Spawn of the Comet, Page 3
H. Thompson Rich
what'swrong with 'em."
And since they were of no use to Overton, he gave them to Jim.
* * * * *
That night again, Jim Carter presented himself at the Wentworth homein Hartford, and again it was Joan who admitted him.
"Oh, Jimmy!" she murmured, as he took her in his arms. "We're all soproud of you!"
"I'm glad someone is," he said.
"But what a fearful risk you ran! If you hadn't been able to get yourmotor started--"
"Why think of unpleasant things?" he said with a smile.
Then they went into the library, where Professor Wentworth added hiscongratulations.
"But I'm afraid I didn't accomplish much," said Jim, explaining aboutthe pictures.
"Let me see them," said the professor.
Jim handed them over.
For a moment or two Professor Wentworth examined them intently,holding them this way and that.
"They indeed appear to be extremely over-exposed," he admitted atlength. "Your Fire Ants are doubtless radio-active to a high degree.The results could not have been much worse had you tried to photographthe sun direct."
"I thought as much," said Carter, gloomily.
"But possibly the damage isn't irreparable. Suppose we tryre-developing a few of these negatives."
He led the way to his study, which since the destruction of theobservatory had been converted into a temporary laboratory.
* * * * *
Ten minutes later, Professor Wentworth had his re-developing bathready in a porcelain basin and had plunged some of the negatives intoit.
"This process is what photographers call intensification," heexplained. "It consists chemically in the oxidation of a part of thesilver of which the image is composed. I have here in solution uraniumnitrate, plus potassium ferricyanide acidified with acetic acid. Thelatter salt, in the presence of the acid, is an oxidizing agent, and,when applied to the image, produces silver oxide, which with theexcess of acetic acid forms silver acetate."
"Which is all so much Greek to me!" said Carter.
"At the same time, the ferricyanide is reduced to ferrocyanide," theprofessor went on, with a smile at Joan, "whereupon insoluble reduranium ferrocyanide is produced, and, while some of the silver, inbeing oxidized by this process, is rendered soluble and removed fromthe negative into the solution, it is replaced by the highlynon-actinic and insoluble uranium compound."
The process was one quite familiar to photographers experienced inastronomical work, he explained. In fifteen minutes they should knowwhat results they were getting.
But when fifteen minutes passed and the negatives were still as blackas ever, Jim's hope waned.
Not so Professor Wentworth's, however.
"There is a definite but slow reaction taking place," he said after acareful examination. "Either the over-exposure is even greater than Ihad suspected, or the actinic rays from your interesting subjects haveformed a stubborn chemical union with the silver of the image. In thelatter event, which is the theory I am going to work on, we must speedup the reaction and tear some of that excess silver off, if we're everto see what is underneath."
"But how are you going to speed up the reaction?" asked Jim. "Ithought that uranium was pretty strong stuff by itself."
"It is, but not as strong as this new substance we have in combinationwith the silver here. So I think I'll try a little electrolysis--or,in plain English, electro-plating."
As he spoke, the professor clipped a couple of platinum electrodes tothe basin, one at each end. To the anode he attached one of thenegatives, to the cathode a small piece of iron.
"Now then, we'll soon see."
He passed a low current into the wires, through a rheostat, withstartling results. There was a sudden foaming of the solution and aweird vapor rose from it, luminous, milky, faintly orange.
* * * * *
For a moment, all they could do was stare.
Then Professor Wentworth switched off the current and stepped towardthe tank. Waving away that orange gas, he reached for the cathode andheld it up. It was no longer iron, but silver, now.
"Plated, you see!" he exclaimed in triumph.
"Yes, but those fumes!" cried Jim. "Why, they were the same color asthe--the Fire Ants, as you call them."
"I know." The professor was not as calm as he pretended. "We havereleased some of their actinic rays captured by the negative, inprying loose our excess silver. Later I shall repeat the process andcapture some of that vapor for analysis. At present, let us have alook at the negative already treated."
He lifted the anode from the solution now, removed the negative, andheld it up. A smile of satisfaction broke over his face, followed by ashudder.
"There you are, Jim! Have a look!"
Jim looked, with Joan peering over his shoulder, and his pulsestingled. It was a clear shot of that scattering half-circle of fierytermites, taken after he got away and swept back over them.
"Say, that's wonderful!" he exclaimed.
"Wonderful--but horrible!" echoed Joan.
"I'll admit they're not much on looks," laughed Carter. "But theirhomely maps are worth a lot to me--ten thousand dollars, in fact!"
He told her why, and what he proposed to do with the money, and Joanthought it a very good idea.
While this was taking place, Professor Wentworth was re-developing therest of the negatives.
At last all had been salvaged, even those taken in the terrific heatover that weird glass city out there, and Jim was preparing to bearthem back to Overton in triumph.
He had thanked the kindly professor from the bottom of his heart, hadeven told him something of what he had been telling Joan. Thereremained but to put one last question, then go.
"Summing it all up, what do you make of those nightmares?" he asked."Do you think they can be destroyed?"
Professor Wentworth did not reply at once.
"I can perhaps answer your question better when I have analyzed thisspecimen of gas," he said at length, holding up a test-tube in whichswirled a quantity of that luminous, milky orange vapor. "But if youwish to quote me for publication, you may say that when I have learnedthe nature of it, I shall devote all my energies to combating themenace it constitutes."
And that was the message Jim took back with him, but it was thepictures that interested the practical Overton most.
* * * * *
Before many days, however, Overton, with the rest of the world, wasturning anxiously to Professor Wentworth, watching his every move,awaiting his every word. For before many days terrible reports startedcoming in, not only from the Arizona desert but from the assemblygrounds of the Fire Ants everywhere.
Those deadly termites were on the move! They were spreading from theircentral citadels in ominous, expanding circles--circles that engulfedvillages, towns and cities in a swift, relentless ring of annihilationthat was fairly stupefying.
In North America, the cities of Phoenix, Tucson and Prescott, with allthat lay between, were already gone, their frantic populaces fleeingto the four points of the compass before that fateful orange tide. InSouth America, Rosario and Cordoba were within the flaming ring andBuenos Aires was threatened. In Europe, Moscow and its vast tributaryplain had fallen before the invaders. In Asia, a veritable inlandempire was theirs, reaching from Urga to the Khingan Mountains. InAfrica, Southern Algeria and French Sudan, with their innumerablesmall villages and oases, were overrun. In Australia, Coolgardie hadsuccumbed and Perth was in a panic.
But fearful though the destruction was on the continents, it was theislands of the world that suffered most. First the smallest, thosepicturesque green gems of the South Seas, crisped and perished. Thencame reports of the doom of the Hawaiian group, the Philippines, theEast and West Indies, New Zealand, Tasmania and a score of others,their populations perishing by the thousands, as shipping provedunavailable to transport them to safety.
By far the most tragic fate, however, was that suffered by the BritishIsles. What happened there stunned the world, and brought realizationto humanity that unless some miracle intervened, it was but a mirrorof the doom that awaited all. For England, Ireland and Scotland werehabitable no more. London, Dublin, Glasgow--all their proud cities,all their peaceful hamlets, centuries old, were flaming ruins.
Out of a population, of some sixty millions, it was estimated that atleast eight millions must have perished. The rest, by prodigious featsof transportation, managed to reach the mainland, where they spread asrefugees throughout an apprehensive, demoralized Europe.
* * * * *
As for the armies and navies of the world, they were powerless beforethis fiendish invader. Hammered with high explosives, drenched
And since they were of no use to Overton, he gave them to Jim.
* * * * *
That night again, Jim Carter presented himself at the Wentworth homein Hartford, and again it was Joan who admitted him.
"Oh, Jimmy!" she murmured, as he took her in his arms. "We're all soproud of you!"
"I'm glad someone is," he said.
"But what a fearful risk you ran! If you hadn't been able to get yourmotor started--"
"Why think of unpleasant things?" he said with a smile.
Then they went into the library, where Professor Wentworth added hiscongratulations.
"But I'm afraid I didn't accomplish much," said Jim, explaining aboutthe pictures.
"Let me see them," said the professor.
Jim handed them over.
For a moment or two Professor Wentworth examined them intently,holding them this way and that.
"They indeed appear to be extremely over-exposed," he admitted atlength. "Your Fire Ants are doubtless radio-active to a high degree.The results could not have been much worse had you tried to photographthe sun direct."
"I thought as much," said Carter, gloomily.
"But possibly the damage isn't irreparable. Suppose we tryre-developing a few of these negatives."
He led the way to his study, which since the destruction of theobservatory had been converted into a temporary laboratory.
* * * * *
Ten minutes later, Professor Wentworth had his re-developing bathready in a porcelain basin and had plunged some of the negatives intoit.
"This process is what photographers call intensification," heexplained. "It consists chemically in the oxidation of a part of thesilver of which the image is composed. I have here in solution uraniumnitrate, plus potassium ferricyanide acidified with acetic acid. Thelatter salt, in the presence of the acid, is an oxidizing agent, and,when applied to the image, produces silver oxide, which with theexcess of acetic acid forms silver acetate."
"Which is all so much Greek to me!" said Carter.
"At the same time, the ferricyanide is reduced to ferrocyanide," theprofessor went on, with a smile at Joan, "whereupon insoluble reduranium ferrocyanide is produced, and, while some of the silver, inbeing oxidized by this process, is rendered soluble and removed fromthe negative into the solution, it is replaced by the highlynon-actinic and insoluble uranium compound."
The process was one quite familiar to photographers experienced inastronomical work, he explained. In fifteen minutes they should knowwhat results they were getting.
But when fifteen minutes passed and the negatives were still as blackas ever, Jim's hope waned.
Not so Professor Wentworth's, however.
"There is a definite but slow reaction taking place," he said after acareful examination. "Either the over-exposure is even greater than Ihad suspected, or the actinic rays from your interesting subjects haveformed a stubborn chemical union with the silver of the image. In thelatter event, which is the theory I am going to work on, we must speedup the reaction and tear some of that excess silver off, if we're everto see what is underneath."
"But how are you going to speed up the reaction?" asked Jim. "Ithought that uranium was pretty strong stuff by itself."
"It is, but not as strong as this new substance we have in combinationwith the silver here. So I think I'll try a little electrolysis--or,in plain English, electro-plating."
As he spoke, the professor clipped a couple of platinum electrodes tothe basin, one at each end. To the anode he attached one of thenegatives, to the cathode a small piece of iron.
"Now then, we'll soon see."
He passed a low current into the wires, through a rheostat, withstartling results. There was a sudden foaming of the solution and aweird vapor rose from it, luminous, milky, faintly orange.
* * * * *
For a moment, all they could do was stare.
Then Professor Wentworth switched off the current and stepped towardthe tank. Waving away that orange gas, he reached for the cathode andheld it up. It was no longer iron, but silver, now.
"Plated, you see!" he exclaimed in triumph.
"Yes, but those fumes!" cried Jim. "Why, they were the same color asthe--the Fire Ants, as you call them."
"I know." The professor was not as calm as he pretended. "We havereleased some of their actinic rays captured by the negative, inprying loose our excess silver. Later I shall repeat the process andcapture some of that vapor for analysis. At present, let us have alook at the negative already treated."
He lifted the anode from the solution now, removed the negative, andheld it up. A smile of satisfaction broke over his face, followed by ashudder.
"There you are, Jim! Have a look!"
Jim looked, with Joan peering over his shoulder, and his pulsestingled. It was a clear shot of that scattering half-circle of fierytermites, taken after he got away and swept back over them.
"Say, that's wonderful!" he exclaimed.
"Wonderful--but horrible!" echoed Joan.
"I'll admit they're not much on looks," laughed Carter. "But theirhomely maps are worth a lot to me--ten thousand dollars, in fact!"
He told her why, and what he proposed to do with the money, and Joanthought it a very good idea.
While this was taking place, Professor Wentworth was re-developing therest of the negatives.
At last all had been salvaged, even those taken in the terrific heatover that weird glass city out there, and Jim was preparing to bearthem back to Overton in triumph.
He had thanked the kindly professor from the bottom of his heart, hadeven told him something of what he had been telling Joan. Thereremained but to put one last question, then go.
"Summing it all up, what do you make of those nightmares?" he asked."Do you think they can be destroyed?"
Professor Wentworth did not reply at once.
"I can perhaps answer your question better when I have analyzed thisspecimen of gas," he said at length, holding up a test-tube in whichswirled a quantity of that luminous, milky orange vapor. "But if youwish to quote me for publication, you may say that when I have learnedthe nature of it, I shall devote all my energies to combating themenace it constitutes."
And that was the message Jim took back with him, but it was thepictures that interested the practical Overton most.
* * * * *
Before many days, however, Overton, with the rest of the world, wasturning anxiously to Professor Wentworth, watching his every move,awaiting his every word. For before many days terrible reports startedcoming in, not only from the Arizona desert but from the assemblygrounds of the Fire Ants everywhere.
Those deadly termites were on the move! They were spreading from theircentral citadels in ominous, expanding circles--circles that engulfedvillages, towns and cities in a swift, relentless ring of annihilationthat was fairly stupefying.
In North America, the cities of Phoenix, Tucson and Prescott, with allthat lay between, were already gone, their frantic populaces fleeingto the four points of the compass before that fateful orange tide. InSouth America, Rosario and Cordoba were within the flaming ring andBuenos Aires was threatened. In Europe, Moscow and its vast tributaryplain had fallen before the invaders. In Asia, a veritable inlandempire was theirs, reaching from Urga to the Khingan Mountains. InAfrica, Southern Algeria and French Sudan, with their innumerablesmall villages and oases, were overrun. In Australia, Coolgardie hadsuccumbed and Perth was in a panic.
But fearful though the destruction was on the continents, it was theislands of the world that suffered most. First the smallest, thosepicturesque green gems of the South Seas, crisped and perished. Thencame reports of the doom of the Hawaiian group, the Philippines, theEast and West Indies, New Zealand, Tasmania and a score of others,their populations perishing by the thousands, as shipping provedunavailable to transport them to safety.
By far the most tragic fate, however, was that suffered by the BritishIsles. What happened there stunned the world, and brought realizationto humanity that unless some miracle intervened, it was but a mirrorof the doom that awaited all. For England, Ireland and Scotland werehabitable no more. London, Dublin, Glasgow--all their proud cities,all their peaceful hamlets, centuries old, were flaming ruins.
Out of a population, of some sixty millions, it was estimated that atleast eight millions must have perished. The rest, by prodigious featsof transportation, managed to reach the mainland, where they spread asrefugees throughout an apprehensive, demoralized Europe.
* * * * *
As for the armies and navies of the world, they were powerless beforethis fiendish invader. Hammered with high explosives, drenched
