Bronsome Beta - After Worlds Collide Part 14

"Bronson Beta? Oh-you used the astronomical name for this planet. Why-I wabbled because I had to turn my lights out when I saw you coming, and I could only stay on the road by driving very slowly and letting the front wheels run off the edge. When they did, I yanked the car back onto the pavement."

Several people laughed. The van b.u.mbled on toward the promised land. Some one else asked: "What did you call this planet?"

Lady Cynthia replied: "We in our s.h.i.+p-thought- just Britannia. But the people who captured us called it Asiatica. You must realize that when I say captured, I don't mean that in the sense that we were jailed. We lived among them-were part of them. Only-we weren't allowed arms-and we were forced to live by their laws."

"What laws?"

"German was to be their universal language. We had to learn it. Every woman was to be married. We had been given three months to choose mates. We were to bear children. There was no property. No G.o.d. No amus.e.m.e.nts or sports. No art-except for education-propaganda, you might call it. No love, no sentiment. We were being told to consider ourselves as ants, part of a colony. The colony was all-important, the individual ants-nothing."

"Swell," said one of the younger men from the dark.

Lady Cynthia nodded.

"How did you escape?"

"I'd elected to marry a leader. I was considering-seriously -jumping from a building in one of the cities. But I had a little more freedom than most. I was a.s.signed to truck-driving. I went out every day to the gardens for vegetables. I befriended one of the guards there-I made rather deceitful promises to him; and he let me enjoy what I had told him was a craving of mine-going for a spin alone. I went-and I didn't come back."

Duquesne asked: "You knew where to find us?"

"Vaguely. In our city-the city was called Bergrad, by them-there had been discussions of you. Our captors called you American rabble. They are determined to subdue you."

"Sweet!" said Williamson.

"Of course-in the last days on earth-I'd read about you. I knew two or three of your party. I knew Eliot James. He'd stayed once at our castle. Is he-"

"Very much so," said Tony happily.

"That will be marvelous! And how many of you-"

Tony explained. "We have two camps."

"So I heard."

"A van has gone ahead of us. It will deposit its stores and pa.s.sengers at the new city, and then start at once to the other camp. We did not dare radio."

"They listen for you all day," said Lady Cynthia. "And at night. But my other friends: Nesbit Darrington? Is he here?"

There was silence.

"I see," she said slowly. "And Hawley Tubbs?"

Again there was silence.

The Englishwoman sighed heavily. "So many people! Ah, G.o.d, so many! Why was I spared? Why do I stand here this night with you on this foreign world?... I'm sorry!"

Tony jumped. Von Beitz was rapping on the window of his driver's compartment. Tony peered through the window. Von Beitz was pointing ahead.

Tony's eyes followed the German's arm. Far away on the horizon the night sky was pinkly radiant. At first he thought that it was the aurora. Then he knew. He turned to the others.

'There are the lights of our new home!"

A murmur rose, a prayer, a hushed thanksgiving....

The tractor-truck and its two huge trailers rumbled toward the distant illumination.

Tony bent over Eve. "Well be safe soon, dear."

"Yes, Tony."

They descended into a long and shadowed cut. At the end was a slow curve.

Then they came out on a valley floor.

In the valley's center was the bubble of the new city. It was not as large as the first one they had seen. But its transparent cover was identical; and like the first, it was radiant with light. Did the lights go on all over Bronson Beta every night? Had Ransdell turned them on? They did not know. They only saw out on the valley floor the resplendent glory of a Bronson Betan city at night, and because none there save Tony and Lady Cynthia had seen the sight before, their emotions were ineffable.

There, under its dome, stood the city, its multi-colored metal minarets and terraces, its spiral set-backs and its network of bridges and viaducts, s.h.i.+ning, strong, incredibly beautiful.

"Surpa.s.sing a dream of heaven!" Duquesne murmured.

"Magnificent!" Williamson whispered. There were tears on almost every enraptured countenance.

Then a strange thing happened: Cole Hendron stirred.

Eve dropped a tear on his face as she bent over him. She let go of Tony's hand to adjust the blankets over her father. But Hendron put her hand aside and slowly, majestically, sat up in his improvised cot.

"Father!" she said.

He was staring at the city.

"Cole!" Tony whispered.

The others in the trailer sensed what was happening. They looked at their old leader. And the caravan moved forward so that in the light of the city, faces became visible.

Cole Hendron stood now.

"Tony, my son!" His words rang like iron.

"Yes-"

The greatest scientist earth had ever produced stretched out his two hands toward the city. "The promised land!" Now his voice was thunder.

Eve sobbed. Tony felt a lump swelling in his throat.

Hendron looked up to the cold stars-to Arcturus and Sirius and Vega.

"Father!" he said in a mighty voice. "We thank Thee!"

Then he pitched forward.

Tony caught him, or he would have fallen to the earth. He lifted him back on his pallet and opened his coat. Dodson pushed through the herded people.

The head of the physician bent over the old man's chest He looked up.

"His brain imagined this," said Dodson. "He brought us here in his two hands, and with his courage as our spiritual flame we shall remain!" It was an epitaph.

Eve wept silently. Tony stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders-mute consolation and strength.

"Hendron's dead," was whispered through the throng. The city was now looming in front of them, the buildings inside visible n detail and rising high over the heads of the travelers.

Von Beitz was driving rapidly. This was the most dangerous part of the trip, this dash across the lighted exterior of the city, without protection of any kind.

They could see presently that the great gate was open.

Figures stood beside it, motionlessly watching their approach.

Light poured over them. They were inside the city. They slowed to a stop at the mighty portals boomed shut behind them.

Ransdell had been one of those waiting. Tony leaped out, and Ransdell smiled.

"Welcome!"

"Hendron's dead."

"Oh!"

The people began to alight-but they were quiet and made no attempt to celebrate their security. Others came up.

"We'll take his body into one of these buildings," said Tony. "In the morning we'll bury him-out there, under the sun and the stars-in the bare earth of Bronson Beta."

Behind the voyagers through the night was a wide avenue, and at its center in the city stood a magnificent building. Some one of those who came in the first caravan had brought a large American flag and fixed it on an improvised pole. It was hanging there when they entered the gates. Tony noticed it presently as it was being drawn down to half-mast.

No other symbol of the death of their leader was made that night. There were too many important things to do, things upon which their existence depended.

Dodson, Duquesne and Eve sat in a room with Hendron's body-a room of weird and gorgeous decoration, a room of august dimensions, a room indirectly illuminated. If they had but known, they would have been glad that Cole Hendron lay in the hall of the edifice that had been home of the greatest scientists of Bronson Beta some incalculable age before them.

Tony left the watchers reluctantly and sought Ransdell. The former South African was in a smaller chamber in the building where the Stars and Stripes hung at half-mast.

"He died," said Tony to Ransdell and the other people with him, "standing in the trailer, thanking G.o.d, and staring at the city."

"Like Moses," said Ransdell. "A single glimpse of the Promised Land."

"Like Moses." Tony looked with astonishment at the man. He had not imagined Ransdell as a reader of the Scriptures.

"We must go on. He'd want it," said Williamson.

Tony nodded. "The first van has left for your camp?"

"Yes."

"And the second?"

"Fifteen minutes ago."

"It is about four miles from the road to your camp. But I think those tractors can pull all the way in. They'll bring nothing but people-and they'll be able to accommodate every one." He looked at his watch and pondered. "They should be here before daybreak. Now-I don't know about the power and light in these cities. Von Beitz, suppose you take another man and start an investigation of its source. We'll want to know that. The other city I investigated had enormous subterranean granaries and storehouses. Williamson-you search for them. Jack-you take care of housing."

"We've been working on that," said Ransdell. "There's ample room already available-for your people and mine."

"Good. Water?"

"We've located the main conduits. They're full. The water's apparently fresh. We've turned it on in this building. We're running a set of fountains in the rear court and filling a swimming-pool to be sure it is fresh."

"Right.--s.h.i.+rley, find Kyto and arrange for a meal at daybreak. Prepare for five hundred-we're almost that many."

s.h.i.+rley left.

Hastily Tony dispatched others from his improvised headquarters. Soon he was alone with Ransdell.

"I got your signal," he said. "You wanted every one cleared out but me. Why?"

Ransdell glanced at the door. "For a good reason, Tony. I've got something important to tell you."

"What?"

"There's somebody else in this city."

Tony smiled. "I know that feeling. James and I had it. You get used to it."

Ransdell shrugged. "I'm not queasy-you know. I don't get those feelings. Here's my evidence: I drove the first caravan. When I reached the gates, I saw something whisk around a distant building. It might have been a man-it might have been the end of one of these little automobiles.... Then, after I'd started things going, I took a walk. I found this."

He handed Tony a half of a sandwich. A bite had been taken out of it-a big bite. The other half and the filling were missing. But the bread was fresh.

Tony stared at it. "Good Lord!"

"That bread would be stale in twelve hours, lying as it was on the street."

"Anything else?"

"This building was open. The others were shut. We used your instructions for getting into them. But in here, things were-disturbed. Chairs, tables. There was a ball of paper on the floor of this room. Nothing on it." Ransdell produced a crumpled sheet of paper.

"The Other People had paper," Tony said.

"Not paper watermarked in English."

Tony walked around the room, pondering this. "Well?"

"There can't be many people. Since we arrived, ever since I found the sandwich, I've been conducting a search. So have five other small posses. Nothing was discovered, however."

"I see." Tony sat down. "The Midianites have foreseen our scheme, then, and put watchers here."