As Seaton assumed, the near-collision of suns which had affected so
disastrously the planet Valeron did not come unheralded to overwhelm a
world unwarned, since for many hundreds of years her civilization had
been of a high order indeed.
With all their resources of knowledge and of power, however, it was
pitifully little that the people of Valeron could do; for of what avail
are the puny energies of man compared to the practically infinite
forces of cosmic phenomena? Any attempt of the humanity of the doomed
planet to swerve from their courses the incomprehensible masses of
those two hurtling suns was as surely doomed to failure as would be the
attempt of an ant to thrust from its rails an onrushing locomotive.
But what little could be done was done; done scientifically and
logically; done, if not altogether without fear, at least inasmuch
as was humanly possible without favor. With mathematical certainty
were plotted the areas of least strain, and in those areas were
constructed shelters. Shelters buried deeply enough to be unaffected
by the coming upheavals of the world's crust; shelters of unbreakable
metal, so designed, so latticed and braced as to withstand the seismic
disturbances to which they were inevitably to be subjected.
Having determined the number of such shelters that could be built,
equipped, and supplied with the necessities of life in the time
allowed, the board of selection began its cold-blooded and heartless
task. Scarcely one in a thousand of Valeron's teeming millions was to
be given a chance for continued life, and they were to be chosen only
from the children who would be in the prime of young adulthood at the
time of the catastrophe.
These children were the pick of the planet: flawless in mind, body, and
heredity. They were assembled in special schools near their assigned
refuges, where they were instructed intensively in everything that they
would have to know in order that civilization should not disappear
utterly from the universe.
Such a thing could not be kept a secret long, and it is best to touch
as lightly as possible upon the scenes which ensued after the certainty
of doom became public knowledge.
Characters already strong were strengthened, but those already weak
went to pieces entirely in orgies to a normal mind unthinkable. Almost
overnight a peaceful and law-abiding world went mad--became an insane
hotbed of crime, rapine, and pillage unspeakable. Martial law was
declared at once, and after a few thousand maniacs had been ruthlessly
shot down, the soberer inhabitants were allowed to choose between two
alternatives. They could either die then and there before a firing
squad, or they could wait and take whatever slight chance there might
be of living through what was to come--but devoting their every effort
meanwhile to the end that through those selected few the civilization
of Valeron should endure.
Many chose death and were executed summarily and without formality,
without regard to wealth or station. The rest worked.
* * * * *
Since the human mind cannot be kept indefinitely at high tension, the
new condition of things came in time to be regarded almost as normal,
and as months lengthened into years the routine was scarcely broken.
But always there were the sly--the self-seekers, the bribers, the
corruptionists--willing to go to any lengths whatever to avoid their
doom. Not openly did they carry on their machinations, but like
loathsome worms eating at the heart of an outwardly fair fruit. But the
scientists, almost to a man, were loyal. Trained to think, they thought
clearly and logically, and surrounded themselves with soldiers and
guards of the same stripe.
Time went on. The shelters were finished. Into them were taken stores,
libraries, tools and equipment of every sort necessary for the
rebuilding of a fully civilized world. Finally the "children," now in
the full prime of young manhood and young womanhood, were carefully
checked in. Once inside those massive portals of metal they were of a
world apart.
They were completely informed and completely educated; they had for
long governed themselves with neither aid nor interference; they knew
precisely what they must face; they knew exactly what to do and exactly
how to do it. Behind them the mighty, multi-ply seals were welded into
place and broken rock by the cubic mile was blasted down upon their
refuges.
Day by day the heat grew more and more intense. The tides waxed ever
higher. Cyclonic storms raged ever fiercer, accompanied by an incessant
blaze of lightning and a deafeningly continuous roar of thunder.
Work was at an end and the masses were utterly beyond control. The
devoted were butchered by their frantic fellows; the hopeless were
stung to madness; the stolid were driven to frenzy by the realization
that there was to be no future; the remaining sly ones deftly turned
the unorganized fury of the mob into a purposeful attack upon the
shelters, their only hope of life.
But at each refuge the rabble met an unyielding wall of guards loyal
to the last, and of scientists who, their work now done, were merely
waiting for the end. Guards and scientists fought with rays, rifles,
swords, and finally with clubs, stones, fists, feet and teeth.
Outnumbered by thousands they fell and the howling mob surged over
their bodies. To no purpose. Those shelters had been designed and
constructed to withstand the attacks of nature gone berserk, and futile
indeed were the attempts of the frenzied hordes to tear a way into
their sacred recesses.
Thus died the devoted and high-souled band who had saved their
civilization; but in that death each man was granted the boon which,
deep in his heart, he had craved. They had died quickly and violently,
fighting for a cause they knew to be good.
* * * * *
The suns passed, each upon his appointed way. The cosmic forces ceased
to war and to the tortured and ravaged planet there at last came peace.
The surviving children of Valeron emerged from their subterranean
retreats and undauntedly took up the task of rebuilding their world.
And to such good purpose did they devote themselves to the problems of
rehabilitation that in a few hundred years there bloomed upon Valeron a
civilization and a culture scarcely to be equaled in the universe.
For the new race had been cradled in adversity. In its ancestry there
was no physical or mental taint or weakness, all dross having been
burned away by the fires of cosmic catastrophe which had so nearly
obliterated all the life of the planet.
Immediately after the Emergence it had been observed that the two
outermost planets of the system had disappeared and that in their stead
revolved a new planet. This phenomenon was recognized for what it was,
an exchange of planets; something to give concern only to astronomers,
and to them only mathematically, in the computation of now greatly
perturbed orbits.
No one except sheerest romancers even gave thought to the possibility
of life upon other worlds, it being an almost mathematically
demonstrable fact that the Valeronians were the only life in the entire
universe. And even if other planets might possibly be inhabited, what
of it? The vast reaches of empty ether intervening between Valeron and
even her nearest fellow planet formed an insuperable obstacle even to
communication, to say nothing of physical passage.
When the interplanetary invaders were discovered upon Valeron, Quedrin
Vornel, the most brilliant physicist of the planet, and his son Quedrin
Radnor, the most renowned, were among the first to be informed of the
visitation.
Of these two, Quedrin Vornel had for many years been engaged in
researches of the most abstruse and fundamental character upon the
ultimate structure of matter. He had delved deeply into those which we
know as matter, energy, and ether, and had studied exhaustively the
phenomena characteristic of or associated with atomic, electronic, and
photonic rearrangements.
His son, while a scientist of no mean attainments in his own right, did
not possess the phenomenally powerful and profoundly analytical mind
that had made the elder Quedrin the outstanding scientific genius of
his time. He was, however, a synchronizer _par excellence_, possessing
to a unique degree the ability to develop things and processes of
great utilitarian value from concepts and discoveries of a purely
scientific and academic nature.
The vibrations which we know as Hertzian waves had long been known and
had long been employed in radio, both broadcast and tight-beam, in
television, in beam-transmission of power, and in receiverless visirays
and their blocking screens. When Quedrin the elder disrupted the atom,
however, successfully and safely liberating and studying not only its
stupendous energy but also an entire series of vibrations, rays, and
particles theretofore unknown to science, Quedrin the younger began
forthwith to turn the resulting products to the good of mankind.
Intra-atomic energy soon drove every prime mover of Valeron and shorter
and shorter waves were harnessed. In beams, fans, and broadcasts
Quedrin Radnor combined and heterodyned them, making of them tools and
instruments immeasurably superior in power, precision, and adaptability
to anything that his world had ever before known.
Due to the signal abilities of brilliant father and famous son,
the laboratory in which they labored was connected by a private
communication beam with the executive office of the Bardyle of Valeron.
"Bardyle," freely translated, means "coördinator." He was neither king,
emperor, nor president; and, while his authority was supreme, he was in
no sense a dictator.
A paradoxical statement this, but a true one; for the orders--or
rather, requests and suggestions--of the Bardyle merely guided the
activities of men and women who had neither government nor laws, as we
understand the terms, but were working of their own volition for the
good of all mankind. The Bardyle could not conceivably issue an order
contrary to the common weal, nor would such an order have been obeyed.
* * * * *
Upon the wall of the laboratory the tuned buzzer of Bardyle's
beam-communicator sounded its subdued call and Klynor Siblin, the
scientist's capable assistant, took the call upon his desk instrument.
A strong, youthful face appeared upon the screen.
"Radnor is not here, Siblin?" The pictured visitor glanced about the
room as he spoke.
"No, sir. He is out in the space ship, making another test flight. He
is merely circling the world, however, so that I can easily get him on
the plate here if you wish."
"That would perhaps be desirable. Something very peculiar has occurred,
concerning which all three of you should be informed."
The connections were soon made and the Bardyle went on:
"A semicircular dome of force has been erected over the ruins of the
ancient city of Mocelyn. It is impossible to say how long it has been
in place, since you know the ruins lie in an entirely unpopulated area.
It is, however, of an unknown composition and pattern, being opaque
to vision and to our visibeams. It is also apparently impervious to
matter. Since this phenomenon seems to lie in your province I would
suggest that you three men investigate it and take such steps as you
deem necessary."
"It is noted, O Bardyle," and Klynor Siblin cut the beam.
He then shot out their heaviest visiray beam, poising its viewpoint
directly over what, in the days before the cataclysm, had been the
populous city of Mocelyn.
Straight down the beam drove, upon the huge hemisphere of greenly
glinting force; urged downward by the full power of the Quedrins'
mighty generators. By the very vehemence of its thrust it tore through
the barrier, but only for an instant. The watchers had time to
perceive only fleetingly a greenish-yellow haze of light, but before
any details could be grasped their beam was snapped--the automatically
reacting screens had called for and had received enough additional
power to neutralize the invading beam.
Then, to the amazement of the three physicists, a beam of visible
energy thrust itself from the green barrier and began to feel its way
along their own invisible visiray. Siblin cut off his power instantly
and leaped toward the door.
"Whoever they are, they know something!" he shouted as he ran. "Don't
want them to find this laboratory, so I'll set up a diversion with a
rocket plane. If you watch at all, Vornel, do it from a distance and
with a spy ray, not a carrier beam. I'll get in touch with Radnor on
the way."
Even though he swung around in a wide circle, to approach the strange
stronghold at a wide angle to his former line, such was the power of
the plane that Siblin reached his destination in little more than an
hour. Keying Radnor's visibeam to the visiplates of the plane, so that
the distant scientist could see everything that happened, Siblin again
drove a heavy beam into the unyielding pattern of green force.
[Illustration: _Surrounded by a shell of energy, he was drawn toward
the huge dome._]
This time, however, the reaction was instantaneous. A fierce tongue
of green flame licked out and seized the flying plane in mid-air.
One wing and side panel were sliced off neatly and Siblin was thrown
out violently, but he did not fall. Surrounded by a vibrant shell of
energy, he was drawn rapidly toward the huge dome. The dome merged with
the shell as it touched it, but the two did not coalesce. The shell
passed smoothly through the dome, which as smoothly closed behind it.
Siblin inside the shell, the shell inside the dome.