When Worlds Collide by Philip Wylie & Edwin Balmer

Author:Philip Wylie & Edwin Balmer [Wylie, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781429991155
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2016-04-12T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16—THE SAGA

THE thirty days raced by. Under the circumstances, time could not drag. Nine-tenths of the people at Hendron’s encampment spent their waking and sleeping hours under a death-sentence. No one could be sure of a place on the Space Ship. No one, in fact, was positive that the colossal rocket would be able to leave the earth. Every man, every woman, knew that in six months the two Bronson Bodies would return from their rush into the space beyond the sun; even the most sanguine knew that a contact was inevitable.

Consequently every day, every hour, was precious to them. They were intelligent, courageous people. They collaborated in keeping up the general morale. The various department heads in the miniature city made every effort to occupy their colleagues and workers—and Hendron’s own foresight had assisted in the procedure.…

The First Passage was followed by relative calm. As soon as order had been restored, a routine was set up. Every one had his or her duty. Those duties were divided into five parts: First, the preparation of the rocket itself; second, the preparation of the rocket’s equipment and load; third, observation of the receding and returning Bodies to determine their nature and exact course; fourth, maintenance of the life of the colony; fifth, miscellaneous occupations.

Hendron, in charge of the first division, spent most of his time in the rocket’s vast hangar, the laboratories and the machine-shop. Bronson headed the second division. The third duty was shared by several astronomers; and in this division Eve, with her phenomenal skill in making precise measurements, was an important worker. The maintenance division was under the direction of Dodson, and under Dodson, a subcommittee headed by Jack Taylor took charge of sports and amusements. Tony was assigned to the miscellaneous category, as were the three absent adventurers.

The days did not suffice for the work to be done, particularly in preparation of the Space Ship.

Hendron had the power. Under the pressure of impending doom, the group laboring under him had “liberated” the amazing energy in the atom—under laboratory conditions. They had possessed, therefore, a potential driving power enormously in excess of that ever made available before. They could “break up” the atom at will, and set its almost endless energies to work; but what material could harness that energy and direct it into a driving force for the Space Ship?

Hendron and his group experimented for hour after desperate hour through their days, with one metal, another alloy and another after another.

At night, in the reaction of relaxation, there were games, motion pictures which had been preserved, and a variety of private enterprises which included organization and rehearsal of a very fine orchestra. There were dances, too; and while the thin crescents of the Bronson Bodies hung in the sky like cosmic swords of Damocles, there were plays satirizing human hopes and fates in the shed next to that wherein the Space Ship, still lacking its engine, was being prepared.

The excellent temper of the colony was flawed rarely.

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