had already caused, was not known. But it was evident that they were +hostile; a plane carrying refugees had passed near their lights. +Confused stories were told of melting, vanishing snow under red light; +and stories of another refugee plane attacked and destroyed by red +light and strange sound! Meaningless news! Yet terrible! + +The British Empire, from its capital in North Africa, offered us aid. +They were building the Arctic planes. The French government from its +headquarters in Tunis, preparing to move again south to the lower +Sahara, radioed its desire to help. Argentina and Chile, harassed with +their own problems in the new tropic heat, wanted to help if they could. + +Magnificent gestures, but they all meant very little. So far, nothing +had been done. A few of our planes had ventured near New York; and none +had so far been heard of since. Now, a huge Arctic plane, commanded +by this Davis, equipped with modern aircraft artillery, with radio +and a tel-vision image-finder, was making an experimental flight. A +companion plane, flown by the famous Robinson, was with it. Robinson +had the longest-range airplane gun of modern times; and he carried +bombs. His purpose was to try and get above the enemy; and Davis, with +his tel-vision and radio would report conditions as best he could. + +This attempt, then, was what now we were to witness. I have never been +present at so dramatic a scene as this one which took place on the +tel-vision mirror, and in the room around me. + +In the darkness the silver light from the screen vaguely illumined the +tense crowding figures. The highest officials of our government! No +calm judicial conference here! Tired, cold, anxious men, watching and +listening with bated breaths and thumping hearts. There had been a buzz +of whispered comments; the shifting of chairs; shuffling of feet. But +now there was silence. + +The screen image blurred for a moment as it was brought in from the +other room; but soon it cleared. I saw the cold, frosty stars in a +field of blue-black; far below, the dim vista of gray-white snow +shining in the starlight--a panorama of snow-laden country at night. +The image-finder was in the front of Davis's plane, pointing diagonally +downward. A swaying scene, diminished by the mirror, and by the two +thousand-foot altitude at which Davis was flying. + +Some one said: "Where are we? I don't recognize that landscape." + +"Long Island. He's heading for New York City. Hush! We'll throw in his +radio-sound." It was the voice of the War Secretary. "Grant, you said +you had connection." + +A man was fumbling with the miniature audiphone beside the mirror. We +heard the drone of Davis's plane; and then heard his voice, with words +indistinguishable as he spoke to the gunner with him. + +The President's voice said nervously: "Have you sending connection? If +we want to give him orders--where is the other plane? Isn't Robinson +around here?" + +Grant said: "Yes. He was visible awhile ago. Davis is going to fly over +New York--the enemy, he thinks, is still up in the Yonkers district." + + * * * * * + +I sat staring at the screen. Half an hour? Or two hours? I could not +have said. Swaying stars; a dim white swaying landscape. Then the +horizon dropped; stars covered everything; Davis was mounting. He +leveled at last. + +Dimly, far down, I could see the white configurations of Long Island +Sound, frozen into solid ice, white with piled snowdrifts, black where +the wind had swept it bare. A blurred, shifting scene, dizzying, but +sometimes steady and very clear. It tilted up--all land for a moment. + +I saw, momentarily as the plane swooped down, the great bridges over +the river from Long Island to Manhattan. Small as a child's toys. +Broken toy bridges, with ice piled upon them; cables dangling--the +older Brooklyn Bridge lay askew. A jam of river ice had wrenched at one +of its piers. + +It was a motionless world; the river of tangled, motionless ice-floes, +the frozen, motionless bay with hulks of vessels caught in it and +abandoned; and the great city--all congealed, stricken of motion in +every detail. + +And then we were over lower New York. The parks were wan, white blobs; +the streets were black canyons; the great buildings with their archways +and pedestrian levels in the crowded lower district stood like frozen +headstones--Davis swooped--I saw a great office building in which, it +seemed, the water system must have burst and flooded it when still +there was warmth inside; its facade was a mass of ice. The plane zoomed +up and only the stars were visible. + +[Illustration: Gaunt, ghostly in the moonlight, lay the frost-congealed +city of New York. Like frozen headstones the great buildings stood, +coated with glistening ice. Nowhere, on land or water, was there any +sign of life or motion.] + +Above the motor drone from the audiphone, the President's voice said: +"Ask him about Robinson. Where is he?" + +Then we saw Robinson's large quadru-plane with its helicopters folded, +its cabin hanging like a silver bullet beneath the lower wing. It +came swinging into our image from one side, and headed north into the +starlight. + +Abruptly we heard Davis's voice: "Above Central Park. It's piled level +as an Arctic snow-field. In the lower city there seemed no lights--saw +no sign of any one remaining. The enemy is in the open country up +ahead--northeast of the Yonkers district--Look! There now, you see the +enemy light!" + +At the distant northern horizon in the background of the image, a dull +radiance of red was visible. It seemed a crimson glow standing up into +the sky. Not the yellow of a reflected conflagration, but red--crimson +red. + +"Blood!" murmured the man beside me. "Crimson stain--" + +Davis's voice was saying: "I'll keep in sight of Robinson. He's +mounting. I'm cutting out my connection with you now--except the image +and the continuous one-way sound. You'll hear and see better. Hear and +see all that we do--I can begin to hear it now. Good-by to you all." + +His voice broke with the snap that indicated his connection was off. +The War Secretary cried: "Grant! Stop him! We must be able to talk with +him--give him orders! That fool--dare-devil--he's likely to do anything +just so we may see and hear as much as possible!" + +But the connection was broken. Davis, with that ominous, significant +"Good-by to you all," had cut out so that we might see and hear in full +volume. We could no longer communicate with him. + +The mirror was brighter and clearer with its greater power; the drone +of the motors came louder; and then dimmed suddenly as Davis evidently +threw in his mufflers. + +In the silence now, we heard another sound. The sound of the enemy! The +sound of that crimson radiance in the sky ahead! A low whine. It did +not seem electrical. A whine--more like a giant animal in distress. + +I listened, with a shudder thrilling me; and I know that every man in +the room must have felt the same. A queer thrilling shudder, as though +the very sound itself were physically affecting me with its vibrations. +It was very soft, now at first; and I was only hearing the faint, radio +echo of it; yet upon my senses it laid a singularly weird, uncanny +feeling of the diabolical. + + * * * * * + +The minutes passed. As the plane flew northward, the crimson stain +in the sky seemed spreading. And the whine increased; grew louder, +resolved itself now into a myriad undertones. Cries, muffled, faint, +aerial, yet somehow clear; screams, checked and then begun again; a +low, tiny throbbing--a myriad unearthly sounds, weirdly abnormal, like +nothing I had ever heard before, all blended as undertones to the one +great whine. + +The crimson radiance, screaming into the night! Light and sound +intermingled. Was this some strange weapon of a strange science which +the invaders from Xenephrene had brought to attack us? There was +something deadly in the aspect of that crimson radiance. And something +equally lethal in the gruesome sound which split the night around it. + +My thoughts were whirling in this fashion when I heard the muttered +words of the man next to me--murmuring to the man on his other side, +"That's weird! Vanderstuyft says that the girl from Xenephrene can see +and hear below the human scale! This is it--the infra-red made visible, +and its sounds brought up to our human ears! Weird--" + +Some one else was asking: "Is that light and that sound their weapon? +Where's the Robinson plane?" + +And the War Secretary said: "Hush! He's there--ahead. We're mounting." + +Nothing but sky again. A blood-red, night sky. The stars gleamed like +crimson jewels through the radiance. Then again, the Davis plane +leveled. We saw now that the invaders evidently were encamped in a +snowy stretch of what had been comparatively open country. The houses +which once were there, lay now under mounds of snow. A blank rolling +landscape; fences, roads, all gone beneath the billowing blanket of +white; the trees only were left, stark black sticks in patches. + +In an oval, perhaps a mile across its greatest diameter, the red beam +stood up into the sky. A barrage of crimson--not light, but sound! It +throbbed and screamed and whined its defiance! + +The two planes circled the radiance, some ten thousand feet up, and +several miles away. The Davis plane fired a shell; we heard the +dull muffled report, saw a yellow glare where it struck the red +beam and harmlessly exploded. But it struck low, where perhaps the +sound-vibrations were too intense. + +The planes mounted higher. We could see Robinson's ahead and above us! +He was closer to the crimson barrage. Trying to climb over it--to drop +a bomb. + +From this greater height, within the oval other lights showed, far down +on the snow. Tiny moving spots of vivid color. The enemy's encampment. +Davis was now at least at the twenty thousand foot level. Robinson was +still higher. In that deadly cold it seemed incredible; but still they +struggled up. + +At this height the crimson barrage was thin; once, overhead, I seemed +to see where it ended. The whine of it was fainter, but every gruesome +undertone still sounded clear. + +"He's trying it!" The man beside me blurted it aloud. Startled movement +sounded in the room; a chair pushed back with a rasp; tense murmurs; +shuffling feet. We stared. Robinson's plane darted in-- + +There was just an instant when I thought it was safely through. I could +see it clearly--the black outline of a bird stained crimson. It seemed +to hang motionless; then it fluttered; falling--and as it fell, like +a mist of black vapor it suddenly expanded; a black wraith of a plane +expanding, dissipating. It did not seem to reach the ground. It was +gone, dissolved into nothing visible, with only a howling, mouthing +sound from the crimson monster to mark its passing! + +A shiver swept me; I was cold, trembling. I heard some one near me cry +in horror: "Davis, he's--" and check himself. The screen was a blur of +crimson, with lurid spots of light on the ground showing through it. +Davis was heading downward in a swoop through the red beam! It spread +until the whole image before us was a crimson stain. + +The lights on the ground seemed coming up, leaping up, growing in size +as the plane dived at them. The room was a chaos of gruesome tiny +screams! We were in the crimson! It snapped with a myriad sparks. It +howled, squealed, screamed! An instant, but it seemed an eternity. Then +the red vanished. We were through it! By Heaven, through it! Safely +through! Diving at the ground! + +I saw that one of the spots of light had broadened to a green ghastly +glare on the snow-surface. Figures of men in human form standing there, +fore-shortened by the overhead perspective to huge heads and dwindling +bodies. Human forms; men of almost naked bodies, standing in the snow, +bodies painted green by the glare. Apparatus of war erected in the +snow--a bare spot where the snow was gone, and rock and earth showed +clean--a shimmer that seemed a pool of water lying warm with ice around +it. + +A glimpse--no more than a second or two undoubtedly. Then the scene, +rushing upward, was fading. The confusion of sounds and blurred lights +suddenly grew faint--faded--vanished into darkness and silence! + +The tel-vision screen was dead--a blank silver surface staring at us +like a corpse. The audiphone was mute. + +Davis's plane had vanished like its fellow into nothingness before it +reached the ground! + +This was the afternoon of the 3rd of March. That night, while Freddie +and I were at our boarding place, the news reached us that a silver +ball of invaders from Xenephrene had landed in the twilight of the +Venezuelan coast--the heart of the region which in all our western +hemisphere we had come to prize most dearly! + + + + + CHAPTER VI + + "IF I HAD BUT KNOWN!" + + +"Look here, young man," said the War Secretary, "can you operate a +plane of the Arctic A type?" + +I could, and so could Freddie, I said. The War Secretary continued his +pacing of the room. It was about nine o'clock of the morning of March +15--black as midnight outdoors; cold, with clouds scudding low over the +Florida keys, clouds which promised snow. The War Secretary had sent +for us. + +Conditions were worse everywhere, it seemed now by this morning's +news--as though each day brought its disasters worse than any which +had gone before. The invaders from Xenephrene were obviously almost +impregnable to our attack. The efforts of Robinson and Davis had proved +it, if nothing else. It was obvious also that the invaders at New York +City so far had made no offensive move. Their barrage--the crimson +howling sound, or light, whatever it might be--was merely their defense. + +"Heaven knows," the secretary exclaimed, "what weapons they may have +to loose when they begin an attack!" + +And now, another huge silver ball had landed in Venezuela--on the +coastal plain near La Guayra. In the deserted frozen wastes of New +York State the invaders were not an immediate, serious menace. But in +Venezuela it was a far different condition. + +La Guayra was the main receiving port for all our refugee ships. A +twilight had fallen there, but the temperature still was mild. It was +colder up in Caracas, but the people thronged there, and with heroic +efforts the Government and the citizens were doing their best to +receive them. + +It was not a wholly unselfish effort. With the new climate, Colombia, +Venezuela, the former jungles of the Amazon basin of Brazil; Ecuador, +Peru, even the mountain fastnesses of Bolivia, and the arid coast of +north Chile--this was the land of promise. It was the best, the only +tolerable all-year climate left to the Western World. Here the new +great cities would spring up--centers of industry and commerce; here +would be the new great fields of grain; the cattle ranges. + +But here, in the midst of the confusion of arriving settlers, the enemy +from Xenephrene had landed! We had no details; we only knew that around +the silver ball a barrage of red howling sound was standing up into the +sky. Within that circular mile of the red barrage, all that had been +evidence of our human life--houses, trees, people--all was vanished! + +The War Secretary stopped before me. "I've radioed your father this +morning, Peter. Told him to send that Xenephrene girl up here to us at +once! We've got to do something. We must learn if we can what these +unearthly enemies are like--do scientifically what we can to oppose +them." + +He gestured at me vehemently. "You Hollanders are very stubborn, young +Peter. Your father told me he was very busy--he'd have full information +for me in a day or two! That's the scientist for you! Taking it +methodically, with that damn scientific routine, when a day or two is +an eternity just now!" + +I regarded Freddie. We did not smile; in these terrible days there was +not a smile left in us. But Freddie nodded. + +"That's father's way," I said. "But--" + +"Well, I told him I was sending a special plane down there at once to +get him and the girl. The Venezuelan Government is demanding details of +us. Every thirty minutes Caracas calls me up. Makes a fool of us--a +girl of this unknown enemy race right in our hands and we don't produce +her! Your father said, 'Good! Send Peter and young Fred Smith--I want +to see them anyway.'" + +There was nothing that could have pleased Freddie and myself better. +The secretary offered us a pilot, but we did not want one. We started +that morning, armed with legal papers, given us jocularly, but with +serious intent, nevertheless, and commanding father's presence with +Zetta in Miami the next day. + + * * * * * + +It was eleven o'clock when we got away in the big Arctic A plane. A +black morning with swift, low clouds, and a wind from the north. Flying +southeast, we had scarcely left the Bahamas behind us when the weather +cleared. Cold starlight shone on a dark, cold ocean. Icebergs had been +seen down this far, but we did not chance to pass any now. But we saw +many scurrying steamships. + +In some four hours we raised the Morrow light of San Juan and I turned +southwest, to strike the coast beyond Arecibo. Flying low, we headed +in, over the line of breakers on the white beach. Columbus landed near +here, not so many lifetimes ago. Yet how different was the world then! + +The tumbled mountains rising behind the sea which Columbus had +described to Isabella rose before us now. The same shape; every tiny +peak undoubtedly the same. But they were not the vivid warm green which +had so enchanted the mariner. These were cold and blue gray, and the +tops of them were white with snow. + +It was mid-afternoon when, in the darkness, we dropped with a roar upon +Dan's landing stage at the foot of the knoll. We leaped from the plane +and hurried up the hill, to see Dan and father, and Hulda and the Cains +waving at us from the veranda, and a small, strange white figure of a +girl standing among them. + +If one could only glimpse the future, even for a brief moment! It makes +me shudder sometimes to think how blindly we are forced to tread our +way through life, raising each foot without the knowledge of what will +happen before it reaches the ground! That afternoon, for instance, I +was very happy to burst in upon father and Dan. If Freddie and I had +known what was impending, we would have done anything rather than +arrive at that moment. If we had delayed our arrival even an hour! +Yet, even in a seeming tragedy, there is evidence of some all-guiding +purpose. We may not see it, we may deny it, but I think that always it +is there. + +We came upon the plantation house within a moment after Zetta had begun +her narration. She had told it to father; she was beginning it for Dan +and the others, when the sound of our arriving plane checked her. + +The few remaining hours of that afternoon and evening were crowded +with the confusion of our arrival, our exchange of news and ideas, and +listening to the world news from the radio. Zetta did not tell her +story that afternoon or that evening. Father, with a quizzical smile, +looked over the legal papers with which we served him. + +"Good enough, boys! I'll obey. We'll take Zetta and go up to Miami +to-morrow morning." He turned to Dan. "You come with us. Zetta will +tell her story to the authorities in Miami, just as she's told it to +me. And I'll have some interesting scientific data for them, I promise +you." + +He gestured with a voluminous sheaf of papers--his scientific notes +on Zetta's narrative and on the girl's mental and physical being. He +gestured with the papers and then stuck them back in his pocket. Fate! +Providence! Call it what you will. He did not hand them to Dan or to +Freddie or to me--he stuck them back in his pocket! + +The news of Hulda's and Dan's engagement brought me pleasure. I shook +Dan's hand warmly and kissed my sister as she flung herself into my +arms. Little Hulda was radiant. Dan's handsome, tanned face was flushed +as he received our congratulations; and when they were over, he stood +towering over Hulda, with his arms around her as she clung to him. + +Happy lovers, snatching at their happiness even in the midst of the +world's turmoil! Happy that afternoon and evening. + + * * * * * + +I shall never forget my meeting with Zetta as they introduced me to +her that afternoon. She stood in the center of the room, and something +momentarily diverted the rest of them from us; for an instant we were +alone. I stared at her. + +What futile words of greeting I may have uttered I do not know, and I +think that she said nothing. I saw a quaintly beautiful young girl, +curiously different in a way not to be defined from any girl I had ever +before beheld. A strange, weird beauty. I took her hand as she held it +out in the gesture they had taught her. + +I have mentioned Dan's feelings under similar circumstances. Dan was in +love with Hulda; the instinct of all that was upright and true within +him rose to cast out this surge of alien emotion. Not so with me--I was +wholly fancy free. + +I took Zetta's hand. It seemed then as though the contact might +suddenly become beyond my power to break. Her gaze held mine. I saw +a sudden startled look in her eyes, and then saw something else--the +mirrored play of emotions like my own. + +Her body seemed to sway toward me; I could see and feel her +withstanding its sway. An attraction between us. Do I mean that +literally? Scientifically? I do not know. There is, perhaps, between +the sexes on earth such an attraction. Or it may perchance be +psychological, emotional, nothing more. + +I felt it with Zetta, and I could see that she felt it and was +startled. But in her eyes there was more than surprise--a swift melting +look of tenderness. + +Mrs. Cain bustled up to us. "Isn't she a darling little thing, Peter? +We all love her. Oh, dear me, these terrible, strange times!" + +Our hands broke apart. Was it love we had felt in that instant? Could +love be possible, could it be right between a man and a woman so +different? Does the Creator intend the worlds thus to be joined, or is +the isolation He has imposed upon each of them an evidence that such +cannot be? + +Love between Zetta and me? I do not know. But all that afternoon and +evening, I found my eyes turning to her, and found her somber gaze upon +me. + +We chanced to approach each other several times, and always I was +conscious of the attraction of her nearness. Not so strong as at +first. All my instinct, my reason, was prepared for it now; a thousand +barriers of conventionality and time and place and circumstance +contributed subconsciously to resist it. But it was there, invisibly, +intangibly holding us. + + * * * * * + +The evening's radio news brought a measure of relief to the world. +From New York came the report that the invaders had vanished. Moved +somewhere else, perhaps--but where it was not known. + +Father made one comment; his words, which proved to be true +enough, linger clear in my memory. "They left New York yesterday +afternoon, after the attack by Robinson and Davis. There are not +two vehicles--only one! It left New York and landed last night in +Venezuela! It may leave there presently." His glance turned to Zetta. +"I have reason to think that the invaders will voluntarily withdraw +from the earth. Very soon, I imagine--while Xenephrene is still +comparatively near us." + +True enough! At midnight that night the radio told us that the +Xenephrene vehicle, with all its people, had left Venezuela. The night +was heavily overcast, with a rain and wind storm all up through Central +America and the lower Caribbean; and north of sixteen degrees there was +snow. Where the invaders had gone, no one knew. The world was anxiously +awaiting news of their next landing place. + +We sat up for perhaps an hour. It was snowing outside, with a howling +wind that swirled the snow about the eaves of the little plantation +house. At about one o'clock we all bade each other good night and went +to bed. + +Ah, if we had but known! + +I awoke to find Freddie shaking me. He and I had slept together. It was +four in the morning, and the house was noisy with the storm outside. +Freddie was alarmed--he did not know why. Something had awakened +him--we decided it was a thumping which we now heard in the living +room, a door banging in the wind, with a queer, broken rattle to it. + +There is a sense of evil which comes to any one awakened unexpectedly +in the night. I felt it very strongly now. And Freddie's face was very +white and solemn in the glow of the night light which he had switched +on. + +"The door to the porch," I said. "It's blown open--it's banging." + +We went out to close it. The living room was very cold; snow was +blowing in through the outer doorway. We turned on the light. The +door was not only open, it was hanging askew, half torn from its +hinges. More than that, part of its wooden framework was gone. Not +broken--vanished--as if melted off. A leprous wreck of a door, hanging +there, banging with a thump and rattle in the wind! + +No need to tell us what had happened--I think we both knew then. The +door to father's bedroom stood open. He was not there. The bed had +been occupied; there was no sign of a struggle, no abnormal disorder +anywhere about the house, except for that dismembered front door, which +had been locked. + +Our light and our voices awakened Dan and his parents. They came out +from their rooms. But Hulda did not come, nor Zetta! Their bedroom +doors, like father's stood open; but the occupants were gone. + +Horrified moments followed, during which we searched the house and the +buildings near it. There was no evidence of any kind of how, in the +noisy night, while the rest of us slept, father, Hulda and Zetta had +been spirited away. + +The terrified elder Cains remained in the house. Hastily dressing, Dan, +Freddie and I rushed to the corral. The chilled little ponies welcomed +us. We saddled, and in single file, slowly against the wind and driving +snow, we rode out into the night. + +There was no surprise left for us when we reached the "Eden tract" in +the valley by the caves where once the Cains' treasured fruit trees had +grown so luxuriantly. It was all a dim gray expanse of snow, with the +naked tree branches showing in black, forlorn rows. + +The trunks of the coconut trees stood like huge black sticks in a +patch of white. But among them there was no small silver vehicle. The +guards had been withdrawn a week before. There was no evidence here of +anything. + +The heavy falling snowflakes would have covered up even recent +footprints; there was only the depression in the sand and snow to mark +where the vehicle had been. + +The last communication was broken. The last remaining evidence of +Xenephrene upon our earth was gone! + + + + + CHAPTER VII + + MYSTERIOUS STAR, IMPERTURBABLY SHINING! + + +More than twice seventeen months went by. For me and for Dan the +progress of the world, it seemed then, must always be in cycles of +seventeen months. That is the length of time which Xenephrene took +periodically to overtake and pass us in our orbit. Almost between us +and the sun, every seventeen months; and at such times she was at her +closest points to us, some sixteen to nineteen million miles away. Not +very far, in terms of astronomical measurement, but to Dan and me very +far indeed. + +Two of these passings came and went. We had hoped there might be some +sign from Xenephrene; even something hostile would had seemed to us +better than nothing. Dan and I often sat in the night, gazing at the +great purple-white star. + +Romantic, mysterious world, imperturbably blazing up there! It held +captive for Dan the woman he loved; for me, a beloved sister and my +dear father. Held them captive--if indeed they were alive, which is +the best we could hope--held them, and it gave no sign! Beautiful, +mysterious world--and sinister! Gazing up at it, my fancy roamed. + +What strange sights and sounds and beings were there! We had had but a +little glimpse, no more--and then it was snatched away. + +It is not important now for me to recount what these months brought +on earth. The adjustment to new conditions, new climate, new night +and day. Volumes of history describe it fully--the myriad shifting +events over the world's great surface, the new nations, new mingling +of races--everything new, it would seem. Everything but human nature, +the old characteristics, love, hate, jealousy, friendship, greed, +envy--nothing on earth has ever changed them, and nothing will. + +We did not know why father, Hulda and Zetta were abducted; but +that they were captured by the invaders and with them returned to +Xenephrene we felt sure. Why the invaders came at all, and then so +hastily withdrew, we could not guess. Zetta knew, and she had told +father. But the secret went with them. Perhaps, we decided, the Creator +intends this veil of mystery between the worlds. If that thought could +be spiritual consolation to Dan and me, we tried to make the most of it. + +Dan was distracted. Vainly he and I sought some way by which we might +get to Xenephrene. It seemed impossible. Before that terrible winter +when what they now call the "Great Change" began, any serious talk of +going to a neighbor planet was always laughed at. But no one laughed +now. + +Scientists told Dan and me that at present, for us of earth, the thing +was impossible. If father had left his notes, perhaps, instead of +putting them in his pocket that fatal afternoon; if some vestige of +apparatus had been left behind by the invaders; if only we still had +even a portion of the mechanism of Zetta's small vehicle, that our +scientists might study it, try to learn its secret--Ah, those ifs! They +are all encompassed in the one phrase, which each of us mortals at one +time or another in life has murmured sadly: "If only I had known!" + +I was far older now in spirit than that winter thirty-five months +before. We do not age in regular progression, but in spurts of stressed +mental and physical suffering. I aged, for though I lost a sister and +father, something else I lost, less tangible but unforgettable. The +girl Zetta--the loss of what might have been, for me and for her. + +Love born of a glance, now to stay with me always? It was not that. I +was not so youthful that I could cherish such romantic illusion. + +But this I knew. Something, that memorable afternoon when she and I +first joined glances, sprang into being. As though over the gap from +one world to another, from a man to a woman and back again, it sprang +and clung reluctant to be broken. And it left its mark upon my mind +and spirit. It was not to be; I believed that fully. But, it had been, +the consciousness was within me that it would have been a thing very +beautiful. + +And I was older; and, I think, a better man, just for the memory. + +Thirty-five months! A dreary, hopeless interval to Dan and me. Dreary, +for in the midst of all the world's turmoil we seemed to stand apart; +not actors, spectators merely, with our minds and spirits up there +where the great purple star was shining. Thirty-five hopeless months, +for it seemed that what we had lost was forever gone. + +On February 4, 1956, Dan and I were living in Porto Rico. Freddie +was in Miami. Father's post in Southern Chile was taken by one of +his fellow scientists. The world rolls on! Father was lost, his post +filled, and himself almost forgotten. How fatuously we mortals attach +importance to ourselves! We strut our little moment upon the stage, +some in the spotlight, some shrinking in the shadows by the back drop. +We miss our cues, fumble, and are abashed or terrified. But in a moment +no one cares. The curtain rings down; up again, with the old play, but +new scenes and other actors; and the changing audience forgets we ever +were on the stage at all. + +Father's post was filled. Freddie and I had been down there in Chile +one summer, but we did not like it and we came back. Summer! The very +word had lost its meaning. They were beginning now to call it the Day. + + * * * * * + +We came back in June, chasing the daylight, and located in Porto Rico. +Dan and his father were engaging in the new agriculture. The daylight +and twilight months in the West Indies were found favorable for the +raising of vegetables. Every one was groping. What could or could not +be done was as yet scarcely known. But it promised to be a profitable +business. Food of any kind, anywhere in the world, at any time, found a +ready market. All the world governments were engaged in its purchase, +its storage, and its distribution. + +A new era was beginning; and in it some saw a more rational order than +in the old. I am no economist; yet now I could see quite clearly the +fallacy of much that the world had previously thought was best. Tariff +walls between the nations were gone now. The world in its necessity +became one big family, working to maintain itself as best it could. + +In the daylight in Porto Rico, we were raising vegetables to feed the +people who were living in the darkness and cold of the south. Six +months later, they would be doing the same for us. + +It is not my purpose to indulge in economic theories here, though Dan +and I often discussed them. Freddie was not interested. We wanted him +with us; but though he came to Porto Rico, he stayed in San Juan, +often going up to Miami. The National Capital was still there; and +Freddie had interested the government in his invention. + +The world catastrophe had brought a great stimulus to scientific +invention. New devices, born of the necessity of totally new world +conditions, were being developed. Every government was ready to help +with funds. Freddie had perfected his motor, financed by our government. + +More important than that, however, they were interested in producing +his heat-ray projector in more powerful form. His new projector, he +told us, was very nearly ready. Not for war purposes, of course. With +characteristic thoughtlessness, the world had already almost forgotten +the brief invasion from Xenephrene. Such a thing as that naturally +could never happen again. And after what the world had been through, +war between our own races was unthinkable. + +Freddie's heat-ray, he said, would be used in the six months' Night +against the cold. It had a myriad uses. With it, a ship might blaze a +path down a frozen river. Water power might be utilized further into +the long Night; why, a city might even be sprayed with its beams and be +kept spring-like despite the cold! Visions! But by such visions science +moves ahead into the realism of achievement! + +That long Night of '55 and '56 Dan and I spent housed in, with the +comparative comfort of our newly rebuilt and heated plantation house. +Throughout January and February it snowed heavily; the tumbled little +mountains of Porto Rico were solid white. + +Sometimes the leaden sky would clear; the stars and moon would glitter +on the snow, so bright one could almost read outdoors. Our winter moon +was magnificent. The moon's orbit about the earth was very little +changed from before; its plane had shifted with us, scientists said, +and the moon was pursuing very nearly its old path relative to us. + +Dan and I had a small Arctic A flyer, and sleighs. We did not use +the plane much. The indolence of the long night of enforced idleness +was upon us. Most of the world was learning how to work hard in the +daylight months, and to do nothing gracefully through the months of +darkness. We read our books; listened to the radio; studied, planned +and talked. + +It would have been very pleasant, had there not been that constant +sense of what we had lost. Father, Hulda--and Zetta. I had spoken very +little of Zetta to Dan. The dreams of what might have been, were my +own; even with him, I could not share them. + +And then came February 4, 1956. The long night was fully upon us, the +twilight days were passed--midwinter was in early April. Dan and I had +been out after breakfast for a drive in the sleigh. We had returned for +luncheon with Dan's parents; and I was on the veranda, enveloped in +furs, pacing up and down in the snow. Dan, with his cigar, came out and +joined me. + +There is sometimes a very queer directness to the fate which governs +our lives--and a very great unexpectedness. We walk in the dark, with +an open road or a chasm yawning before us, all unaware of which it may +be. Or we may be standing at the threshold of a shining garden of hope +and happiness, walking in the dark toward its gate, with heavy heart +because we do not see it, or realize it is there. + +Dan and I were like that now. January, 1956, had been the second time +that Xenephrene passed at its closest point to earth. We had hoped that +something might happen to give us news of father. But nothing did. + +Gradually our hope had been dying. The January days dragged through +their brief twilights into the solid winter night. We gave up hope. +Xenephrene was drawing ahead of the earth again, with millions of miles +of lengthening distance between the worlds. No sign from the great +purple star; and we both felt that now all hope of hearing from father +was gone. + +Thoughts like these possessed me as I paced the veranda that afternoon. +They were in Dan's mind too, I am sure; but when he joined me we +neither of us spoke of them. + + * * * * * + +It was clear and cold. The snow on the veranda crunched and creaked +under our tread. Beyond the incongruous coconut railing the knoll-top +showed white, with a blue-white beam of light from one of the side +windows slanting out on it. There was no moon; a deep purple sky, with +the sharply glittering silver stars. To the south, below the horizon, +we knew that the sun at this hour was hovering. But it was too far +down even to pale the stars now. Xenephrene was down there near it, +invisible to us of the north-- + +Dan and I paced in silence; or talked idly of the now commonplace +things of the new era of our world. + +"They claim they can keep the falls of the Iguazu open all year," said +Dan. "And send the power by radio--even up as far as here." + +The distribution of electric current by wireless had been greatly +improved recently. It seemed really practical now. In a few years +Niagara, in the Day, might supply power and light to the dark, frozen +cities of the south throughout their Night. + +There had been most disastrous floods throughout the world when, with +the coming daylight, the snow and ice had melted. Watercourses were +unable to handle the sudden, abnormal flow. + +But new channels were forming; nature and man alike were making +adjustments to the new conditions. + +"If they could send us heat from the south," said Dan. "I mean direct, +natural heat. These new transformers of the power-waves may be all +right, but--" + +"Freddie can--I don't mean send it, but produce it, at any rate--" + +"Some day," said Dan, "we'll be able to spray all our land here with +that contrivance of his. Hah! That would be a great idea, wouldn't it?" +He chuckled with an ironical gibe at the absent Freddie; but still he +was more than half serious. + +"Imagine us, Peter, getting out in the June twilight, helping the snow +to melt by spraying it with heat--warming up the frozen soil, getting +it plowed and planted a month earlier. If we could get our perishable +vegetables down to the Argentine ahead of the others, they would bring +mighty big prices--I was reading what might be done with tomatoes, +Peter--" + +He checked himself abruptly, gripped my arm with a force that whirled +me around. We stood at the veranda rail. + +"Heavens, Peter, look at that!" + +From overhead near the zenith, a shooting star came blazing down. I had +never seen one so brilliant. A great yellow-red ball of fire, with a +flame of tail. It seemed to take long seconds as it soundlessly fell +across the sky before us--down with a blaze to the northern horizon +where the Caribbean lay, a dim, dark purple in the starlight. + +We breathed again. "That didn't burn itself out," said Dan. "I'll wager +that was a meteorite--actually came down somewhere--" + +"Northwest," I said. "Florida way. It certainly seemed close to us, +didn't it?" + +We went back to our pacing. There was nothing particularly unusual +in seeing a meteor fall across the sky. But we were both silent, +wondering. We had caught just a glimpse of the gateway to our renewed +hope; we did not know it, but we both sensed it. + +An hour passed. From within the house, old man Cain called, "Oh, +Dan--come here, listen to this." + +The radio announcer was relaying an item from Curaçao. In the twilight +at Willamstadt they had seen what seemed to be a meteorite fall into +the sea near the Venezuelan coast. + +"Another!" exclaimed Dan. + +An hour later, still another meteorite was reported. It had fallen +somewhere in the region of Victoria Nyanza--in the lake, perhaps, or +along its shores. + +Still, this seemed nothing remarkable. But about five o'clock the +radio-phone rang with our private call. It was Freddie, in Miami. The +gateway to our hopes swung wide to receive us. Dan answered the call; +I stood at his elbow, trembling with excitement--at first premonitory, +then justified. + +In the silence I could hear the tiny sound of Freddie's voice. + +"Oh, Dan? Dan Cain?" + +"Yes. That you, Freddie?" + +"Yes. Listen--I'm in Miami. A meteorite fell--they've got it--Okechobee +region. Listen--it cracked open. Was pretty well burned--but a big one. +Hollow inside! They cracked into it--they found--Oh, Dan, they phoned +me from Moorehaven just a little while ago. They"--Freddie's voice +broke with his excitement. + +"They--what, Freddie? Take it easy--can't understand you." + +"I'm coming, Dan. By plane--I'll get away about eight o'clock. Peter +there? Good! See you about midnight--soon as they bring it here to me, +I'll bring it to you." + +"Bring what? What, Freddie?" + +"The cylinder. Whatever it is--haven't seen it. They're bringing +it--they've got it. Heat-proof, insulated metal cylinder--they say it's +engraved 'Peter Vanderstuyft, Porto Rico--Rush.' I'm bringing it, Dan. +Tell Peter. It's a message from Xenephrene! It must be! A message from +Peter's father!" + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + + FROM ACROSS THE VOID + + +We helped Freddie unload the cylinder from his plane. He arrived about +midnight, flying alone with his precious burden. It was a cylindrical +metal container, some ten feet long by three feet in diameter--a +strange looking, purple-brown metal, smooth and shining like burnished +copper. White metal handles were on the cylinder--and down one of its +bulging sides was crudely engraved the inscription "Peter Vanderstuyft, +Porto Rico. Rush." + +The thing weighed perhaps two hundred pounds. It was warm, yet clammy +to the touch, as though sweating. And though it appeared smooth, under +my finger tips I could feel that it was pitted and scarred--blistered +as though by tremendous heat. + +We labored up the hill with it, and deposited it on the floor in the +Cain's living room, gathering over it, wondering how it might be +opened. The message from Xenephrene! It had come at last; and abruptly +I seemed to feel that this was not remarkable. We had been waiting for +it; and here it was, at our feet here, strangely fashioned--mute, but +waiting passively to give up its secret. + +We were all trembling. Freddie had discarded his furs and helmet, but +his hands were stiff with the cold. + +"How do we get into it? They didn't want to open it--I didn't try +either. It's the message, Peter." + +Dan was on the floor beside the cylinder, running his hands over its +surface. His father and mother crowded upon him. Old man Cain's jaw was +dropped with his awe; Mrs. Cain chattered, "Land sakes! What next! Dan, +what is it? Is it from Professor Vanderstuyft? Is he all right? And +dear little Hulda? She's all right, isn't she, Dan? That's what this +means, doesn't it? My heavens, these queer times that have come to the +world--" + +Dan jumped to his feet. "Yes, mother, that's what we hope it means." +He kissed her; pushed her away; firm, but very gentle. "You go to bed, +mother. Father, you go too. We'll be working here some hours--in the +morning we'll tell you all about it." + +Freddie, Dan and I were left alone. The double doors and double windows +were closed against the cold; a broad coal fire burned in the grate; +the room was warm and silent; and blue with the light-tube, which cast +its beam down upon the cylinder. Freddie said, with a hush in his +voice: "We'd have been afraid to try and open it anyway, in Miami. +You--you don't suppose it would explode if we pound at it, do you?" + +The sweating thing was strangely sinister, for all its friendly +inscription. Dan was again bending over it. Freddie added: + +"It was in a meteorite--some strange rock, or metal. Evidently not +natural--artificially made. It was burned, fused and shapeless by the +heat of its fall through our atmosphere. You can see where the heat has +burned into the cylinder--" + +"Hush!" said Dan abruptly. "Listen!" + +With our ears close to the metal a tiny hum was audible. The thing +was humming inside. Alive! Vibrant! Humming with that strange, almost +gruesome whine which brought to my memory the crimson sound of the +Xenephrene invaders when Robinson and Davis had attacked them. + +It was half an hour before, with the utmost caution, we got the +cylinder open. Upon one of its sides we found four slightly raised +circles and four small depressions, numbered from one to eight. And the +words, crudely scratched on the metal, "Peter, press one, three, five +and eight." + +A lid came off. We had not seen the cracks where it fitted. It stuck, +fused by heat; but we carefully forced it, and at length it came away. + +The human mind is subject to queer vagaries. There was just an instant, +as we lifted the metal panel, that there flashed to me the vague horror +that this was a coffin; that we were about to behold a corpse--wrapped +and sent to us like a mummy. Hulda! Zetta! A ghastly gibe, sent to mock +us from this sinister unknown world! + +"Ah!" breathed Dan. My leaping heart quieted; but the cold sweat stood +in beads on my forehead from those fleeting, horrible fancies. + + * * * * * + +The interior of the cylinder was divided into orderly compartments. +Metal boxes; cones; cubes of metal; diaphragms; coils of white +wire--packed, wrapped and lashed in orderly array; each piece seemingly +set in springs to absorb the landing shock. A white lining was inside +the cylinder, smooth as mica--insulation against the heat, perhaps. +A strange, vague odor arose; and we could hear the humming now more +plainly. It seemed to come from several metal globes the size of a +man's head. Dead black metal; four or five of them were packed near the +center of the cylinder. Around them a dim radiance was hovering. + +"Wait!" admonished Dan. "Take it easy!" Freddie, in his excitement, +would have begun rummaging. "Wait! There must be some instructions +somewhere. Don't touch anything until you know what you're doing." + +We found the box of instructions; it was, indeed, the most prominent +thing before us, though we had overlooked it--a flat metal case some +twelve inches square and half as thick, packed edge-wise. Clipped to +its top was a white roll of what seemed paper. + +Dan gingerly removed it; unrolled it--a translucent white animal skin, +possibly. And with writing on it! Ah! At last the doubts and fears that +were within us all were dispelled. Father's handwriting--his firm, +smooth unhurried script. + +"To my son, Peter Vanderstuyft. In Porto Rico care of Ezra John Cain, +or the Amalgamated Broadcasters' Association, United States of America. +Please forward at once." + +And then the words: "Peter, detailed instructions inside. We are +safe--your father, Hulda and Zetta." + +Ah! Zetta! The gates to the shining garden were swung wide for me then! +Zetta! + +We sat around the table under the blue light-tube with father's +communication, which we found inside the flat metal case, spread before +us. A voluminous manuscript--nearly a hundred hand-written pages. +Part of it was an all too brief letter; then there were pages of +instructions, scientific data, notes and diagrams. We glanced at them +hurriedly, and in a voice which in spite of me I could not hold steady, +I read the letter aloud to Dan and Freddie. + + Under Gardens, Xenephrene, + Earth-date, January, 1956. + + Peter, I trust and pray that this, or one of its duplicates which + I am dispatching, may reach you. I am launching five cylinders. + Any one of them will answer the purpose, but if you can possess + yourself of more than one, so much the better. I suggest, before + you read further, that you guard against taking any stranger into + the confidence of this communication. I ex-Smith and Dan Cain. I + want them with you to read this; I know that I can depend upon them + both, as I can upon you, my son. + +I glanced up from the page to the solemn, intent faces of Freddie and +Dan. Neither spoke. Freddie's face was flushed with excitement; his +breath came fast between parted lips. But Dan was pale and grim; his +lean brown fingers gripped the table edge with whitened knuckles. There +was a brief silence. + +"Go on," said Dan tensely. + +I went back to the page. "He wants secrecy." Unconsciously I lowered my +voice. Freddie swung to the radio table to verify that the lever of the +outgoing audiphone was well off. + +I went on reading: + + If this should fall into other hands than those of my son, I beg + that you who read it will read no further than this paragraph. + Or, if you do, that loyalty to your nation--to your world--will + bid you hold it secret. And if you value your own welfare--the + very lives of all those who are most dear to you--at once you will + deliver this cylinder and its contents intact to the government + of the United States of America, with instructions that my son, + Peter Vanderstuyft, of the Amalgamated Broadcasters Association be + located, and the cylinder delivered to him. Or to Frederick Smith, + Royal Dutch Astronomical Bureau, Anco, Chile; or to Daniel J. Cain, + Factor, Porto Rico. + + Peter, there is much that I would tell you--but I have no time now. + We are safe. Hulda and Zetta are with me, and well. I have been + ill, but am better now. The things, Peter, that I have seen and + done! To name them, even if I could find the words, would be to no + purpose. + + I am trying to communicate with you--and Dan and Frederick--to + allay your immediate fears for our safety. But more than that, + Peter! The threat against our earth--as we saw it thirty-four + months ago--is far greater now! For that, I would caution you--or + any one loyal to earth who may read this--of the necessity for + secrecy. + + Enemies of earth--of a character, a plane of being, oh, Peter, you + could not guess--may be on earth now. I do not know. I fear they + are. Some may have made the trip at the conjunction of seventeen + months ago. We suspect they did. Or if not, we fear some may be + embarking from here now. + + Guard yourself from them with secrecy of your actions and a + constant watchfulness. I can suggest no other ways. If I could come + to you--if I could bring Hulda back to you--I would make the trip + instead of sending this message. But we cannot, or at least I think + it would not be advisable. + + I am needed here. Needed by this world--by all in it which stands + for right and justice and adherence to the laws of the Almighty + God who rules all of us of every world. And I think also that + the welfare of our beloved earth can best be safeguarded by my + remaining here for the present. + + I will come to the point, Peter. There is so much for me to set + down beyond a mere letter to you with explanations which well may + wait until later. I want you here, Peter! And--if they think it + advisable to trust their lives to such an adventure--I want Dan and + Frederick to come with you. Will you come? + + I ask you as though I were inviting you across one of our little + oceans at home! Yet I--so much more fully than yourselves--realize + what this is that I so casually ask! You are young--all three of + you--and the spirit of adventure and recklessness runs high in + healthy youth. I am playing upon it. I need not ask. I know you + will come, if--as I pray may be the case--I have now provided you + with the means-- + +My hand holding his written page was shaking. Freddie burst out, with a +return of his old boyish enthusiasm, "I should say we would come. What +a question!" I heard Dan murmur: "At last!" + +Within me was a surge of emotion. A thrill of exaltation, mingled +perhaps with a thrill of fear at the unknown crowding now so close upon +me. And the thought of Zetta, mentioned so briefly in these written +words from across the void! Yet from every line her name leaped at me, +sang soundlessly in my head. + +The image of her was never more clear in my memory--here in this very +room where we had clasped hands and stood and swayed and wondered +what Nature might be doing to us who, an instant before, had been +strangers--an image of her seemed here now hovering in the shadows +of the room corner behind the tense, bent figure of Dan. So clear +that I almost felt something of her which had come with this letter; +some unspoken longing of hers which she had sent to me as, perhaps in +silence, she had watched father writing. + +I think there _was_ something. I felt it; and within me, my spirit was +murmuring a welcome and an answer. + +"Go on," said Dan gruffly. "Read it, Peter." + +I shuffled the papers. "There isn't much more. He's evidently--" + +"He's sent us the materials--the mechanisms out of which to build a +vehicle," exclaimed Freddie. "It's evident that--" + +Dan murmured. "Too late this time! Seventeen months--seventeen months +more to wait--" + +I laughed; an intoxication was upon me at the thought of it. "Wait, +nothing! We'll be busy, don't worry about that! If we can--Freddie, +what the devil?" + + * * * * * + +Freddie had leaped to his feet; he was standing with his head cocked, +listening. There was no sound, save the vague humming from the opened +cylinder stretched on the floor at our feet. + +"Thought I heard something." + +"You didn't," I said. + +"Where?" demanded Dan. "The audiphone? It's off--dead." + +"Where? Outside!" I suggested. I half rose from my seat and sank back. +Freddie looked puzzled; he went to the door, listened and returned. He +asked, "You don't hear anything?" + +"No," I said. "Where?" + +"I don't know. Here--I mean here, right here with us. I--I guess I +imagined it." + +"I guess you did," said Dan. But his gaze swept the room with a tense +expectancy. + +My heart was pounding. We all three drew nearer together, as though for +instinctive protection against something we could almost but not quite +hear. + +"We're nervous," said Dan. "Imagining things. It's that damned weird +humming. Go on, Peter." + +I resumed the letter: + + You will find in this cylinder the vital element necessary to the + conquering of gravity. Reet, which a bountiful nature provides + here, is a very wonderful thing, Peter. With it, and with such + materials available on earth which my notes herewith describe + fully, I believe you will have no great difficulty in constructing + your vehicle. I have sent you the basic mechanisms already fully + assembled in each of their integral parts-- + +Freddie again interrupted me. "Where's that draft coming from? It's +cold. You got some window open, Dan?" + +I was conscious of cold air in the room. The door to the adjoining +bedroom--the room father had once occupied, but which now was +unused--stood half open. The draft of chill air seemed coming from +there. And then we all three heard a bump in there; it brought us to +our feet. + +"Shutter banging," said Dan. "Mother must have left the window partly +up--shutter banging, there's a wind starting." + +We followed him into the room with a precipitous haste. It was in +semi-darkness. The window was partly raised from the bottom. Cold air +was sweeping in. But the shutter was fastened tightly back against the +outside wall; it could not bang. Dan closed the window. We none of us +made any comment. Back at the living room table I began the letter +again. + + There is very little I need say further, Peter. My notes, diagrams + and instructions explain everything fully. Attached to several of + the mechanisms, you will find individual instruction sheets. + + You will need funds. I would like your enterprise conducted with + the help and resources of our government behind you, if possible. + You will have less difficulty in that event. But, without such aid, + you will have to proceed on your own. + + No doubt, Peter, by now you will have been able to possess yourself + legally of my money. Perhaps you have been able to realize upon the + Washington property--though this I doubt, in view of the chaotic + world conditions. Use what you have freely, Peter. Take from Dan as + little as possible--Heaven knows what financial stress you all must + have been laboring under-- + +The light over my head suddenly dimmed to half its volume. Freddie gave +a startled exclamation. Dan cursed. + +"Something seems determined to interrupt us," I said. I held the letter +up to the light. "I can read it." + +"What--" Freddie began. + +"Two o'clock," said Dan. "They only give us half strength light after 2 +A.M. New ruling in Porto Rico for the night months." + +Freddie sank back. I read: + + Financial stress you all must have been laboring under. Do your + best. You ought to be able to start at the next conjunction. Your + start--your navigation--all that you will find in my instruction + sheets. Before you arrive here, open the special sealed envelope + marked "Landing instructions." Follow them implicitly. + + I will meet you. I have had fairly good facilities for scientific + work here, Peter. You will find my instructions accurate--all + my data fully explicit. You should have no trouble. Hulda sends + love. She says, love to Dan especially. Good old Dan! We feel + very close to you all in spirit, Peter--in spite, or perhaps even + because of the void between us. You will cross it--oh, my son, be + very careful! Follow every detail of my instructions. We will be + waiting, impatiently. Zetta is here, watching me as I write-- + +Ah, that I had divined! + + Strange, dear little Zetta. So remarkable a friend-- + +A cry from Dan interrupted me. I had been standing awkwardly holding +the letter up to the light. The room was dim, with shadows crowding +close upon us. At our feet the opened cylinder lay under the half +strength blue light. It was partly in shadow. At Dan's startled cry I +looked down. A red radiance hovered across the cylinder in the gloom +there! A faint glow of crimson! And there sounded a low guttural whine. +The crimson sound! In the room here with us! + +Dan leaped. From within the cylinder one of its metal boxes was coming +out! It came up with a jerk, as though raised by some invisible hand. A +small, dead-white metal cube. Enveloped in a vague red glow, it came up +to the level of my waist and moved away through the air. + +[Illustration: From within the cylinder one of the metal boxes was +coming out! Enveloped in a vague red glow, it began moving through the +air.] + +Dan went leaping over the cylinder; struck something solid; fell prone +on the floor with the metal cube clattering beside him. + +There was a confusion of sounds. A sudden unearthly scream. Dan's voice +shouting: "I've got it. Freddie! Oh, Peter--" + +Dan was struggling on the floor with something. I could see his arms +encircling it--something large. He rolled, fought. Freddie jumped for +him. I dropped the letter, dashed to where both Freddie and Dan were +rolling on the floor, gripping something in a glow of humming red sound. + +They both shouted: "Peter, watch out! Keep away! Watch him--grab him if +he slips loose--" + +I was standing over them. From the red confusion a naked arm emerged +for an instant. I seized it--a queerly light but solid arm of bone and +flesh and muscle. But it jerked away. There was a crash as the table +overturned. + +"Peter! Hold him! Peter--Freddie, let go of me--don't be a fool! Let go +of me, I tell you!" + +Something caught me in the face with a burning blow like a fire-brand. +I staggered back; my flailing arms hit nothing. The room was whining +with sound. On the floor Dan and Freddie in a fog of red glow, now +dissipating, were shouting and struggling to disentangle themselves +from each other. I heard a thump; the sound of running, padding +footsteps. Before I could recover my balance from the blow in the face +the sound was gone. A clatter in the adjoining bedroom, then silence. + +Dan and Freddie stood erect. Panting, shaking and confused. In the +bedroom, the window was again open. The intruder had gone. On the +floor by the cylinder lay the white metal cube which had so nearly +been stolen from us. We lifted it up. It seemed uninjured. On it was +a tag, with father's inscription: "Reet catalyst concentrated--B +Formula. Guard this well, Peter! Without it, your enterprise would be +impossible!" + + + + + CHAPTER IX + + PIONEERS INTO SPACE + + +June 14, 1957, I set down the date with my recollection that it was for +me the most momentous day of my life to that time. And I think, for Dan +and Freddie also--the day upon which, after more than sixteen months +of activity, we three were ready at last for the trip to Xenephrene. +The events of those sixteen months were to me the mere bridging of an +interval unimportant save in its consummation. + +There were times when we all thought we would fail. I am not of a +scientific trend of mind; nor is Dan. Upon Freddie both he and I +depended for a complete understanding of father's scientific data. + +Even so, there seemed to Dan and me in our impatience and futility +at our own lack of scientific training a great deal about father's +instructions that Freddie himself but half understood. And this Freddie +admitted. We would have failed, I have no doubt, had our government +disdained us. But it did not. From the first we had back of us not +only government funds, but the full resources of the government's +laboratories and technical staff. + +The whole enterprise was conducted quietly; and though some inkling of +it leaked out, the thing was kept fairly close. During most of this +period--these seemingly interminable months--Dan, Freddie and I were +in Miami, where in the government shops our vehicle was being built. +The government laboratories were there also. In them our mechanisms +were assembled; a thousand abstruse chemical and physical problems were +solved. + +The work progressed steadily, though with occasional maddening +holdups. Father had suggested that the outer shell of the vehicle be +constructed of alexite--that strange alloy, largely aluminium, after +the process perfected in 1943 by the Russ, Alexia. World conditions +made it difficult for some of the materials to be quickly obtained in +sufficient quantity. But they were obtained, and the shell was cast +almost on the date set for it in Freddie's schedule. + +The daylight months of 1956, in Miami, brought heat almost intolerable. +It is not my plan to describe that now. Weird change from what had +always before been the normal! The spring twilight thaws; the brief +period of lengthening days until soon the day and night were equal; +then, each twenty-four hours, a longer day, a lesser night. Swiftly +changing, until soon the sun never set. Blistering summer. Then again +the sun touched the horizon; rose; in twenty-four hours dipped a +trifle. Night a minute long! Queer cycle! But we were growing used +to it already, for human life springs swiftly to adjust itself to +environment. + +The summer of 1956 dragged itself past. In January, 1957, with the +fall twilight days passing and night again upon us, the vehicle shell +was cast. Assembling of the mechanism began in February. By April, in +the frigid darkness of midwinter, I think we could have been ready to +start. But Xenephrene was too far away. Daily now she was overtaking +the earth. + +We had to await the June conjunction when at her closest point for the +year, father's data told us the intervening distance would be some +seventeen and a half million miles. His notes named twelve o'clock +noon, June 14, as our best starting time. And in this, as in every +other detail, we were determined to follow his instructions to the +letter. + +We had been worried all these months over father's warning concerning +the presence on earth of enemies from Xenephrene. Indeed, that first +evening in the Cain plantation house when the storage battery of the +Reet Catalyst had so nearly been stolen from us, proved that father's +fears were fully justified. The precious white metal cube was unharmed; +and there was nothing else missing from the cylinder, as we had at +first feared. + +The intruder had left no trace of himself; but he was a man, human like +ourselves, undoubtedly. Dan and Freddie had come to grips with him; I +had felt his burning blow upon my face. There was a red, blistered welt +there for many days. Dan and Freddie were burned about the hands and +face. + +Curious marks! I say burned, for perhaps that best describes it. But it +was not that. A queer irritation of the skin and flesh where they had +been exposed to contact with the crimson radiance. It departed within a +week; and the ringing in our ears, which for a day we all feared might +presage deafness, was gone in a like period. Our eyes, too, were left +smarting and burning. For a day afterward I found my sight queerly +blurring at intervals; and any sudden light blinded me momentarily, as +one is blinded who steps abruptly from darkness into daylight. But all +these unpleasant sensations passed in a few days. + +This crimson radiance had been undoubtedly of a very weak intensity. It +had not been used as a weapon, but merely as a cloak of invisibility, +behind which the intruder had evidently felt he could steal the +cylinder and escape. This we realized, though of the nature of the +radiance we knew not much more than before; nor was there anything in +father's data to enlighten us. + +We feared a repetition of this encounter; but none was attempted. All +our work was done under guard in Miami; and everywhere in the world the +secret service of every government was alert. It was incredible, of +course, that upon earth there would be one man of Xenephrene--and no +more. We learned afterward that there were many, but at this time no +trace of them was found. + + * * * * * + +It was the 4th of June when at last our vehicle was completely +ready--save its provisioning, some earth scientific apparatus which +father had bade us bring, and our personal effects. The assembling was +complete; the navigating mechanism was installed, tested and in working +order. + +It was then, but not until then, that success seemed assured. And with +the relief of it, we all realized what a strain we had been under. By +comparison, what lay ahead seemed simple. But that fancy passed; and, +though we never said so, apprehension soon descended upon us again. + +For myself a thousand doubts and fears assailed me. Could Freddie +successfully navigate us from one whirling world to another? By +mathematical formula which to me seemed incredibly abstruse, and +mechanisms in our vehicle which even he only half understood? Alone, +unaided, a pioneer into trackless space, with only father's complicated +notes to guide him! + +Freddie, during these last days, was very pale and silent. Not for +anything would Dan or I have voiced our fears; but Freddie was aware of +them, for they matched his own. Thin-lipped and solemn he sat for hours +each day within the vehicle; and sometimes he would slip away from Dan +and me during the hours of sleep, and we would find him there, poring +over father's data, or working at seemingly endless calculations. + +Spring twilight was mounting during the first two weeks of June. The +spring thaws were at hand. On June 13 we made our final inspection +of the vehicle to be sure its equipment was complete. It was a small +affair--as small as the one in which Zetta had arrived. And similar +in shape--a flattened globe twenty-one feet in vertical diameter and +thirty feet across its middle width. + +The thin shell of alexite gave it a dull gleaming white color. The +exterior was reinforced with a thick, rolled belt of alexite like an +equator around the globe's bulging middle. + +There were two vertical reinforcing circular bands; passing through +its poles they divided its surface into four equal segments. Into each +of these segments two small bull's-eye windows were set, one directly +above the other. And in one segment, near the bottom, was a small, +narrow door. The top and bottom of the globe were flattened to a level +area some six feet square, as though a section had been neatly sliced +off, to form a small lower floor and a small roof. Each was set with a +bull's-eye glass windowpane. + +Such was the exterior aspect of our vehicle. I chanced to stand alone +for a moment a few hours before our start, regarding it as it lay in +the small stone room which had been built to house it. A tiny little +world! Little white globe, so soon to be whirling through space with +its three human inhabitants! And I was to be one of the three! + +The globe's interior was reinforced with a lining of alexite ribs, +and a brittle wire mesh cast into the alexite shell. It was tested +for pressure; in the vacuum of space the outward pressure of our air +content would have exploded a shell less strongly built. Father had +calculated all this; his calculations proved correct; we had a wide +margin of safety. + +The globe inside was divided by two horizontal floorings into three +compartments. The lowest one, to which the narrow doorway gave +entrance, had a floor six feet square, bulging concave walls, and a +ceiling some seven feet above the floor. + +This compartment was our instrument room, and observatory. It had four +side windows, and the lower window which comprised its floor. Between +the side windows, the instruments were fitted in racks. The control +table was here, and a portion of the navigating mechanism. + +The middle story--much the largest of the three--contained our sleeping +cots, our meager cooking arrangements, our food stock, and most of +the mechanical apparatus for the navigating of the globe. The upper +compartment, in size and shape like the lower, held our personal +effects, our water supply, heating instruments, and the Regnalt-Dillon +air purifiers, with the pumps, fans and distributors. In flight, this +would always remain the upper segment of the globe; we would turn over +after leaving the earth and fall toward Xenephrene. + +I fear I give too much space to this pedantic description. The means to +which an end is attained are always less important than the attainment +itself. Certainly Dan and I, with our unscientific trend of thought, +were only interested in this little globe that it might transport us +safely to our destination. + + * * * * * + +The last day came. June 14, with its raw, thawing chill in the air; +its twilight at noon which almost promised a sunrise. Dan and I had +not slept for twenty-four hours, in the fever of our excitement. Nor +had Freddie. He had not left the globe; just sat there in the lower +compartment with the control buttons on his little table and a sheaf +of father's instructions, which over and over, he was studying. Once, +when I bade him sleep, he turned upon me so sharply that I retreated in +haste. I brought him a cup of coffee later. + +"Here, Freddie." I held it out, a peace offering. He glanced up with +his white face and tired eyes. + +"Oh, thanks, Peter--very much." + +An emotion swept me--between man and woman comes the human emotion most +strongly tempestuous, undoubtedly; but there can be between a man and +his friend an emotion wholly dissimilar, but of equally powerful bond. +I felt it then as I laid my hand upon Freddie's shoulder. + +"Thanks," he repeated. "Sorry I snapped at you, Peter." + +Men are most inarticulate with each other when deeply stirred. I nodded. + +Three hours later we left the earth. There was a pathos to our leaving, +mingled with the excitement of it. Any unusual adventure in life seems +to bring into play the whole gamut of human emotions. + +There stood Dan's old father and mother! Not for them did Xenephrene +hold any lure! They were giving their only son to what must have seemed +a mad tempting of fate. They had said little. + +What passed between them and Dan, I never knew. Indeed, with the +preoccupation of my own thoughts, I scarcely considered it. But they +came to the little stone house to see us start. They stood in a far +corner of the room, apart from the few government officials who were +there to speed us. + +A brief, strangely dramatic scene, our leaving! + +We stood there at the small doorway to our tiny world. Attendants +rolled back the roof of the room; the stars gleamed down upon us. The +room was dim. With my pounding heart, it seemed full of vague, moving +shadows--people I must hastily bid good-by now and leave--perhaps +forever. + +Some one called out: "Eleven fifty-four! Better get inside, Smith." + +Freddie glanced at his watch. "Yes. Well--good-by. Good-by, +everybody--wish us luck." His tone was queerly stilted. + +Abruptly men's hands were shaking mine; men were clapping me on the +back. And then I found myself with Dan before his parents. Trembling +old man and woman; a pity for them swept me. + +"Good-by, Peter." + +"Good-by," I said. Mrs. Cain kissed me. I added: "We'll be back soon. +Good-by." + +Freddie's voice was calling: "Hurry up, there!" I turned away. But Dan +lingered. From the doorway I had a glimpse of him as with his big arms +he caught his mother up to kiss her good-by, while his father clung to +him. Then Dan was with us. The small heavy door swung closed and locked +upon us. + +Eleven fifty-nine! Freddie sat at his table, his fingers on the row of +buttons. In the gloom, the only light was a glow upon the chronometer +face with its second-hand making the last circle. Noon! There was +a vague hum as the Reet current went on. The floor beneath my feet +stirred slightly, then steadied. Through the windows I caught a glimpse +of the room outside. It was silently slipping downward! + +We had started! + + * * * * * + +Had our voyage been an adventure unique in modern history, I should be +constrained to describe it here in detail. But since these few stirring +years which I am describing, Interplanetary voyaging has become a +common thing. Father and Hulda were the first to leave the earth; +Freddie, Dan and I were next. Pioneers! + +We afterward gave the secret to our world; the history of +Interplanetary travel will make that plain. Space-voyaging soon will no +longer seem an extraordinary thing; already, the mere account of an +uneventful trip is not worth the reading. But an account of Xenephrene? +Ah! That is a different matter. I doubt if any world will ever be found +comparable to Xenephrene. + +As every one knows now, Mars is nothing like it; nor Venus; nor +Mercury. They talk already of going to Jupiter; to Uranus; to Neptune. +It is possible, of course. And in a few lifetimes beyond my own, +they will be striving to reach the distant stars, for the spirit of +adventure in man is insatiable. + +Our voyage to Xenephrene was remarkable only that we were pioneers in +Space-travel. To lay stress upon it here would be out of place. Those +days upon earth when the climate changed were more extraordinary. And +Xenephrene herself! The Wanderer unique! And those other terrible days +when we returned to earth--our world harried, wounded, bleeding, all +but beaten! But with spirit unbroken, fighting-- + +So I hasten on. + +Our voyage was unmarked by any untoward incident. Our sensations at +first, the novelty of it, stirred us all as we had never been stirred +before. The first plunge into the dead blackness of space with the +stars and the sun and all the worlds blazing like torches, is an +experience never to be forgotten. + +The first look backward upon a dull-red crescent earth! + +Ah, the man or the woman who has had that look will feel very +differently ever afterward! A humbleness of spirit; a sense of our own +infinite unimportance in the great plan of the Universe! The traveler +broadens; it is only the man who revolves his mind in its own humdrum +little rut who thinks that he and what he stands for is the sum-total +of real importance and goodness in the Universe! What differs from +himself, from his own standards of thought and living, he thinks must +of necessity be inferior. The traveler knows it is not so. Distant +places, distant worlds, distant people--are different. Not necessarily +worse. Other races have different standards, different modes of thought +from our own; not better perhaps; not worse--just different. Our earth +poet once wrote: "Though patriotism flatter, still shall wisdom find an +equal portion dealt to all mankind." The traveler knows that it is true. + +I come now to that time when in our tiny voyaging world we found +ourselves, according to Freddie's calculations, at a distance of no +more than two hundred and fifty thousand miles from Xenephrene. As +close as our own moon is to the earth. + +Our vehicle had turned over soon after starting. The earth lay in the +star-field above us--a glittering red-white point, not very different +from a million others! Beneath us, seen through the lower window, we +were falling toward Xenephrene. It hung there amid the stars; to the +naked eye now it was a tremendous, moon-like crescent. Purple-red on +its lighted area. The shadowed part of its circle could be faintly +seen--a dull-red shadow. + +We sat in the lower compartment, Freddie, as usual, by his table, with +Dan and me beside him. Freddie was thoroughly rested now. At the start +he had worn himself to the verge of exhaustion. But once we were well +away from earth he found confidence in the verified correctness of his +calculations. + +We were upon our course. All was going well; and to our voyage, +with the novelty dulling, came that monotony which is the chief +characteristic of Space-travel. There was little to do, save sleep, +prepare our meals, and keep watch that no asteroid or meteor crossed +our path with dangerous nearness. Freddie's calculations were, from +then on, his only labor. Dan and I did the rest. + +We sat now with Freddie, who had called to us. The quarter of a million +mile point from Xenephrene was an objective to which we all three had +looked forward with keenest interest. + +"We're there," called Freddie. We came down to find him with sparkling +eyes and flushed face. "Two hundred and fifty thousand eight hundred +odd miles." He shoved his papers away from him. "I brought us, didn't +I? I did it!" + +We clapped him on the back. We all felt as though the Rubicon were +crossed. "Now," said Freddie, "we can open Professor Vanderstuyft's +last instruction sheet." + +Father had sent us in the cylinder one bulky envelope which expressly +he had stated was not to be opened until we were within two hundred and +fifty thousand miles of our destination. + +He called it "Landing Instructions." He had mentioned it several times +in a way almost ominously mysterious. Everything concerning Xenephrene +itself father had omitted from his other notes, as though not to +confuse our minds with details not then necessary. But now, we felt, as +we neared the other world, the mystery that clung to it would have to +be unfolded. + +The prospect made our hearts pound; for there clung always to our +thoughts of this other world a sense of the uncanny--we were plunging, +very soon now, into something weird, gruesome perhaps. But I thought +of little Zetta and I knew it would be a strange world; weird, perhaps +bizarre, but hardly gruesome. + +Freddie was holding father's envelope. "Here it is--we're entitled to +open it now. It's addressed to you, Peter--you read it to us." + +I took the envelope, broke its seal with fingers that were trembling in +spite of all my efforts to steady them. + + + + + CHAPTER X + + LANDING TO FACE THE UNKNOWN + + +To one of omniscience who could have observed us three as we sat there, +it must have been a very strange scene indeed. + +The tiny white globe which was our world, rotated slowly on its +vertical axis, a mere white speck hanging in the black intensity of +space. With its concave, encircling shell, that lower compartment, with +the iron ladder leading above; the three of us sitting there at the +table; Freddie alert, with keenly roving eyes, his hand out of habit +resting idly beside the control buttons; Dan's great length sprawled in +his low chair, his shirt open at the throat, a growth of blond stubble +on his face, his hair tousled--he lounged in an attitude of ease, +yet the tenseness of him was obvious; myself, sitting upright, with +father's papers in my trembling hands; shadows around us; one small +light casting its glow upon me; and through the window beneath our +feet, the upflung glare of Xenephrene, like a tremendous crescent moon +bathing us in its purple light. + +The silence! There is no silence like that of Space! Upon earth we hear +always a myriad tiny sounds and are unaware of them; without them, in +Space, the silence seems to scream its emptiness. + +Dan cleared his throat nervously. "Go ahead, Peter--what does it say?" + +I rustled the papers. Father's script began with characteristic +abruptness. + + "If you have done as I requested you are now within a quarter of + a million miles of this world. Comparatively so close to us--oh, + my son, I do hope that you are there! Soon, then, I shall see + you--have you with me. I am growing old, Peter. The ties of blood + seem to strengthen as we grow older. It has been lonely without + you, my son, even though I have had dear Hulda--and little Zetta, + of whom we grow more fond every day. + + "But this is no time for sentiment. I assume that Frederick and Dan + are with you, I must be brief, succinct. There are several things + which now I must make plain to you three. If there is anything + here, Peter, which Dan and you do not understand, Frederick will + make it clear." + +"Hah!" I exclaimed, "a little gibe at us, Dan!" + +Freddie smiled as Dan gestured. "Go on. Let's hear it." + +Good old dad! My heart warmed to him. I resumed: + + "The few astronomical facts concerning Xenephrene which now + you should know, are these: It is a globe flattened at the + poles, expanded at the equator. Rather more so than the earth. + Polar diameter, sixty-five hundred miles. Equatorial diameter, + seventy-eight hundred miles. Thus it is similar in size, though + slightly smaller than our earth. Its average density, I believe + is about that of earth. Its mass, hence, is but little less than + earth. Gravitation, about the same. You will notice, in this + respect, hardly any difference. + + "Xenephrene's present orbit about our sun is an ellipse rather + more eccentric than earth's--more comparable to that of Mercury. + I believe it is not yet stabilized. There may even be a tendency + toward a breaking of the ellipse at its aphelion--I sometimes + shudder at the thought--if we should all be here on Xenephrene. + Frederick will understand--" + +I glanced at Dan. "Well, if he does, we don't." + +"Never mind," said Freddie. But he did not smile. + +I read on: + + "Xenephrene rotates on its axis once in twenty-two hours, + thirty-seven minutes, ten seconds, as we measure time on earth. + This is very similar to our earth. This axis is not inclined to the + plane of its orbit, but is almost exactly vertical. Hence we have + here no change of seasons. And throughout the year, the periods of + day and night alternate in exact and unchanging relative lengths. + + "Here in the country of the Garlands, we are situated at about + eight degrees south latitude. Thus, near the equator, our days are + always some eleven hours and nineteen minutes long; and our night + but a few seconds shorter. + + "Xenephrene has one moon. Pyrena, we call it. You will already + have seen it, even with your small telescope, no doubt. I will + not go into the elements of its orbit now, or describe its phases + as we nightly see them. A beautiful sight, Peter. It is really + the sun for Xenephrene--or at least it was, before Xenephrene + came to bathe in our own greater sunlight. It is a small world of + incandescent gas--blazing purple. You should see our dim purple + nights--strangely beautiful. + + "You are now to proceed as follows: + + "I attach herewith a rough map of my own, giving the general + conformation of Xenephrene's surface. I drew it from my own + sketches made as I came down from outer Space. It is of necessity + vague, and inexact. + + "These people are not explorers. They know little about their + own world. And only a fraction--a very small fraction of the + globe's surface seems habitable. Much of it is fluid--not water, + not air--you shall see! The vast fluid areas, I have marked so + on the map. And there are areas of tumbled, jagged mountains of + metal--naked metal. And metal plains, smooth and barren as glass. + + "The country of the Garlands I have plainly marked. As you descend, + you will have no difficulty in recognizing the globe's larger fluid + areas, the larger configurations--and thus in locating, as you come + closer, our little land. It is very small--on earth we would call + it some three hundred miles, roughly oval. + + "We are only a million and a half people here--we of the Garlands. + The Brauns are scarce a hundred thousand. I have marked their one + city on the map, where it lies at the northern edge of our domain, + with the equatorial mountains and the fluid lake of Tyre and the + Tyre plain near it. + + "Beware this region, Frederick! Come up from the south! I suggest + now that you head for our south pole. If you have made the voyage + in my calculated time, you will find Pyrena ascending from her + southern swing. She rotates in retrograde, Frederick, this moon of + ours--at an average distance of eighty-nine thousand miles. + + "Head for the south pole, within Pyrena's orbital distance. Then + come up toward the equator, between our moon and Xenephrene. If you + are on time, you will find our moon at the full. + + "As you descend, you will go into Xenephrene's shadow, with her + between you and the sun. It is what I desire--there will be less + chance then of your being seen. In the area of our night, with + Pyrena shining full upon you, descend into our atmosphere. You + will find it extends outward some four hundred miles. Take it very + slowly, Frederick--be careful of the heat of your descent through + it--judge nothing from now on by earthly standards! Remember that! + + "You should be about over our ten degrees south latitude when you + descend into the atmosphere. Keep between us and Pyrena--and come + north to eight degrees S. + + "You will be in the night, with Xenephrene rotating under you + as you hover. Your altitude now should be about forty miles. If + the clouds bother you, descend to keep under them. If the night + is too overcast, so that from beneath the clouds Pyrena is lost + to you, and the darkness is too great for you to see our surface + readily--wait until it clears. Take no chances! Haste of that sort + is too dangerous! Let Xenephrene rotate for another day and night. + I will see the weather and understand. + + "When the country of the Garlands comes into view, watch for my + light. You will see it--a thin, steady white beam, pointing at the + moon. Occasionally I shall send a red flash along its length--at + alternating intervals according to the inclosed code. Thus there + can be no mistake--I fear treachery--one fears everything in such + times as these we are undergoing here! + + "When you are convinced that it is my light you see, descend toward + its source. At an altitude of ten thousand feet, cross into my beam + and hold there for a time, that I may see and recognize you. I will + send two swift red flashes. Leave the beam at once, and come back + into it. I will know then for certain that it is you. + + "Descend now, down the beam to its source. When I extinguish it, + you will see my glow of lights at your landing field. Descend + there, and land. + + "I caution you again. Take everything very slowly! You will be + seated, you three, in the lower compartment. When you land--when + once you are upon solid ground--extinguish all but one very small + light. Then begin to open your door. + + "I say, _begin_ to open it! It is to be opened very, very slowly. + You, Frederick, understood, no doubt, that its queer construction + was to some purpose. I was very specific about that! + + "You are to undo its inner fastenings, and revolve its main + circular knob, a few turns at intervals of no less than five + minutes each. I want you to take fully thirty minutes to open the + door. + + "Let the new air of Xenephrene in slowly, that you may grow + accustomed to it gradually as it comes upon you. This, of course, + you have guessed as my reason for such caution. But it is not only + the changed air you will be admitting! Other things will come in as + well! To them also, you must become accustomed gradually. + + "When the door is nearly ready to open wide, extinguish your + remaining light. Sit quiet! Do not attempt to move about! Let + Frederick then join you, when he has flung wide the door. Sit + quiet, all three of you. Do not be afraid! There is nothing to + fear! It will be strange at first. + + "I will give you a minute or so to gather your composure. Then I + will come in to you--oh, I pray now as I close, that this may all + transpire as I have outlined! God grant that you will come safely + to me at last, over such a distance! I will be waiting so anxiously + for that first sight of you in my beacon beam! + + "Your affectionate father." + + * * * * * + +My voice trembled and broke as I ended. Emotion swept me; not only an +answering love for my father which sprang to meet his dear affection as +it came from the written words, but a fear as well. And an awe--what +was this into which we were plunging that he should be constrained to +caution us in such a fashion? + +I laid down the letter. Dan did not speak; his questioning eyes were on +my face. Freddie said huskily, "Well--" and stopped. + +"Well," I said, "that's all." + +We stared at one another. As though by consent, with a common dread we +avoided discussion of what now lay before us--the landing, the opening +of our door to admit this strange new world. Its air, different from +that to which we were accustomed, would come in. _And other things!_ + +What other things? + +The three words abruptly held for me an uncanniness almost intolerable. +Something not to be faced--yet we would have to face it. "Absurd!" I +thought. "Why, father is there--and Hulda. And Zetta--" In truth, it +was more an unreasoning dread than fear; for, as I examined it, I found +that, more than anything in life, I desired now to reach Xenephrene and +my loved ones; and all the vague, mysteriously uncanny things in the +Universe could not have served to keep me from them. + +"Hey!" said Freddie. "You seeing ghosts already, Peter?" + +"Where's the map?" said Dan. "Let's look it over." + +We examined it. A crude drawing upon animal skin the same as served +for father's letter paper. It seemed plain enough. We discussed it, +and many of the other phases of father's letter. It all seemed very +explicit. We were, according to father's calculated time, exactly where +in imagination his hopes would now be placing us. + +If all went well--as, indeed, why should it not?--we would arrive upon +one of those nights in the full of the moon during which he would +expect us. As he surmised, our small telescope had long since showed us +Xenephrene's moon. A tiny blazing point--purple like the planet itself. +It showed now, just plunging behind its parent disk; a purple point of +light, with its leaping tongues of flame even to the naked eye a quite +visible corona. + +Our approach to Xenephrene! I might write for hours and barely touch +upon the beauty, the splendor, the wonder of it. A purple disk, a +tinging with red as we neared it. Convex now--a full, round, glowing +world, banked and mottled with clouds, beneath which the faint +configurations of its surface-marking gradually became visible. + +We headed for its south pole; rounded over it at some fifty thousand +miles' distance. We saw over us, hanging to the left, the blazing +purple moon. It was night, as father said, on this moonlit side of +the planet. For what would have been an earth-day of twelve hours or +more, we dropped downward into the shadow. The sun was hidden behind +Xenephrene now; the moon blazed on us in all its purple glory. + +[Illustration: It was night on this moonlit side of Xenephrene as we +dropped down toward it. The sun was hidden behind the planet and the +moon blazed up through the glass floor of our space ship in all its +purple glory.] + +Freddie, during these hours, was busy with constant observations and +calculations; Dan and I sat enthralled with the magic of the coloring. +As we slid upward toward Xenephrene's equator and gradually descended, +the planet's rotation showed quite visibly under us. I could see the +cone of Xenephrene's shadow as it swung off into space. It barely +missed the moon; a few more of her inclined swings and doubtless she +would pass into eclipse. + + * * * * * + +The time came when all the visual heavens beneath us were encompassed +by Xenephrene's bulk. There were at the moment but few clouds to hide +its moonlit surface. + +"Here," said Freddie, "take a look." + +He had been gazing through the floor window with our telescope. I +took it; gazed upon a purple area of what seemed a liquid haze; to +the left, a jagged mountain range--naked crags of gleaming metal +in the moonlight; to the right, and extending far up to the rim of +the northern horizon, a vast glassy plain, smooth, barely wrinkled, +motionless as a frozen sea congealed, while only a breath of air had +been scratching its polished top. It gleamed like burnished copper in a +purple light. Devoid of even a grain of sand, a twig, a blade of grass. +But there was one place where, in a depression, water seemed to have +gathered--an irregular crescent sea a hundred miles perhaps in length. +I mentioned it to Freddie. + +"Yes," he said. "I've identified it on the map. We're on the other side +now from the Garland country, as your father calls it. He's in the +daylight now--" + +"Then to-night," Dan began. + +"Yes. To-night--eleven hours from now, approximately--our landing +place should be under us. We're eighteen degrees S now, I'll swing us +up to ten degrees S, and we'll wait." + +The full moon held level above us. As the hours passed, while we gently +dropped downward, cloud areas began forming beneath us. Freddie set his +jaw. "I'm going down--this is the night he'll expect us. If the clouds +will break away--" + +They did. We descended into Xenephrene's atmosphere. Our tiny globe +grew intolerably hot; then Freddie slowed us, and we kept the cold air +circulating. We went through the clouds. A dead purple mist, and then +they broke above us. A rift of moonlight came through. Land beneath us! +We could see it! A vague moonlight landscape, far down. + +Freddie was at the telescope constantly; Dan and I worked the controls +at his direction. Forty thousand feet, Eight South Latitude. We were +hovering in the dark over a rolling country of what seemed trees +perhaps--all vague and blurred and purple. + +"Know where we are?" I demanded anxiously. + +"Yes. Over the Garland country. The south middle of it, I should say. +That Braun city he mentioned--I got a glimpse of it, Peter. Up to the +north. We're all right--if only his light would show!" + +Then we saw his light! A thin, motionless white beam, standing up into +the clouds, where occasionally the full moon broke through a rift. His +light! We were sure of it presently. A red wave of color started from +its source at the ground and flashed upward. Then another, and others +at intervals. We timed them; compared them to father's notations. + +The time-intervals were correct. It was his light undoubtedly. His +welcoming beacon! + +Freddie had been keeping us cautiously away. But now at the ten +thousand foot altitude he swung us into the light. Its white glare +bathed us; came up through our floor window. Presently the two red +flashes came. We moved away, then back again. The moment which father +had awaited so anxiously had come. He knew now we had arrived safely, +we had answered his signal, and holding to the light, we slid slowly +down its motionless length. + +I do not know how long it took. It seemed an hour, while we sat in our +lower compartment, with the white glare streaming upon us. Then at +last, without warning, the glare vanished. + +We had extinguished our interior light; we were left abruptly in +darkness. + +I heard Dan's perturbed voice. "Freddie, shall I stop us?" + +Freddie was on the floor, peering down. I knelt beside him. He called +to Dan: "No, let us go. We're still pretty well up." + +I half whispered, "Can you see anything?" + +It seemed, for a moment, all quite dark. As though we were dropping +into a blank, bottomless pit. Then, as our eyes grew accustomed to the +absence of the glare, outlines below began to take form. The moon was +gone behind a cloud. But there was enough light left to show us a dark +ground, with a faint glow suffusing it, a thousand feet, not much more, +below us. It seemed a solid, open, flat area, flanked with small hooded +lights. + +Our landing field. There was nothing else to be seen; the purple +darkness crowded everything. The open space was directly under us. +Freddie made sure of that. He lighted our smallest table light, and at +the controls with his instruments before him, he brought us gently down. + +A minute; ten minutes. None of us spoke. There was a very slight thump; +our little world trembled, came to rest. + + * * * * * + +We had landed! Xenephrene at last! Freddie stood up. His figure wavered +slightly--perhaps because of his excitement, and the new solidity +beneath his feet which made him momentarily unsteady. + +"You sit still--I'll start--I'll start opening the door." + +His voice held a quaver; he glanced at the chronometer, crossed the +room swiftly, and took a turn or so at the door wheel. A giant shadow +of him as he moved fell grotesquely misshapen upon our curved wall. + +He came back to us and sat down. "Nothing to do now, but wait." + +The minutes passed in silence. We did not speak; at intervals of five +minutes, Freddie made his noiseless trip to the door and back. My heart +seemed nearly smothering me; cold beads were dank on my forehead, neck +and chest. Waiting for the Unknown to make itself seen? Heard? Felt? +I wondered which; with every sense alert and straining, I sat waiting. +Fear? It was that, of course. I am not ashamed of it; there is no man +brave enough to front the Unknown with heartbeat undisturbed. + +Nothing--as yet. Or perhaps my panting, labored breath was from the +new-world air which now was coming in? The ringing in my head; the +flashes of red in the dimness before my straining eyes--were they +caused only by the tenseness of fear? + +Freddie sat down beside me. I heard his whispered words, "Peter! It's +almost open. One more turn will do it--Dan, you all right?--Peter, I'm +frightened--terribly frightened!" + +And Dan's gruff answer, "Yes. All right." + +Our side windows were black rectangles. What was out there? For a time, +thought of father had left me. He was out there; was he looking in upon +us? I could see nothing; but now the thought of father steadied me. And +Zetta. Was she here--near me at last? + +Freddie snapped out our light with a click, thundering, echoing in the +stillness. The darkness leaped upon us. Darkness and silence. But I +could seem to hear my beating heart. Or Dan's. And our breathing. + +And then I realized that this was no silence! Around me came thronging +a million tiny noises. Jostling things of sound in the darkness. Things +all alive with sound! I could hear them. Murmuring, whispering like +wraiths of jabbering things alive with sound. Or was it sound I was +hearing? So vague, unreal, it might have been some other sense. But it +was gathering strength; jostling sounds were whirling about my ears, +beating at me, gathering strength and mingling into a hum-- + +All in the darkness. But there was no darkness! Shapes of color--moving +shapes of sound and color were here, crowding at my elbows. Formless +blobs, impalpable as colored shadows; formless, yet I could imagine +them into any form I chose. Jabbering, impalpable things pushing at +each other as though for a better view of me! Impalpable? Suddenly one +seemed to brush me; I could have sworn I felt it, light as a fairy's +wing, touching my hand. + +It may have touched Dan also. I heard his arm lunge; he cursed; an ash +tray on the table crashed to the floor. I jumped to my feet. Panic +seemed surging around us, out of which came Freddie's voice: + +"Easy! Sit down, you two! I'll get the door open wide." + +His padding footsteps were reassuring--something solid and real for my +confused senses to grip. I could see the moving blob of him, tinged red +with a faint aura that now suffused everything. + +The solid hum of him, unbarring the door, was steadying; the sound of +the door grating on its heavy hinges as it swung wide-- + +"These damned Things." Freddie came back. The poise of him! He +laughed, with an odd, strained break; but still he laughed. "God! It's +queer! But it's nothing. Hold steady, everyone." His laughter seemed +contagious; I heard myself laughing. Was this madness stealing upon me? +A chaos of the undefinable, jostling us. A wild chaos of unreality in +which my confused senses seemed whirling away-- + +"Peter!" Ah! Reality at last! Father's anxious voice, husky with +emotion! "Peter! Oh, Frederick? Dan? Are you all right?" + +Solidity, reality returned; my whirling senses came back. Father was +here! The solid thump of his heavy step sounded; the solid glow of the +purple light he was carrying filled our room. The reality of his voice; +his step; and then his arms were around my shoulders! + +And Hulda's happy, welcoming laughter. I kissed her; held the reality +of her dear little body in my arms; and all the red shadows and crimson +whisperings of a moment before were forgotten. + +Then came another voice--timorous, gentle, eagerly friendly; and a dear +figure in the doorway. Zetta! Her dear, quaint voice which for all +these months had been ringing in the ears of my memory, was sounding +now in reality at last! + + + + + CHAPTER XI + + "UNDER GARDENS" + + +"Well!" said father. "Well, you did come safely, didn't you? I'm so +glad, Peter. Light your light, Frederick. Well, Dan! I'm mighty glad to +see you. Here's Hulda! Come here, child--here is your Dan, at last!" + +Freddie snapped on our light. Even in the confusion of our joyous +greetings I was aware of how strange father and Hulda looked. Father +wore his hair, snow-white now, in a long, thick, shaggy mass about his +ears; a smooth and glossy black animal skin was draped about him, with +a white decoration on his chest; his arms and legs were bare, with skin +sandals on his feet! + +And Hulda! Her brown hair was shot now with pure-white strands. It +fell in waves upon her bare white shoulders, where her filmy robe of +light-brown silken fabric was caught with gay red ribbons. The robe +hung in folds nearly to her knees. + +I have seen pictures of the maidens of ancient Greece. Hulda looked +like that. Thongs of red crossed her breast, bound her waist and hung +dangling at her knees with tasseled ends. Her legs were bare. Her feet +in sandals like father's, but with pointed toes, the heel cut away, and +thongs of red crossing her instep. Her right arm was bare; but on the +left, her wrist was bound with a red ruching. + +Dan had infolded her in his first hungry embrace, kissing her without +thought of the rest of us, until she cried for breath. Then he held her +off. + +She was gasping, and laughing. "Do I--look so queer? Dan, don't you +like my looks? Don't you--like me--" + +"Like you?" His great arms would have wrapped her up again, but she +fended him off. She was radiant; I can imagine how Dan felt; I had +never seen Hulda half so beautiful. She was blushing; she laughed at +him archly. + +"The red, Dan." She indicated her tassels, and the ruching at her left +wrist. "You see, I wear it--for you. The sign that I am spoken for, and +pledged to a man." + +"Wonderful, Frederick, that you all got through so safely." Father +turned with Freddie, to me. "Frederick, you must meet Zetta--Peter, +have you seen Zetta? There she is--come in, child." + +Zetta was dressed very much as on earth I had last seen her. She stood +lingering in the vehicle doorway, eager to see us, but reluctant to +encroach on our family greetings. At father's words, she now shyly +approached. + +I stammered, "Zetta, I'm--very glad to see you again." + +"How do you do, Peter." She held out her hand, and I took it. A +confusion was upon me. This moment for which I had longed, came, and +passed. Perhaps, as once before, the barriers of conventionality rose +instinctively to hold my emotion in check. + +I think it was so with Zetta, too. Our fingers barely touched; but my +heart pounded harder, for I heard her murmur, "Be--careful, Peter. Be +ver' careful!" A warning against the power between us! Then I met her +glance as she eyed me sidewise. A roguish, impish look. This was a new +Zetta--here upon her own world, her real self. Little imp, mocking my +confusion with glee! She turned away, toward Freddie. + +"And this is Fred'rick? I am ver' pleas' to meet so good a frien'." + +I saw leaping into Freddie's eyes a swift surprise as he neared her, +took her hand and shook it cordially. Freddie's nature, from mine, or +from Dan's, is wholly different. Whatever surprise he felt, he gave no +further sign; shook her hand heartily, grinned at her, and swung on me. + +"Say, she's a little beauty, isn't she, Peter?" The old Freddie, +relieved now of the responsibility of commanding our voyage, his +characteristic breezy boyishness came back to him. I had not seen him +in this way since the first dreadful days of the Great Change came upon +us. He added, "You and I are going to be great friends, Zetta." + +Her gaze on him was full of undisguised admiration. "Yes," she agreed. +"I think so, too." + +We were ready to start. "Leave everything," said father. "I'll have it +guarded, and we're not going far." + +He took his lantern; shook it. It seemed to be a translucent +animal-bladder, possibly, filled with small objects that rattled. The +light from it was a glow of phosphorescence. He held it aloft. + +"This light is bad. Zetta, fix this up, will you? Can't they do better +than this?" + +Strange thoughts to spring to my mind! As Zetta took the lantern, held +it near her face, I fancied that she murmured to it. And as though in +answer to her command, the purple light grew stronger! I fancied so. + +"Thanks," said father. "Give it to me. I'll lead the way. Put out your +light, Frederick. You lads took your landing very well. Strange and +disturbing--this unreality just beyond our reach--isn't it, Peter? +You'll grow used to it--you'll forget it." + +He started away, with the rest of us following in the shadows behind +his upheld lantern. At his words, the crimson murmuring things in the +darkness again began crowding me. But I was not afraid of them now. + +On earth, always there are a million tiny sounds, audible if we will +but listen, and things constantly to be seen which, through habit, we +look at but cease to see. This was like that. With attention upon it, +this unreal sub-world of Xenephrene was strange and fearsome. But it +never obtruded; and already, as father said, I found myself ignoring it. + +There was, indeed, so much of strange reality spread now before +me! We stepped from our small doorway, upon the solid ground of +Xenephrene. The moon was beneath a heavy cloud. The landing lights were +extinguished; darkness enveloped us. It seemed a haze; the swinging +purple rays of father's lantern showed it as a swaying mist in the air. + +The night was warm, almost steamingly oppressive. But this feeling, +too, soon passed, and I found it wholly comfortable. The lantern, I +learned later, was what I had thought--filled with phosphorescent +insects, like fireflies; and Zetta had commanded them to shine more +brightly! + +Father led us slowly. The ground was level beneath my feet--a +corrugated, metallic surface. Sometimes there seemed a soil, and in +the darkness, the deeper shadows of giant vegetation. Great leaves +arched up over us, and soon we were under them, walking now on a soft, +moldy turf. A heavy, earthy scent rose from it; the damp smell of +molding vegetation. In the air, too, there seemed the scent of distant +blossoms. A fragrance. It lay in strata, seemingly; for occasionally it +was heavy, exotic. + + * * * * * + +A moving shadow came up to us--a white-skinned man, darkened by the +purple glow of father's light. + +"Oh, Kean?" + +"Yes, Professor." He spoke our language! + +"We're going down. They came safely. Have the guard placed as I +directed." + +"Yes, Master." + +"Not Master--Professor. You had it right the first time." + +"Yes--Professor." + +"Come to me after sunrise, Kean. I'll have plenty to say then." + +A man gestured. "They are checking too many of them in. A hundred or +two more came to-night." + +"Oh!" exclaimed Hulda. + +Zetta said quickly. "That woman, Brea--I saw her to-day--" + +This fellow Kean seemed a young man, my own age or less. His face was +serious. "Yes, I saw her. They checked her in--for how long it is they +would let her stay I do not know. Too many Brauns are here now. They +come, but there seems no record of their going--" + +"Place the guard," said father. "And after sunrise I'll see you, Kean." + +Zetta said abruptly: "Kean, will you seek out Graff? I wish to see +him--" + +"No!" father protested. + +"Yes," she said quietly. A clinging, soft little vine I had thought +her, but obviously it was not so. Kean met father's glance. Evidently +he also did not approve of Zetta's wish. + +"I may not see him," he returned evasively. Before Zetta could speak +again, he vanished silently into the shadows. I fancied he made a leap +upward; I did not see him come down. We started off. + +We were descending now down a gentle slope. The verdure grew thicker +as we advanced. The perfume in the air turned aromatic, as though +scented by a million spiced blossoms. Abruptly the moon came out for a +moment, a small purple sun. The darkness lifted. We were in a jungle of +vegetation. It arched over us--great leafy spires, interlocking to a +network through which the moonlight straggled. + +There seemed few trees; it was all a network of stalks, and giant vines +and great huge lacy leaves. Pods and flowers hung in clusters. Over our +heads the foliage was solidly interwoven. I gazed up, and in the open +moonlight up there, it seemed to me on top of this tangled vegetation, +an artificial roadway--a street perhaps--was resting. There were moving +shapes up there, as though people might be passing along a city street. + +"Here we are," father called back over his shoulder. He shook his +lantern vigorously, and raised it over his head. "Here we are, '_Under +Gardens_,' Hulda named it. Our home--yours too now, while we are here." +He chuckled. "You might almost think you were back on earth, mightn't +you?" + +[Illustration: "Here we are," father told us. "This is 'Under +Gardens'--it is our home. You might almost think we were back on Earth, +mightn't you?"] + +He had stopped to let us come up with him. We had been following a +narrow, winding path, which like a tunnel, had been cut downward into +the jungle. It opened now unexpectedly into a small clearing. Not +that, rather should I call it a cave. The vegetation had obviously been +hewn away to form a circular opening--a cleared ground space in an oval +of a few hundred feet, walled in by the jungle, with the heavy network +closing overhead fifty feet or more above us. + +The moonlight straggled down, to mingle its purple light with father's +purple lantern. I saw here in this cave-like space, a little house +built in earth fashion, a solidly square, two-storied structure of +metallic blocks. Its walls gleamed smooth and burnished. Its windows +had shutters sticking out at an angle. Behind one of the windows a dull +interior light showed. + +There was a front veranda, with a railed balcony over it. Flowers were +massed upon a flat roof. A few of their stalks had climbed and mingled +with the vegetation arching above the house. On the ground there was a +front garden with a metallic fence. Flowers growing; and low things in +the ground which might have been vegetables. + +Altogether, it was a friendly-looking little dwelling place, neat, +orderly, and for all its fantastic surroundings, of wholly earthly +aspect. It was, I think, just for that reason, as surprising a sight as +anything Xenephrene ever showed me. + + * * * * * + +Father was laughing at our amazement. "The government built it for me. +They were very kind--built it exactly as Hulda and I directed. They +think it is the most bizarre affair in their world--as no doubt it is. +Zetta lives here with us but she hates it. You do, don't you, Zetta?" + +"No," she said. Her gaze at him was affectionate, and again I saw that +roguish, sidewise glance. A little witch, fascinating. "Oh, no," she +added. "I grow used to it now. But at first it was ver' terrible." + +We were at the garden gate, which father had flung wide. + +"Come in," said Hulda. "Dan, when you see how father has fixed +it up--the trouble everybody went to, trying to make things look +like earth. Oh, if we could only welcome you all at a time less +critical--frightening. Xenephrene is really very beautiful around here, +Dan--" + +We mounted the metallic veranda and entered the living room. It held a +soft illumination of yellow-white light. Grass matting on the floor. +A polished wooden table--wood queerly porous; on the table a fabric +doily; a lamp of skin like the lantern father was carrying; and his +writing materials. + +Furniture about the room, chairs of wood, with cane seats. A metallic +bowl, with water and flowers. Cushions on some of the chairs. On the +floor, a huge cushion bound circular with a fabric rope; I surmised it +to be a seat for Zetta. On a chair near an inner doorway lay a feminine +garment which Hulda snatched away. + +Father gazed around him proudly. "Not bad, is it? Come on. I'll show +you the rest of the place, and then put you to bed. You must, all of +you, be exhausted--" + +"I'm not tired," Freddie declared. And added, like a child: "I don't +want to go to bed." + +"Well, you're going," said father. "I'll give you till dawn." + +Dan demanded, "How long is that?" + +"Five or six hours. It will be dark when I wake you up." His arm went +around my shoulders affectionately. "It's good to have you with us, +Peter. There is a great deal I have to say--but more which we'll have +to do." His voice turned very solemn. "Things have reached a crisis +here. It has come--more quickly than I thought." + +Zetta said: "My people have made a mistake--if now they will listen to +you--" + +"They'll listen to me to-morrow," he said grimly. "If it isn't too +late. We mustn't get into any discussion now--get these poor travelers +to sleep." + +It did not seem to me that Freddie or Dan or myself could possibly +sleep, with all these new, strange things whirling in our heads. But we +certainly did. In an upper bedroom, upon beds which might have been on +earth, with bedroom windows open wide to the scented night, I closed +my eyes and in a moment drifted off. In the silence and darkness, the +crimson unreal things lurked around me. But they now seemed friendly +visions; my closed eyes shut them out; my ears heard their faint +murmurs, but they lulled me. + +The last thing I remember was thinking of how we had said good night +to Zetta and she had left us. On Xenephrene, gravity was almost the +same as earth; in walking, I had noticed no difference. Zetta said good +night to us at the doorway of one of the upper rooms. She turned and +went through the doorway with a graceful leap. + +I think she knew it would startle us--I think she did it just for that +reason. It carried her past the head of the stairs; she touched the +balustrade lightly with a hand for balance as she went over it, and +dropped the fifteen feet to the floor below. A fairy's leap, Dan had +called it that in the moonlight of a Porto Rican night. But it seemed +even more fantastic in these conventional interior surroundings of the +house, the halls and the stairway. I drifted off to sleep, thinking of +it. + + + + + CHAPTER XII + + AT DAWN + + +"We have an hour," said father. "There is a great deal I must tell you, +but we must make it brief." + +"Kean will be coming at sunrise," Hulda said. "I'd have got you up +earlier." + +"I slept like a watchman," said Dan jovially. "Your air here must have +a drug in it--Hulda, what's the matter with your hair?" + +"The matter? Don't you like it?" + +"Well, but--it's turning gray. I mean--white!" + +Father said: "Look at mine--wholly white. There's something in the air +here--it kills the pigment coloring. There's no one in this world with +hair other than white." + +With father and Hulda, we were seated on the roof of Under Gardens. I +had, I thought, been asleep only a moment when father came to awaken +us. "Hulda is getting breakfast. Get up, you three." He added when we +were fully awake, "You'll find you don't need as much sleep here as on +earth." + +Hulda served us breakfast in a quaint simulation of the way she would +have done it on earth. I would not pretend to describe the food. I was +reminded of Dan's describing the involuntary grimaces Zetta had made at +the food they served her in Porto Rico. + +There was a beverage which might have been either tea or coffee--a +sweetish mixture of some herb; and the cooked flesh of what I hoped was +an animal--and eggs. They were small, and queerly oblong in shape; I +did not think it best to inquire into them too fully. + +"It's a very nice breakfast, Hulda," I said lamely, as we were +finishing. + +"You'll get used to it," said father. "Come upstairs." + +It was dim on the roof top; the full moon was evidently low to its +setting horizon; shafts of its purple light slanted down through the +thick arch of vegetation. The flat roof of the house had a low metal +parapet; paths between gleaming basins of flowers; and a small open +area with comfortable chairs. We seated ourselves and father produced +what were evidently home-made cigars. But they were not bad. + +"Well," said Dan, "this is mighty luxurious." In the moonlight I could +see his great lazy length stretched in his chair. "Hulda, sit here by +me." + +She sat beside him, with her hand on his. Dear little Hulda; she would +make any man happy to whom she gave the true steadfastness of her love. +Freddie was alert and eager to hear all that father had to tell us. So +was I, but my mind was divided by thoughts of Zetta. She had not yet +appeared; and no one had spoken of her. + +Father gazed around us. "It's been comfortable here. It must seem very +strange to you." + +Within the vault of this encompassing wall and ceiling of vegetation, +the air hung heavy upon us. I had been convinced that a street was +overhead; if so, it was untraveled now--in the moonlight up there I +could not see the moving figures. + +There seemed nothing living in sight. A moment later I was not so sure. +Vines ran up like ladders from the rooftop of the house to the jungle +ceiling. I thought, far up there, a figure was clinging. A brown shape; +a man--an animal? Or was it some giant brown insect lying motionless +on a great stalk of the vines? And then, down on the ground in front +of the house by the front fence, I saw unmistakably a brown crawling +thing. The length of a man--crawling prone with several legs; it +raised an eye toward our roof--a spot of dull red light with a circle +of smaller lights around it. + +I stared; it came crawling to the gate; raised itself up, standing +the height of a man upon a tripod of jointed legs; then sank back and +crawled slowly on, following the line of fence. + +Father remarked my awed, half-frightened gaze. He laughed. "One of +our guards. We've half a hundred of them on the ground here, and in +the foliage. We're just a little alarmed over Zetta's safety--you'll +understand presently." + +I took advantage of that. "Where is Zetta?" + +"Sleeping," said Hulda. "They do not sleep very regularly, here on +Xenephrene. She'll be up presently--I didn't want to awaken her." + + * * * * * + +Father settled himself in his chair. "Before I can make you understand +conditions here, I'll have to give you an idea of the history of this +world--this race of humans so unlike ourselves physically, yet in their +human qualities so very similar. Don't be impatient, Frederick. I know +what you want are the cold scientific facts--I'll be as brief as I can. + +"They have always called Xenephrene 'the Wanderer.' It was their name +for their world. Our ancient earth astronomers in their ignorance +termed our planets of the Solar System 'wanderers.' They are not. They +are chained to our sun. Xenephrene has always been free. Wandering +free among the stars. Thus you will understand that the astronomical +conditions we have here now are all new to Xenephrene. What they were +before is immaterial. Nights of wan starlight; purple days of Pyrena's +moonlight. + +"Perhaps in the remote past most of Xenephrene's surface was habitable. +That is not known. Very little of it is habitable now, and there is +only one main race--these Garlands. Only this one habitable region; +they call it and the city here 'Garla.' The land very possibly is +shrinking slowly to a lesser area; the race certainly is dying. Ten +thousand years from now--" He shrugged. "What difference what the +outcome may be then? Ten thousand years ago the Garlands were evidently +a very progressive, 'modern' people. Their records show it." + +Father gazed at us earnestly. "I want you to understand this; it +explains much. On earth we are climbing now from savagery to what we +might call civilized modernity. The achievements of science--modern +life--a growing complexity of existence--all that, to us on earth, has +come to stand for advancement. + +"These Garlands passed that era of their development centuries ago. +Their history, their records, their traditions speak eloquently of a +past age when they lived in a machine-made world of science--the sort +of world we are building so rapidly on earth. There is, not far from +here, the ruined shell of one of their great cities. I fancy that in +its prime our present-day New York or London would have seemed very +primitive indeed. It is abandoned; in moldering ruins now. + +"There came a time when, growing decadent, or perhaps with a greater +wisdom, the Garlands began to feel that they were in error. Leaders +rose among them to preach a new philosophy of life. + +"You understand, I am speaking of changes that came, not quickly, but +spread over centuries. These people--a single race they were then--were +isolated upon their wandering world. Their science made them understand +it more thoroughly than we understand our earth. They had built for +themselves a complex civilization. They lived in bustling metal cities. +Machines did their work. + +"But they found, strangely enough, that the more 'labor-saving' devices +they invented, the more work there was to do. The cities were racked +with disease. A hundred million people, crowded upon too small an area, +living a complex artificial life, began to die faster than they were +being born. There was little happiness; life was too complex; the rush +to keep up with it was too great a strain." + +Father was smiling with a faintly ironical twist, but his voice was +very earnest. "It is queer that one must come to another world to +have a revealing mirror held up to one's self! They found out, their +Garlands, that they were on the wrong track! It may have taken them +centuries to become convinced of it--but when they decided they +evidently did it very suddenly. In a lifetime or so. + +"Their wonderful modern cities began to decay. The machines which they +had built to do their work began to stand idle--and instead of there +being more work to do, it seemed that there was less! They began to +remove complexities of life; the restless urge to 'advance' into some +vague golden age of achievement, died out. They realized that happiness +in life did not lie that way; they saw in Pyrena's purple moonlight a +greater beauty than all their man-made splendor had ever given. + + * * * * * + +"They fell--if you want to call it that--back to simplicity. With the +greater knowledge of what they had passed through, with the stress of +'modernity' no longer harrassing them, a new altruism came. A primitive +race climbing upward is in no sense comparable. The savage has no +knowledge; his simple life is for him one of struggle; the survival +of the fittest is the only law he knows. Up to so-called civilization +the survival of the fittest governs everything; the Garlands, at their +complex, scientific pinnacle of civilized life, were inherently as +barbarous as at their savage beginning. + +"But once they began to revert--ah, then it was very different! They +had the knowledge of how to wrest from nature a comfortable existence. +As their wants grew fewer, humans looked at each other, not like +mistrustful predatory animals, but with a new kindliness. + +"That is the present condition. The Garlands live now only for +happiness. Their life, their government, their whole mode of thought +and living, is designed upon a basis of as little struggle for +existence as possible. They live for one thing only; to enjoy their +world, not as they might mold and change it, but as the Creator made +it, and gave it to them. + +"It is a benign world. Not to my mind, of course, as benign or +desirable as our own. But once they began to enjoy it, the Garlands +found it very blessed. There are fires within Xenephrene which, +for all her wanderings, seem to keep the surface temperature at a +pleasant warmth. Food grows readily; rains are frequent. There is, +fundamentally, no tendency toward human disease. + +"The few wants that the Garlands now realize they need for happiness +and health are easily supplied. No one works very much; there is plenty +of time for pleasure. The struggle for a high civilization was perhaps +necessary. It gave an experience of what to accept and what to reject; +and a knowledge of how to control the forces of nature. I'll explain +that more fully later. + +"There is evil in nature here--a danger which on earth we have not. +The Garlands have preserved enough of their science to enable them to +control it. Enough science also to guard against any attack. They're +not fatuous! There is a scientific body--they call it by a word I +translate as Guild. A small body of scientists who are 'modern' in +every respect. Their work is secret--so that what they do may not +contaminate the people with any desire again to 'achieve.' They are +thoroughly trustworthy, these scientists--" + +Hulda said suddenly: "Or at least you hope so." + +"Yes," he said gravely. "I hope and believe so. They hold in their +hands the power of this world. In their grottos they have weapons ready +and waiting--and controlled power which holds in check the evil forces +of nature--the great sub-world of Xenephrene which lies here within the +cognizance of our human senses, as you knew when you landed and first +opened your door to let it in." + +I exclaimed: "These crimson things--this sound!" + +It was around us, murmuring in our ears as we sat there. + +"Yes," he agreed. "It is harmless, if controlled." + +It was what his look implied, what he refrained from saying, that +brought me a shudder. He changed the subject abruptly. + +"The animal and insect world is very interesting here, Peter. It is not +comparable to what we have on earth at all. You'll understand that very +shortly. There are few animals. The insects--" His glance involuntarily +went above us; that great brown thing was lying motionless up there in +the foliage. "The insect world plays a very large part in the scheme +of things here. These Garlands have a very well ordered world. All +designed for a pleasant existence. All this that the Guild of Science +does is never obtruded in the Garland's happy life. There is no +stress--no struggle--" + +Freddie interrupted: "I'm hanged if I understand you, Professor +Vanderstuyft. You talk as though this were some Elysium here. +Utopia--something like that. But you sent for us because of impending +danger. Last night when we arrived Hulda talked very differently. + +"Even awhile ago--and look at Hulda now--" + +Hulda's face certainly was very solemn; Dan put his arm around her. +I said: "I feel the same--what Freddie says--father, if there is no +stress, no struggle here--" + +He gestured. "I meant, in fundamentals. This is no Utopia. There never +has been any Utopia in human existence, and there never will be. Human +nature, wherever you find it in the immensity of God's Great Universe, +will have its human failings. If it had not, it would not be human. +There are good people--and bad people. Most of us are a blend of both +qualities. There is nothing wholly good short of Divinity, and nothing +wholly bad save our conception, perchance, of Satan." + +"Your father is in a philosophical mood," Dan commented to Hulda. + +But she did not smile. Father said: + +"Perhaps. But in reality I'm trying to make clear to you the causes +which have brought forth here a serious condition. It affects this +world--and you, all of us--for you are now plunged into it with me. And +the safety of our own earth--" Father's voice turned vigorous. "Why do +you suppose I sent for you? I could not leave here--I would rather, +infinitely rather, have come back with Hulda." + +"Tell us," said Dan. + + * * * * * + +Freddie prompted: "There are two races here. You mentioned the Brauns +in your letter. Are they the race which menaces the earth? Who invaded +it before?" + +Dan said: "That night in our house in Porto Rico--who took you away? +What was Zetta doing there? Who was the man with her we found dead? She +had just told you everything that afternoon you both disappeared--what +was it she told you--" + +"You see, there is so much, father, which we are eager to know--" I put +in. He raised his hand against our outpouring of questions. + +"I'm trying to tell you as best I can. There was only one race +here--the Garlands. They were not all of one mind in giving up +modernity. No race of people can ever be all the same. Some continued +to lust for achievement; some desired personal power--conventional +riches; some were just plain bad. Criminals. Only in Utopia would there +be a complete lack of crime. + +"Out of this diversity the Garland rulers strove to weed the discordant +element. Generations ago it was found expedient to exile criminals. A +region north of here, at the edge of the metal plains, was set aside as +a penal colony. Criminals were banished to live there, and there they +bred their kind. + +"Then, later, it was made by law a crime here in Garla to preach +modernity. The element--outside of the legalized scientific Guild--who +still lusted for the old achievement, were classed as criminals +and were banished also. As a matter of actuality they were largely +criminals at heart. + +"There were a few well-meaning crusaders who felt that the world was +going wrong--who actually believed their doctrine of 'hustle, bustle +and get rich.' But for the most part this element was composed of men +of criminal instinct who thought they could gain power by such a stand. +They preached, sought followers, tried by every means to foster a +discontent. Some were clever, learned men; one even tried to foment a +revolution and seize the government; another started a little city and +culture of his own. + +"Gradually they were weeded out and exiled. Thus, to the north of here, +the race of the Brauns was created. Of criminal stock, primarily--and +constantly absorbing all the criminals from Garla. They have one large +city--nearly all of them live in it. They are progressive--modern, as +I term it. Fundamentally, of course, they are not intellectually the +equals of the Garlands. But they think they are. They number now about +a hundred thousand. Somewhat more than that, perhaps. They have their +own government; they punish and imprison their criminals according to +their own standards of justice." + +"I should think," said Dan, "that they would object to having the +Garlands dump criminals upon them." + +"If they do, they have no other recourse. They could, naturally, +banish them to some other region. But they do not. The Brauns are few +in number. They welcome new citizens. Their city is very progressive. +Their chief occupation is industry. They have commercial intercourse +with Garla; they bring us clothing, implements, various manufactured +articles, which we exchange for food. They do not go in for +agriculture--indeed they have very little, and very poor land. + +"The Garlands, you understand, are the ruling race. They are ten +or fifteen times more numerous than the Brauns. And for all their +voluntary, rustic simplicity, they are far more intelligent. The Brauns +are not allowed here, except when they are checked in through our +frontier guards. They are given a permit, if their desired visit seems +justifiable; they are allowed to stay only a limited time to transact +their business, and then are checked out. + +"Their government now, for all their civilized talk of democracy and +freedom, is an autocracy, almost a despotism. It is controlled by one +Graff, a giant of a fellow who calls himself a scientist. As a young +man here in Garla, he tried to gather followers about him, and to seize +our government. He was exiled. Among the Brauns, he rose rapidly into +a very solid power. He is a genius in his way, no doubt. Certainly he +has a genius for organization. A magnificent physique--he is larger +than you, Dan--and possibly stronger. They tell me, too, he is a great +orator. He can sway people--he talked himself where he is, as did many +a man in our own earthly history. + +"A few years ago--just before Xenephrene wandered into our solar system +to be entrapped by our sun--Graff had stirred his people into thinking +they could conquer the Garlands and thus rule Xenephrene. The most +progressive, most civilized race--why could they not overcome these +fatuous peasants? The Braun civilization, as you can imagine, has +developed all the extremes of riches and poverty. They have factory +workers who are miserably downtrodden. Graff, largely responsible now +for it all, yet poses as a patriot and a hero. His ignorant class +follows him, hoping blindly to better itself. + +"Graff came here with a sudden coup to war against the Garlands. With +all his diabolical science--by every inhuman means he could employ. +And he was very much surprised to be abruptly repulsed. The Garland +Scientific Guild was ready; the Brauns were horribly slaughtered; +chastened, and things went on as before." + + * * * * * + +I had been aware for some time that the scene around us was +brightening. The moon evidently had set, or nearly so. A luminous +quality of yellow color seemed in the air; the purple haze was going. +Dawn was at hand. Our first day upon Xenephrene! What would it bring +forth? My breath came faster at the thought. + +The vault of foliage around and over us was taking clearer form; new +colors were coming to it. Down on the ground the crawling thing was +coming back past our gate. It met another of its kind. They rose up, +stood for a moment together, and then parted, crawling their separate +ways. Had they spoken to each other as they passed? They had seemed, +to my quickened, stimulated fancy, almost like two shapes of men, +guards, exchanging a low word as they passed on their night patrol. +I shuddered. Men! That crawling thing down there in the shadow by the +burnished metal fence might have been a giant ant; certainly nothing +human. + +Father leaned forward toward us; his earnest gaze held my wandering +attention. "I come now to the more recent events which directly concern +us of the earth. Xenephrene wandered in to join our little family of +planets gathered about our sun. Graff, with his science, in which +astronomy evidently is further progressed than ours of earth, was well +aware of what had happened. His telescope showed him earth--showed him +very possibly things on earth which gave him a new lust for conquest. +Here was a great, fair world, ready to his hand for the taking. He +could never be master of Xenephrene--of that he was convinced. + +"He gathered a small force and went to earth. His intention then was +not to try to conquer it--the trip was merely experimental. He wanted +to make sure of conditions there--" + +"To know what he was up against," I put in. + +"Exactly, Peter. He is a clever, resourceful fellow. He landed, as +we know, near New York. Then went South, to investigate the warmer +climate--the snow and cold were disconcerting to him. + +"To give you an idea how carefully he plans things--he speaks now both +our English and Spanish, making ready for his future earth campaigns +when he may need them. He captured--this he told me very blandly--an +earth man near New York. Learned English from him. And also captured a +Venezuelan--who supplied the Spanish. Both captives, as Graff blandly +says, unfortunately died when he was through with them. It was not a +great task for him to learn our tongues. The Xenephrene mind absorbs +new things--learns--more readily than ours. And Graff is perhaps even +exceptional in that." + +"Zetta--" I began. + +"Zetta and her father were here in Garla. The news that Graff had +invaded earth aroused great interest here. The Garlands doubtless might +have stopped him if they had known of it sooner. But they did not. +Also, the government here decided that they would not interfere--it was +really nothing to them." + +"I'd think," said Freddie, "they'd have been pleased to get rid of him +and his tribe." + +"That was the general idea. Indeed, perhaps it still is. That's +what I'm working against. Zetta's father--alone of all the Garland +government at that time Graff made his first invasion of earth--was +anxious to stop him. Zetta's father preached the doctrine, 'Do as you +would be done by.' He wanted to protect the earth people, or, if not +that, at least to warn them. + +"Zetta, of course, felt the same. Her mother is dead--she and her +father, without other near kin, were very close and dear to each other. +They got nowhere in trying to persuade the Garlands to help our earth. +Zetta, had she found the opportunity, might even have tried to join +Graff's expedition, a wild, girlish idea--she felt she might have some +influence with him--get him to give up his scheme of conquest--" + +"In Heaven's name, why?" Dan demanded. "Why did she think she might +influence him?" + +"Because he is in love with her," father replied gravely. + +"In love--" I exclaimed. + +"Yes. He has pleaded for her many times. He never comes here that he +does not try to get her to return to the Braun city with him. He's very +gentle with her--she seems not to fear him." + +"Well, I would," said Hulda; and father nodded. And added: "An +unscrupulous scoundrel, beyond question. I have felt for months that +Zetta was not safe from him. Whenever he is in Garla, I keep our place +here well guarded." + +"He's in Garla now?" I asked. My heart was beating fast. "Didn't Zetta +tell that man last night that she wanted to see this Graff?" + +"Yes. But I will not let her. She thinks she might be able to stop him +going to earth. A foolish girl's idea." Father waved it away. + +"I learned very recently, though we have suspected and feared it for +some time--Graff's real expedition to attack earth is now ready! Do +you understand me? He's going to earth with all his force to make his +real play to conquer it--not seventeen months hence--but now! Graff is +ready now to attack the earth. Oh, Peter, if I had only known!" + +That miserable phrase again! That accursed phrase! + +"Peter, I should have sent for you sooner. I could have used every +effort--sent for you seventeen months ago. Well, it's too late now to +think of that. In a few days! Unless we can stop him! Or persuade the +Garlands to do something about it--" + +"Which they won't," said Hulda. "He's here in Garla buying food for his +expedition. And making public speeches to our people--promising them +heaven knows what kind of rewards when he returns from conquering the +earth. The Garland public is half won to him now. And the woman Brea is +here--" + + * * * * * + +"Who is Brea?" I asked. + +"A woman who wants to join him," said father. "Call it marriage--I +haven't time now to go into the social laws of this world." + +"You were telling us how Zetta went to the earth," Freddie prompted. +"Was that her father who went with her?" + +"Yes. They could get no help from the Garlands, so they started +alone--to warn us on earth--to do what they could to help us. Zetta's +father was ill. The trip was bad for him. He died, just as they +arrived. And Zetta carried on his plans." + +Freddie persisted: "The Garlands gave them the vehicle?" + +"Yes." + +"What weapons have they available here? Now, I mean. Suppose they gave +us some--" + +Father smiled somewhat ruefully. "The Scientific Guild here takes me +only partially in its confidence. Smiling, polite, courteous--but I +am a stranger--they never forget that for a moment. What weapons they +have, I confess I don't know. Graff's method of attack on earth--that, +too, I don't know. His weapon, which we called the 'Crimson Sound'--I +can only guess its real nature. It is allied with the Infra-Red +world--that is obvious. + +"At all events, when I learned that Graff was planning to attack our +world again, I demanded of the Garlands a vehicle with which to go to +earth. They told me they had none. We're building one--it may be ready +now. As a matter of fact, I did not feel it best to leave here. I still +may be able to persuade them to help us. They were willing to have +you come. They provided me with the cylinders--and the mechanisms--so +readily that I was forced to suspect that in reality they have +everything on hand which we would need. Zetta has done everything she +can do. But she is only a girl--the government pays little attention +to her. She has made several speeches to the women of Garla--but they +availed nothing." + +Father's fists were clenched on the arms of his chair. "When I sent for +you three, I thought we would have seventeen months. I thought with +your presence--your words and pleadings to add to mine--to make them +help us, and--I'll confess it--I was lonely for you. I'm getting old." + +"You thought something else, father," said Hulda quietly. Strange +little Hulda! A will of iron, beneath her soft, dovelike little body! + +Father lowered his voice slightly; his glance around us in the growing +twilight of dawn had a surreptitious aspect. "Yes, I did. I thought +that with your youth and strength and daring we might perhaps be able +to thwart Graff here on Xenephrene before he started. Or, failing +that"--his voice fell lower--"we might even dare try and make away with +the Garlands' weapons--get them to earth." + +Dan leaped to his feet; his height towered over us. "Well, it's not too +late for that, is it? See here, why can't we--" + +"Sit down," said Freddie. "There's a lot we don't know about this thing +yet. Professor Vanderstuyft, how did you and Hulda and Zetta happen to +disappear that night in Porto Rico?" + +"Graff knew Zetta was on earth," said father. "He came to get her--I +was up, and Hulda was awake. The man Graff sent captured all three of +us. We went back in the vehicle Zetta had arrived in. Our captor's +name was Kean--that same young fellow who spoke to us last night--he's +coming here shortly now to see me." + +"Then he was a spy--not really one of Graff's men?" Freddie suggested. + +"No. He was in Graff's service. But a very decent fellow. He had been +convicted of a crime here in Garla. A theft. Convicted unjustly, he +says, for he still maintains his innocence. They're trying him again +now--at his request--even though he has recently been pardoned and +reinstated in Garla. He was exiled, and, in his resentment, he joined +Graff. He captured us in the Cain plantation house. He was supposed to +take us to the Brauns. But he didn't. He brought us here." + +"Why?" asked Dan. + +Father was smiling at Hulda. "Well, Dan, I think you'd better ask Hulda +that. But don't be angry with her. She is--" + +A woman's scream brought us all to our feet. My blood chilled; a wave +of ice seemed sweeping up to grip my heart. A scream from within the +house below us! A scream of terror! Zetta! + + + + + CHAPTER XIII + + "EMPEROR OF THE EARTH!" + + +In the flat light of dawn we must have looked ashen as we stood there +on the roof top with Zetta's scream ringing in our horrified ears. I +remember standing transfixed just an instant. Father made a leap toward +the stairway that led down into the house, but a cry from Hulda checked +him. + +"Look! The guards--look there!" + +[Illustration: The Braun with the knife sprang at Zetta, and she called +on her insect guards for help.] + +We were at a corner of the roof where it projected and gave a side +view of the building. In the twilight I could see the ground--a garden +path between flowering shrubs; the burnished side wall of the house; +the lower windows, with shutters slanting out; and an upper window, +diagonally beneath us, Zetta's room! It seemed so. It was opened; +another scream from Zetta came through it. + +I recall that my confusion was mingled with a sense of relief--this cry +seemed to hold not so much terror as anger and words of command. + +It all happened in no more than an instant, while we hung over the roof +parapet, watching. From the ground a figure leaped upward--a great +brown thing with spindly legs, shining shell of jointed body and a head +with thin waving arms beside it. + +From within the room a commotion now sounded, a struggle--the +scratching of giant insect legs, the pad of human feet. The thing on +the ground outside came sailing up with its leap; it clutched the +casement, went scuttling in the window. + +Father left us and ran down the staircase from the roof, but we did +not heed his going. Then from the window a man's body was tumbled out. +The grotesque forms of two great insects showed there; they were in +the room, pushing the man through the window. He fell lightly to the +ground; lay huddled, writhing in a heap. From the window they leaped +down after him. A thing with brown spreading wings came sailing down +from the foliage; a dozen others were leaping from unseen places. + +Zetta appeared at the window. Zetta, unharmed. She gazed down but +behind her, father appeared and drew her back into the room. On the +ground a score of the insect guards were writhing, scratching, pawing +over the body of Zetta's assailant. One scuttled away with a fragment, +and two others chased it. + +"It's perfectly clear to me," said father. "Kean, this blackguard Graff +tried to abduct Zetta. What will your government say to that, when I +tell them this morning? Are we to have these Brauns committing crimes +right here in Garla?" + +We were all in father's living room, half an hour after the attack on +Zetta. Kean had come; he stood now before us respectfully listening +to father's indignant words. He was a slim young fellow, as short as +Freddie and as slender; a smooth, white-skinned youth, in leather, +sleeveless jacket and short, wide-flaring leather trousers. Bareheaded, +his thick, white hair hung long to his ears, with a thong binding it +about his forehead. His face was pleasant, with a delicacy of cast +suggesting girlishness, but his mouth was wide and firm-lipped, his +chin strong and thoroughly masculine. + +I liked him at once, this Kean. He smiled at us and shook our hands. He +spoke English, like Zetta, with that quaint, clipped accent. + +Zetta had not been hurt. She had been awakened by an intruder at her +window. An insect guard evidently had followed him in, had attacked +him. The rest we witnessed. + +"Who was he?" Kean demanded. + +She shook her head. "I do not know." + +Father said: "You never saw him before?" + +"No, never. I think not." + +"A Braun?" + +"Oh, yes." + +Kean gestured. "If we had him, we could tell--" + +"He is--gone now," said Zetta. I shuddered at the memory. Gone indeed! + +Father repeated: "Graff evidently sent him to abduct her. Is the +government going to do nothing--" + +"They would want proof," said Kean quietly. "I was thinking--Zetta, was +he trying to get you away, or--" + +"Or what?" Hulda demanded. + +"Or kill her. I was thinking--it might not be Graff who sent him." He +waved away his words. "It would be a very serious problem--other days. +But not now--there is too much else." + +It struck me that Zetta's face bore a queer expression. She said +suddenly: "I will tell you the truth." + +We turned on her; she was smiling a faint, quizzical smile. "I was +sleeping, as I said. The insect guards caught a man who leaped for my +window. A Braun--I had never seen him before. They would have torn +him--but I made them stop. I tell them, bring him in. And when they +did, I sen' them, the guards, outside, for I wish to speak to him +alone." + +Hulda exclaimed: "Zetta, you did not!" + +"I did," she returned calmly. "The insects wanted to attack him--so I +force them away. I thought then he was from Graff--I thought he want to +carry me off--steal me for Graff. I was not afraid of him--" Her smile +broadened. "Especially with my guards jus' outside. So I stood agains' +the wall, with him across the room, to talk to him." + +"But why?" father demanded. "Child, why would you do a thing like this?" + +"I think to find out if really he was from Graff; and if so, then I +wanted to send a message. If Graff would give up his attack upon the +earth, I would marry him as he wants. That was my message." + +She said it so calmly! I could picture her standing there in her room, +trying to bargain herself for the safety of another world. There was +not one of us who could find a word to comment. I saw the tears spring +to Hulda's eyes. + + * * * * * + +Zetta went on unmoved, heedless of our expressions. "I tell the Braun +this. But he was not--that seems sure--he was not sen' by Graff. He +stood of a sudden with a knife--a long knife of the kind we use in +Garla to cut the pods. He jump for me--he would kill me. It was then I +screamed. In the room I avoided him for a moment--and then my guards +came in." She gestured. "The res' you know--and there you have now the +truth--all of it." + +Hulda took Zetta in her arms. "You strange little thing Zetta, you +mustn't do anything like this--" + +Father said: "If Graff had got your message, he would trick you. Zetta, +promise me you won't try that again. Will you promise?" + +She eyed him. "I think perhaps I may not get the chance." + +Kean said: "He tried--that Braun--to murder her. He was from Brea--not +from Graff." + +"Yes," said Zetta. "I think that is so." + +"I'm going before the Council at noon," said father. "I'll have this +out with them--Zetta, if you're going to force me, I'll put you under +guard so you won't be able to do anything foolish--Kean, I want you +to tell the Council I'm bringing my son, and two young friends. +Earthmen--they must hear us now--" + +"Yes," said Kean solemnly. "The people are excited, interest' that men +of earth are here. But most interest' in Graff. He promises big things +for Garla--" Kean was very solemn. "The gov'ment is making mistake. +There are too many Brauns here. At the border--I tell them jus' now +that out of our border something mus' be wrong." + +He was talking mainly to father, but his gaze seemed involuntarily +swinging to Hulda. "At our border they are not checking the Brauns out +as they should. Or at leas' not sending the reports back to us. All +night--none have come. I have sen' messengers to see what is wrong--" + +Father turned to us. "You understand? The authorities have grown +suddenly lax--" + +"I'll tell you why," said Freddie. "They're satisfied, since Graff is +going to attack earth, that they have no immediate cause to fear him, +or his people. Maybe, too, they think that when he comes back, laden +with spoils, Garla will benefit--" + +"That is it," Kean interrupted. "He tells our people that--exactly +that. It is not our gov'ment which is tempt' into greed--it is the +people--" + +Father said: "Well, the authorities are making a mistake, Kean. This +Graff--you believe it as well as I do--is playing a double game. You +know he means no good to Garla. The insect workers--you say there are a +great many of them missing?" + +"Yes, I am order to-day a checking of them. Many--a thousan' as you say +it--seem gone--" + +"Gone?" I echoed. "What does that mean? Gone where?" + +Kean waved his slim white hand. "Over the border? Per'aps--I do not +know. It is ver' strange--" + +"Smuggling them out!" said father to us. "You understand? There are +no insect workers in the Braun city. Graff is here, talking--blandly +protesting friendship, with his insidious lures of gain from his earth +conquest--and all the while he's secretly smuggling out our insects--" + +Kean had turned away momentarily to Hulda. "My trial, it finish last +night. They gave the verdic' jus' now--I am said, innocent." + +Hulda's face brightened; she took his hands. "Oh, Kean, I'm so glad. +Father, the verdict has cleared him!" + +"Yes," he said quietly. "Thank you, Hulda." + +I whispered to Dan: "Father said you'd have to ask Hulda why Kean +brought his captives to Garla instead of delivering them up to the +Brauns. I can tell you why." + +It was obvious, seeing Kean's earnest, flushed face as Hulda +congratulated him. + +"Why?" demanded Dan. + +"Because he's fascinated by her. Look at him--" + +"Oh, he is?" Dan's expression was a study. "He is, is he?" And then he +laughed. "Well, you can't blame him, can you?" + +"No," I said, "you can't." + +Kean left presently; and Dan made a studied, but very graceful +attempt to be friendly. Both Hulda and Kean knew what he meant. +Kean's handclasp was firm and cordial; his gaze into Dan's eyes was +unfaltering. He carried himself then--and indeed, always--with a very +manly dignity worthy of any one's admiration. When he was gone, Hulda +turned to Dan, flung her arms around his neck and kissed him. + +"Dan, you're a darling." + + * * * * * + +The morning was well advanced when we started with father from "Under +Gardens." He wanted to show us the city; we would finish at the +government house--I call it that for the want of a better term--and +make our plea to the Council. I was not aware then what thoughts and +vague plans possessed Dan and Freddie; but for my own part, my mind was +roaming upon what father had said: "With your youth and strength and +daring we might even try to make away with the Garlands' weapons. Get +them to earth--" + +Why not? I determined that what was shown me of the city and the +government this morning, I would see with eyes and mind open to watch +every opportunity. And I must get a chance to plan alone, with Dan and +Freddie. + +Hulda and Zetta were determined to appear before the Council with us. +Just as we started, Freddie said abruptly: "Professor Vanderstuyft, fix +it so we can go through the Scientists' Grotto, will you?" + +His thoughts were running in the same channels as my own! Dan gave him +a very significant nod of approval; and father said firmly: "I intend +to. But it will likely be after the midday meal. I want you to see the +Infra-red Control. The greatest power for good or evil in this world." + +Zetta and Hulda stood apart from us at the doorway. Zetta called: +"Shall we start? The guards are here, Professor Vanderstuyft--they say +you insis' on having them with us." + +A group of the brown insect things were ranged before our gate! I could +not approach them at first without an inward shudder--a reluctance +wholly involuntary, which made me revolt at their nearness. Jointed +brown things crawling prone on the ground. Gruesome. Not alone because +their size was full that of a man--gruesome, in the way they sometimes +stood upright upon three hind legs; other legs dangling like arms; +head, grotesquely wearing a single, multiple-lens eye; antennae, like +arms waving above the head. + +Gruesome for all this--and more gruesome for a crude leather jacket +strapped around them in the fashion of a garment. Things--living +things--more than giant insects as we of earth would conceive the term; +yet less than humans. Some stood erect now; they eyed my father as one +to whom they must look for commands. Others crawled unheeding along the +edge of the fence--ghastly! Horrible! One stopped, half raised itself, +and eyed me with a calculating stare that turned me cold. + +We started. Some of the insects remained about the house; eight went +with us, four of them slithering along on each side of us. It was +full daylight now. The sunlight came down through the jungle ceiling +in a subdued yellow glow. There was a street up there; I could see the +straight lines of a causeway laid upon the top of the foliage; figures +moving along it. We were under a portion of the city. Father had said +so; and now, almost at once, we came to the foot of an incline which +led us upward. + +"This way," said father. "Take it slowly. These cursed things will hold +our weight, but I never feel very comfortable on them." + +We left the solid ground upon which Under Gardens was built, and I +confess I never felt comfortable either, until we were back again. The +inclined causeway was some twenty feet wide. It wound steeply upward +through the forest growth, with a ten-foot space cleared over it like a +tunnel. + +It was built of porous tree-trunks, lashed together with a heavy +vegetable fiber laid on them for a walking surface. Its framework was +bound to the trees and the thick vines which grew everywhere throughout +this gigantic forest tangle. The whole structure bent and swayed +beneath our weight as we advanced up it. I was reminded of the old-time +giant bamboo bridges of Japan. + +We went up through some two hundred feet of the jungle and came +abruptly into the broad daylight of its upper surface. We were in the +heart of the city they called Garla; this small locality where we +emerged was the center of population of all Xenephrene. + +"Here," said father, "come up here for a minute--I'll show you how it +lies--Zetta, keep them back." + +A crowd of people already was gathering, staring at us silently. Father +waved them away; and murmured a queer guttural command to our insect +convoy. The things lay quiet in a group. Near at hand, on a tree-trunk +framework, was a small platform some twenty feet in the air with a +ladder leading up to it. + +"Come up," said father. "We can see better--a jumping platform, as I +call it." + + * * * * * + +We mounted, and gazed upon as strange a scene as ever I could have +imagined would be spread before me. The surface of Xenephrene here was +covered, for an area of perhaps five miles square, with this dense +forest growth. Its top--two hundred feet above the ground--was tangled +and matted into an undulating upper surface. + +Upon this forest top, the main section of the city of Garla was built. +The streets--we seemed now to be on one of the main ones--were narrow, +crooked roadways of split porous logs, bound with matting. The tops of +the jungle vines projected with waving branches between them. + +Houses lined the streets, fiber shacks of every size and shape, +with large empty areas like gardens between them. Cubical, oval, +triangular--some low like a bungalow--others tall and narrow as towers. +Flimsy vegetable structures, with matted roofs to shed the rain; with +windows, doorways, sometimes twenty feet above the roadway. Some of the +houses were set like nests below the street level, in the vegetation +itself, with entrance from the roof. Others clung between the trunks of +taller projecting branches, bound there with living vines, half hidden +by leaves and giant flowers. + +At intervals were platforms like the one upon which we stood. The +street nearest to us was most closely lined with houses; the fronts +were open, with what seemed food displayed. The business district. +Further away, with a great circular open space before it, was a large, +broad structure. "The government house," said father. "An incline there +leads down to the ground--the grottos are down there." + +It was an amazing, colorful scene--I fear my words are futile, wholly +inadequate to picture it. The familiar blue vault of the heavens was +above us. White clouds, tinged with a vague purple. The familiar +sun--with a dim purple haze in the air breaking its tropical heat and +glare. + +This five mile area of city, laid upon the jungle top, all seemed +incredibly flimsy. It swayed everywhere in the gentle morning breeze. +All the vegetation was gigantic, and flimsy--porous like our bamboo +stalks, or banana trees. + +Father commented: "Nothing living weighs very much here. All living +organism seems constructed with strange lack of solidity compared to +our earthly standards." + +The lack of weight was everywhere apparent. Great brown vines and +trees, branches with giant green, red, and purple leaves, huge colorful +flowers. But with a machete I could have hacked it away, slashed +through the stoutest trunk with a single stroke. The houses! I felt, +gazing at them, that I could rip them apart with my naked hands! + +Zetta, both on earth and Xenephrene, weighed some eighteen pounds. +There were white-faced, white-haired, half naked little children gazing +now at us from the near-by houses--children who weighed a pound or +two. Women passed us--in aspect save for their flowing white hair, +not unlike peasant women of the primitive, tropical cities of earth +as they were before the Great Change--but these women weighed twenty +or twenty-five pounds! Men in crude leather garments, bare-legged, +bare-armed, white hair flowing about their ears, some with small oval +kindly faces, with no hairgrowth on them; these men might weigh from +twenty-five to thirty pounds--no more. + +All flimsy! Everything--it brought me a sudden sense of power. Why, in +a hand-to-hand fight I could smash a dozen of these men! We of earth +were solid; the platform bent beneath our weight as we stood there; +Dan's bulk tipped its unrailed corner until he nearly fell, lurching +backward hastily to safety. Had he fallen, I felt he might have crashed +on through the street itself, down through the forest to the ground. No +wonder father had demanded his home built down where it was! + + * * * * * + +I have not pictured the strangest aspect of all. The city was busy with +its activities. There seemed no vehicles here. Pedestrians only--moving +about their daily tasks. Strange, weird movements! They walked along +the streets in easy, graceful leaps. Fifteen feet at a stride. They +climbed down into the vegetation; or leaped to a housetop. A man came +from a house doorway. It was in the upper story--thirty feet from the +street. He stared at us--waved his hand in a gesture of greeting to +father and Zetta; then he leaped into the air, over the road, landing +in the notch of a tree; and from there dropped soundlessly down out of +sight. + +From other platforms like the one on which we were standing, +occasionally a man would take a greater leap. Not far away, there was +one high tower, with platform at its top. Beyond it, the upper surface +of the forest sloped down to where, half a mile away in that direction, +the city ended at the ground level. There were broad fields of loam off +there, evidently under cultivation. + +"Look!" said father. "There's a man climbing the tower--he's going down +to the ground-fields." + +He stood poised on the platform a moment, and then leaped. It was +more the sort of leap Zetta had made in Porto Rico. This man spread +flaring folds of his leather garment. They hung like wings from his +outstretched arms. He sailed horizontally, head first, from the tower +top, over the forest slope and landed down on the ground nearly half +a mile away. I have seen, in Switzerland, a ski jumper parallel the +sloping ground in a leap something like that. + +"Quite some jumper," Freddie commented. + +"That is Rowlande," said Zetta to father. + +"One of Garla's athletes," father explained. "They enjoy sport +here--the sail jump is a favorite contest. Over there--" He gestured. +"That open area, with the curved line of branches standing up--that's +what you might call our stadium." + +"Graff speaks there to the people to-night," said Zetta. + +Father did not comment on that. He pointed out where in the distance +the vegetation ended, and the open fields began; with other distant +patches of jungle here and there; and at the far horizon a purple line +of metal mountains. + +Hulda said: "This is the city, here around the government house. But +most of the population lives in the rural section. You can see the +houses." + +Down in the fields were occasional structures like farmhouses. They +dotted the distant landscape; and I could see that the other patches of +jungle had houses and streets on them, villages like this larger one of +Garla. Father said: "You think all our agriculture is down there on the +ground level. It isn't. Those pods, for instance--see them?" + +A street or so away there was what I had thought was a large open +square. The vine tops were covered with great brown pods. I saw now, as +father pointed it out, that the pods grew everywhere under us in the +forest. + +"The pith is one of our staple vegetables," said father. "Those +pods grow there because they are planted. Grafted, so to speak. The +seedlings are raised in the ground soil, then grafted into vine fiber. +The vines are used as a soil. The agriculture is here in the air, as +well as on the ground. There are several vegetables grown in the vine +soil." + +Men and women were working in the field he indicated. And insects were +there. I could see them crawling up from beneath, carrying pods; men +and women were picking the pods also--and a line of insects, dwarfed by +distance to look like ants, were carrying the pods along a street. + +We presently descended from the platform and walked, with our insects +again beside us, along the causeway streets toward the government house. + +The people crowded around us. Once, the press of them added to our own +weight, caused the street and half a dozen of the neighboring houses +to sag alarmingly. No one seemed to mind but ourselves; but when Zetta +shouted to disperse them they went willingly enough--dropping down into +the foliage, or leaping nimbly away with their uncanny movements. My +self-satisfied sense of power was somewhat marred by the realization +of how we must have appeared to them. Chained by our weight to a slow, +dragging walk, fearful every moment that we might fall. + +As we went along, father explained the city activities. All normal +enough for a primitive, peasant civilization. He told us, too, how most +of the workers sold their products to the government, exchanging their +credits by buying from the government other things they needed. One +of our ancient Indian civilizations of earth had a somewhat similar +system. And these super-modern people of Xenephrene had chosen it as +best of all! Strange commentary! + +We saw the government storehouses. A huge building set in an excavation +of the forest, with its foundations on the ground; we passed through to +its top floor. Food of every sort was stored here; merchandise of every +kind involved in this primitive life was here on display. + +"The manufactured stuff comes mostly from the Brauns," said father. + +It was obvious to me why these Garlands did not want to champion +the earth against Graff and his Brauns. Here on Xenephrene--however +much the Garlands might differ from the Brauns in ideals and ways of +living--the two races had their interests closely interwoven. + +We of earth were the real aliens. What did they care for us? I could +even imagine that the Braun conflict with earth might serve to draw +the Garlands to them, rather than estrange. Families of our earth +people often quarrel, reuniting only when an outside enemy comes in +conflict with one of their factions. + +It was, I fancied, upon this human instinct which Graff now was +playing. Coupling with it an appeal to the latent cupidity which lies +in every human breast. He was succeeding. I knew that at this moment +the Garlands--people and government--felt more friendly toward the +Brauns than they ever had before. Father and Kean were convinced that +Graff was playing a double game. What could it be? He might be trying +to trick the Garlands to serve his own ends. But how? + + * * * * * + +Strange walk we had that morning through the city of Garla! My words +convey the merest sketch of its strangeness. Insect workers everywhere. +Patient, silent, methodical as well-trained domestic animals, yet with +a far higher intelligence. I gazed at what might have been a double +line of giant red ants, carrying boxes down an incline into the forest. +Patient workers; suddenly I was struck with the feeling that there +was a sullen resentment upon them; a smoldering hate for their human +masters. + +We saw a few Brauns; swaggering fellows flushed with a new sense of +their importance. They were dressed in many complex garments. At sight +of them the cynical thought came to me that in clothes and manner they +might have been a burlesque of us on modern earth. They eyed us with +hostile stares. + +"There's Kean," said Hulda. We were beyond the storehouse, back on the +street. The government house was only a block or so away. + +Kean approached. "I have been sen' to you from the Council. They will +see you, Professor, but no one else." + +Father was taken aback. "You mean, not my son--nor his friends--" + +"Jus' you. So they sen' me to say. They would have you come now." + +"I'll come," said father grimly. "Look here, Kean--" + +"They tell me, Professor, they will have nothing definite to say to you +this morning. After Graff's meeting to-night, they will decide." + +"What do you mean by that?" father demanded. + +Dan spoke up. "The idea is, if the Garland public seems enthusiastic +about Graff's invasion--then they'll turn us down. Isn't that it, Kean?" + +"Yes, I fear that is it. But if our people would favor helping earth--" + +"Don't worry," exclaimed Freddie. "They won't." + +A commotion near us checked him. Zetta murmured: "Graff!" + +A huge figure of a man was coming slowly along the cross-street, with +a half admiring, wholly awed throng of the Garlands around him. He +saw us, waved the crowd back and, with a leap over the thirty feet of +intervening street, he stood before us. Our insect guards rose upright, +eyed father, and stood alert. Behind me I saw three young Garland men, +with metal objects like small projectors in their hands. Government +street guards. They were watching Graff narrowly, but they did not +interfere. + +"Professor Vanderstuyft--" He spoke English; his manner was courteous, +but authoritative. "I wish to speak with Zetta--one moment." + +The man who was about to try to conquer our earth! I stood tense, +and an awe of which I was secretly ashamed swept me as I gazed at +him. A giant fellow, six and a half feet tall, at the very least. +Broad-shouldered, slim-hipped, straight and muscular. + +He wore a tubular leather garment, strapped in at the waist, falling +like a short flaring skirt to his bare knees. A short, gaudy jacket +over it; shoes with broad, flat heels, and pointed toes, curled up and +fastened to his ankles with ornamental metal chains. A heavy metal +triangle hung at his chest; chains of gleaming metal hung from his +shoulders to his elbows; his muscular forearms were bare, with heavy +metal bands at the wrists. A metal band circled his forehead, with the +close-clipped white hair under it. + +A man of perhaps forty years. Deep-set blue eyes; heavy white +eyebrows--a beardless face. A strong, handsome face. He was smiling +now, but I could see a ruthless determination in the set of his square, +cloven jaw, and more than a hint of cruelty in the lines of his thin, +firm lips. A swaggering, arrogant fellow. But he was more than that. +In his voice, his bearing, I read a consciousness of his own power, +a dignity about him, more than a mere arrogant swagger. A kingly +scoundrel, contemptuous by instinct of all his fellows. + +He was saying something to Zetta in his own tongue. She stood before +him, gazing calmly up into his face--a child in stature beside his huge +bulk. + +Father said sharply: "Speak in my own language, please! What you can +have to say to Zetta need not be secret from us." + +Graff smiled again--a smile of faintly amused tolerance. "As you +please. Zetta, I hear there was an attack made upon you this dawn. A +Braun, they say, came to carry you away." His voice was very gentle; +hate rose in me for the gentleness of it--the calm dignity of his +regard. + +"Yes," she said. + +"I want you to know, Zetta, I was not concern in that. Do you believe +me?" + +She hesitated. "I think so." + +"I want you to think so, for I was not concern in it. I would not harm +you. That you know?" + +"Yes," she said. + +"That is all. Excep'--Zetta, I am to-morrow going to earth--I want to +conquer it for you--I want all its riches and its pleasures to be for +you. Won't you come with me? You are master of yourself by the laws +here. This earthman, who thinks to control you--" + +"Enough!" interrupted father. "She doesn't want to hear that kind of +talk, Graff." + +[Illustration: "Zetta does not want to hear your kind of talk, Graff!"] + +The gentleness faded from his voice. "I speak with her, not you. Let +her answer." + +Zetta burst out: "What you plan to do on earth is wrong, Graff! If you +think to please me, stay here! Stay here on Xenephrene--" + +He interrupted her gently: "You are misled, Zetta. You live with earth +people--they mislead you. Zetta, will you come with me--" + +"No," she said. + +Regret swept his face. If this were acting, it was a good brand. A very +kingly scoundrel, this! "You hurt me ver' deeply, Zetta." A faint irony +tinged his words and his glance. + +Her quiet gaze was measuring him. "You want me to love you--that you +have always said. You go about it wrongly, Graff." + +He was openly amused. "Do you think so? When I am succeeded--then you +will be proud of me." His tone changed. "Oh, Zetta, you know that then +I will do anything for you. Everything I have shall be yours." + +I could see her hesitate, part her lips to speak, then close them +again. She was on the verge, here before all of us, of trying to bribe +him with herself. A shudder must have swept her. But she said: "You are +willing to please me--when you have had your way on earth--but not now." + +No fool, this frail little girl! Her own smile was ironical. "If I +could trus' you, Graff, we might--" She checked herself. + +"What?" he demanded. + +"Nothing. I am finish." + +Abruptly he swung from her. His gaze roved me as I stood suddenly +conscious of my clenched fists; Freddie beside me; Dan towering over +us, yet shorter than Graff. Hulda, angry and half afraid, clinging to +Dan. And Kean, a little apart--Graff fastened upon Kean, and his thin +lips twisted with contempt. + +"Ah, there is my little criminal traitor!" + +I saw Kean stiffen; for an instant I thought he would hurl himself +bodily upon his accuser. Graff evidently thought it, also. He added +calmly: "You are quite safe here, Kean. If you attack me, you would be +stopp'--I am guest here of Garla, as you know. And for the same reason, +I cannot do as I would like with you." His lean fingers were working; +he raised his large hand with a twisting gesture, and dropped it. "You +are quite safe here. Some other time--" + +"Come," said father to us. "Enough of this. Come, Zetta." + +Again Graff's glance swept us. "So these are some more of my little +earth enemies? Look well upon me! I am Graff, future Emperor of the +Earth!" He said it in a way hardly to be described. An amused, an utter +contempt. My hot anger boiled. Why, this fellow, for all his insolence, +his giant stature, was a flimsy thing of forty or fifty pounds! I +became aware that I had launched myself at him, and Freddie was holding +me. + +"Easy, Peter! Stop it! You'll have us all in jail!" + +Graff had not moved, his expressions unchanged save that perhaps his +amused contempt was greater. "Your littlest fellow seems to have the +mos' sense. Zetta, perhaps I will see you again." + +He turned slowly, and with a lazy bound vanished down the cross-street. + + + + + CHAPTER XIV + + BRAVE, FOOLISH LITTLE ZETTA! + + +It was a crowded day, with our morning walk through the city and our +meeting with Graff. And from a distance we had seen the woman Brea. +An arrogant giantess. A fitting mate for him, no doubt. "Empress of +the Earth"--she was already calling herself that. Kean informed us she +was going to address the meeting to-night--to tell the people of Garla +what wonderful things would be brought back to them by Graff when he +returned. + +Father visited the Garland Council. He returned discouraged and +indignant. They would have none of our pleas now. They did not want to +see me or Dan or Freddie officially, to talk politics. Politely, they +requested father to leave their affairs alone. After Graff's meeting +they would give us their decision. + +"I warned them," father exclaimed. "What will happen at this meeting +to-night, I don't know. But I feel it bodes no good for Garla. Graff is +treacherous to the very core of him. You'll see--they'll all see!" + +Freddie, Dan and I, had a brief consultation while father was at +the Council. "What we'll do," said Dan, "will have to be on our +own. Your father, Peter, has lived here, and likes these people. +Even he can't see them as they are. Doubtless they did grow +altruistic--peace-loving--all that he told us. But humans are humans. +They think they see a way to personal gain. This government is greedy +to get whatever it can out of Graff--" + +Freddie commented: "I wouldn't trust a shock from any of these people +with a broken battery. Graff is the worst. Imagine little Zetta trying +to bargain with a villain like Graff!" Freddie's admiration for Zetta +was profound. "But she ought to be watched. Heaven knows what a girl +like that will try and do!" + +"I'd trust Kean," said Dan. "He's the only one." + +We argued to very little purpose from a dozen angles. I think all three +of us were sorry we had not leaped upon Graff--made an end to him at +once, up there on the Garla street corner. + +"It would have been simple," said Dan. "But--killing a man in broad +daylight--they'd have had us locked up by now--I wonder how they punish +murder in this place." + +We had Kean to ourselves later in the day. It was before we went to the +Scientists' Grotto. Kean said he had never seen the Garland weapons, +though he knew where they were kept, under heavy guard. But he thought +that during the evening meeting Graff was to hold, he would perhaps be +able to plan a way to get into the grotto arsenal. With the physical +force we three of earth were capable of using we could break into it. + +During the meeting, attention would all be centered there. Most of the +guards would be at the meeting. Kean planned to investigate conditions +at the arsenal--and report to us. If we could get the weapons--get them +to our vehicle--We would try attacking Graff first, here in Garla. Or, +preferably, as Kean pointed out, catch him on his way to the Braun +city. And then, if we brought the wrath of the Garlands upon us, we +would all escape to earth. Kean said very solemnly: "I trus' Zetta's +woman conscience on this. She heard you talking of it this morning. Did +you know that?" + +"No," I said. + +"Well, she did--we Garlands have ver' sharp ears. I ask her advice. +You see, that man Graff called me traitor. That hurt--I was traitor, +from the way he sees it. Not again would I be traitor--mos' of all, not +to my own worl'. But I ask Zetta. She says for us to take the Garland +weapons to save the other worl' is just." He was very earnest. "Not to +take anything which by losing my Garla would be hurt. There is such a +thing. If you planned to steal it, Zetta and I would not permit--" + +"The Infra-red Control?" said Freddie. + +"Yes. That, Zetta and I would not let you touch. The ordinar' +weapons--of those Garla has many. The loss of some will help your +worl', and cannot harm mine." + +A very manly fellow--quaintly dignified as he stood earnestly +explaining. One Garland at least, whom we could trust. And Zetta. + +We said nothing to father, or to Hulda, or Zetta. In mid-afternoon, +before starting on this visit to the grotto which father had arranged, +he took an hour and told us more of the strange science of this world. +I feel that it would be out of place for me to set it forth in detail +here. It is not my purpose to encumber this personal narrative with +scientific data. Volumes of scientific text books will be written +concerning Xenephrene, with father's voluminous notes as a basis. So I +have summarized here merely such fundamentals necessary to make clear +the strange adventures on earth, so briefly on Xenephrene and back +again on earth, into which my family, friends and myself were plunged. + +The basis, father told us, of all natural scientific phenomena on +Xenephrene was an entity called _Reet_. An "etheric fluid." A "movement +of detached electrons." He used both phrases. In its essence, Reet, +he said, was an enigma. A force "akin perhaps to our electricity." +It existed in nature--in the rain, the clouds, the air. It was the +growing, life-giving essence of all vegetable and animal organism. + +Just as we of earth, in a wide variety of forms, had learned to harness +electricity, so on Xenephrene, Reet was harnessed. On earth a common +electrical current, a bolt of lightning, a magnetic field, fluorescence +of a Crooke's tube, the heat of an electric coil, a giant, leaping +electric spark, the X-ray, radio waves--all are akin. We know that +now; we learn it more surely every year. On Xenephrene, a score of +scientific phenomena were all manifestations of Reet, in various forms, +under various abnormal conditions. + + * * * * * + +Our earth now is using Reet for the anti-gravity vehicles which now are +adventuring into Space; and our scientists say that Reet itself is but +another form of electrical force. + +Father told us how our vehicle operated. The force of gravity itself +is merely a vibration flowing between two material bodies, connecting +them with a tendency to draw near, to coalesce--a fundamental tendency +in all nature when in vibratory contact. The Reet current, applied in +a form abnormal to nature, slows down and stops this gravitational +vibration. + +It is, to me at least, a deep subject; I leave it to father's text +books. But with several of the Reet rays, we were to have diabolical +dealings! Their control of the hidden, unseen forces of nature--we saw +a little of it that afternoon in the Scientists' Grotto. + +The grotto, at least this one to which we were admitted, seemed to be a +series of underground passages; converging into a number of underground +rooms. Workshops; laboratories; storehouses, perhaps, of weapons and +equipment of war. We were shown none of that; we saw, indeed, but one +room. Enough to leave us shuddering. + +On the ground, beneath the forest, we came to the tunnel entrance. A +guard--a man standing there, with half a dozen of the insect things +lying watchfully beside him, passed us in. A tunnel sloping downward; +smooth, gleaming, metallic walls; shifting purple and red lights; a +steady movement of artificially controlled air for ventilation; vague, +pungent smells; in the distance, ahead of us, the murmur and throb of +machinery. + +It was like plunging into yet another brand new world. Outside the +grotto, the Garlands seemed a primitive, pastoral race. This was like a +plunge, centuries into the future. An inferno of the future. + +From a cross tunnel, the sudden whine of a dynamo tore at us. A wave +of gas, not unlike chlorine, Freddie said, brought us up gasping and +choking, until a blast of fresh cool air fortunately dissipated it. +A place of shifting lurid lights; workmen passed us--sometimes with +masks, but all wearing what seemed heavy insulated garments. + +An inferno, frightening in its strangeness. Frightening, also, in +another way. The half-seen world of the Infra-red had never left my +consciousness since I first set foot upon Xenephrene. It was with me +all that morning in the upper streets of Garla, but I had ignored it. + +Here, in the gloom and weirdness of the grotto, the crimson chattering +things seemed to gain reality. My imagination perhaps. I do not know. +But when once we entered the tunnel, I was newly conscious of them. As +though this were their home--their very breeding place. Or perhaps, +their jail, where they were held imprisoned--sullen, resentful, +watchful of any chance to escape. All fancy, yet as I was soon to +learn, it had a very real basis of fact. + +My fancy was oversharp; my nerves taut. An insect loitered idle against +the burnished tunnel-wall; a purple ball of light was over it. I +fancied the thing tensed itself as though to spring upon me. I did not +breathe again until we were past it. + +A scientist was leading us now. Freddie, Dan, myself and father--we +had left the girls at home. We came to the barred entrance to a room. +Its heavy metal door suggested the circular door to a vault in a New +York bank. Nothing flimsy here; solid metal, everywhere. My heart sank. +Kean had said that with our great physical strength we might be able to +force our way in; it did not seem very reasonable. + +A scientist met us. He smiled gravely at father--a short, slim man, +garbed in smooth, dull black. His white hair was clipped close; heavy +bull's-eye goggles made his face grotesque. His ears were clasped with +a device in appearance not unlike a radio headphone; he removed it, +stepping over its dangling wires as he laid it aside. + +"Come in," said father softly to us. "This is the control room. I +wanted you to see it." + +A low, black-vaulted room. I could see nothing but a small railed +area on a two-foot metal platform in the room's center. Within this +low metal railing, on a bare flooring of burnished metal, two small +mechanisms stood side by side. Two transparent globes, each about a +foot in diameter. Within one, a fluorescence of purple; the other held +a crimson glow. Wires connected them to near-by batteries; wires ran +to a bank of indicators--dials and pressure gauges. Above the neck +of each globe, fastened to it, was a small grid of wire; from one, a +vague, violet-purple beam streamed out; and from the other, the beam +was crimson. + +I could barely see the scientist as he moved about us; there was no +light save these purple and crimson beams. + +The man seemed adjusting his goggles, and replacing his headphone. Then +he moved a switch. The crimson globe sprang into greater intensity. +The beam from it deepened; it seemed streaming out across the room, +through the further wall of metal rock--streaming out and opening to +my gaze a blackness of distance unfathomable. A murmur was coming +from it! A myriad tiny growls and screams! The crimson sounds! The +red things lurking around me responded to it! Or were they making the +sounds? I could not tell. They seemed rushing out from the unseen, into +visibility--searching--one almost seemed plucking at me. + + * * * * * + +Father murmured, "It is bringing the Infra-red nearer to us. Or +swinging us nearer to it--all the same. Bringing the two planes +closer together. That ray permeates the whole of Xenephrene. Like a +broadcasted radio wave on earth--it goes everywhere! If it persisted--a +day--an hour--the Infra-red would be let loose upon us! Possessing us--" + +The scientist was saying, "Let one of them try it. This is very weak--" + +"Try it, Peter." Father drew me forward. "Stand, there in the red +glow--just a moment. When you--feel too queer--come back out." + +Every instinct in me revolted, but I yielded to him as he shoved me +gently into the red glow. It bathed me with a tingling warmth. Or was +it burning? + +The red things were howling around me. One came up--a great crimson +shadow. It seemed condensing into the form of a man. Suddenly I heard +myself laughing. Why, this was funny! It looked like me! A crimson +shadow of Peter! Or was it my evil spirit? Its face, malignant, like +some diabolical travesty of my own, came close and leered at me. I was +trying to get into my body. I laughed; but I was thinking, "Why, this +is madness--" + +[Illustration: "As I stood in the Ray, the red things were howling +around me, and their faces and actions were so grotesque that I laughed +aloud. But I thought mirthlessly, 'Why, this is madness'"] + +Father's hands jerked me back into the darkness. I stood trembling; my +face and hands were flushed, as though inflamed. + +"Madness indeed," said father, and then I knew that I had shouted +the words aloud. "They think that the Infra-red is perhaps the evil +nature of man held submerged. A greater intensity of the crimson +sound would have burned you." I recalled how Freddie and Dan had +been burned in their fight with the intruder that night the cylinder +arrived. "And a still greater intensity would reduce you to the plane +of the Infra-red--dissolve you into Nothingness--the fate of Davis and +Robinson, when they attacked the crimson sound. Near New York, with +their aeros--remember?" + +I did indeed. The scientist moved back the switch; the red glow +faded. Father said, "On earth we have no such condition. Here on +Xenephrene, the sub-world is always striving for mastery. The purple +glow from Pyrena is nature's adjustment; it holds in check, banishes +the sub-red world. But since Xenephrene came into our sunlight, things +are changing. Our sunlight seems favorable to the Infra-red. So an +artificial adjustment has to be made. The purple haze you see in +Xenephrene's air--it all comes from this little globe." + +The purple globe now was active--the beam deepened. Around me the red +things seemed vanishing. A great peace, a stillness came to the vaulted +room. I had not realized under what subconscious strain I had been +laboring until it was removed. + +Freddie said, "Why use the crimson ray at all? Why not just the purple +ray, and banish the red things completely?" + +"The red-world cannot be banished completely, here on Xenephrene," +father answered. "Too great a use of the purple--it would swing our +plane too far toward the Ultra-violet--be injurious to human life. The +best balance which can be maintained--that is the purpose of these two +globes--this control room." + +A solemnity, greater than I had ever heard before came to father's +voice. "The Brauns had no spreading rays on earth, like these. They +tell me, here in Garla, that these two little globes are the only ones +of their kind in existence. Without them, in a month, or a few months +at the most, Xenephrene, bathed in our sunlight, would be overrun with +the demons of the Infra-red! A world gone mad!" + + * * * * * + +"A world gone mad!" His words rang shudderingly in my head all the rest +of that afternoon; echoed through the evening meal, and those tense +hours while we waited for the time when we were going to hear Graff's +speech in the stadium. "A world gone mad!" Father meant Xenephrene. But +with what diabolical, prophetic vision, my thoughts kept swinging to +earth! A world gone mad! + +From our visit to the grotto we returned home where we had left the +girls. I was suddenly impatient to get there. A feeling was upon me +that it had been wrong to leave them. Would Zetta take this opportunity +to slip away? To attempt to see Graff? + +My fears were dispelled. The insects were quietly patrolling the +grounds. The girls were busy about the house. Hulda whispered to me, +"We're getting ready to leave." + +"Leave?" + +"Yes. If you should be successful to-night--if you get the weapons--you +might want to leave for earth at once." + +And we had thought to keep our secret from these girls! Hulda added, +"Zetta is coming with us. Kean also. Neither has any ties here--" + +Zetta coming! If only everything would work out like this-- + +With the afternoon passed, I thought no more of Zetta's threatened +attempt to see Graff. After the evening meal, we all tried to sleep for +a time. But I was restless. After an hour in our room with Freddie and +Dan, I slipped away to the roof to smoke alone. I found it vacant; dim +with straggling moonlight. + +I had no thought of Zetta, save that she was resting beneath me in the +house. She was coming back with us to earth. When these terrible times +were over, I would take her in my arms--claim her--I wondered if she +loved me. I am not unduly vain; truly it seemed at once impossible, but +inevitable-- + +I have no idea how long, with roaming fancy, I sat there. Half an hour +perhaps. Above me a figure suddenly came fluttering down from the +foliage, landed lightly on the roof, within a few feet of where, in a +stunned surprise, I was sitting. It was Zetta. Her face was flushed; +she was panting. + +"Zetta!" I sprang to my feet. + +"Oh--is it you, Peter? I did not know you were up here." + +"Where have you been? I thought you were downstairs. Zetta, have you +been up to see--" + +"Let go of me! Peter, don't do that! You hurt me! You--forget how +strong you are!" + +I had gripped her shoulders; I cast her hastily off. "Where have you +been? What have you been doing?" + +She eyed me. The impish smile was twitching at her lips. "You are ver' +much like a master--you deman' knowing where I have been?" + +"Yes. I do." + +"Sit down." I sat in my chair and she sat crosslegged at my feet. +"There. This is better." + +"How did you get out?" I demanded. "Father said he was having you +watched." + +"He is. But he forget--those insects know me better than himself. I +took them with me." + +She was smiling broadly. She added calmly, "I have run away from them, +coming back. They will be here soon--I have been up to see Graff." + +I knew it! I made no comment. She went on, as calmly, evenly as before. +"I thought--before to-night when you three men try to get the Garland +weapons--I thought I would make one las' try for Graff." She gestured. +"I met him--up there on the street. We were alone--" + +She saw my expression. She laughed. "Oh, no, Zetta is not a fool! We +were alone so that none could hear us. But many were near. My own +insects--and I made sure the city guards were close by, watching. I was +quite safe." + +She paused. But when I did not speak, she went on quietly. + +"I have fail'. I tol' him openly that he--could have me for his wife, +as you call it--" She was stumbling, but only for a moment. "I tol' him +that. But when I tried to bargain--I am no fool--I tol' him I would +have to be satisfy he would not trick me--then I saw it could not +succeed. I could not trust him. That I could tell by the way he talked. +Yet I believe he really thinks he loves me--" + +She added the last words as though to herself. + +I exclaimed: "Why would you make a sacrifice like that? Or perhaps it +isn't such a sacrifice?" + +Unworthy, churlish thing for me to say! The impulsive words were no +sooner out than I hated myself for them. + +Her wide eyes searched my face. "I forgive you--for saying that, Peter. +I would almos' rather die than be his wife." For just an instant she +yielded to the shuddering emotion she was holding in check; then again +she was calmly imperturbable. + +"You say, would it be a sacrifice? Of me--yes. But what am I? Jus' +one small woman. I am thinking of your earth--all those millions of +people--" + +Brave, foolish little Zetta! + +If she could have trusted Graff, of course, it would have been best. +But I did not feel it so at the moment. She was more to me, this one +small woman sitting now at my feet, than all the millions of distant +earth. I interrupted her gently. + +"You were going to sacrifice some one else, Zetta. Some one--" + +Her face turned quickly up; her wide eyes were on mine. I found myself +holding her against my knees. Ah, then I felt the strength of the force +between us! "Zetta, don't you know I love you? Can't you feel it--as I +feel it?" + +She forced herself back from me; did not rise, sat leaning backward, +pushing at my knees as though holding us apart against the surge that +was drawing us together. + +"Peter! Peter, don't say that yet!" + +"Why not? It's true. I love--" + +"No! You can't be sure. It--will sweep us if you talk like this." + +Sweep us, indeed! Love! It was that! Love physical, mental and +spiritual. The trinity--complete. I knew it! I heard my pleading voice +telling her so. + +"No, Peter! Trus' me--I understan' better than you. Peter--smile at me! +Smile! Do not be so serious!" + +She was so pathetically earnest! I strove for calmness. I smiled. "All +right. There you are, Zetta." + +I could feel her relax. Her hands left my knees; she sat on the +roof-floor a few feet away from me. + +"Thank you, Peter." + +I laughed. "You're quite welcome." The stress of our emotion was +broken. I lighted a cigarette. I felt quite calm, master of myself--and +of her. Masterful, because now in my calmness, I knew I was unchanged. +It was love, and I knew she loved me. + +"I'll say it differently, Zetta. Listen: I love you. When we get +through all this mess we're in--your world and mine--I'm going to marry +you. There--that's calm enough, isn't it? Nothing peculiar about that, +is there?" + +Her surprise made me laugh again. She stammered. "Peter--you--do not +ask--if I love you!" + +"No. Why should I? I know it." + +"But I am not sure, Peter." + +"Of course, you are." + +"I am not. Perhaps on earth your girls are able to judge when they feel +a swift heap of emotion--" + +"Yes," I said blandly. "That's it." + +But I could not make her smile. She shook her head. "We of Xenephrene +are different. The emotion--is not always to be trusted, Peter." + +"Let's trust it," I said. + +"No. I cannot--yet." + +She was on her feet and I stood beside her. + +"I think--I'm very glad we had these moments together, Peter." + +She was about to leave me; I could not let her go. "You do love me, +don't you? Say it!" + +"I think--mos' likely--I do!" She gave a little jump; her lips brushed +mine. Before I could catch her she was gone, down into the house +leaving me alone. + + + + + CHAPTER XV + + GRAFF'S TREACHERY + + +"It's time," said Hulda. "Shall we start?" + +Another hour had passed. Zetta had not mentioned her escapade into the +city to meet Graff; nor had I. We were ready now to start for Graff's +meeting. It was our first adventure abroad at night on Xenephrene. We +had been twice before up this incline into the streets of Garla; but +this time it seemed very different. + +A sense of evil lay heavy upon me. It was a cloudless night, with +Pyrena, the moon, a great purple round disk. The forest was full of +purple shadows; the red murmuring things were abroad, and I blessed +with a new understanding, this purple light which held them in check. +We ascended the incline and came upon Garla's main street. The two +girls were shrouded in cloaks of white. Father the same. Once, Hulda +raised her cloak like a hood over her head until Freddie asked her to +lower it. + +"You look like a ghost in this moonlight." He laughed, but it was +high-pitched and nervous, unlike him. + +Dan whispered to me: "Kean is to join us at the stadium entrance. Do +you think he will, Peter? If anything goes wrong--" + +"We'll sit near the back," I whispered. "He'll find us. You and Freddie +and I must sit together, where we can slip away." + +Freddie edged toward us as we walked along; the street swayed and bent +beneath us. "This cursed flimsy city! Where did Kean say he'd join +us? Peter, give me my knife and revolver--thank Heaven for these dark +cloaks--" + +We three had seen cloaks of a dark woven fiber lying in one of the +rooms of Under Gardens. We had wanted to wear them, and father had +acquiesced. + +I raised my cloak, surreptitiously handed Freddie the weapons. We each +had a short, wide dirk--and an Essen soundless automatic--the only +weapons we had brought from earth. They were very welcome now! + +"Move back," I whispered to Dan. "Father will wonder what we're talking +about." + +We were determined to get into the grotto by whatever desperate +expedient Kean would think possible of success. Father would +approve--we did not doubt that. But he would want to go with us. That +we did not desire. In the event of failure, we wanted him, at least, +to remain in safety. He would not, very probably, be blamed by the +Garlands for our attack. He would be left to look after Hulda. And--I +added to myself--look after Zetta. + +Shrouded in our cloaks, we hastened through Garla's tree-top streets. +In the purple moonlight the dark houses seemed giant birds' nests; +the giant leaves which occasionally hung over them were motionless in +the still night air. A breathless silence brooded over everything. +The houses showed occasional glows of light; but most of them seemed +unoccupied. There were many pedestrians. All were going our way. + +From a doorway a woman clutching a baby at her breast, gazed down on us +with an obvious hostility. "A Braun," I thought. But she was not. + +Hulda pointed her out--a Garland. From over us, as a crowd of young +people went past in a leap, some one dropped a flower. A heavy +thing--it struck Dan a blow on the shoulder which brought a startled +curse from him. Hulda waved her white arm upward in a friendly gesture; +but her face was very solemn. + +"I don't like this," father murmured. "They're hostile--in all the +months we've been here, it's never been like this." + +Father had stopped. "I think we'll go back." He drew me aside. "It's +only curiosity taking us here--we know what Graff will say to the +people. The Garland government will decide against us to-morrow. The +time is short, Peter--if we're going to do anything." + +Father lowered his voice. "Look here, I want to get you three +alone--without the girls. We'll have to try something desperate. Peter, +if we let Graff get away from us--if he gets to earth--whatever we do, +we ought to try it to-night." + +I drew him along. Good old father--he would have plunged into the most +desperate adventure with us. It went against me to let him down, but I +thought it best. + +"Let's go--just a little while. And Kean is to meet us--right ahead +here, at the entrance." A Braun went sailing by with a menacing, +derisive shout; but father did not notice him. I called to Dan and +Freddie; warned them with a significant word and glance. They joined +their urging to mine, and father yielded. + +We went on. The crowd began pressing around us as we approached the +stadium gate. Out of the moonlight Kean came sailing at us; landed +lightly beside me. Dan and Freddie crowded up. I whispered: "It's all +right, Kean?" + +"Yes. They are remove most of the guards to atten' the meeting here. I +will get you seated, then go back and see how it is. In half an hour, +we will be ready to try it." + +Father approached us. "You coming with us, Kean? The Garlands are +hostile; I've never seen anything like it. Have you heard from the +border?" + +"No," said Kean. "Something is wrong. No Brauns have left. There are +many, oh, ver' many, around here in Garla to-night--" + +Freddie asked: "You seen Graff? Where is he now?" + +"Inside," Kean gestured. "On the upper platform leap. The woman Brea is +with him--and many Brauns." He whispered aside to me. "Are you guarding +Zetta well? When we leave, only the professor will be with her and +Hulda, so I order' your insects to come--yes, here is one." + +An insect appeared upright at our elbows. Then another. Kean told +father he had ordered them. "Good," said father. "Tell them to stay +close to Zetta. But we'll be with her anyway." + + * * * * * + +The stadium was a great moonlit area on the tree-top surface. A high +wall of latticed boards surrounded it. We passed through a gate. +Inside, banks of seats swung around a great circle. They were jammed +with people--tiers of seats, one above the other, with giant projecting +trees serving as uprights to hold them. + +The branches, too, were crowded. Upon a thick vine, swinging like +a cable across one end, men clung like flies, dark blobs in the +moonlight. The seats everywhere seemed built in disorderly array, +banked high or low according to the contour of the growing vegetation. +At intervals around the outer circumference small jumping platforms +were set. They were all black with people. + +An oval running track was perched on stilts at one side; another track +stood vertically, as though races might be held on its inner surface +like a squirrel cage. People clustered both structures. There was a +single row of flimsy fifty-foot high poles, set upright in a line; ten +of them, at intervals of ten feet or so. Gymnasium apparatus. A man +clung now to the bending top of each of them. + +Upon every point of vantage, people were clinging. The top of the +lattice fence, which was at least fifty feet high, held a fringe of +young men and girls perched precariously there, laughing. Occasionally +one would fall off and come climbing nimbly back. + +In the purple moonlight it was a scene of confusion. The audience was +assembling, leaping from the gateway, climbing to where space seemed to +offer. A man and girl leaped hand in hand. They missed their intended +perch and fell a dozen feet in a heap. A great shout of laughter went +up. + +We entered with our heavy, dragging tread. People craned to see us. A +murmur rose. A few girls called to Zetta, or to Hulda. Some shouted +derisively. We were in a deep shadow of the gate. In the gloom, father +stumbled, fell heavily. A flimsy empty seat broke where he went down; +Dan kicked another seat to fragments as he jumped to pick father up. + +"I'm all right, Dan. Thanks." His words were almost drowned in the +jeers around us. + +"We'll sit here," I whispered to Kean. "Here near the gate. Go ahead +now, we'll wait here. Come back as soon as you can." + +We took these first empty seats, just inside the gate. Platforms and +poles partly obstructed our view; but we could see enough. The rostrum +from which Graff was to speak was in clear sight--a platform in the +center of the stadium, raised about a hundred feet. A bank of soft +lights up there cast a lurid purple glow which did little more than +intensify the moonlight. Brauns were crowded up there; among them I +could see the towering figures of Graff and Brea. + +We sat in a line; father, Hulda and Zetta were at one end, we three +conspirators nearer the gate. Behind Zetta, our two insects were lying +prone on the surface of a vine. The thought occurred to me then, as +it had several times before--these insects were not armed. There were +police guards all over the stadium; some seemed to have a single small +weapon--it was the only weapon I had ever seen in Garla. I had my dirk +in its sheath at my belt; and the Essen automatic in its holster--with +the black cloak shrouding them. But I wondered what was the nature of +the police guards' weapon. + +Zetta was next beside me. In all the turmoil of my thoughts, I was +wholly conscious of it. I leaned over her. "Zetta, when he begins +talking, you'll have to translate for us." + +"Yes," she whispered. Her long white hair lay on the seat between us. +In the darkness my fingers found a lock of it and clung. She did not +know it--or perhaps she did? I fancied her shoulder bent toward me. + +"Peter," she whispered, "be ver' careful what you do to-night--keep out +of harm if you can. I did not tell you, I have arrange' with Kean that +if you are successful, your father, Hulda and I will meet you out in +the open country, where your vehicle can pick us up--" + +An abrupt hush had fallen over the audience. The towering figure of +Graff had come to the edge of the platform facing us. Some one had +turned a light full upon him; he stood etched in the darkness, a lurid +purple figure. A hush. He raised his arms; he was smiling benignly +as he regarded the sea of upturned faces beneath him. A very kingly +scoundrel! + +A moment; and then he began to speak. His voice, with its words +unintelligible to me, rolled out over the silence. Soft, persuasive, +yet powerful. It evidently carried to every far corner of the +amphitheater. Sometimes he turned to regard those behind him. Speaking +quietly. Then, with a sudden, explosive, thundering statement; then +a gentle, persuasive question. All the tricks of the orator! A very +kingly scoundrel! He was carrying them. + +Applause broke out; his gesture was deprecating as he silenced it. I +wondered when Kean would return for us. We could easily slip away from +father. + +My thoughts were roaming; Kean ought to come shortly. Now was our +chance, with most of the guards here at the meeting. Graff was +unconsciously playing into our hands--drawing all the guards away from +the grotto to hear him talk. + +Kean dropped before me! I looked up to meet his white, agitated face. +"Peter, don't cry out! Get your father--all of you get out of here!" + +Something was wrong! I recall that I felt a little tug as the lock of +Zetta's hair pulled from my fingers. Just a little tug--I forgot it at +once, gazing into Kean's horrified face. + +"What--" Freddie and Dan were shoving toward us to hear. It made a +slight confusion. I repeated, "What--" Half rose to my feet. + +A shout stiffened me. It came from a small house by the gate, where +officials as the crowd assembled had been directing the seating. A +shout from there. An official's voice, bellowing. Accents of horror, +and command. + +Kean gasped his news: "The Infra-red Control! The crimson and purple +globes--they have been stolen!" + +The news was already here! The frightened voice from the gate was +bellowing it. Graff's voice died away. There was an instant of +horrified silence. Kean murmured: "I found the tunnel guards murdered! +The controls are gone! These Brauns--" + +The amphitheater broke into a pandemonium. Shouts; the thump and +rattle of scrambling, panic-stricken Garlands. Figures leaping up. The +official voice was bellowing. A police guard near me raised a weapon +toward the platform where Graff was standing. But he did not fire. The +lights up there were suddenly extinguished. A red glow took their place. + +The crimson barrage Graff had used on earth! His Brauns had smuggled +it into Garla--they had its apparatus now on the platform. A great +circular red curtain enveloped the rostrum up there. From a dozen +points about the amphitheater the police guards were firing their short +purple stabs of flame at it. + +A panic of confusion was around me. A sailing figure--a man trying +to leave the stadium--came down and landed full on me. I was knocked +sidewise; kicking, trying to disentangle myself from him. We crashed +through a seat, and with my weight we fell half my height to a lower +level. I got to my feet, fighting the press of frightened people who +were shoving me. I could still see Graff's barrage; I could hear its +squeals above the pandemonium of shouts. + +Up there in the purple moonlight, over the barrage, a black object was +descending from the sky. A vehicle? A flying platform--I could not see +it clearly. It dropped swiftly down within the barrage circle. In a +moment it came sailing up. It passed high over me. A flying platform. +The escaping Brauns crowded its rails. The crimson barrage faded out; +the rostrum was empty. + +Graff's treachery was laid bare. He had stolen the globes of the +Infra-red Control! + +Without them, Xenephrene in a month or two was doomed. These frightened +officials of Garla, these panic-stricken people, all knew it. A world +gone mad! But my thoughts were not concerned with that; the cold horror +within me sprang from another thought. A realization. Graff had stolen +the Infra-red Control to use on earth! My shuddering imagination leaped +ahead. A world, our blessed earth, gone mad! + + + + + CHAPTER XVI + + ON OUR WAY TO CONQUER THE EARTH! + + +In the confusion I found myself pushed a considerable distance, +separated from all our party. I could not see any of them; with the +scrambling throng, the changing scene I could not at first determine +where we had been sitting. Then I saw the place; it was empty. I strove +to get there, fighting my way. The amphitheater was fast emptying. The +official voice was still bellowing. Guards were leaping away, perhaps +rushing to the grotto. In the distance across the city a siren was +sounding--a long electrical scream. + +I thought, over near the gate through which a press of people were +surging, that I saw father. I forced my way in that direction; went +through the gate. They ought to be waiting for me here. But they were +not. + +A cross-street ran down at an angle here into the forest vegetation--a +narrow, shaky-looking causeway of fiber. It was unlighted, dark with +straggling moonlight--a purple, ghostly-looking street. It seemed at +the moment empty of people--the throng surged past it, keeping to the +upper level. + +From behind me as I stood there a dark-cloaked figure darted past me +and plunged down it. Dan! It was as tall as he; seemed moving with our +earthly heavy tread. I started down after it; I would have shouted, but +the words choked me. It was not Dan--not anyone of earth, for all its +solid gait! It passed through a shaft of moonlight; from the cloak, I +saw a white arm hanging. Waving. + +This was a man, carrying some one; I caught a glimpse of the bulk +of the other body he was holding in his arms, under his cloak. He +disappeared down into the purple darkness. Memory of the little tug I +had felt in my fingers as Zetta's hair was withdrawn sprang to me now. +Was that Zetta under that cloak? Her arm I had seen waving from beneath +it? + +With the Essen automatic in my hand, I found myself plunging, half +falling, down the flimsy street. Beneath the strain of my incautious +descent, it bent and crackled. Houses like nests were set here in the +dark, pod-laden foliage. They sagged with me as I passed. A woman came +to the window of one of them and shouted. + +I reached the ground. A vaulted, tunnel-like street was cut through the +jungle. Ahead of me, a hundred yards or so, the moonlight showed clear +where the jungle ended and the open country began. I thought I saw the +hooded figure hurrying out there. I ran--I wondered if I would get a +chance to shoot. If that were Zetta he was carrying I would not dare. + +I think now I have never been, before or since, so incautious. I came +with a rush out of the dark depths of the forest, into an open moonlit +area. A red glow hovered like a circular curtain near at hand. Within +a dozen steps of me, a small railed platform lay upon the ground. Men +were on it. Brauns! A black-hooded figure was standing holding Zetta! +Zetta, with fear sweeping her face as she saw me appear. + +I must have stood for an instant in confusion. I remember casting off +the impediment of my cloak. A dozen men came leaping at me. I fired +the Essen, but hit no one. It was knocked from my hand as one of the +leaping bodies struck me. + +They closed in on me. I turned and swung at them. Flimsy things! My +dirk tore into the shoulder of one. He went down with a scream. The +dirk had buried, hilt and all; I let it go. I wrenched an arm loose +from around my neck; hit another man full in the face. Two others I +knocked aside with a sweep of my arm. Another leaped astride my back, +but I heaved him off as though he were a child clinging there. They +must have been without weapons. They clung, bit and tore at me--a ring +of them struggling to hold me. + +I burst through them; but, like birds, they were at me again. One I +lifted bodily and hurled a dozen feet. Another I caught by his legs, +whirling him, a thirty-pound bludgeon to knock the others away. I +had almost reached Zetta. I shouted to her--I do not know what. She +answered; but it was a scream of warning. I turned too late. Some one +from behind crashed a block of metal stone on my head. I went down into +soundless, empty darkness. + + * * * * * + +When I recovered consciousness I was lying on the platform. It was in +mid-air; I could feel it sway, feel the rush of the wind past me on +that thirty-foot square, railed platform. Some fifteen men crowded near +its center, where in a small pit, its anti-gravity, lifting mechanism +was installed. It was this pit--a white glow there--which first I saw +when I opened my eyes. The glow shone upward upon the faces and figures +of the seated men. Brauns. I sat up unsteadily. One of my captors was +beside me. He murmured an unintelligible command; but when he saw I +only intended to sit up, he relaxed. + +The platform was sailing through the purple moonlight. I was too far +from the rail to see over it to the ground, but in the distance I could +make out a line of the metal mountains--naked crags glistening under +the stars. + +From behind a platform a yellow fire streamed out, like a vessel's +wake; we were being propelled forward by the impulse of its thrust +against the air. Vertical and horizontal rudders were back there. In +front also, and to the sides, were small lateral wing-rudders. + +A gentle hand touched my shoulder. Zetta was seated beside me. +Unharmed, her face lighting with relief that I, too, seemed uninjured. +My head was roaring from the blow; blood, now drying, matted my hair. +But it seemed only a scalp wound. + +The man guarding us called to his fellows; two of them came and looked +me over, and then went back. The guard moved to seat himself between us +and the rail. Zetta and I were left free to talk. She had been seated +beside me in the Stadium; when the panic began she had turned to see +our two insect guards vanishing under a tiny red beam. + +She had leaped up, unnoticed in the confusion, and had seen me fall. +Hulda was nearest her. She called, but a hand over her mouth stifled +it. She was carried off. Her captor had crouched hidden near the gate, +with his cloak over them, waiting his chance to get unobserved down the +little street. At the forest entrance, when they were about to take her +on the platform, I had burst upon them. + +This was not the platform upon which Graff and his men had escaped from +the amphitheater. "That is much larger," said Zetta. "It is ahead of us +now." + +"They're taking us to the Braun city?" + +"Yes. It is not so much farther. Oh, Peter, you have been lying here +like death so ver' long time!" + +Zetta's account of her abduction, it suddenly struck me, did not ring +wholly true. I eyed her. + +"Did you try to escape from the man who seized you in the Stadium?" I +demanded. + +She understood me at once. She shook her head. "No. Mus' I confess +it? I will, Peter. I heard that the controls were stolen--doom for my +worl'--perhaps for yours." + +She stopped. I said: "So you gave yourself up? Is that it?" + +"No. Not jus' that. The man had me--but you ask me frankly if I try to +escape. I said no." + +"You mean you're glad you're here?" + +"Yes," she said solemnly. "In what other way possibly could I help my +Garla, or your earth?" + +"You think you can help them?" + +She shrugged. She was almost unbelievably calm, but I knew it was a +pose. "Perhaps. If there is any way I can influence Graff--I am no +fool, I will do my best--oh, Peter, not you would I have sacrificed! I +did not know you were following--did not know you would be taken--" + +"But Zetta, darling--" + +"Peter--please!" + +She was building a wall up between us! "I am not pledge' to you yet, +Peter--" + +I thought it best to drop the subject then. + +There were many other such small platforms escaping from Garla. +They came presently, converging in upon us. We sailed high over the +border--a thin, very tall latticed wall stretched over the country to +mark it. + +Zetta pointed. "The border searchbeams are gone. Our guards all +dead--it was what Kean feared. These platforms came into Garla +unseen--taking back the Brauns and what they have stolen." + +The Infra-red control globes! They were on Graff's platform, +undoubtedly. + +"See!" exclaimed Zetta. "There are the city lights!" + +Ahead, a great yellow radiance illumined the sky. The full moon was +low to one side of us; to the other, the dawn was coming. Almost +soundlessly we swept on. Over a sea of deep purple water, with a barren +metal plain beyond it. + +The city came up into view. Tremendous metal buildings, set in terraces +upon a barren metal rock surface. Fantastic structures, aerial like a +giant hive. Spider-web bridges of gleaming metal; giant ladders; metal +causeways swinging from cables at heights tremendous. All aerial, +spiderlike, fantastically unreal. Glaring with blasts of yellow light; +roaring with the noises of industry. + +We swept over it at a considerable height and dropped into a broad +metallic pit in the plain beyond. A pit two hundred feet deep and +several miles across. It was flooded with yellow radiance. Brauns +crowded close around us; but I caught glimpses of a great activity. A +thousand men at least were busy here. Platforms were landing, like ours +from the direction of Garla. A large one was already here. + +Zetta and I were pushed to the ground. A dozen or more space-flying +globes of various sizes--somewhat similar to the one Dan, Freddie and +I had used coming from earth--stood about. At a distance one gigantic +affair--a great terraced cylinder with banks of windows like a monster +modern steamship--lay on a raised stone platform. Leaders led up to it +from the pit-bottom. Our captors shoved us, though not ungently, in +that direction. + +Graff's expedition to earth! His forces, embarking now! I saw very +little of it as with a crowd of Brauns around me I was shoved toward +the monster vehicle. The sloping ladders had wide steps one above the +other at nearly ten-foot intervals. At a word of command, Zetta bounded +up. + +They let down a cable, hooked it on me, hauled me up the fifty-foot +height. I saw them leading Zetta away. She turned toward me, but they +forced her on. A Braun abruptly threw a metal hook around me, pinning +my arms. I was jerked through a doorway, down a long echoing metal +passage and thrown into a metal room, which had a single bull's-eye +window. The door slammed upon me. I was left alone. + +[Illustration: A cable they let down was hooked onto me; I was hauled +up the fifty-foot height. . . . In an hour, I knew, the great cylinder +would embark for Earth] + +Within an hour, in the light of my second dawn upon Xenephrene, we left +the purple planet on our way to conquer the earth. + + + + + CHAPTER XVII + + PLANNING THE CONQUEST + + +"Well," said Graff, "I had not thought to have you with me, but you are +welcome. A pleasure--" + +I got to my feet; I had been lying on the bare metal floor. We were +well beyond Xenephrene's atmosphere now. And so insistent are the human +mundane needs--amid all my perturbed thoughts of the future, my worry +over Zetta, my aching head with a miserable gash and lump on it--my +chief trouble at the moment was an almost intolerable hunger. + +I swayed as I stood up; Graff put out his hand to steady me. "You're +not hurt?" + +"No. I'm hungry." + +"That is good. Zetta said you would be. Well, you shall be fed. Come +with me." He stood off, regarding me. I must have been a disheveled +enough figure; wide-flaring, corded gray riding trousers, tight over +the knee; heavy rolled stockings; a white shirt, open at the throat, +torn and with Braun blood upon it; and with my own blood matting my +tousled hair. + +"You are a strong-looking little fellow," Graff chuckled. "My men, +worse luck to them, told me how you fought them. It is my idea--now +that you are here with me--you would not run wild like that again. Is +it so?" + +"Yes," I agreed. Why not? Of what use for me to try to fight, penned up +here? I added: "Besides, your men took my weapons." + +He was leading me down a long metal passage with closed doors along +it at intervals. "Yes. They look interesting--the mechanical one +particularly. I mus' get you to explain it to me. Zetta says you will +be ver' helpful to me. I think she is right. A clever little girl, +Zetta." + +His words made my blood run cold! But I kept silent. We entered a wide +room, set amidship of the vehicle; through its windows I could see the +black firmament on both sides--the great, star-filled void of Space. + +Zetta was here, perched on a bench before a high table littered with +parchment sheets. She flashed me a smile and a warning glance. Food was +on the table near her. + +"Your breakfast, Peter," she said calmly. "Sit here." + +I ate. Strange meal! Strange food of Xenephrene, but stranger still we +three as we sat there. Graff sat pleasantly talking. He seemed in a +high good humor; wholly frank and sincere. But I wondered; sometimes I +fancied he was gently ironical. + +"There were two or three other earthmen besides yourself who came into +my hands, Peter. All of them--unfortunately--died. You--I think--may +not die. Do you know why? Firs', because Zetta has ask' me to let you +live--and I would do anything to please her. That is--almos' anything. +Second, because she has promise' me you will help with my campaign. +Will you?" + +At his brusque question, I hesitated; Zetta's warning glance decided me. + +"Yes," I said. + +"I mean, really help. I will be able to guess at once you try to fool +me. Do not try it, frien' Peter!" + +I began: "I don't see how I can help you--" + +"He'll help you," Zetta put in. + +"Information about your worl'," Graff explained. "There are many +things you know, which I do not. Zetta and I have been talking over my +plans--I will be the greatest man on your earth, Peter--" + +It decided me. A vain glory was his weakness. He wanted to impress +Zetta; he seemed even to take pleasure in impressing me. Zetta was +playing upon it. We would give him information, authentic enough, which +would help him undoubtedly. But we would learn his plans, too. Work +with him, as he wished; and once on earth-- + +I said: "I can see no harm in helping you. Especially if it will +benefit me." I smiled shrewdly. "Will it?" + +I thought perhaps he swallowed my bait, but I could not be sure. +He said emphatically: "If you work with me, I will make you secon' +greatest man in your worl'." + +And Zetta? I wondered. I had only an instant alone with her that day. +She whispered: "You were perfec', Peter. Work with him--learn what you +can. Tell him truthfully what he asks. It is necessary--best in the +end." + +"But Zetta, you--" + +"I can take care of myself. He would not harm me. He wants to make me +love him. That, truly, he desired. I am letting him try." + +"He won't give up his plans--he'll give up nothing for you--" + +"No, of course, not. But I preten' I think maybe he will--move! There +he comes! In a few days perhaps he will leave us more alone." + +"When we get to earth--" + +But she had moved away from me as Graff approached. + + * * * * * + +We were twelve days reaching earth. Dan, Freddie, and I had made the +voyage in eleven days. In this great ship we were traveling faster; but +the distance, with Xenephrene drawing away from the earth, was greater +now. + +It was a monotonous voyage. I was housed alone in a cabin with fairly +comfortable furniture. Three times a day, Graff personally came and +took me to that larger room where invariably I found my meal waiting +me. Of all the rest of the ship--its men, its equipment--I saw nothing. + +Zetta very often was in the cabin when I was brought in to my meal. +Occasionally I saw the woman Brea. Once, when for a moment Zetta and +I were alone, I glanced behind us to see Brea's giant figure lurking +in the doorway. Watching us; I caught a glimpse of her face--white, +thin-lipped, with eyes that seemed smoldering with fury. There is a +menace in the aspect of a man who is a scoundrel; but it is mild and +meek indeed compared to the scoundrel woman! + +"Zetta, is that Brea ever left near you? Alone with you?" + +"No. Oh, no. I watch her." + +"She's there now in the passage doorway." + +"Yes. I see her." + +"Don't forget. She tried to have you murdered! Does Graff know that?" + +"I think so. She would not dare harm me here--he would kill her." + +"Don't you be too sure. A woman--a jealous woman--might do anything." + +But Zetta only laughed. "Perhaps we may use her, Peter. When we get to +earth--" She would not say any more. + +Graff was constantly questioning me. The chaos Xenephrene's coming had +brought to earth seemed intensely interesting to him. He understood +astronomy far better than I did, undoubtedly. We talked of the changed +inclination of earth's axis; the changed climate. He questioned me +about the different countries--most of them were only names to him. He +wanted to know the distribution of the people; the different races; the +present great centers of population; the agricultural areas. + +"You are ver' helpful, Peter." He seemed to mean it. "It is all quite +confusing. So big a worl'--populate' over all its surface. A ver' great +conquest for me, Zetta, don't you think so?" + +I tried to get information from him. It was not easy. He only wanted to +talk generalities, both about earth, and about himself. He had asked me +nothing about airplanes or warships--nothing at all about the weapons +of war on earth. Except the Essen automatic of mine which he had taken. +He laid it on the table before us. I explained it to him; the whole +theory of explosives. + +"That is mos' interesting." But he did not seem greatly impressed. "I +suppose you make these things quite large?" + +"Yes," I agreed. And since he asked no more, I volunteered nothing +further. + +From Graff I learned that there were already on earth several hundred +of his men. Hiding, as he put it. They had with them only a very small +hand battery with which they could fling around them the crimson +barrage. The fellow who had attacked us at Cains', trying to steal the +Reet battery, was one of them. + +I said: "That crimson barrage--in a larger form--was all you had +yourself, when you were on earth before?" + +He laughed. "I had other things--it was no time to use them." + +"But now--you have other things with you now?" + +"Oh, yes, I have other things, Peter." + +He had in this expedition some ten thousand men--and nearly a thousand +of the Garland insects. And there were several thousand women and +children. The Braun race--earth's future ruling race--these were to be +the pioneers. They were not all on this vehicle; there were others, +equally as large. And several small globes. This vehicle held only the +main equipment--the scientific apparatus for war. He mentioned flying +platforms, more mobile for low-altitude air transportation than this +great Space-liner; I gathered that they were platforms similar to the +one on which Zetta and I had been brought from Garla. + +"How are the other Space-vehicles going to find you?" I suggested. + +"We are leading. I shall pick out an earth base and then signal them +where it is. Soon, Peter, before we get to earth, you and I mus' talk +some serious details. You will help me pick our earth base--" + +I saw then the wisdom of Zetta's plan that we should be in Graff's +confidence; here, at least, I could influence him. His landing place +on earth; I would urge him as best I could to where he would do earth +least damage. Perhaps I might even be able to sway his whole campaign +into a channel least damaging to us. + +Once I mentioned the Infra-red Control. He shut me up very sharply. + + * * * * * + +There was one time during the voyage when by chance I overheard +Graff and Zetta when they thought they were alone. It was Graff in +a new light. Amazing scoundrel! I thought at the time--and I still +think--that in this one instance at least, every word that he uttered +was truthful and sincere. + +I could hear and see both him and Zetta plainly. They were in Graff's +cabin, where I ate my meals; I was in the length of passageway leading +to my room, which now was freely allowed me. I cannot claim I did not +try to eavesdrop; for most assuredly I did. + +Graff was saying: "If you insis' I talk in English I will do it. For +the practice, as you say." Did Zetta know I overheard them? Did she +want me thus to realize upon what basis they were? I think so; but I +have never known it for a certainty. "And if we are to live on earth, +Zetta, it is best. The race which speaks English is greatest on earth. +Is it so?" + +"I think, yes." + +They were sitting by the table; I saw him reach out and touch her arm, +saw her involuntarily shrink away. + +"Zetta! You hurt me much when you do that." + +"I cannot help it, Graff." + +He leaned toward her. I could see his face. Sincere--for the moment +absolutely sincere. + +"You are afraid of me?" + +"No, I am not." + +"Do not be, Zetta. I love you--I want you to marry me in whatever +fashion they use on earth." His voice was impassioned. "Oh, Zetta, what +a future there will be for you and me! Cannot you see it? Look ahead! I +will be greatest man of this great worl'." + +He suddenly stood up before her, drawn to his full height, his great +bare arms with the dangling chains extended up before him with a +gesture of power. A kingly figure indeed! A white-haired, blue-eyed +Viking of old; but there was about him as well, an aspect of +modernity--a modern, conquering scientist. + +"Look at me, Zetta! A man of whom you will be proud! You--jus' a little +girl--to yourself you will say: 'There is my man, greatest in the +worl'. I love him.'" + +"Ah!" she said. "If I did, Graff." + +"You will. I treat you gently." Abruptly he held one of his huge hands +before her. "With this hand, I could twist the neck of that Peter." + +I doubted it very much! + +"I do not do that, because you ask me not to, Zetta." + +"And because he will always be of great help to you," she retorted +slyly. + +He was taken somewhat aback. + +"Yes, that is true. But for the other reason also. I try to please +you--" + +I could see her gaze measuring him. She looked so small, sitting there +before him; but I knew that with her keen woman's instinct she was +planning how to handle him best. + +"You captured me, Graff. Brought me here, by force. When we get to +earth, will you let me go?" + +"No! I had to bring you--I mus' keep you with me. How else, if you are +not with me, can I make you love me?" + +She said gently, "Perhaps you go about it wrongly." + +"No. I think not. I tried leaving you alone. I was a ver' great man +among my Braun people--but you say you have never loved me. It is the +love I want--nothing else! You know that! Your love--without that, you +are nothing!" + +I must admit he said it with regal dignity which to the woman must have +been impressive. For just that moment, Zetta's emotion must have been +touched. Her hand went impulsively toward him. + +"I believe you, Graff. It is why I have no fear of you." + +He did not follow his advantage. He said, "I am glad. In a few days we +will land upon earth. I shall be ver' busy--we will talk no more of +this for a long time. But I want you to know--everything I do will be +for you." + +She said slowly, "If you want to please me, give it up. You have +stolen the Red Control. You have doomed your own worl' and mine to +disaster. And now you would attack the earth, which never has harmed +you. Wait, hear me this time, Graff! Perhaps--if now we were--to turn +back--perhaps back on Xenephrene I might find--I loved you--" + +He checked her; he was frowning. "You have said that before--do not say +it again! I love you--but I am a man--a ruler. You are nothing but a +woman. Do you think my love is so unworthy of us that I would let you +wreck our destiny? I will not! The man who is mastered by a woman no +longer is a man! You would not love me! That is a lie! You will love me +as I am, and I am made for great deeds. Enough of this!" + +He strode away from her; stopped and turned. "When I am master of the +earth we will talk of this again. You say woman's love comes unbidden? +Perhaps it does--we will wait then upon its pleasure. But remember +this: No woman ever loved a man who was a weakling. I want not that +kind of woman's love!" + +He strode from the room. + + * * * * * + +"Let us get to the details," said Graff. My supper was finished; he +pushed away the dishes. We were approaching the earth; slowing down +now; in another twenty-four or thirty-six hours we would be ready to +land. Zetta was seated across the cabin. Graff had drawn two long +tables together; a bank of parchment insect lamps was over them with +the illumination shaded downward. + +Graff added, "Zetta thinks you might be able to draw me a map of your +worl'. Could you?" + +Geography had been rather my hobby. "I think so," I said readily. "I +can draw you one, fairly accurate, on the old Mercator's projection." + +"What is that?" + +I explained it; the surface spread flat; the lines of latitude and +longitude at right angles rather than in a simulation of the globular +surface. He nodded. + +"That will do all right. Try it now. I will watch you, and you mus' +explain as you do it. We mus' pick our landing place and plan the +general campaign. Here, Zetta, help us." + +He unrolled a white opaque parchment some four feet by six. Zetta +fastened it flat to the table. For a pen, I had a metal point in a +small handle, with a dangling wire. The point glowed and etched a +thin dark line on the parchment. And there was a very serviceable set +of drawing instruments--one for measuring angles, the equivalent of +a ruler, a compass--and an intricate affair which drew at will every +variety of curve--circle, ellipses of every eccentricity, parabola, +hyperbola, many other curves which Graff named, but which were +unfamiliar to me. And there was a pantagraph-- + +He explained the uses of these various instruments. "Go ahead," he said. + +I took perhaps two hours. It was doubtless a very crude world map I +drew from memory. But in its broadest features it was fairly accurate. +I laid down the horizontal equator; spaced parallel lines, above it, +and below; drew the Greenwich meridian and the others at ten-degree +intervals. + +There was a time, in my university days, when I knew with fair +exactitude the latitude and longitude of most of the world's great +cities. I marked them now as dots; and from them, the coast lines grew. + +Graff was intensely interested. When I had the main national boundaries +sketched in, he stopped me. "That will do us ver' nicely. Show me where +the daylight is now." + +I calculated. It was now by earth-time, the noon of July 7, 1957; +almost exactly mid-spring in the north and mid-autumn in the south. The +equator was pointing toward the sun. The days and nights were now about +equal at the equator--each some twelve hours long, shading off into +twilight at the poles. + +"And next month?" said Graff. + +"The nights are lengthening in the south. The days are lengthening in +the north." + +He made me mark it all on the map; the changes of daylight and +darkness, and the approximate climate from now until early October, +when the North Pole would point to the sun. Then it would be all heat +and daylight in the north, shading to equatorial twilight, down to the +night and cold of the southern hemisphere. + +"My campaign may run until then," he said. "It is these months I am +mos' interes' in." He added abruptly, "Where would you advise me to +land?" + + * * * * * + +It was my opening. "That depends on many things--there's a great deal +you'll have to tell me, Graff," I said frankly. I smiled. "You can't +have a council of war, with your chief councillor wholly ignorant of +everything." + +"Ver' true, Peter. I will tell you what you want to know." My heart +leaped with exultation. I had his confidence at last! + +"Our weapons," I said. My first inclusion of myself with him! He took +it without notice. "Our weapons. Our method of warfare. What countries +we think best to attack first. We'll have the whole world against us, +you know." + +"I know it." + +"Our defense--" + +"That is simple, Peter. We have only one, but it is impregnable against +anything they have on earth." + +"The crimson barrage?" + +"Yes." + +"Can you lay it over a widespread area? How wide? Graff, is it your +idea to capture a great spread of country--devastate it--" + +"I cannot," he said. "I can include within the barrage an area that you +would call a circle of ten-mile diameter. Four such circles, if I wish +to divide my forces. Not much more." + +He described how his batteries supplied projectors of the crimson +light. It would extend some fifty thousand feet into the air and +sidewise some five hundred feet on each side of its source. A projector +thus must be set about every thousand feet. He had enough of them to +include four ten-mile areas. His storage batteries would last, he said, +for continuous use some three months. + +"I can stand the barrage up into the air, or tilt it forward, level +with the ground--it is then a beam which will annihilate what it +touches--" + +"With about fifty thousand feet--ten miles--effective range," I +finished. + +"Exactly so, Peter. But with it in that horizontal position we have a +barrage height of only five hundred feet. It is my plan to select a +base, in some area not ver' crowded. From there we can move within our +barrage over any area of country we wish to take." + +"Move how, Graff? On land? Sea?" + +"And in the air--over land and sea. We can mount the barrage projectors +on our platforms. They will fly; and they will float upon earth's +'water'--I have made sure of that." + +We discussed it for another hour. Midnight came; Zetta served us with +food and hot drink. Graff was planning to destroy what he could of +earth until such time as the leading governments would acknowledge his +supremacy. + +"I will have them bring all their weapons before me--we will send them +into nothingness with our crimson sound. Our Braun weapons then will +rule earth indeed! I shall build my city upon your faires' land, and +all your nations will pay me tribute. My Garland insects will work for +me. The earth people will work for me. Our Braun race will spread--" + +His plans after conquest were of a rosy hue. He dwelt on them, while +Zetta and I listened in silence. + +"Your colony will be small," I said finally. "Your five thousand +women--" + +"A new race will come on earth. The blending of the two worl's." + +"Won't you bring more of your people from Xenephrene?" + +Zetta said suddenly, "Xenephrene is doomed." + +Graff frowned at her. "That was necessary, Peter. Ver' unfortunate. No. +We who have left, plan not to return. Nor send for others--the best of +us are here, Zetta is a silly child--silly with woman sentiment. Why +should we bother with Xenephrene? A ver' small worl', so little of it +habitable. I was master there--" + +He had not been master, save of his small minority, themselves in +subjection. "But it was not big enough for me. I have lef' it to its +destiny." + +Left it to its fate--its doom! But I only smiled. "We must decide where +we are to land upon earth," I suggested. "Do you want the daylight or +darkness?" + +He ran his finger along the line of the equator. "Here. In the equal +days and nights. It will be warm?" + +"Yes." + +"That I want. How warm?" + +"Like Garla. Warmer probably." + +He nodded. "And from there, I will go north, following the warmth and +daylight. What is here, Peter?" + + * * * * * + +His finger was on the equator in South America. My heart quickened. +Our new great cities of the Western World were springing up, there +in Ecuador, Venezuela, the Guianas, northern Brazil. This area was +thronged now with colonists. They were planning, at the Falls of +the Iguazu, to supply light and heat through all the Americas. Vast +industrial plants were planned for these new cities. It would be the +industrial and mining center of our western hemisphere. He must not +land there! + +"It used to be jungle," I said casually. "And small rather backward +nations. Down there in Bolivia and Peru--all the equatorial Andes +region--there were great mining possibilities, largely undeveloped. It +has changed a little now." + +I led his interest elsewhere. The East Indies, where my great Dutch +Islands were thriving now with a new activity, drew his attention. +But I distracted him. We determined at last upon the plains north of +Mombassa, in British East Africa. A fair land with the new climate, but +as yet not densely settled, except to the north and north-west. + +In the north were Abyssinia and the Egyptian Sudan--the great valley +of the Nile. To the northwest, the Libyan and Saharan deserts. These +were springing into fertile, temperate areas. The governments of Great +Britain, France and Spain were locating down there. But I felt I could +keep Graff away from this region. Graff would want to move north. I +would make him move northeast--up the African coast, over Eastern +Abyssinia and get him across the Gulf of Aden, into Arabia, Persia +and thence to the sparsely settled, still barren lands of the Central +Asian Socialists. + +"What about your food supplies?" I demanded. "You can't maintain your +people very long with what you've brought, can you?" + +"No," he said. "But I will get food from the country we capture. +You must show me where at this season the agriculture is under way. +Perhaps, too, you have some large gov'ment storehouse now which I could +seize." + +He listened carefully as I pointed out the route into Socialist +mid-Asia. "What we want," I said, "is to frighten the world--bring +it to our feet. Not to devastate it completely, with nothing to rule +afterward but a chaos. You must be careful, Graff, as future emperor, +not to wreck the food supply of your new domain. It's precarious at +best now." + +"I understan'," he said gravely. + +"You are right in that, Peter. We will bring them to yield--ver' +quickly, I hope. Tell me in detail what they will use as weapons +against us." + +He seemed tireless. For another hour or two, I explained as best I +could the armament of the great nations. It was all chaotic since the +Great Change. Indeed, I was sure of very little I said. Most of the +world capitals had moved; all the races and centers of population had +shifted. Nations were disintegrating, blending as their people moved in +wholesale flight to new areas. + +In a few years most of the world would be united almost like one +big family. There had been no thought, since the Great Change, of +maintaining national armaments. The worst possible time to have an +invader from another planet attack us! But this latter, I did not +explain to Graff. + +Still another hour. "Graff," I said abruptly. "You never mention the +Infra-red Control. What part will it play?" + +I expected he might frown his displeasure. He did not. He met me with +an imperturbable smile. "You are tired, Peter," he said calmly. It was +nearly dawn; Zetta had been listening to me silently, but keenly aware +of my motives. But she, too, now was tired. She flashed me a warning +look when I mentioned the Control. + +Graff's slow smile continued. "Peter, you go to your cabin. I will work +this out." + +I slept. It must have been noon when I was awakened, not by Graff, +but by a Braun I had never seen before. In Graff's cabin my meal was +waiting. Zetta was not there. Graff was still poring over my map; I +think he had not left it. + +"Sit down, Peter." + +When I was fairly eating, he gestured at the map. "I have made my +decision. We will land in north Brazil. I will also sen' a force to +Central Africa. It can move north over the Sahara grain fields, into +Europe. And from Brazil we can move north and south. I think that North +and South Americas and Europe and Africa are mos' important places to +attack, Peter. We will frighten them, if we attack them there!" + +Irony was in his voice and in his smile! And I had thought to influence +this fellow! + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII + + THE EARTH AT BAY! + + +History will record that the forces of Graff, the Xenephrene, landed +upon earth at 2 A.M., July 9, 1957, in north Brazil, at one degree +fourteen minutes north latitude, and sixty-one degrees twenty-two +minutes west longitude. There was no one person on earth who saw more +than a fragment of what followed during those frightful weeks; out of a +myriad accounts, history will piece a pallid, dispassionate vision of +the whole. + +For myself, I witnessed many horrible things. But only fragments--as +an ant with its tiny viewpoint sees the forest through which it +crawls, and might futilely try to describe it. I can only name facts; +imagination must supply the rest, and even then inevitably fall far +short of the grim, tragic reality. + +I was crouching with Graff and Zetta at a floor window of the giant +Space liner when, that July 9, we slowly settled to within a thousand +feet of the ground. A dark, tropic, overcast night. + +From beneath our bow a crimson, howling radiance, one of the barrage +projectors, sprang downward. There was no one left alive over the +ten-mile circular area around which our barrage was flung that +night, to tell what happened. I saw the houses of this newly-settled +agricultural area melt and vanish as we swept them with the radiance. + +The barrage went up. By dawn, all the country near us was deserted of +its people, who fled in terror as far away from us as they could get. +The tropic jungle had wilted since the Great Change. The land here +was cleared; broad, fertile fields, planted now with grain, corn, and +garden produce. Prosperous farms, crowded with settlers in their small, +new houses. New villages. Several small cities. Over a hundred mile +area they were deserted in a day. + +Graff's other vehicles arrived. One was dispatched to Africa. It landed +in the French Sudan, in latitude fifteen degrees five minutes north +and longitude three degrees nineteen minutes west--not far south of +the city of Timbuktu, which had tripled in size and importance since +the Great Change. The red barrage was flung up here, but it was on the +flying platforms. Within a day it began moving directly north. + +Around our encampment in north Brazil, the barrage projectors were +mounted on the ground for a permanent stay. A ten-mile circle. It +included a stream. I found Graff had apparatus for distilling the +water, for drinking supply. He foraged out for food, even though he had +a three months' supply with him. He began building dwelling houses for +his women and children--using materials he had brought, and materials +his insects dragged in from neighboring, abandoned villages. + +An incredible activity. By the end of July his permanent base was well +established. We had been attacked. I can only hint at the surprise, the +panic, our landing caused all over the world. Since the Great Change, +the last thing that had been thought of was war. + +The nations were concerned with their bare existence--the welfare of +their people. War between them was an impossibility. The great battle +fleets of Britain, the United States, France and Japan were no longer +armed for combat. Most of the vessels had been dismantled of their +armament, converted into transports, for the people in distress and for +the transportation of food. + +Armies were organized now as government industrial and agricultural +workers. Every government was in the business of producing, +buying, storing, and selling food. The war airplanes were used +for transportation; thousands of the great Arctic A type were in +commission--but few of them were armed. + +The world was wholly unprepared and unequipped for war. Nevertheless, +Graff's base in north Brazil was attacked. Railroad lines were near us. +They were abandoned to traffic within fifty miles of us. But an armored +train was run up in the night. It shelled us with a long-range gun. One +of Graff's foraging parties outside the barrage was struck and most of +its members killed. But the screaming shells--they came all one night +at twenty minute intervals--exploded harmlessly against our barrage. + +A few planes came up cautiously to inspect us. One must have risen over +the ten mile height of our barrage. It dropped bombs. One of them +fell within our lines. It killed a dozen men and working insects, and +wrecked some of our apparatus; it barely missed our group of vehicles, +lying on the river bank in the center of our encampments. I doubt if +that aviator ever knew how true was his aim of that one bomb. + +The train with its thirty-mile range gun was gone at dawn. But it came +again the next night. I went with Graff, aloft on a small platform, +high over our lines. Through the red glow of our barrage we could see +the train in the distance--a blur of moving lights. We carried a single +small projector. At dawn we sailed out, through a momentary break +in the barrage. The train saw us coming. It retreated, swinging and +swaying over its rails at an eighty-mile-an-hour gait. It was a Garga +locomotive, and a flat car. Puffing, snorting, careening through the +country to avoid us. But we caught it. There was nothing there in a +moment but a tumbled heap of its heavier steel parts. We sailed back. + + * * * * * + +The world during these days must have been frantically assembling its +armament. Our Brazil base continued to be harassed. By July 15, our +river quite suddenly went dry. We found that some fifty miles up the +course on a distant rise of ground they had mounted a queerly-fashioned +projector. It might have been from Xenephrene itself! + +It was Freddie's heat-projector, sent here from Miami by the United +States government. It had an effective range of some two miles, and +its heat--they must have been applying it continuously for several +days--had dried up the small water-course, sending it up in clouds of +steam. + +Graff ordered an attacking platform out. It never returned. +Miraculously, a long-range gun must have hit it. Then we found that, +still farther up, they were damming our stream. Graff let them alone. +We sent out foraging parties at intervals for water. They were +frequently attacked. + +From Zetta, I sometimes had translated accounts of these hand-to-hand +engagements. Graff had a variety of small hand weapons with which +his foraging men were generally armed. Hand batteries of the purple +Reet-current. They shot very short, purple stabs of flame. I recalled +seeing the guards use them that night in the Garla Stadium. + +There were hand knives, not unlike the Spanish machete. And +occasionally Graff used a lethal gas. It clung its weight close to the +ground. The wind would sometimes sweep it over a village. + +The small purple flame projectors interested me particularly. I +persuaded Graff to show me one. The crimson barrage was a form of Reet; +so was this purple light. The one a low vibration rate; the other, a +high. Both, of course, were akin to the Control-globes. I tried again +to mention the Control, but Graff shut me up. He was not using it, as +yet. I found out soon afterward that, by every artifice in her power, +Zetta was holding him back. + +But he explained the purple flame. It stabbed into the crimson barrage, +neutralized it. With one of these small projectors, a man at a distance +of ten feet or so could stab a small hole through our red radiance. +Graff used this small hand projector to blind the earthmen at short +range, and to explode their gunpowder weapons in their hands--both of +which it evidently did with great efficacy. + +I said casually: "The Garlands had these purple projectors?" + +"Of course, Peter." + +"And, Graff, why couldn't that be made in a larger form? A giant purple +beam?" + +"It could. The Garlands have it." + +My thoughts were running tumultuously. Father, Dan, and Freddie were up +there in Garla. I said, still casually: "Then the Garlands could have +penetrated our barrage--neutralized it?" + +He smiled lugubriously. "Yes. That is what they did to me when I +attack' them years ago." + +Graff was in a good mood this day. He showed me some of the defensive +apparatus he had brought along. "I do not need it here, Peter. But I +have it, jus' the same." + +Insulated garments which one might wear and be protected, at least +partially, from the red barrage. Infra-red goggles to protect the +sight; ear-grids to bar out the sound--to raise it again to the normal +vibration to which our human ears are accustomed. + +"Why," I said, "with these one might walk through our barrage!" + +"Yes," he agreed, "I should not care to try it--but one might get +through safely." + +He put them away. + + * * * * * + +We had no reports from Africa. But it was over there that in these +early days the greatest damage to earth was done. The flying ring of +platforms, with the vehicle in their midst, had immediately begun +moving northward. + +Slowly some two or three hundred miles a day, but inexorably, +impervious to every attack that could be sent against them, they blazed +a ten-mile twisting trail, northward across Africa--a trail of queerly +blank, dead-gray surface of empty earth. + +It was as though some giant finger of death were dragging, trailing +itself over the continent. It cut a swath through Timbuktu, trailed +over the newly settled, newly fertile Sahara, swung east over the +mountains into the erstwhile Libyan desert; then north over the +Mediterranean. It was there by July 20. + +A fleet of warships, hastily assembled from every nation, was in the +Mediterranean. The red enemy flew high. Its barrage was downward. The +ships, at a fair distance, withstood the red glow. Especially at night. +The world was learning the nature of this gruesome enemy. + +The crimson screaming radiance seemed more deadly, more uncanny in the +darkness of night. But it was not. Our sunlight was favorable to it; by +day its range was greatly increased. Graff knew it. He had told me he +would follow the daylight northward! + +The great steel ships in the Mediterranean--if they kept off several +miles--were safe, especially at night. Safe from annihilation! But on +them must have been queer, uncanny scenes! + +One, just south of Malta, was caught in a fringe of outflung red beam. +Those on board have told what for a minute or two they went through. It +was night. The ship's lights went out. Its dynamos were burned. There +were several explosions aboard. But the ship escaped. Its men were +half deafened; eyes red, smarting and strained; a queer irritation of +the skin. And many were laughing with an hysteria which no one could +explain. + +The invaders turned east from Malta. They were never unduly aggressive, +the barrage generally was closely held for defense--save that over +the land it blighted always that ten-mile swath. They passed over the +isles of Greece and again turned north. Heading up into mid-Europe. +Before them--as well as their course could be guessed for it always +was erratic--the country was deserted. A rout, with occasionally an old +fortress, or a group of armed earth planes, or a railroad line with an +armored train, making a brief, futile stand. + +During this period the few Brauns whom Graff had sent previously +to earth now began to make their appearance. A few, scattered +individuals; they were found in various localities, and by the earth +people summarily killed. In mid-Europe a group of them--a hundred or +more--suddenly appeared and made a stand. Graff's expedition rescued +them, took them aboard the flying platforms. They were the last, I +think, of the scattered Xenephrenes; no others ever appeared, anywhere +on earth. + +The last week in July saw us spreading out in South America. Our +permanent camp housed the women, children and the older men. They +maintained the barrage. The insects were working with the men building +the town. + +With a ring of flying platforms, we made a sortie north. A week up and +back. We laid waste a swath through central Venezuela to the coast; we +returned with a western swing, through Colombia, Ecuador, north Peru +and back to our base. By July 30 it was evident that the earth people +were doing their best to evacuate all the territory inclosed by the +circle we had cut. Graff saw it; a new idea gripped him. + +"We can patrol it, Peter. With a few platforms I can hold this +territory--and spread farther." + +It was an area roughly from five degrees south to seventeen degrees +north latitude, and from sixty degrees to seventy-eight degrees west +longitude. A small Space-flying globe was now dispatched with a message +to the east. It joined Graff's other force in mid-Europe. Together they +moved in one leap to the Orient, landed in Java, and began sweeping the +East Indies. They attacked the rich Dutch islands near the equator, +which with the new climate we Dutch had proudly thought would become +the fairest places of the earth. + +From an island there was no swift escape for the multitudes of +panic-stricken people--I have read that they flung themselves into the +sea by thousands. + +I have seen the great Javan temples, which in the 1940's before the +Great Change, we Dutch were using as a lure for the tourist trade--seen +them in ruins as they looked when the Xenephrenes had passed. They say +that the Banda Sea, in August, reeked with the bodies floating in it. + +Fair, green islands, metamorphosed from the tropic to a temperate +zone, were laid waste without a living human remaining. From twenty +degrees north to twenty degrees south--down into the best land of +the Australian continent, up beyond the Philippines--the East was +devastated. + +Graff's plan was to drive the world's people away from the equator. +There was only mid-Africa left, and his force now went back there. + + * * * * * + +"We'll see," said Graff. "Perhaps--long ago, who knows, they are +willing to yield. You can go with me, Peter. We will deliver them a +message and see what they have to say." + +It was the first week in August. We took a small Space-flying globe. +Just Graff and I, with three or four of his men to handle it. Then +Zetta wanted to go. Graff agreed. He was always pleased to have her +with him; his vanity was pleased that she should see his triumphs. + +I think, too, that he would not have cared to leave her in the camp +with Brea. The woman was a snake-like menace. Graff seemed contemptuous +of her. He told me once he had promised long before, to marry her, but +had since decided it was not to his liking. + +We started in the globe, and sailing high, watchful that no airplane +could get up to attack us, we went to Miami. At a twenty-mile height, +we waited for nightfall. The nights were brief now in this northern +latitude. We had prepared a small metal cylinder. I wrote the message +to go in it. + +"_To the governments of the earth, from Graff, the Xenephrene._" + +We told them that if they wished to yield, we would name our terms, and +give directions for the destroying of all their armament. One condition +of surrender we named now, in advance. + +From ten degrees north to ten degrees south latitude, all the land +in the world was permanently to be evacuated--to be held by the +Xenephrenes. + +Graff, with his fifteen or eighteen thousand people, could not possibly +be expected to use or need more than a fraction of this land area, +as I had pointed out to him. But he had great, if somewhat nebulous, +colonization plans. Earth men and women from several different earth +races chosen by him, were to be sent, to be selected and judged by him +as the old Eugenic sect once thought to judge the applicants for future +parenthood. + +A hundred thousand such earth people would come and swear allegiance +to his ruling government. With his Brauns they would build new cities; +populate this most benign central region of earth; build their new and +greater civilization--breed their new race, the best of the two worlds. + +We directed the Miami authorities that if this message were received, +they should notify us by a swaying white searchlight beam from Miami +Beach the following night. We would then wait another two nights. +Then, the night of August 7, if the beam showed again, swaying, we +would know they desired to yield. But if it stood straight up into the +sky, motionless, we would understand they still defied us. We made no +threats--our deeds, not our words, would speak for us. + +We dropped the cylinder into the outskirts of Miami. It went down, +flaming like a beacon from the blazing gas we had ignited in its top. +It fell, as close as I could judge, near the Greater Miami--Fort +Lauderdale line. By daylight we hung fifty miles high, waiting. + + * * * * * + +I have been told, and I can fairly imagine, the scene at the conference +which was held in the Miami War Department during those three following +long days with the brief nights between them. + +At this daylight season there was a freight and passenger air line +flying from Miami to the Canaries, with connections at the Canaries for +the recently established capitals of Great Britain and France, near the +Barbary Coast. + +Upon one of these liners representatives of all the European +governments came hastily to assemble at Miami; from Japan came leaders +of the Oriental powers; and from Caracas--greatest capital now of Latin +America--came the newly elected President of the Pan American Union. + +Graff and I, in our devastating swing up through Venezuela late in +July, had passed not far west of Caracas; those had been anxious +moments for me. + +I need not picture that grave, solemn conference of the World Powers in +Miami that August 6. I understand it lasted without intermission for +some thirty-six hours. They had determined to yield. + +A giant searchlight was erected at Miami Beach. It swayed its answer +that the cylinder had been found--that Graff's message was being +considered. We saw it. We hung far, inaccessibly far aloft, waiting for +the decision. + +The night of August 7 came. The conference was ending. The definite +decision to yield had been reached. From the War Department a telephone +was connected with the little house at the beach where the operator was +ready to flash the signal. Our War Secretary rose to his feet. + +"Shall I phone him now, gentlemen?" They say his voice nearly broke. + +There was a silent assent. From the adjoining room a telephone rang +sharply; then another. A confusion in there. Telephones ringing, and +the government radio sounding a peremptory incoming call. A confusion, +while the War Secretary stood irresolute. Then an Under Secretary burst +into the room. "A globe from Space has landed in the Everglades!" + +A few moments, and fromen sources came the details. Professor +Vanderstuyft had arrived from Xenephrene! With his daughter, and Daniel +Cain, Frederick Smith--and a young man, a Xenephrene friendly to +earth--named Kean. They had weapons with them with which to fight this +invader! They were no more than fifty miles from Miami, and were being +rushed to the conference by a government Arctic A. + + * * * * * + +We were crouching over the floor of our hovering globe, gazing down at +the shadowy outlines of the Florida coast. The twilight of August 7 +deepened into night. No searchlight beam showed. We waited. We did not +see father's globe come down: I did not know anything about it until +afterward. + +The hours passed. "They will yield," said Graff confidently. "They +postpone now the humiliating hour. But before the dawn we will see +their searchlight beam. It will waver, tremble--jus' as in their own +hearts they are wavering and trembling." + +And Zetta and I thought so, too. The short night passed; the twilight +of dawn began showing. And then the white beam from down there sprang +up. It stood vertical. Motionless! + +For a moment we stared at it, almost unbelieving. Moisture clouded my +sight of it; my brave world, firmly shining its defiance! + +Graff sprang to his feet. "Why! Incredible! They have not yielded?" + +Anger contorted his face--chagrin was in his voice. I think he felt the +chagrin more strongly from Zetta's presence. + +"So they will not yield? The worse for them! You shall see now the Red +Control, Peter!" + +"No!" burst out Zetta. "You mus' not do that, Graff!" + +His laugh was grim. + +"You shall see! The Red Control--I will loose it now upon them!" + + + + + CHAPTER XIX + + RED MADNESS STALKING THE EARTH + + +Days of grim activity in Graff's camp followed. I think Graff had no +intimation of the reason for the earth's defiance; he seemed to feel +that our governments were fool-hardy, stupid--stubborn beyond the point +of human reason. He had been in a towering rage, but that passed. He +moved about his tasks now with a cool, careful efficiency. But I could +see a certain almost awed grimness about him for the diabolical nature +of this thing he was doing. + +His mood was reflected in all his men. And they changed toward me. +Never more than contemptuously tolerant, they were now openly hostile. +Gibing at me, the earthman. + +I was passing one morning down the line of flimsy houses which was the +main street of the camp. A woman leaped from a doorway and struck me +in the face. My guard was at hand. Graff never let me move anywhere +without an armed man to watch me. He said to protect me, especially +from the giant insects which lurked about the camp, and which, in +truth, I always feared; but I knew Graff's motive was to watch that I +did not try to escape. The woman struck and reviled me until my guard +pulled her away. + +Graff had sent a globe at once to Africa, to order back his force +operating there. It came in, crowding our camp. Near the north line +of our barrage Graff built a small stone house. Within it the control +globes were being erected. He would never let me or Zetta near it. + +The barrage throughout its entire circumference was strengthened. +All our projectors were in use, triple-banked in some places. Graff +had built a chemical laboratory in the camp. His scientists had for +weeks been working in it, endeavoring to produce the Reet current on +earth for a renewal of the storage tanks which had been brought from +Xenephrene. I was now barred from this building; they were working in +it on the Control-globe mechanisms. + +Above our camp a flying platform now constantly hovered at a +ten-thousand foot altitude. It spread a thin, red barrage like a +ceiling above us. Graff anticipated that he would be attacked more +vigorously than ever before; he said so to me once, with his sardonic +smile--and he had not forgotten that one aviator who had dropped a bomb +upon us. + +By August 14 our force had returned from Africa, our lines about our +base were strengthened, the Control-globes were erected in the little +house, and everything was ready. About the camp, and at intervals five +miles out to the barrage line, small projectors the size of a man's +hand had been erected; wires in conduits ran from them back to the +laboratory. There must have been fifty or more. + +On the afternoon of August 14 a current was turned into them. They +hummed gently; when the twilight and night came, I saw them emitting a +faint purple radiance. Within an hour it hung over the camp--over all +the inside area of the barrage--like a purple haze. The haze I had seen +in the air of Xenephrene. It was to protect us here, in our enclosed +area, from the effects of this thing we were about to broadcast over +the earth! + +A week from that night over Miami when we were defied--and now Graff +was ready. An anxious week for me. A thousand times I had thought of a +thousand vague plans of something desperate I might do. But what? I was +more closely guarded than ever before. A very pseudo-liberty was all +that was permitted me. + +Zetta, in a few snatches of talk I had alone with her, still seemed +to think she might persuade Graff to stop. Futile hope! Her brave +endeavors had from the first been futile. At last, she seemed +convinced. + +A wariness of manner, an alert, calculating look whenever she was with +Graff, came upon her. I can only guess now, what thoughts and plans +were behind that grim, masklike little face. She said nothing of her +thoughts to me; there seemed suddenly an added estrangement between us. + +During the evening of August 14, while I was watching the purple haze, +Graff sought me. Zetta was near him. + +"We are ready, Peter. I thought that you and Zetta would like to see +these little globes that are so powerful to triumph for us." + +"Walk out to the Control house?" + +"Yes. I am going now to turn the current into the Red Globe." + +I strove not to show my emotion; I thought he might dismiss my +guard--and he, Zetta and I might take the walk alone. If I could watch +my chance and spring upon him. + +But he bade the guard follow close behind us. It was a dark, overcast +night. Our little town by the dried river bank was almost in the center +of the circular barrage lines. From here it was some five miles to the +north of the barrage. + + * * * * * + +We walked over the slightly undulating dead-gray waste of what had been +the Brazilian farm country. The ground was covered with a gray dust, +like burned powder. Graff and Zetta and my guard could have leaped over +the distance in a few minutes. Graff was impatient, contemptuous of my +slow progress. He forced me forward at a trot. + +We passed the occasional towers he had built; a few sailing platforms +on the summits of the slopes. The purple projectors standing on the +ground at intervals were all humming, casting up their purple haze into +the still night air. + +Ahead of us loomed the red curtain of the barrage. The night now was +filled with its howl. A Braun appeared from the darkness--one of the +interior ground guards. His white, half-naked body, with bullet head of +clipped white hair, was edged, lurid with the reflected crimson glow. +Goggles were on his eyes--thick glass cones projecting out grotesquely; +his ears were muffled with small wire grids. He spoke to Graff, and +stood deferentially aside to let us pass. + +The stone house was set close behind the barrage, bathed in the +crimson--a small, one-storied house with a single door and no windows. +At the door two guards stopped us. My personal guards waited outside. +The room we entered was tiny, with one small white light. Evidently +the sleeping room of these two interior guards. They wore goggles and +ear-grids, and tight trousers and smock of black, insulating fabric; +a cap with a black mask, now raised; and black gloves. Here, near the +broadcasting of the Infra-red Control, exposed to its nearness over a +long period, the men needed utter protection. A rack on the wall held +other similar protecting garments, masks, goggles and ear-grids. "We +will not need them," said Graff. "We will be here but a moment. Jus' a +moment--but long enough!" + +The room had one interior doorway--a small, round opening with a +heavy bull's-eye door. We stooped to pass through; emerging into a +low, black-vaulted room. On a small railed platform stood the two +little globes. Another man was here, robed in the tight-fitting black +garments; gloved, masked and goggled. Grotesque executioner! He +murmured to Graff, and stood aside. + +There was a tense moment. The room was dim, and dead silent. No +windows. No opening save the round doorway into the room through which +we had entered. + +Graff said slowly: "We will give them a few hours of the Red +vibrations--to-night and to-morrow perhaps, and then broadcast from the +purple globe--restore normality." He added grimly: "We will see then +what they say, Peter." + +The two globes were white, opaque and silent. Graff turned to a switch. +For the first time that evening Zetta spoke; an involuntary cry of +protest. + +"No! Graff--no!" She gripped him, but he thrust her roughly aside. I +was tense; I think then I was about to leap upon Graff. But from the +hand of the black-robed man a weapon was pointing quietly, menacingly +at me. + +Graff's face was grimly inscrutable. He reached up suddenly and +threw the switch. The dim light from somewhere in the room faded and +vanished. A crimson glow from one of the globes took its place; the +other globe stood milk-white, silent, alert. + +A humming. From the grid over the active globe a faint red beam was +streaming. It spread; it deepened; it streamed out through the solid +black wall of the room. I stared after it. Sidewise--upward; I seemed +to be gazing out into a black illimitable distance, red-tinted. Long +unearthly vibrations, broadcast now around our world! They were already +around and back again and starting anew. + +"Come," said Graff's voice abruptly. "That's all." + +The black-masked operator was seated at his little table, watching +his dials. The red globe had settled to its steady hum as we left the +room. Strangely brief, undramatic scene! I sensed that Graff had made +it so--a cloak to hide what emotions sweeping him, only he would ever +know. A matter-of-fact casualness. + +Yet I have never witnessed a scene of such potential horror. A small +stone house, black-vaulted room with its lone, black-garbed man. Just a +single small globe, faintly humming, glowing crimson. But I knew that +within a day or so our great earth would be at its mercy! + +Back on Xenephrene, in Garla that evening at the Stadium, there had +followed a night of confusion. With the Infra-red Control stolen, the +Garlands were in a panic. The frightened people had rushed for the +grottos; by the time the authorities were able to bring order, the +night had passed. At dawn, pursuit had started for the Braun city. +Too late. Graff's expedition had left for earth. The Brauns remaining +on Xenephrene learned now their leader's duplicity. They, too, were +stricken with fear and horror. + +There is an old saying on earth, "When the devil is sick, the devil a +monk would be!" The Garland authorities were very ready to listen to +father now! They sent at once for him and Dan and Freddie. They begged +his advice; there was nothing they would not do to help him, if only he +could suggest a way to get back the Control. + +Their scientists had spent years refining by slow process the vital +elements necessary to its construction. The work had started when +Xenephrene came within the first faint rays of our sunlight. There +was no time now to repeat that process. Unless they could remove the +Control, within a few months, at most, they were doomed. + + * * * * * + +They had been truthful in telling father that there was no +interplanetary vehicle ready in Garla. And Graff had left none in his +Braun city. There was only the small vehicle in which Dan, Freddie and +I had arrived. It was decided that father and his earth people were +to return in this globe to earth at once, taking Kean with them. Kean +could be taught by father how to navigate the vehicle. If on earth the +Control were recovered from Graff, Kean would bring it back to Garla. + +They waited about a week, gathering weapons and equipment with which to +fight Graff on earth. + +The globe was too small to take very much. They brought to earth four +giant projectors of the purple ray with which to stab neutral openings +in Graff's barrage; a projector of the crimson barrage itself; and the +insulating equipment for some four hundred persons--black-hooded suits, +masks, gloves, Infra-red goggles and ear-grids. + +It seemed very little, but the best that could be done. The Garlands +promised to rush another vehicle to earth with other weapons. But the +vehicle would be some weeks yet in construction, and the distance +between the worlds was daily lengthening. + +It was, even now, a long voyage for father's party. They +arrived--dropped into the Everglades on the evening of August 7--as I +have told. Father, at the conference, would have none of the idea of +surrender. And the delegates from the World Powers, heartened with the +weapons now at hand, with Freddie and Dan vigorously stating that they +knew how to use them--reversed their decision. The searchlight beam +held steady with its defiance. + +Both Dan and Freddie have since told me how forcefully father spoke in +Miami that night. On Xenephrene an ineffectiveness had seemed to be +upon him. I had noticed it. A strange world, among strange people where +he had lived and worried all those months, had beaten him down. He had +seemed years older; an almost querulous, ineffectual old man. + +Subconsciously realizing this, Dan, Freddie and I had discarded him +from all our planning. But back on earth, among his own people, his own +environment, his forceful character returned. + +He told them, that night at the conference, about the Control. It was +disturbing news. But Graff obviously had not used the Control as yet. +Perhaps on earth it would not operate. + +There was much to do before Graff could be seriously attacked. Four +Arctic A warplanes were to be equipped with the four purple ray +projectors. They were to be armed with long-range Essen-Bloc guns. +These guns, developed in the early fifties, just before the Great +Change, were for aircraft use in war. + +They fired a peculiarly destructive shell which, it was thought, would +be most effective against the light Xenephrene structures--Graff's +space-vehicles and his flying platforms. There also was the crimson +barrage projector to be assembled and mounted. And a fighting force +of some two hundred planes, whose pilots and gunners were all to be +black-garbed and goggled. + +It would take a week or two for these preparations. The attack would +be made against Graff's Brazilian base; it was found now that his +mid-African force had withdrawn and returned to Brazil. All the +Xenephrenes were concentrated there; it was exactly what the earth +leaders most desired. + +There was a week of complete inactivity from Graff. Scouting planes, +ordered not to approach too close, reported that his barrage seemed +deepening in color and sound; and he had placed a red radiance +overhead. His inactivity seemed threatening to the Miami authorities. +All the earth preparations were going hurriedly forward in Miami. + +It seemed an ominous lull, while both sides were preparing. Graff, +it was hoped, did not know what the earth was planning. He would be +taken completely by surprise. One great surprise rush, by night. They +believed in Miami that they would be ready by about August 20. + +The world publics waited, expectant. The news of the arrival of weapons +from Garla was hushed and suppressed lest by some chance it get to +Graff. The world public was fed with radio propaganda; the invaders had +withdrawn from Africa because they feared the earth's attack; they were +concentrated in Brazil--their power to harm earth was lessening; soon +the earth forces would fall upon them; destroy them. Or perhaps even +now, the Xenephrenes were planning to withdraw from earth, as they had +before. + +Upon such opiate as this the public was fed. It is always so in times +of war! Newspapers printed pages of learned technical explanation of +what would happen, by all the laws of mathematics and logic, when once +the world powers went into battle. Newspaper experts analyzed the +scientific facts from every angle, reaching always the same triumphant +solution--experts who knew no more of the real facts than did their +readers. And the public waited expectant. + +Freddie and Dan, chafing at their forced inactivity, persuaded the +Miami authorities to let them try Freddie's heat ray, in advance of +the main earth attack. It was Freddie's plan, and father also agreed +to its merit. Graff would be suspicious at this long silence from his +enemy--just as Miami was daily growing more suspicious of him. + +Freddie's projector could create, with a two-mile range, a heat of some +three hundred degrees Fahrenheit; it had a three-mile range, if the +heat were concentrated to a six-foot striking area. Graff's barrage was +vertical. Its horizontal area of danger was no more than five or six +hundred feet. + +In a muffled, unlighted plane, selecting a dark night, Freddie and Dan +could get within a few miles of the barrage; the heat might wreck some +of the barrage mechanism. There was no one to say whether these heat +vibrations would penetrate the crimson glow or not. It had never been +tried. And at least it would create a diversion which Graff would think +a normal earth attack. He would expect none other for a time. + +Freddie and Dan planned to start on the night of August 15. By evening +of August 14 they were in the Miami War Department, receiving last +admonitions. The official radio was droning its routine messages. + + * * * * * + +There was a sudden interference. A chaos of weird voices such as only +the radio--particularly in the old pioneer days--could produce. The +interference grew worse; then the radio went dead. The telegraphs, +telephones and undersea cables all had sudden interference, but they +kept in operation. The new "Invisible light-beam" phones, as they were +popularly called, withstood it, but service was maintained under +difficulty. The electric lights went dim, almost out; then brightened +suddenly; and dimmed again. + +This, all within a few minutes, that evening of August 14. In Miami, +and all over the world it was the same. And then, almost unnoticed at +first, slowly, insidiously, inexorably, the reign of the Red Madness +began. The great mass of people throughout the world did not understand +it, had no idea what was happening to them. They called it, they still +call it, the Red Madness. + +It began with a feeling of uneasiness. An oppression. The feeling +one has sometimes when the barometer falls in the lull before a +coming storm; the feel, as they would say, of electricity in the air. +Thousands said that, undoubtedly. A growing uneasiness. The countries +in the daylight felt it most. + +The sick, the weak, the nervous, were most quickly affected. In +hospitals there was a sudden hysteria among the patients. In a Miami +hospital early that evening an old woman patient ran screaming and +laughing, screaming that red demons were after her. Perhaps, of all the +millions, she was the first. + +She leaped into the street; Freddie and Dan recall her shuddering +scream and eerie laughter as it floated into the open windows of the +War Department. + +At the War Department the reports from abroad were increasingly +alarming. Within an hour every official channel of communication was +cluttered with news. A diversity impossible to picture! At first, +abnormality in the sick, the old, and the very young. Infants wailing, +unable to sleep; old people stricken with hysteria, a morbid, weeping +melancholia, or a wild frenzy of madness. + +A lone old man suddenly gone mad; then, not only old people--a +mob rushing screaming down a city street; a great airliner very +nearly plunging into the China Sea because its pilot was laughing +uncontrollably, and then weeping with realization of the tragedy he had +so nearly caused. + +People in crowded Oriental villages running amok, shot down by the +police. A Miami surgeon at an operation killed his patient with a +sudden vicious stroke and cried like a child that he had done it. A +thousand incongruous, horrible incidents. + +From every quarter of the earth, medical authorities, scientific bodies +and governments were demanding an explanation of Miami. And then the +world of the Infra-red began showing. Not only to the infirm--to every +one. The strongest man was frightened--terrified, sometimes, at his +own mad desire to laugh. Vague red shapes were in the air, murmuring, +chattering. + +I personally did not experience any of this. Father and the others say +it was at first like the sensations we had felt on Xenephrene. The +red things were not so tangible or visible--nor so clearly audible, +perhaps. Not at first. But every hour, every moment, they were +intensifying. Soon, it was far worse. + +The world could not understand, but the authorities in Miami knew at +once what was happening--that Graff was using the Red Control. It +promised disaster; worse, a fate unspeakable--the world gone mad. + +The confusion of the Miami authorities now hastily assembled again in +conference, was intensified by the red hysteria which was affecting +them, as every one else. + +Hulda was there; she says it was a bedlam within an hour. She sat +quietly watching and listening to the red things coming out from their +invisible world. She sat there terrified, not of them so much, for to +her they were familiar things--terrified at what they were doing to our +world. + +A bedlam surged around her, in which father, Freddie and Dan strove to +hold a sanity. The President of our United States, listening to what +was being reported from abroad, burst into tears. He had never been +in robust health; the strain of the past few days had worn his nerves +nearly to the breaking point. They took him away, and by then he was +laughing and raging alternately. + +Out at the beach some one had given orders for the searchlight to +signal a world surrender. There was no enemy to see it; but no one +thought of that. It was wavering up into the sky; but no one in the War +Department heeded it. Then it held steady. Then a shouting throng of +people rushed it; smashed it. + +Father, Freddie and Dan were busy getting the equipment they had +brought from Xenephrene into hasty use. The insulated suits were +unnecessary. The Infra-red glasses and ear-grids were able to bar out +this storming red world. The officials donned them. With normality +regained they sat together trying sanely to determine what should be +done. A world going mad around them. + +Even as they sat, news of the glasses and ear-grids had spread into the +city; a mob was surging around the building, shouting demands that the +glasses be distributed to them. A few hundred glasses and ear-grids, +needed by our fighting aviators, and now the hundreds of millions of +people would be demanding them! + +An official at the conference seized his telephone to call the head of +the Government Research laboratories, demanding that this necessary +equipment be manufactured in quantity at once, for world distribution. +The very madness in the air made the conference burst into gibing +laughter at the futility of it. + +Freddie and Dan had had the heat-projector hastily transferred to +a Nungess monoplane-type flyer. A tiny affair--nothing, for their +purpose, like the huge Arctic A. But it was capable of some four +hundred miles an hour under favorable conditions. They donned suits of +the black insulated fabric; they had the glasses and ear-grids; the +heat-projector, and a small Essen-Bloc airplane gun. + +Within two hours they left the chaos of the War Department, took off +from an adjacent stage for Graff's Brazilian encampment. This now was +no mere test attack to create a diversion! They were determined, by +whatever desperate means, to stop the Red Control. + +They left with the assurance that the earth's main attack would follow +them in a few days. A few days! If the workmen assembling the weapons +could hold their reason. The War Secretary laughed a little wildly as +he said it. White-faced Hulda flung her arms around Dan, and wept. +There was in her mind no other belief but that she would never see him +again. + + + + + CHAPTER XX + + THE NIGHT PROWLERS + + +"Where the devil are we?" demanded Dan. "I can't see anything--much +less with these cursed glasses." + +"Put them back on!" said Freddie sharply. + +They had run into a gale from the north, soon after crossing over +Cuba. It would have been accounted a storm-wind, before the days +of the Great Change. But such winds now were common. A steady, +fifty-mile-an-hour blow. Flying with it, they had made great speed. +Over Jamaica, across the Caribbean, to strike the Colombian coast near +the mouth of the river below Baranquilla. + +It was a race against the dawn; by daylight they would be seen by +Graff's watchers, before they could get near the barrage; and to wait +another day, with the Red Madness stalking the earth, was unthinkable. + +At Baranquilla they were flying low. No lights showed. From Baranquilla +to Cartagena had been one great city of small farms. It was deserted +now. Graff and I, in that swing up to the coast, had cut a swath +through it; and the people all fled. + +Freddie and Dan swept southeast. A vast territory; mountains, with +mines all abandoned; and the forests, and lower farm lands, uninhabited +now. + +The dawn must have been very near. Dan was anxiously, fearfully +watching for it. The Infra-red glasses turned everything a dull, dead +gray; the ear-grids muffled sound to an annoying hush. + +Dan occasionally would cast them off. The red things were riding the +night with the plane. They hovered outside the small inclosed cabin +in which Dan and Freddie were sitting. They seemed crowding the cabin +itself, their voices jabbering over the muffled motor-throb. + +"Keep on those glasses!" Freddie repeated sharply. "Think I want to +take any chances, cooped up here with you!" + +"I'm all right," Dan growled. "Where the devil are we? You said we were +almost there." + +"We'll see it shortly. I'll look." Freddie raised the goggles from his +eyes. Faintly, far ahead through the overcast night, the crimson glow +of Graff's barrage was streaming above the horizon. + +"It's there, Dan! Don't look! I'll descend--" + +They swung down, barely skimming the tree-tops; over the roofs of +dark farmhouses, white lines of fences, empty fields--abandoned farm +country. The barrage came fully over the horizon; they could see the +points of concentrated light at intervals around its base where the +ground projectors stood. With the glasses on, it seemed to vanish. +It was soundless through their ear-grids; without them its howl was +plainly audible. + +They were over devastated country now--a dead gray, blank waste. +Skimming close over it. Three miles from the barrage. Dan had taken the +controls. Freddie was fumbling with the heat-projector and with the +Essen-Bloc gun beside it. They donned their black gloves, dropped their +masks over their faces; their heads were black-hooded. + +"Easy, Dan! Not too low!" + +Dan swung them up. Freddie lifted his glasses. He hoped he would see +some sign of the Red Control ray streaming through the barrage. They +must determine the location of the Control--And then rush at it-- + +"Off, Dan! Close enough!" + +"Too close!" Dan murmured. "If they spot us--" + +It would be failure; they must locate the Control first. They swung to +the left, paralleling the barrage. Every moment they feared it would +tilt suddenly down with its beam darting at them. They could withstand +it, but their plane could not-- + +"Freddie! What's that?" + +On the dead-gray surface of the ground ahead of them, figures showed. +Two black blobs. The crimson light faintly edged them. Dan swung the +plane up, then down, undecided. Two black-garbed figures, running +along the ground, away from the barrage. Men! A man, and a half +grown boy. The boy leaped ahead; then waited. The man was running +steadily--heavily-- + + * * * * * + +From the Control house--that brief scene when Graff had turned the +current into the crimson globe--Zetta and I were led back to the +encampment. Graff gave orders to my guard, and left us, busy with his +other duties. The guard was alert, but he seemed out of earshot. I +whispered: + +"Zetta, you never want to talk to me any more! I must do something +to-night--stop that damnable thing--" + +"Peter, hush! He'll hear you!" + +"I can't help it. Zetta, listen--" + +In truth I had no clear idea of what I wanted to say. Some desperate +plan! To remain idle and let that crimson globe broadcast madness upon +our world was dastardly. My hand went to Zetta's arm, but she drew away +sharply. + +"Hush, Peter! Do nothing! Go to bed--jus' trust me--" + +Trust her! The barrier she had built up between us seemed to fall. + +"Zetta, dear, what do you mean? Have you some plan--something, later +to-night--" + +She knew so much more of conditions here in the camp than I did; she +had had more freedom, living almost unguarded in a house with one old +woman. And she spoke the language of these Brauns. If she had a plan it +would be more rational than mine! + +"What is it?" I demanded. "What did you mean by that?" + +"Peter, hush! Trust me." She shook me off. "You go to bed. Please, I +ask that of you! Trust me--I know best." + +She leaped away, leaving me standing there. + +I occupied alone a little house which had been built for me by Graff. +It stood at an end of one of the cross-streets, where the gray blank +waste land stretched out to the distant line of barrage. The dry river +bed was near it. + +My bedroom had one barred door and two barred windows. My guard, +relieved by another at intervals, sat by the door. Occasionally at +night I could hear him prowling about the house. + +I went to bed, but could not sleep. The darkness of my room seemed +luminous with purple haze--the protecting purple glow which hung +throughout the camp. The world outside had no such protection. The +broadcast crimson vibrations were seeking out every tiny corner of the +earth. + +I must have drifted off--I was awakened by a hand over my mouth; a dark +form was beside me in the blackness; a voice murmured in my ear. + +"Peter! Be quiet! Don't struggle!" + +Zetta's voice! I relaxed. Then I sat up. I could see her dimly. She +was dressed in a tight-fitting black smock; tight, long trousers to +her ankles, joining black cloth shoes. A black hood, pushed back with +dangling mask. Black gloves pulled up over her tight black sleeves. +The insulating fabric! + +"Quiet, Peter! Here, put these on. Hurry!" + +She thrust garments at me. In a moment I was dressed like herself. We +carried our Infra-red goggles and ear-grids in our hands. There was no +time for me to question; she gave me a long curved pod-knife. + +"If you have to, use it, Peter. I will lead--hurry--" + +I sensed her shudder. The knife was wet. I knew why; in the darkness +outside, my guard lay motionless, sprawled face down on the ground. +Zetta leaped, I stepped over him. She waited for me; then leaped +lightly forward again. + +The camp was dark and silent; we avoided a low-humming purple +projector. I ran, with Zetta leaping ahead of me. We got safely past +the houses. The insects were quartered at the opposite end of the +town. None were allowed abroad at night; I was thankful for that. The +night was overcast, darker, it seemed, than before. I wondered how +near dawn it was; probably very near. Zetta came to the bed of the +dry water-course; jumped down into it. I climbed down, thirty feet, +perhaps. In the blackness I ran forward. + +Zetta now was at my side, holding one of my hands, trying to draw me +on. Miles of this; it seemed hours. A guard from the bank appeared +suddenly over our heads. He called softly. Zetta answered. She leaped +up and stood beside him; spoke to him; held his attention. I crept up +through the gloom, lunged with the knife. He fell. + +The barrage line at last was before us; its red glow bathed the bottom +of the river bed. Zetta stopped me. + +"You mus' get your breath, Peter. Then, run fas'. We will be through it +in a few minutes. Oh, Peter, you go so slowly!" + +"You run ahead," I told her. "Get through as fast as you can--then wait +for me." We were adjusting our glasses, strapping on the ear-grids. +"Zetta, where did you get these?" + +"From Brea!" The red illumination showed her faint, ironical smile. +"We have been planning it for a long time. She was afraid again to try +and kill me. But she wants that I never see Graff again. Jealous--and +so she has help' us escape. I did not tell her--naturally not--that we +would try for the Control house." + +"And me? Why help me escape?" + +"You, Peter--I tol' her you love me. If she help you escape, then you +would marry me. You see? Brea wants that--then I will be los' to Graff +forever. So she waited a chance and steal these things--" + + * * * * * + +My arms went around her. What a time for love-making! But my emotion +took no account of the time. + +"Marry you, Zetta? Oh, if you will let me! You said 'I am not pledged +to you yet, Peter!'" Those words of hers had been like a weight on my +heart; a weight which I wanted now to dispel forever. I held her close. +"Zetta, you love me--" + +She pushed me away; more rational always than I. "That I said--because +then the sacrifice to Graff might have been necessary." + +"But now--it isn't?" + +"No. Not now. Peter--come--run fas'." + +At the edge of the barrage a guard was standing on the river bank. He +flung a tiny white beam down on us. Zetta called up to him, tried to +lure him down. But abruptly he shouted an alarm. From across the river +another figure came in a leap, sailing over our heads. We ducked into a +hole; above us the two guards stood consulting. + +"Zetta, call again! Talk to them--I'll climb up." + +I got behind them on top of the bank. I could hear Zetta calling up +something about Graff. I lunged at them. One stabbed at me with a short +purple flame; but it missed, or my black garments killed it. I struck +into them as they stood together; struck with my knife and flailing +arms. I could feel their flimsy bodies crack. They sank at my feet. + +There seemed no general alarm given; these two guards doubtless were +the only ones within hearing at this section of the line. We went +through the barrage. Running. With the glasses on, it was all the dead +gray of night, and soundless. But I could feel it plucking at me; once +I got the impression I was almost wading through it, fighting it. A +panic of fear seized me; I laughed to ward it off. + +I was laughing when Zetta gripped me, jerked off the glasses and my +mask. "Peter, stop that! You are all right!" + +The cool night air steadied me. We were in the darkness, well beyond +the barrage. It was a mile, perhaps, to the Control house. We followed +the barrage line, creeping, running, taking advantage of every gully, +every hillock. Garbed in black, we were doubtless not easy to see. +There was no alarm given. + +The dawn was near. We got back through the barrage, inside the line +again. A guard near the Control house came up to us. Fortunately he had +not seen from which direction we came. He was less suspicious than the +others; our masks, glasses and black garments were more to be expected +here by the Control than elsewhere. Zetta told him we were from Graff. +He sank soundlessly as my knife slashed at his throat. + +The two guards in the outer room were almost equally easy. But one +screamed. The Control-keeper came out at us. My fist crushed his face. + +We were in the Control room! The crimson globe stood there murmuring. +Diabolical thing! With my gloved hands I ripped at it; tore its wires; +tumbled it down; kicked and wrecked it with a passionate frenzy. + +[Illustration: With my gloved hands I ripped at the wires of the +diabolical crimson globe; and I kicked with passionate fury at the +instrument of destruction.] + +"Enough, Peter! Here, help me with this." + +Zetta had been swiftly unfastening the inert purple globe. She gathered +up its mechanism, handed it all to me. + +"Here--be ver' careful." + +It weighed only a few pounds. It seemed not unduly fragile, and I put +it under my arm. We were outside again in a minute or two. No one +accosted us this time; there seemed no one about but the three sprawled +figures; one was twitching as he lay there. + +Again we ran. At the barrage I stuffed the globe under my jacket to +protect it. When we were outside the red area I could feel the skin of +my stomach and chest burning where the light had entered. But we were +safe. We ran north, over the gray empty country. The barrage faded to +a radiance in the distance behind us. A mile--two miles--I was on the +verge of exhaustion. I could not run much further now. But I forced +myself. If we could get far away before the dawn we would escape being +seen. Then, rest. And by daylight, travel on. + +But what a distance! I figured that heading northeast was our best +chance, but it might be a hundred miles or more before we encountered +any one. The wrecked Control would be discovered by Graff. Pursuit +would overtake us. Perhaps I had better send Zetta on ahead with this +purple globe. Send her on to safety. + +To one side of us, up in the darkness, a shape suddenly took form. A +small aero, flying low. An earth airplane! This could be no enemy! +Zetta had been leaping ahead of me, waiting after each leap as I plowed +my heavy way along. We stood together. I waved my arms. + +A small white searchlight caught us as the plane passed close over us. +I flung back my hood and mask to meet the light. The plane circled, +came back, landed on the level gray expanse. + +In a moment we were with the amazed Dan and Freddie; the precious +purple globe was safe on board. The twilight of dawn was silvering our +plane as we headed northwest, flying for Miami. + + + + + CHAPTER XXI + + A NEST OF VERMIN + + +There are some things which may be pictured by a shuddering +imagination. But one does not voluntarily put them into spoken words; +certainly they are never printed. History will say that for twenty-four +hours, August 14 and 15 of 1957, our earth was swept by a wild insanity. + +The burning of Cape Town by a maddened mob will be mentioned--the glare +of the city against the night sky, the thousands who, bereft of reason, +cast themselves with screams into the flames. The wrecking of the two +great surface liners, with three thousand lives lost. The major riots +of a dozen great cities. + +The attack by crazed men and women on the Biskra arsenal; the frenzied, +half-crazed soldiers who waded heedlessly into the mob, wildly firing; +the ten government planes circling over the city whose aviators, crazed +by what they saw in the streets and the red madness of the air, firing +down with machine guns and then plunging their planes to crash headlong +into the crowd. + +All high lights. History will only hint at the million individual +incidents. Marauding, lustful men, breaking by night into dwellings. +Lone criminals, crazed into thoughts unspeakable, prowling the dark +streets, seeking victims. + +But the details, the full or the real truth will never be known. They +revolt all but an imagination most morbid. The Red Madness of 1957 had +best be forgotten. + +It was late in the afternoon of August 15 before the frantic chemists +in the government laboratories at Miami could assemble the purple globe +and begin the broadcasting of its healing waves. All that evening they +were flung out into the ether. The radio was again working--though +badly, because the purple vibrations also interfered with it. The +world was assured by radio that the danger was over--the Red Madness in +a few hours would be gone. + +By midnight, August 15, the "ether-plane," as scientists now term it, +had regained normality. The current was cut from the purple globe. The +world rested, exhausted, bewildered, gazing back stupefied at what it +had been through. + +For hours more, governments, soldiers, police, with sanity come at +last, fought sanely with the eddies and backwash of the storm. It wore +itself out. Order was restored. There remained the smoking ruins of +property destroyed, and the dead, the maimed, and the thousands of poor +miserable creatures with reason permanently gone. + +A single day of the Red Madness! May there never be, on this or any +other world, another day such as that! + +On the night of August 15 we were all with Kean in the Miami War +Department. He was ready to start back to Xenephrene with the purple +globe. Zetta and I were sure that we had destroyed the Red Control; +Graff could not use it again. Earth had no further need of the purple. +Nature would hold our ether-plane at normality, as it always had +before. But not so on Xenephrene. Its Infra-red world would not, like +earth's remain hidden. What we had been through soon would be coming +upon them. Xenephrene was very far from earth now; it would take Kean a +month to get there. + +Opposition developed in Miami to our sending the purple globe away so +soon. But it was overruled; Kean was told to take it and go. He stood +before us, bidding good-by. The same quiet dignity he always bore was +on him. He turned to our officials who were gathered in a group to wish +him well. + +"My worl' has brought great disaster upon you. I am sorry. I think you +will defeat Graff easily now. I hope so." + +Our air force was to start at Graff within a day or two; we were +all tense with the thought of it. Kean said good-by to Zetta; shook +her hand in our earth fashion. "You choose a ver' wonderful worl', +Zetta--and a man ver' good." + +A wave of color swept her, but he turned away. His gaze went to Dan +and Hulda, who were standing together. "I shall never see you again. I +think now, Dan, at the las', you will not mind if I say how ver' much +I--love Hulda." + +Dan's hand went out and gripped his heartily. + +"No, of course not, Kean. You--you are very complimentary. I mean, +Hulda and I appreciate how manly--" + +Dan was floundering. Good old Freddie came to the rescue. He clapped +Kean on the back. + +"Kean, listen. You think you're going back to Xenephrene to eat your +heart out over a girl you didn't get. That the idea?" + +"Why, I--" + +"Well, listen. Look at me--I'm a bachelor." + +A gleam of humor came to Kean's blue eyes. "I understan', Freddie." + +"Good. Now, listen. I've got some advice for you--the advice of a man +who's a bachelor and always will be. I've got some deep theories about +women--" + +Freddie winked broadly at Zetta and Hulda. "All women are marvelous +things, Kean--one is as good as another, and maybe better. Remember +that! You'll save yourself a lot of trouble in life. And if you miss +out with one, just stand still--another one will be along in a minute!" + +The strain we had all been under for so long made us laugh +immoderately. All but Kean. He was twinkling; but his voice was quietly +solemn. + +"I thank you, Freddie. It is ver' good advice." + +He bowed quaintly; his fingers barely touched Hulda's outstretched +hand. He left us hastily. + + * * * * * + +From the roof of the War Department we watched his tiny globe ascending +into the star-filled night. Would he ever reach Xenephrene? We never +knew; to this day we do not know. But we think so. Father told us +then what astronomers, just before the Red Madness, had discovered. +Xenephrene had broken the orbit of her eclipse about the sun! She +seemed heading outward again. Leaving our Solar System, perhaps? Father +thought so. + +He had suspected, back in those days of Garla, that it might happen. +He had mentioned it in his letter to us, saying that Freddie would +understand. It had now probably occurred. Xenephrene, the wanderer, +might soon be gone from our ken forever. + +Best for them--without our sunlight, their purple moon would hold the +Infra-red in check, even if Kean, with the purple globe, never reached +them. I have wondered since if perhaps those scientists of Garla were +not capable of directing, to some extent, their planet's movements? +Perhaps their departure was their own method of saving themselves from +the Red Terror. + +There was another thing which father hinted at now. He believed, with +Xenephrene gone, our earth's axis might swing back to its former +inclination. He thought--but this no one yet knew--that it was already +swinging. The old order of the day and night, the familiar progression +of seasons, would return to us. Our great cities--New York, London, +Paris, Buenos Aires--now almost abandoned but not yet fallen into ruin, +would come back into their own. + +"Oh, Peter," he exclaimed, "if you lads can now overcome this enemy! +Stamp out these vermin! I will live yet to see my old familiar world +restored!" + +On the morning of August 18, our air force was ready to start. From +Brazil news came that Graff's encampment outwardly showed no change. +But it was thought, and afterward we decided it was a fact, that he +was planning a new flight of devastation with his flying platforms. It +never took place; our attack was first. + +Our expedition consisted of a hundred and fifty Arctic A warplanes, +each with two or three men, pilot and gunners. We were all garbed in +the black garments, with glasses and ear-grids. One plane carried +nothing but our lone crimson ray; four other planes carried the four +purple-ray projectors and Essen-Bloc long-range guns. The rest carried +guns only--the Essen-Blocs and the short-range, old-fashioned machine +gun. + +Dan, Freddie and I were to fly together. Our plane carried a purple +projector, an Essen-Bloc, and a machine gun. We were chosen to lead +the expedition because of our familiarity with the Garland weapons, +and my knowledge of Graff's lines. The most skillful, most daring +young aviators of the world--the pick of a dozen nations--comprised +this force we commanded. The plane carrying the crimson projector was +flown by Davis and Robinson, sons of the men who had given their lives +attacking the Xenephrenes near New York during Graff's first invasion. + +We were all linked together by the modern Rand system of air +phones--the first time it had been given a practical demonstration. For +a test we circled that morning above Miami. Dan ordered them to wheel, +to loop, to execute a variety of movements which they did with the +skilled precision of a regiment on parade ground. + +The people thronged Miami's streets and roof-tops, and cheered. +Biscayne Bay was crowded with boats, as at a holiday festival. People +everywhere cheered us to battle. + +I had just a moment alone with Zetta before we started. How many +warriors, in all the ages, of every race and every time, have parted +thus upon the eve of battle from the woman they loved! + +Zetta at first held out her hand timorously. "Be ver' careful, Peter." + +She had said it like that, back in Garla! + +"Zetta, aren't you sure now?" I pleaded. + +"Of what, Peter?" + +"Your love for me. Our love--Kean said. 'You've chosen a good world, +Zetta, and a good man.' Do you think that? Have you--chosen--me?" + +My arms were outstretched. Oh, it was sweeping me, this love for her, +as always it did when I would let it! But I would not force her. +"Zetta--haven't you--aren't you sure, now?" + +She came suddenly drawn into my arms. Unresisting at last; our +love sweeping her into my opened arms; her lips seeking mine. And +whispering, "Yes, Peter--I am sure now." + +All my dreams of all my life came into reality with the coming of her +love. + + * * * * * + +In the sunlight of that morning of August 18, our shining planes left +the Miami airport, and, like silver birds soaring with motionless +spread of wing, flew southward. + +It was full night when, out of the star-lit sky, we sighted Graff's +barrage. Our four planes with the purple ray were leading, the others +were massed behind and below us. Graff had a brief warning no doubt. We +were several miles off when one of his red beams swung down. We could +see it coming--a broad band of crimson, like a giant searchlight beam. + +It missed us with its first swing. Dan roared his orders into the +Rand-phone. I was at the controls. I headed the ship down, in advance +of our line, to protect the planes behind us. Freddie leveled our +projector. Its narrow purple beam sprang forward at the barrage. +Behind us the planes were strung out. Davis and Robinson were well +behind. + +We were determined not to use the crimson projector in the mêlée of +battle. It would confuse our other planes, and be too dangerous to +them. We also wanted to protect it, for use in case of last, desperate +need. Davis and Robinson were ordered to keep close behind our purple +rays. + +This showing of our purple ray was Graff's first real knowledge that +here on earth the Garland weapons were to be used against him. There +must have been panic sweeping the Xenephrene camp at that instant! + +Freddie evidently had caught the range. Our purple light mingled with +the crimson--mingled and merged into a vacant blackness through which +the farther stars showed dimly. The whole front crescent of the barrage +swung down at us now; but our four purple beams held it. We roared +forward. Black holes of neutral emptiness were ahead; the front face of +the Xenephrene red line was broken by our rays. + +At two miles we began firing the Essen-Blocs. Graff's crimson beams +were waving confusion now from every part of his line. Some of our +shells were caught and fired in mid-air; but some got through, +undoubtedly. It was soon a chaos, as we darted in. It was to be one +brief, desperate, reckless attack; there was not a man of us who had +been willing to plan it otherwise. + +At a mile we could no longer hold our phone communication. The air was +snapping and hissing with its mingling, warring vibrations; the phones +went dead. Each plane now had to act for itself. + +I headed ours straight in. Freddie was firing the Essen at swift +intervals. Our purple light held steady before us, boring its black +hole in the confusion of crimson--a black hole into which Freddie was +firing as I headed our plane into it. + +A few minutes only. It seemed hours. We were so close now that beams +from the side angles of the barrage were coming at us. The edge of one +caught one of our wing-tips, melted it off. We wavered, but I steadied +us. + +I had taken off my glasses and ear phones for a moment. The night was a +confusion of hissing, crossing beams. Vivid glares--crimson and purple, +merging black; a myriad sparks snapping around us; and ahead, a growing +yellow-red glare of distant buildings burning. Our shells were finding +their mark! + +A chaos of color and of sound! The throb and thrum of our motors; the +steady click and sharp report of our Essen; the screaming howl of the +stricken barrage; the whistling of our shells; the distant crash of +their explosions. + +Dan was busy passing up the shells to Freddie, and tossing out the +falling empties. Once he growled at me: "Look over us, Peter! Damn that +fellow Davis--look where he's going!" + +Our other three planes, carrying the purple projectors, were flying +level with me. But most of the others had climbed. + + * * * * * + +The barrage beams were all swinging out and downward. I could see a +hundred of our planes in a group mounting to climb over the camp. Davis +and Robinson were up there. The crimson beam of their projector showed +for a moment, then went out. They seemed climbing higher than all the +other planes--spiraling now, straight up. I lost sight of them. + +A stray red beam caught some of the soaring planes; they came wavering +down, spirals of light, vanishing. One melted as it passed near us; +flickered into nothingness like a flame dying. + +Our planes up there were firing downward. And then, coming over Graff's +line, they were dropping bombs. The yellow glare from the camp village +was spreading. + +We were now well over Graff's lines. Every one of our planes, save +those which we had lost, were over the line now. The very desperation +of our attack was irresistible. Graff had no time to prepare a defense. +Once within his lines, his immobile ground projectors were impotent to +harm us. The barrage was flickering; in sections now it was dark even +when our purple rays were turned aside. It was broken, flickering out. +Our shells doubtless had hit many of its ground projectors; the planes +from high up had hit others with their bombs. The distant south segment +of the barrage was still active. Suddenly the whole barrage vanished +completely, as one of our shells must have hit its power house. I knew +the location of that low frame building in by the river bank; I had +been trying to direct Freddie's aim at it. + +Five hundred feet above the dead gray ground we flew in toward the +camp itself. The barrage was gone; a single last beam came up from the +river, caught one of our planes full, and suddenly vanished. + +Below us now the ground within Graff's lines was glaring yellow-red +from the conflagration of the village. We could see the figures of +people and the giant insects running in aimless panic. Our planes shot +them down. + +Flying platforms were standing in a long line, where Graff had had +them ready for his new attack. Panic-stricken Brauns were crowding +onto them. Our planes swung low, firing now with machine guns. Across +the river most of Graff's Space-vehicles were wrecked and burning from +our shellfire. But, at intervals, the small Space-globes were rising. +And from everywhere the flying platforms were trying to get away. +Our planes attacked them; and far overhead I could now see Davis and +Robinson's crimson beam. They were up there, waiting, and any vehicles +which escaped us they caught and annihilated. + +From the river bank Graff's huge cylindrical Space-liner now struggled +up. Its end was gone; smoke and flame were rising from its interior +fittings. It rose laboriously, painted red-yellow with the lurid glare +from below. I have often wondered if Graff were on it! Making his last +effort to escape! + +It evidently had no weapons; it rose heavily, with our planes darting +after it like wasps, circling it, stabbing its huge vitals with +shellfire. It did not get very high; it came down presently, turned +completely over, crashed and broke into leaping flames and black smoke +rolling up in a cloud. + +I had guided our plane across the encampment and back, then circled, as +a score of our other planes were circling. We kept firing steadily with +the machine gun. We had long since abandoned the purple beams. Most of +our planes were now flying low, using the machine guns only. + +There were scenes down there in the burning town--where half an hour +before more than fifteen thousand people had been living--scenes which +now I do not like to remember. They filled us at the time only with +triumph--for the memory of the Red Madness was too vivid upon us. No +quarter to be given here! + +We had determined upon it--all four hundred of us--when we had planned +our desperate assault which was to win salvation for our world, or +bring death to all of us. No quarter here! A nest of vermin and we were +stamping it out. + +But Freddie suddenly flung off his glasses; with his hood pushed back, +I saw that his face was pallid, and wet with sweat. + +"Peter, fly higher! I'm done--I can't do it any more! By God, there are +women and children down there! I've been--shooting them down--" + +I headed into a climb. Dan tried to use his phone to order the others +to stop. But the phone seemed permanently dead. + +And then Davis and Robinson's plane abruptly appeared below us. Its red +beam sprang downward! Under its crimson light the ground was turning +blank! The burning village; the wrecked and burning vehicles; the +panic-stricken people left still alive; the dead bodies now strewn +everywhere about--all melting, vanishing into nothingness. + +Dan with a growling curse had fumbled with his phone and then cast it +aside. Perhaps Davis and Robinson, sitting grimly behind their crimson +projector, steeling their hearts with memory of the Red Madness, with +memory, too, of their fathers, and with no desire save to protect their +world--perhaps they were right in doing what they did. It is not for me +to judge. + +We climbed, and for a long time I did not again look down. When I did, +the yellow-red glare of the conflagration had vanished. A circular +ten-mile spread of blank, dead-gray ground lay beneath us. Over it, +some of our planes were circling low, with white searchlights examining +it. Vacancy complete--where so short a time before had been the most +diabolical enemy, the greatest menace which ever had assailed our earth! + + + + + CHAPTER XXII + + PEACE ON EARTH + + +It is common knowledge now how the great purple star departed as +inscrutably as it had come. Throughout those concluding months of 1957, +it steadily faded until at last it was gone. The Wanderer! It is out +there now, wandering somewhere among the stars. With our imaginations +we may follow it, but no way else. It has left the name we gave it +written large across the most tragic pages of our history--but itself +is only a memory. + +It would be superfluous for me to recount familiar world events as +the old order of day and night, the old progression of the seasons +gradually returned. By September, 1957, astronomers had announced +that the earth's axis was swinging back to its normal inclination. It +reached there, they told us, in June, '58. + +There was another year of adjustment--storms, torrential rains, floods, +a disarrangement of all our earth activities newly established since +the Great Change. But fortunately, the new conditions had existed for a +very short time--it was not difficult to return to the old. I saw, in +our Western World, swift evidence of that. Property in the north was +reclaimed. Settlers in the tropics began returning. By the end of '58, +New York and all the other great cities of the temperate zones, both +north and south, were well on their way toward rehabilitation. + +With us of human mold, lifelong habits are not easily broken, and are +quickly resumed. It is good to feel the warm summer of July, with +daylight and darkness coming as they should! Welcome autumn days, +merging into winter--with the knowledge that spring will come again! + +Within my own lifetime I suppose, there will be slight evidence left +anywhere on earth of the Great Change. They say that the tropics +will always be more densely populated than before; that some of the +industry started there will remain. But on the whole, those fearsome +tragic months will linger only as a memory; and soon, when all of us +on earth now have passed--they will fade from memory into tradition; +then into legend. And the world will go on into the other great changes +perhaps--and even legend of this one will be forever forgotten and lost +forever. + +But now as I write, with the curtain so recently rung down upon its +horror, it is all too vivid. The old routine is come back to earth. +Father and Freddie are with the Dutch Astronomical Bureau, in Chile, +where I am to join them when I have finished helping reestablish the +A.B.A. in New York. Dan and Hulda are in Porto Rico. Things are very +much as they were before. Our world, for me, for every one, is hardly +different. + +But there is a difference. Out of the tragedy and horror of those +months, has come, I think, a benefit to our world. The Great Change +brought all the nations, people of every race, into a sudden community +of interest. Like brothers in a family sorely pressed, they fought +united against a suddenly wrathful nature. And then fought the invaders +from Xenephrene. + +We four hundred young men--the pick of the world united--when we flew +against Graff that night in Brazil, I think we raised then a monument +to a new earthly spirit. It was our united world against another world. +Our united life, or death! We cannot soon forget that. + +A lesson from Xenephrene! Economists sometimes use that phrase. There +was much that the Garlands had come to realize which we of the earth +might well heed! Economists are saying it. + +And we are heeding it; I see it now in little things all around me. +The nations are planning now to establish a working basis of industry +and agriculture whereby each may produce without competition from the +other, what it can give the world best and most cheaply. An economy of +effort! It will decrease enormously the world's work. + +They had been planning a gigantic municipal subway to run the length +of Long Island, to handle the new population which is coming steadily +from the tropics. But the subway plans were yesterday defeated. New +York, they claim, will not grow so large. The new radio power-sending +stations will make every farm a small factory if need be. + +The age of steam flung us into roaring infernos of cities; the age of +electricity will send us back into God's green country. They say that +is happening now. And I have read in newspaper editorials--and heard, +just this evening in the Government radio broadcast--that we would do +well, by ourselves, and most of all by our children, if we heeded the +lesson from Xenephrene. + +I have been just now in Zetta's bedroom, standing in the dimness gazing +down into the cradle where our little son lies sleeping. Xenephrene +brought tragedy upon our world--a lesson for good, perhaps; but to me +it brought a great happiness. I see Zetta lying there, like a little +child herself, so early asleep to-night. She gave up everything for me. +I mentioned it to her once, soon after we were married. She smiled her +quaint smile and held me close. + +"Back in Garla, Peter, your father used to read from his Bible. A ver' +wonderful book--for the Garlands, for all, it is all the same. There +was a place in the Bible, I memorize' it. You say, Peter, for you I +have given up my worl'. And I answer, like Ruth: + +"'_Whither thou goest, I will go; thy people shall be my people_--'" + +I sit here to-night finishing these pages. A great thankfulness is upon +me. Out of the horror of the past, I have come to-night with a dear +father still holding his health and strength; a loving sister, happily +married to a man I respect and admire. I have a bachelor friend, joyous +with his chosen lot. + +I have a beautiful, adoring wife, to realize every romantic dream of my +boyhood, to mother our lusty little son growing up to personify all the +good which is within us both. + +I am very singularly blessed. + + + THE END + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77608 *** |
