CHAPTER II
To Neptune!
"Doom faces us, a fiery doom in which the dividing sun will annihilate Earth and most of its sister-planets! Panic even now grips all the peoples of Earth, such panic as has never been known before, as that doom marches inevitably toward them! Yet inevitable, inescapable as that doom seems, we of the World Congress, we who represent here all the gathered peoples of Earth, must endeavor to find even now some last chance of lifting this awful menace from us!"
The World President paused, his dark, steady eyes searching out through the great room at whose end, upon a raised platform, he stood. Behind him on that platform sat a row of some two-score men and women, garbed like himself and all others in the modern short and sleeveless garments of differing colors, while before him in the great room stretched the rows of seated members of the great World Congress, the twelve hundred men and women who represented in it all the peoples of Earth. Just beneath the great platform's edge sat Markham, the Intelligence Chief, and myself; before us were the switches that controlled the communication-plates throughout the room that broadcast all proceedings in it to the world. And sitting there, I could glance up and see among those two-score behind the World President two figures well known to me; the strong figure of Dr. Marlin, with his intense gray eyes and gray-touched hair; and the lounging, dark-haired form of Dr. Robert Whitely, his somewhat sardonic countenance and cool eyes turned now with keen interest toward the World President before him. And as the latter began again to speak my own gaze shifted toward him.
"It has been just three days," the World President was saying, "since Dr. Herbert Marlin and his fellow-astronomers gave to the world a warning of this doom that hangs above it, gave to us a warning that in less than five months more, if the sun's rotatory speed continues to increase, it must inevitably divide into a double star and in so doing wreck our universe and plunge most of its planets into fiery death. I need not speak now of the terror that has reigned over Earth since that announcement. It is sufficient to say that the first wild riots, inspired by that terror in Europe and Northern Asia, have been suppressed by the dispatch of police cruisers, and that throughout the world order is being maintained and most of our world's activities are being carried on as usual. Yet it is clear to all that the panic which that statement inspired has not subsided, rather it is growing in force over the Earth's surface with the passing of each day. For each day is bringing our Earth nearer to death!
"For each day, each of these three intervening days, the sun's speed of rotation has continued to increase by the same exact amount! Each day its rotatory period has decreased by 4 hours more! It cannot be doubted then that whatever is causing this strange acceleration, it will keep on, until in a mere 137 days from the present, the sun's rotatory period will have reached the figure of one hour. When that occurs our sun will, as Dr. Marlin has warned us, divide into a double star! Nothing in the universe can save our Earth or its neighboring planets then. Our one hope, therefore, to save ourselves, is to prevent that thing from happening, to halt this acceleration of the sun's spin before it reaches its critical point 137 days from now! For it is only by halting that steady increase of its rotatory speed that we can avoid this terrific cataclysm that means death for us!
"But can we halt this acceleration of the sun's spin when none of our astronomers has been able to ascertain its cause? That is what you will ask, and in answer to that I say, some hours ago two of our scientists _did_ ascertain that cause. They learned at last what great, what almost incredible cause is responsible for this acceleration of our sun's rotatory speed. Those two scientists are well known to all of you, for they are Dr. Herbert Marlin himself, who first discovered the fact of the sun's faster spin, and Dr. Robert Whitely, his physicist-colleague, who has been studying the new vibrations recorded by his instruments since the beginning of that acceleration of the sun's rotatory speed. These two men have found, at last, the terrible cause of our sun's strange behavior, and it is that you might hear it that I have called you of the World Congress together at this time. It is Dr. Marlin himself, then, who will tell you what he and his fellow-scientist have discovered."
The World President stepped aside, and as he did so Dr. Marlin rose, stepped forward to the great platform's edge, and looked quietly out over the great room's occupants. I was aware as he did so of a quality of utter tension in all the hundreds in that room, of a hushed silence, in which the slightest sound seemed unnaturally loud. Through the great windows there came a deep hum of sound from the sunlit surrounding city, but in the big room itself was silence almost complete until Dr. Marlin's strong, deep voice broke it.
"It was thirteen days ago," he said, "that the acceleration of our sun's rotatory speed was first noted, thirteen days ago that it first began to spin faster. In those days we of the world's observatories have sought unceasingly for the cause, whatever it was, that was behind this strange acceleration of the sun's spin, and have sought for that cause even more intently in the last few days, since it was recognized by us, that this increasing rotatory speed foreshadowed the division of the sun and the doom of almost all its planets. That acceleration of speed was too exact, too uniform each day, to be the result of interior disturbances. It could not be the result of the influence of some dark body passing the solar system in space, for such a body would affect the planets also. What, then, could be the thing's cause? That is what I and all astronomers have been seeking to solve in the last days. That great enigma has finally been solved, not by an astronomer, but by a physicist--by Dr. Robert Whitely, my fellow-professor at North American University.
"It will be remembered that when the first great effects of the sun's increased spin became apparent on Earth, the great electrical storms and temperature-changes that still are troubling Earth, Dr. Whitely announced the discovery of new vibrations which were apparently emanating from the troubled sun also. That new vibration lay in frequency between the Hertzian and the light vibrations, an unexplored territory in the field of etheric vibrations. It seemed, Dr. Whitely then stated, a force-vibration of some sort, the weak reflected impulses from it, that reached his instruments, affecting them as tangible force. It seemed reasonable to suppose, therefore, that this new force-vibration or ray was being generated inside the sun's disturbed mass, just as light vibrations and heat vibrations and cosmic-ray vibrations and many others are generated by and radiated from the sun.
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"In the next days, however, Dr. Whitely continued to study this new vibration, and endeavored to trace it accurately to the sun by using recording instruments which recorded it as strongest or weakest in various quarters of space. By means of these instruments, he was able to plot the course of this force-vibration or ray in space, to chart the path of its strongest portion in space. And by doing this he found that this new force-vibration, contrary to his expectations, was not being radiated out equally in all directions as one might expect. It was being shot forth in a great force-beam or ray, one which cut a straight path across half our solar system! And that mighty force-ray, whose weaker reflected pulsings only struck his instruments here on Earth, was not being generated and shot forth by the sun, but was _striking_ the sun! And tracing its path out across the solar system by his charts he found that the great force-ray was being shot out from the planet Neptune, was stabbing across the great gulf from Neptune, the outermost planet, and striking the sun!
"And it was that giant force-ray, as Dr. Whitely and I soon saw, that was and is making our sun's rotatory speed steadily increase! For that great ray, as we found, is one that can stab across space and strike any object with terrific force, as though it were solid and material! You know that even light rays, light vibrations, exert a definite pressure or force upon the matter which they strike. Well, these force-vibrations, of greater wavelength than the light vibrations, also exert pressure and force upon any matter which they strike, but they exert an infinitely greater pressure, can stab across the vast void and strike any object with colossal and unceasing pressure. In this way, then, this great force-vibration or ray hurtles across space and strikes all matter in its path with terrific force, as though a solid arm were pushing across the gulf.
"And this terrific ray of force, stabbing in through the solar system from Neptune, was striking our sun just at its edge, just at its limb, at its equator. It struck that edge turning always away from Neptune, and striking that turning edge of the sun with terrific force as it did, the great pushing ray made it turn even faster away from Neptune at that edge, made the sun turn faster and faster! Pressing always upon the turning sun's edge with the same great power, this mighty force-ray has made the sun rotate faster each day, has made its rotatory speed increase by the same amount each day. And since that great ray is still stabbing across the gulf from Neptune to the sun, is still accelerating the sun's spin, it is to that ray that we will owe the division of our sun into two parts, 137 days from now, and the consequent wrecking of our solar system!
"For Neptune alone will escape the cataclysm that will take place when the sun divides, and it is from Neptune, from intelligent beings on Neptune, there can be not the slightest doubt, that this great force-ray comes. For it cannot be doubted for an instant that this mighty force-ray is the work of intelligent creatures upon Neptune. Never in all the many discussions concerning the possibility of life on the other planets have astronomers conceded any possibility of life on Neptune, the outermost of the sun's worlds, for though we have always known it to have air and water, its great distance from the sun must needs make it so cold a world as to be unable to sustain life. That was our belief before, but now with this great ray from Neptune swiftly wrecking our solar system before our very eyes, we can no longer doubt that life, intelligent life, exists there!
"It is the beings of Neptune, therefore, the creatures of the sun's outermost world, who are making the sun spin faster and faster, who are deliberately planning to make our sun divide into a double star, to wreck its universe! What their reason is for doing this, we cannot now guess. We know that Neptune, almost alone among the sun's planets, will survive the great cataclysm of its division, and we can but hazard the thought that it is for some great advantage to themselves that the Neptunians are engaged upon this colossal task. Neither can we guess just how, exactly, they are doing it, how they are able to push against the sun with such colossal force without Neptune itself being pushed out into the void by the tremendous reaction from that push. But these things are not of the greatest interest to us now.
"The thing of greatest interest to us now is this: Can we halt this acceleration of the sun's rotation, can we thwart the doom which the Neptunians would loose upon us? To do that there is but one remedy! That is to bring to an end this great force-ray which the beings of Neptune are playing upon our sun's edge, with which they are making that sun turn faster. And to bring that ray to an end, to destroy it, it is necessary that we go out to Neptune, to the source of that great ray. For it is only at its source, whatever that source may be, that this force-ray can be destroyed! And it is only by destroying that force-ray that Earth and its sister-planets can be saved!
"This proposition, this plan to go out to Neptune itself, may seem to you impossible. For greatly as our scientific knowledge has risen in the last decades, we have been unable to bridge the gulf to even the nearest of the planets. True, we have managed to send rockets to our moon and explode flares there by means of them, but never yet have any of us reached even the nearest of our neighboring planets. And thus to propose to go out to Neptune, the farthest and outermost of all the planets, the last outpost of our solar system, may appear to you quite senseless. But it is not so, for now, at last, there is given to us the power to venture out into the gulf of space to other planets! And that power is given to us by the very doom that now threatens us, since it is the force-ray or vibration with which the beings of Neptune are turning our sun faster, which we can use to cross the gulf of space!
"For since his instruments first received and recorded that vibration, the weak reflected pulsings of the great ray, Dr. Whitely has studied it intensively, and has been able, by reversing the hook-up of his receiving and recording instruments, to produce similar vibrations, a similar ray, himself! He has been able to devise small generators which produce the same force-ray, and on that principle larger generators also can be devised and constructed, to shoot forth a force-ray of immense power. With such a force-ray, generated from inside a strong, hermetically-closed flier, one could shoot out at will into the great void! For if such a flier, resting on Earth, turned its powerful ray down upon Earth, that ray would strike Earth with terrific force. Being so vast in mass, and the flier from which the ray is shot down being so small, it would not be Earth that would be perceptibly moved by the ray, but the flier itself would be shot instantly up and outward into space by the ray's great pushing reaction!
"It would be necessary only to head the space-flier out toward the desired planet upon starting, and the pushing force of the great ray, constantly turned on, would so accelerate the flier's speed that it would be pushed out toward that planet at a terrific velocity, a speed which could be controlled by the power of the pushing ray. To escape the attraction of other planets among which it might pass, the space-flier would need only to shoot a similar great force-ray out toward whatever planet was attracting it, and the pushing force of that ray would hold the flier out from it. And when the space-flier neared the planet that was its goal, it could gradually slow its progress by means of a ray shot ahead toward that planet, braking its forward rush thus, and being able to land smoothly and without harm upon that planet!
"Such a space-flier as that might be built and operated in that way, with the great force-ray or vibration of the beings of Neptune to propel it, and in such a flier it would be possible to go out across the gulf to Neptune itself! Such a flier, pushing itself out into space with a great ray, could be brought to such colossal speeds that the journey out through the gulf to the distant planet could be accomplished in but a score or more of days. We have the power to build that flier, we have at last, at this tense moment, the power to send such a space-flier out into the void. And I propose that such a space-flier be built with the greatest speed possible and be sent out to Neptune to locate and if possible to destroy the source of the mighty force-ray whose colossal power is spinning our sun ever faster, threatening Earth and most of its sister-planets with a final doom!
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"A single space-flier capable of holding three or four men and their equipment and supplies, could be built in a month or more, if all energies were concentrated upon it, and if the great generators of the force-ray which it would need could be constructed in that time. That single flier, when built, should be sent out to Neptune at once! For little enough time remains to us before the break-up of our sun; little more than four months indeed. And that single flier, going out with its occupants at once, could locate the source of the mighty force-ray on Neptune, and if it could not destroy that ray's source, could at least return to Earth with exact knowledge of its position. And in the interval, there could be constructed here on Earth a fleet of such space-fliers, so that with a knowledge of the great ray's source these might be able to destroy it. All depends, however, upon constructing and sending out that first space-flier, while there is yet time!
"It would not be possible to construct a large space-flier in the short time of a month that I have mentioned, but a small one capable of holding four men, say, could be built in that time if all efforts were concentrated upon it. And I myself will be one of those four! For upon disclosing this plan to the World President, I was asked by him to be the commander of such a space-flier on its venture out to Neptune; and I accepted! Another of that four must be Dr. Whitely, whose discovery of the great force-ray from Neptune has shown us whence our doom is coming, and which discovery has alone made such a space-flier possible. It is my intention to take as a third my own assistant, Allen Randall, and as the fourth person to make this momentous voyage it would be best, no doubt, to have some younger member of the Intelligence Bureau, so that a complete report on the great ray's source and on all else encountered could be brought back, in case we were unable to destroy the ray ourselves.
"This, then, is the one chance for our Earth, that in such a space-flier or fliers we of Earth can go out to Neptune and put an end to that mighty force-ray from Neptune that is spinning our sun ever faster. For if we can do that, if we can construct such a space-flier or fliers and reach Neptune and bring an end to that ray before the 137 days left to us have elapsed, we will have halted this acceleration of our sun's spin, will have prevented its division. But if we cannot do that, if we are unable in the short time remaining to us to accomplish the task of destroying that mighty force-ray, then the beings of Neptune will have accomplished their colossal purpose, will have caused our sun to divide into a double star and will have sent all its planets except Neptune to a fiery doom!"
Dr. Marlin's strong voice ceased, and as it did so an utter silence reigned over the great room for some moments, broken at last by the voices of the twelve hundred members of the great World Congress--breaking into a vast, indistinguishable roar! My heart was pounding at what I had heard, and I turned, spoke swiftly to Markham beside me, and then as he nodded was leaping up myself upon the great platform! Was leaping up to where Marlin was standing now with Dr. Whitely and the World President, the whole great room trembling now with the cheering shouts with which those in it greeted Dr. Marlin's announcement. And there I was speaking rapidly to the World President, and to Dr. Marlin.
"The fourth man, sir!" I cried. "The fourth man that's to go in the space-flier--let me be that fourth!"
The World President, recognizing me, turned inquiringly toward Dr. Marlin, who nodded, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Hunt is from the Intelligence Bureau," he said, "and he's young and has had scientific training--was one of my own students. We could have no better fourth."
My heart leaped at his words, and then the World President nodded to me. "You will be the fourth then, Mr. Hunt," he said, shaking my hand. And as I stood there on the platform with Marlin and Dr. Whitely, the World President was turning back to the hundreds of shouting members, a sea of faces extending back to the great room's walls. Cheering as they were at this last chance to save Earth and its peoples that had been proposed to them, this last hope given to them to halt the terrible doom overshadowing them, their great uproar yet stilled for a moment as the World President turned toward them, as his voice went out to them over the great room.
"You, the members of the World Congress," he said, "have heard that which Dr. Marlin has told you. With this last hope in view, it is unnecessary for me to tell you to bend now all the world's energies toward that one chance, toward the construction of the first space-flier. For since upon that space-flier rests the only chance to save Earth, to prevent the sun's cataclysmic division, which this great ray from Neptune is accomplishing, I have no fear but that in a month from now that space-flier will be completed. Have no fear but that in it, a month from now, Dr. Marlin and his three friends will start on their unprecedented and momentous voyage out from Earth into space; will start on their great flight out through the void--to Neptune!"