Part 2

But when those scientists met, the world learned that they had a hundred different explanations of the thing, no two agreeing. The famous American alienist who had voiced his opinion days before reiterated his belief that the minds of men were giving way _en masse_ beneath the strain of modern civilization. A Rumanian bacteriologist claimed that the thing was the result of a contagious new brain disease spreading over earth, and claimed even to have isolated the bacterium of that disease. The scientists, gripped seemingly by something of the erratic condition of mind they were striving to explain, argued these theories and others with utmost passion, sometimes attacking each other. An English physicist, who suggested that earth was passing through strange mind-affecting gases in space, was assaulted by the proponent of another theory. And still more furious and incredulous, the world learned, was the reception given to the explanation of a New York biologist named Ferson, who claimed that the whole great terror was the result of the human races slipping backward on the road of evolution!

"World atavism! A throwback of all the world's life on the road of evolution!" So, they learned, Ferson had cried to the assembled scientists. "All earth's animal life is beginning to slip back, and man, as the most recently developed animal, is slipping first, is going back toward the savage state, toward the cave-man or troglodyte, toward the ape! He is losing control of his passions as he goes back, which accounts for the violence that now fills earth! And he is losing the mental capacity of modern man, which accounts for his inability to operate longer our modern machines! A world atavism that is beginning with the atavism of the human races!"

"But what could cause such world atavism as that?" the incredulous scientists had cried.

"The evolutionary theory of my former associate, Dr. Grant----" Ferson had begun, but was interrupted by a chorus of derisive shouts provoked by the mention of the scientist whose ridiculous theory had been exploded.

So Ferson had been forced from the meeting by the furious scientists, who seemed seized indeed with the erratic craziness that was gripping the world. Another day they advanced and argued their theories, theories that grew ever more impossible, more incoherent, and then the meeting dissolved in a general riotous brawl of the arguing scientists. They, in common with the rest of the races of men, seemed incapable longer of calm thought, of cool, unpassioned reasoning. Two were killed, throttled in the brawl that ended the meeting, and the rest scattered. They were not followed or punished, for now the disintegration of humanity's institutions had become such that crime was unheeded.

Men were outrivalling each other in mad action. Those in high places as in low were gripped by the insanity that had apparently seized earth, and from the Cabinets and Congresses of a score of nations came declarations of war against other nations, for the slightest of reasons or for none at all. England, the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Japan and China--these and a dozen others issued frenzied and incoherent calls to arms. But they were unheeded! Even war now could not penetrate the unreasoning minds of men. Armies had broken up, all discipline and organization vanishing. A few who tried to keep their soldiers in line found that the men could no longer handle the great guns and instruments of war, found that most of them were incapable of the operation of rifles!

Civilization was crashing with a prolonged roar of falling laws and institutions and customs echoing across the world. The ordinary methods of transportation and production having completely broken down days before, the stream of food into the great cities had abruptly ceased. The brutal throngs that filled those cities subsisted by looting the existing food supplies for a time, but soon these were exhausted and then terrible battles took place between the rioters for food which they had found. Battles they were of hordes of ragged brutes, of savages, who fought with knives or with their bare hands in the streets. Only occasionally was a shot heard, for almost none there was now with sufficient dull glimmer of intelligence to manipulate a gun.

In the shadow of the tall towers of New York, and in the brick and stone acres of London and the boulevards of Paris, thousands and hundreds of thousands of these savages swarmed, the ways choked with corpses of the slain. At night they crouched fearfully in hallways and offices and corridors, the vast cities lying dark and silent beneath the stars. Shapes of prowling animals were being seen in some of them by night. No wheel turned in all the world now, for none seemed left with intelligence enough to operate the simplest machine.

And these swarms that had been human were changing in appearance too. The men were unshaven and hairier, it seemed. Much clothing had been discarded, crude belts that held knives or the like weapons being retained. They crouched now as they walked, their step a watchful, animal-like one. From under shaggy brows they stared at each other. Small, crude family-groups held together, the man battling other men for the possession of food. Some managed to kill animals, and wore the skins.

They were troglodytes, millions of them, men such as the world had seen thousands of years before, as humanity had been then. They were troglodytes, wandering through the cities and towns that they themselves had built, staring in wondering fear about them at things the purpose of which they could not understand. But most had no wonder, only a brutal lack of interest in all save food and mating and sleep. There were no fires, for all had lost the use of fire and feared it now.

Driven by hunger, great masses of them were pouring out of the cities into the countryside, to hunt roots and herbs and to kill small animals for food. They made rude shelters for a time, then abandoned them for caves and crannies in the rocks. They ceased to use knives or spears, they could but throw great stones at each other or wield chance clubs, or fight with bare hands.

Many had remained in the cities and among them was more fighting. With each day they were changing farther, it seemed, going farther back along the long road of change that man had ascended so slowly through the ages, and that he was slipping back upon so swiftly.

The streets of New York and Glasgow and Constantinople and Yokohama saw them, these animal-like, ape-like hordes that wandered there. Ape-like they were becoming, indeed, swiftly hairier of body, more crouching of gait, stooping occasionally in moving to run on hands and feet. Clothing they had discarded. The fragmentary, mumbled speech that they had kept until days before had given way to a meaningless medley of barking shouts and cries whose tone conveyed their crude attempt at communication. They roamed the great cities in little groups or tribes, of each of which one was the strongest, the tyrant, the acknowledged lord.

And now, they were changing still. Were running more on hands and feet, walking upright less. Back from man to troglodyte, and from troglodyte to ape had the human races gone, and now were slipping back still into the animal races from which the apes had come! World atavism--and it was wiping the last human-like forms from the face of earth!

* * * * *

Of this great change that in days swept man back into the brutal forms of dead ages, I, Allan Harker, was a witness from the first. For it was at New York that the early manifestations of the change had been first noticed, in that increasing wave of terrible crime that was in days to rage over the whole earth.

Neither Ferson nor I, of course, had any suspicion of the thing's real magnitude in those first days. We followed, with the same astonishment that held most in the world, the astounding growth of crime and violence, but it was remote from our own interests, and we were both very much absorbed in our differing work of experimentation. We spent more time on that work, indeed, in those days than before, for both Ferson and I seemed to have lost a little of our usual skill and knowledge. I know that he caught himself in inexplicable lapses, and I know that I, usually the most patient of biologists, forgot myself in sudden impatient rage on one or two occasions and smashed retorts and test-tubes about me. Neither of us dreamed, of course, that we were being affected by the same strange forces that were releasing humanity's passions in a carnival of crime.

But when a little later the great wave of crime that was making earth hideous was made more terrible by the innumerable inexplicable accidents that were occurring, Ferson became thoughtful. He deserted his own white-tiled laboratories for the university's psychological test-rooms with their strange recording instruments, and spent hours there carrying out intricate tests of the reactions of himself and others. It was after two days of such tests, when the fatal accidents occurring everywhere were taking toll of thousands of lives daily, and when almost all industrial activity was slowing and stopping because of them, that Ferson came back, his countenance as I had never seen it.

"I've found it, Allan," he said quietly. "The cause of all this terror--these innumerable crimes and accidents and riotings."

"The cause of them?" I repeated, uncomprehendingly, and he nodded.

"Yes, and that cause is world atavism! An atavism, a throwback, of all the world's animal life, that is beginning with man as the most recently developed animal and that is taking place before our eyes! Taking place in ourselves even!"

"World atavism!" I gasped. "But, Ferson--that such a thing could be--it's inconceivable!"

He shook his head. "Not inconceivable. You remember Grant and his theory, that the evolution vibrations from the sun were what had pushed earth's life up the road of evolution? And you remember that Grant said that were those evolution vibrations to cease to reach earth from the sun, all earth's life would slip swiftly back upon that road?"

"I remember," I said, "but how could such a thing happen? What could ever halt the play of the sun's evolution vibrations on earth?"

Ferson's eyes were somber. "I do not know what could," he said slowly, "but I think I know who could!"

"Ferson!" I cried. "You don't for an instant think that Grant----"

"I do think so," he said, his voice steelly. "Grant discovered the existence of the evolution vibrations--he alone of men knew all concerning them. Do you remember what he said when they refused to let him explain his theory even at that meeting? He said: 'I will give you proof of this. I will give you proof yet of this theory, and such a proof as the world has never seen before!'"

My mind was reeling. "Then you think that when Grant disappeared--that he----"

"I think that that great proof that Grant promised in his rage to give the world is the world atavism that is upon humanity now! I think that Grant in some inconceivable way has used his knowledge and his power to deflect or dampen the evolution vibrations coming toward earth from the sun, and that it is because of the absence of those vibrations that earth's life is slipping backward!"

"But where will it stop?" I exclaimed.

"It will not stop, Harker--this tremendous change has only begun. Man, the most recently evolved of all animals, is changing first, and will go back through troglodyte and ape to the forms before them, back through changing beast-forms. By then the other animals of earth will be changing also, thrown back along the evolutionary road, and that great atavism will continue until earth's life has all changed back into the first crude protoplasmic forms from which eons ago it sprung!"

"But what can we do?" I cried. "There must be some way of stopping this!"

"There is only one way," he said. "Grant is causing this great world atavism, is shutting off the sun's evolution vibrations from earth by projecting toward the sun, no doubt, a great dampening or neutralizing vibration that stifles them, annihilates them, at their source. We must find Grant's whereabouts, must destroy whatever apparatus he is using to do that!"

"Yet if all are changing--we two also must be changing!" I exclaimed, and he nodded.

"We two are already a little affected as all men are, more or less. Our lapses of memory, the difficulties we have in our work now, these things in the last days are the result of this world atavism in us, just as the crimes and accidents filling earth are. And we two must protect ourselves against this tremendous change, whatever we do, for on us depends the one chance of halting Grant's terrible work. The world will never believe that that dread work is really going on until it is too late, so you and I must not change!"

Ferson went swiftly on to explain his idea. This was none other than to construct two small projectors that would each automatically and ceaselessly generate artificial evolution vibrations, vibrations affecting a limited range as the sun's vibrations had affected all earth. These projectors in their compact cases could be worn on our bodies by each of us without being noticeable, and would keep each of us always thus in the range of the vital vibrations, so that we would not be affected by the world-wide absence of that which was causing this world atavism. Whatever great dampening wave Grant was sending out toward the sun to neutralize its evolution vibrations would not, of course, affect the vibrations of our own little projectors.

The next two days saw us at work upon these projectors. The method of producing the evolution vibrations we knew, for as I have mentioned, they had been artificially produced in a small way by physicists upon Grant's first announcement of his theory. The second day, therefore, saw our projectors complete, small flat black cases that were strapped to our belts without being noticeable, each holding the tiny but marvelously powerful batteries that were the current-source, and the compact little generator that automatically and unendingly released the vital evolution vibrations for a range of several feet. With these completed and working, and secured thus by them from being ourselves affected by the terrible atavism that was upon the races of man, we began our greater work of locating Grant and the apparatus by which he was shutting off the sun's vibrations and loosing this horror on the earth.

For horror it had now become, and the world was waking up to its true nature as every sort of brutal passion was released in terrible crime over it, and as the inexplicable mindlessness of men brought on terrific accidents. Already a dozen of the greatest governments in coöperation had called a conference of earth's greatest scientists at New York to explain or to halt at least the horror that was sweeping earth. To that conference they came with each a different and more incredible explanation of the thing, and to it went Ferson and I to give them the true explanation and to turn them toward the search for Grant that might yet save humanity. But that explanation was never given, for Ferson's first mention of world atavism was greeted with incredulous cries, and when he went on to mention Grant, such a derisive storm arose, that he was forced bodily from the meeting, leaving the scientists disputing fiercely over the most impossible of theories, supporting and opposing those theories by blows.

For they, like the rest of humanity, seemed incapable now of clear and sustained thought upon any subject. Even Ferson and I, working day and night in the isolated upper Manhattan laboratories of the university, were able to see clearly what was happening about us. We were living, eating, sleeping at the laboratories by this time, for all means of transportation and all industrial activities were ceasing. Great masses of men roamed the streets of the city, some forming into gangs that made life terrible for the others, the rest engaged in indiscriminate looting. The great London riot and the abortive outbreak in lower New York had now taken place, and it was evident to all that the last shadow of law and order in the city was vanishing, for more and more the troops and police who maintained it were engaging in the rioting themselves.

News came still a little, in incoherently written and erratically printed sheets, for a few days, and it was thus we learned of the huge Chicago riot and subsequent fire. It marked the beginning of the end. Within a few days more utter lawlessness reigned over New York, corpses lay in its streets and looters were everywhere. The university buildings, deserted now by all but ourselves, were not attacked except on a few occasions by the looting swarms, there being no food or other desirable things in them, and Ferson and I had rifles and pistols in our laboratory to repel the ragged and brutal gangs that might attack us.

In those terrible days we were occupied heart and soul in the work of locating Grant and whatever mechanism it was by which he was casting this doom on humanity. It was Ferson's idea that the great damping wave, which Grant must be sending toward the sun to halt the play of its endless evolution vibrations, would affect certain recording instruments, if the correct frequency for their circuits could be found. Once that was found, by observing the amount by which the instruments were affected at different locations by the waves of the great damping vibration, we could calculate and chart that great wave's source with some degree of accuracy. It seemed to me a very slender chance, yet I knew as well as did Ferson that it was the one possible way. Grant, we knew, would have protected himself, as we had, by a small artificial projector of the vibrations.

So in those fearful days we worked with the recording instruments, watching them at each new trial for some indication of the force whose source we sought. The whole great mass of New York's giant structures that stretched southward and downward from our laboratory lay now in complete darkness each night; the last wonted activities of civilization having ceased in it as elsewhere. Ragged hordes of savages roamed it, savages so hairy and crouching and brutal of face, seeming each day more prognathous of jaw and slanting of brow and animal-like of eye, that we knew them to be troglodytes, cave-men, men such as humanity had been ages before and such as it was over all earth now.

We saw them occasionally prowling through the university grounds in search of food, shambling toward us with lowering brows to attack us when they glimpsed us, but fleeing in fear when we fired over their heads. For none of them could manipulate so complicated a thing as a firearm. All earth's hundreds of millions were prowling their way in just such brutal bands, thrown back to the state that had been man's before history's dawn. And ever more brutal and hairy and animal-like they were becoming as they slipped back farther still, back from troglodyte to ape! Mankind was gone, transformed into these still-changing brutes--all except Ferson and me.

* * * * *

I cannot tell now in full of those terrible last days of change, those days in which in our chance glimpses we saw men making that other terrible step backward, from troglodyte to ape. For Ferson and I were working with the speed of utter despair. Even were Grant's terrible work to be halted, the sun's evolution vibrations again released on earth, it would take them untold ages to raise the brute-like beings about us to the status of men once more. Humanity was passing, had passed, into the brute around us, yet for their sake, for the sake of the humanity that might rise again in the dim future, we kept to our efforts, sought still to halt this awful change, that would otherwise not stop until protoplasmic slime alone was left living on earth.

We had found the correct frequency for the circuits of our recording instruments, and in feverish haste set up those instruments at intervals of a mile, working through the night. The weirdest of work it was, the vast city's streets and structures silent in the night around us, the countless hordes of brute-like beings that once had built them now cowering in the buildings in ape-like fear of the night's mysteries. We took our readings, hastened back to our laboratory, and dawn found us marking those readings on the great chart-map of the section we had ready. Somewhere in that section, somewhere near New York, we knew, Grant lurked with his terrible mechanism, our first readings having shown us that. And now, as with trembling hands Ferson and I drew the graphs on the big chart, we stared for a moment after in complete silence.

Those lines converged at a point in a midtown block of the great city south of us, a block occupied by a single gigantic building whose aspiring tower was in sight of our laboratory's windows!

For moments Ferson and I stared from chart to tower in silence, and then without words we had turned, seen to the filled magazines of the pistols at our belts, and were passing out of the laboratory into the bright sunlight. As silent as ever, we started southward.

Never, were my existence extended a thousand years, could there be blotted from my memory that journey southward through the silent towers of New York that Ferson and I made then. For the great city that lay silent about us beneath the brilliant noon sunshine, was a city of horror unutterable. Dead lay thick in its streets and great dogs, already strange and fierce and wolf-like, ran in packs among them. The rusting wrecks of smashed automobiles were piled at every corner. No window of all we passed remained intact, sidewalks and streets were sprinkled with shivered glass. Westward across the river a great fire was burning in the cities there, pouring a black volume of flame-laced smoke up to the skies. But more terrible than all of these things were the hordes, the swarms of creatures that moved through the streets and ways about us, the countless creatures that once had been the city's people!

Great ape-like creatures they were, not apes such as men had known, but ape-like races such as men had sprung from eons before. In groups and packs of scores they roamed the city's ways. Covered with thick hair, stooped and crouching of gait, the garments that they had worn as men torn and discarded, there was in them no semblance to humanity. They walked stiffly toward each other, stooping to rest hairy forearms on the ground each few steps. They growled and barked in rage, or chattered volubly and meaninglessly. The majority were prowling in wrecked stores for fragments of food. Others moved along the streets in a search for small animals, for insects even.

Growling in rage their groups came toward Ferson and me as we moved onward, but each time a pistol-shot sent them fleeing from us. We moved on, never speaking, Ferson's face icy calm, my own brain reeling. We came at last to the base of the giant building that we knew must hold whatever mechanism Grant was using to withhold the evolution vibrations from the earth.