Bronsome Beta - After Worlds Collide Part 15

"I think so."

"Do you believe that we can find them to-night?"

"You know better than I."

"I doubt it," Tony answered. "It would take months to cover every room, every subterranean chamber."

"Of course," said Ransdell, "it might be some one else. The Midianites might have explored here-and left. The Other People had bread-like ours more or less; and this isn't familiar-exactly. It looks like whole wheat-"

Tony grinned. "You aren't seriously suggesting that the Other People may be alive here?"

"Why not?"

"Well-why not? Anyway-some one is. Spies-ghosts- some one."

It was growing light when the trucks came back from the other camp. They were crowded with cheering people, who grew silent when they heard of Hendron's death. Tony and Ransdell went to greet them. Breakfast was ready; it was served from caldrons borrowed from the Other People's kitchens.

Tony was busy with hot soup when Peter Vanderbilt approached him. "Where's Von Beitz?"

"I don't know."

"Didn't he see you?"

"No."

Vanderbilt scowled. "Funny! Quarter of an hour ago I saw him a few streets from the square here. He was on his way to tell you something about the power. He turned a corner. I thought I heard the first faint part of a yell- choked off. I hustled around the same corner, but he was out of sight. It seemed odd-he'd have had to run pretty fast to make the next corner. So I jammed along looking for him. No sign of him. Thought he was reporting to you. But I went back. Nothing to see at the spot where he'd left me. I-"

Tony was calling. "Taylor-Williamson-Smith-Alexander-look for Von Beitz. Arm yourselves."

But two hours later Von Beitz had not been found.

CHAPTER XIII.

FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN.

Day broke with its long, deliberate dawn, while the strange, eerie glow of the night light that illumined the city faded. There was no sound in the streets but the scuffing feet of the sentinels whom Tony had posted, and the echo of their voices as they made occasional reports to each other or called a challenge.

Now the night watch was relieved; and with the brightening day, searching parties set out again under strict order not to separate into squads of less than six, and to make communication, at regular intervals, with the Central Authority.

This was set up in the offices near the great hall in which Hendron lay dead-the Hall of Sciences of the Other People.

So the enormous chamber manifested itself. It had been, one time, a meeting-place of august, n.o.ble-minded Beings. The dimensions and proportions of the great hall, its modeling and decorations, declared their character. It was most fitting that the greatest scientist from Earth-he who attempted and triumphed in the flight through s.p.a.ce-lie here in this hall.

Thus Hendron lay in state, his face stern and yet peaceful; and his people, whom he had saved from the cataclysm, slowly filed past.

Eve, his daughter, stood at his side.

Dodson had begun the vigil with her, but he had retired to a couch at the end of the great hall, where he had dropped down, meaning to rest for a few moments. Exhaustion had overcome him, and he slept, his huge chest rising and falling, the coat-sleeve of his armless shoulder moving on the floor with the rhythm of his breathing.

As the people filed from the hall, they pa.s.sed Dodson, gazing at him but never disturbing him. His empty sleeve brought keenly to mind the savage battle in Michigan in the horrible hours when the mob there a.s.sailed the camp near the end of the waiting for the escape from earth. Where was Michigan? Where was the earth now?

The people pa.s.sed more slowly for gazing back again at the catafalque of the Bronson Betans, whereon Hendron lay....

Maltby, the electrical engineer, together with four others was exploring behind the walls of the building. Power was "on." Impulses, electrical in character, were perceptible; and Maltby was studying the problem of them.

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

Maltby and his a.s.sistants discovered many other proofs of power impulses.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The chorus ceased.

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

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

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

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

'Isn't this like the other city?" Shirley asked him.

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

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

"And architects!" added Shirley.

"And engineers-and everything else!" said Eliot James.

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

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

"Where did they go?... Are they coming back?... Why did they all go away?... What for?"

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

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

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

Ten men chosen more or less arbitrarily by Tony himself composed the Committee of the Central Authority-four from the survivors of the hundred who had come from Hendron's camp, six from Ransdell's greater group; and these, of course, included Ransdell himself.

Such was the Central Authority improvised by Tony and accepted by his followers to deal with the strange and immediate emergencies arising from the occupation of this great empty city by five hundred people ignorant of it.

The searching-parties, as they returned or sent back couriers with reports, appeared before this committee.

Jack Taylor, haggard and hungry, made the first report.

"I'm back only to suggest a better search organization," Taylor said excitedly. "I took a truck and toured the widest streets at the lower levels; and some of them at the upper levels. At every corner my driver and I stopped, and yelled for Von Beitz. We didn't see a sign of life or get any reply."

"Did you see any evidence of recent-occupation?" Higgins, of the Authority, asked.

"Nothing."

Kyto brought food for Taylor, and he talked as he ate. "I've been over miles of streets, and covered only a little of the central section. The city's too d.a.m.ned big. If five hundred people had moved into New York when it was emptied-and n.o.body else was there except maybe three or four people, or a dozen who wanted to keep in hiding-what chance would the five hundred have of finding the dozen?"

"Of course there may be no dozen, or even four or five hiding people to find," Tony responded. "We can't be sure that Von Beitz fails to return because he was captured. He might have fallen when exploring somewhere; or something might have toppled on him; or he might have got himself locked in a building."

Taylor shrugged. "In that case, he'd be harder to find than the dozen who, we think, are hiding from us."

"You feel surer, I see," Tony observed, "that some people, unknown to us, are here hiding from us."

"Yes, I do."

"But without any further proof of it?"

Jack Taylor nodded. "I tell you, there are people here. I can feel it."

Duquesne came in. He had returned from a search in another section of the city.

"Rien!" he made his report explosively. "Nozzing. Except -perhaps I saw a face peering from a window-very high! It was gone-pouf! I entered the building. I climbed to the room where the window was. Again-rien! Only-as I stood there-I said: 'Duquesne, people have been in this room not long ago.' With the sixth sensation, I smell it." He was excited; but he could add nothing more positive to the account He also began to eat, and soon reported himself ready to go out for more investigation.

Ransdell quietly arose. "I'd like to go out again too. You don't need us, Tony," he continued, speaking for the rest of the committee as well as for himself. "It's nice of you to pretend we're necessary; but we know we're not-though well be glad to try to be useful when you really want us. We'll all obey you as we would have obeyed Hendron."

"You're going to join the search?" Tony asked.

Ransdell shook his head. "There's enough of us searching now. I want to join Maltby and Williamson and their men, who are working on the Bronson Beta machines and techniques."

Duquesne gestured emphatically, unable to speak for a moment because of the food crammed in his mouth.

"They are mad-mad-all but mad, our technicians! I have seen them!" he presently exclaimed. "It is the problem of the charging the batteries of the Bronson Betans that eludes them-those marvelous, amazing batteries which first we saw in the vehicle wrecked beside the road; and one of which Lady Cynthia herself operated in the vehicle that carried her to us.

'To operate the vehicle, once the charged battery is installed -that is nothing. But the secret of putting power into the battery!

'The Midianites have discovered it, my friends; but they have guarded it so that Lady Cynthia could not even suspect what it is. But if they conquered it, so may we! Ransdell is right," Duquesne ended his declamation. "That secret is far more important than further search. I too will join our technicians!"

Tony found himself alone in the great council-chamber. Now and then some one else arrived to report; but all reports, which had to do with the search for Von Beitz and for the unknown people who might have captured him, were negative. The couriers returned to their exploring squads; and the others scattered in their wondering examination of the marvels of the city.

There proved to be eight gates to this city, and four great central highways which met and crossed in the Place before the Hall of the Sciences, in which Hendron lay, and before also the splendid structure housing the council-chamber.

From right to left, before the Hall, ran a wide roadway, and another equally splendid cut across it at right angles, while obliquely, so that seen from above they must have made a pattern like the Cross of St. George, were two other highways only slightly less majestic. Each of these roads ran straight to the edge of the city, where the huge transparent dome joined the ground; at the eight points where these four roads penetrated were the gates; and at each of these gates stood a squad on watch.

High toward the top of the dome, on towers attained by arduous climbing, others of the men whom Hendron had brought from earth stood on watch, scanning the sky.

Tony strode out into the sunlight of the wide square, and he halted and lifted his head in awe.

He was in command in this city!

He had had nothing to do with creating it. A million years, perhaps, before he was born, this city had been built; and then the light which fell upon it was from some sun to which the sun of the world-the sun which now shone upon it- was a distant twinkling star. Quadrillions and quintillions of miles of s.p.a.ce-distances indescribable in terms that the mind could comprehend-separated this city from Tony Drake, who would not be born for a million years. But it had traveled the tremendous reaches of s.p.a.ce after it lost its sun until it found the star-the sun-that lighted the earth! So Tony Drake to-day stood here in its central square-in command.

He glanced up toward the orb of the sun; and he saw how small it was; and in spite of himself his shoulders jerked in a convulsive shiver.

"Tony!"

He heard his name, and turned. Eve had come out to the square, and she approached him, quietly and calmly.

"We must-proceed now, Tony," she said.

"Proceed? Of course," he a.s.sured her gently. He had ceased to be a commander of a city built a million years before his birth and endowed with marvels which men of his time-if they had remained on earth-might not have made for themselves for another millennium. He became again Tony Drake, recently-not three earthly years ago-a young broker in Wall Street, and friend of Eve Hendron, whose father was a scientist. On earth, Tony Drake had wanted her for his wife; here he wanted her also, and especially in her grief he longed to be her close comforter.

"Your mind doesn't help you much, does it, Tony?" she said.

"At a time like this, you mean. No."

"I went once with Father and with a friend of his, Professor Rior, through the Pyramids, Tony-when we were back on earth."

"Of course," said Tony.