The Cosmic Deflector, Page 2

could not hold him back; that she had no right to hold himback. Yet something seemed to rise up in her throat and choke her as thedoor slammed and she knew that he was gone.

  A deep depression had settled over her when the specified half hour hadpassed and he had not returned. When the half hour had lengthened intoan hour, uneasiness gave place to alarm. When an hour had been extendedto two, alarm rose to terror. At last, after two hours, her dread gotthe better of her and she telephoned the police.

  No! there had been no accident to a Daniel Holcomb! No! he had not cometo the station that evening! No, sorry, but they could not send outdetectives to investigate! "Don't think there's any need of that,Ma'am," the sergeant finished. "Chances are he met some old pal and wentoff for a drink, and just forgot the time."

  But Lucile, as she put down the receiver, knew that Dan had not "goneoff for a drink." Realizing that he had not even reached the station,she understood that her gravest misgivings had been justified. And thenit was that, for the first time, she broke down and wept.

  * * * * *

  Probably no one who lived through the summer of 1977 will forget theconsternation, the terror that convulsed the planet. It was in late Maywhen astronomers reported unforeseen perturbations in the earth's orbit;and by early June it had been officially confirmed that we were off ourproper path in space. At first the variation was slight--a mere fewthousand miles. But with the passage of weeks, our distance from the sunwidened until the earth was off its course by a million, two million,five million miles!

  No hypothesis put forth by science could explain the occurrence. It wassuggested that some dead, dark sun, from the depths of space, had caughtour world in its gravitational pull. But in that case, would it not alsohave affected Mars, Jupiter, and the other planets? Yet these, exceptfor minute variations ascribable to the earth's altered position, wereunaffected!

  But few persons, those desperate days, cared much about the theorybehind the event. What concerned them was the peril to their ownexistence. Already the disturbances were acute. By mid-July, New Yorkand London shivered in snow flurries; the frost had ruined agriculturein half the north temperate regions; while in the Argentine and SouthAfrica, which were now experiencing their winter, hundreds of thousandswere freezing to death. Meanwhile blizzards and tornadoes swept theglobe; tidal waves, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions testified to theupset of the age-old equilibrium; while thunder storms of unexampledseverity, floods, and meteoric displays of a brilliance never knownbefore, added to the protests of the elements and the terror of thepeople.

  Long before the summer was over, men began to resign themselves to theidea that life on earth was near its end. For, not only were wereceiving less solar radiation than formerly, but the years andtherefore the seasons were being lengthened; hence the winters would beunendurably severe. As we drifted ever farther into space, an unliftingfrost would settle over every portion of the globe, including thetropics; and life, frozen and starved, would disappear.

  It was on July 15 that the world was electrified by an announcementappearing in newspapers throughout the world. A celebrated firm ofconstruction engineers, Hogarth, Wiley and Malvine, had not onlydiscovered the root of the trouble but had contrived a way to cure it.However, they would need the cooperation of every man, woman and childon earth; they must be given control of all the world's resources, ofall mines, power-plants, factories, and systems of transportation, inorder to throw everything that mankind possessed into the battle.

  At any other time, such a proposal would have been laughed to scorn. Butnow, when the world's nerves were stretched taut with terror, men wereeager to clutch at any straw. A committee of alleged experts (who, itsubsequently turned out, were in the pay of Hogarth and Company)endorsed the claims of the self-styled saviors of the world; legislativegroups, likewise in their pay, voted them unlimited power; dictators andpresidents, in despair, gave them the right of way over great nations.But what did this matter? What did anything matter, except that Earth besaved from destruction?

  * * * * *

  In a concrete-walled, electrically lighted basement chamber, originallyintended as a storeroom, a prisoner stalked restlessly. Up and down, upand down, up and down the ten-by-twelve windowless space he wandered.His eyes were bloodshot; his fingers twitched uneasily; his rumpledclothes bore the signs of a recent struggle. At one side of the room, ona rude work-bench, some food and water stood untouched. From outside theclosed doors, he could hear the obscene jests exchanged by two armedguards.

  His mind reeled as he recalled the events of the past few hours; howthree men, amid the fogs of twilight, had surrounded him as he emergedfrom the apartment house to go for the police; how one of them hadclapped a gag over his mouth, and the other two had forced him into awaiting sedan.... So swiftly had it all happened that he could hardlypiece together the successive steps of the crime in logical order.

  Yet that the deed had been ordered by his former employers was manifest.His horror at their plans had been evident, much as he had tried toconceal it! Their secret police were already functioning! Undoubtedlyone of them, eavesdropping at the door of his apartment, had overheardhis remarks to his wife, which he had made little effort to subdue. Andnow that he was in the enemy's power, he would have no chance to thwartor reveal their schemes!

  Contemplatively he gazed about his jail. Bare walls! a bare floor! Not atool by which he might attempt to escape! The prisoner felt in hispockets--even his knife had been taken from him. He thought of hiswife--and knew that she would be growing frantic. Yet, though herealized that the odds against him were thousands to one, he would notlet himself despair. For a long while he leaned meditatively against awall, his brows wrinkled, his glance withdrawn, as he pondered, ponderedover ways and means to surmount his barriers. For upon his escape, heknew, the world's freedom depended.

  * * * * *

  It was with the air of a beaten dog that, one afternoon in early August,Hogarth came slouching into his mahogany-paneled headquarters in thetwenty-two-story office building he had recently appropriated.

  As July turned into August, the earth's movements had become moreerratic than ever. Even to the naked eye, the sun's disk had grownappreciably smaller. The Antarctic cold had begun to lay a white blanketover jungles beneath the Equator; while already the trees of the easternUnited States had taken on the hues of October. No one who lived throughthose disconsolate days will forget the tragic aspect of our cities:thoroughfares almost deserted, and only an occasional business housestill open; a handful of people passing, with wan features and droopingheads; and only one question on any one's lips, "When, when will itend?"

  With the haste of panic, Hogarth, Wiley and Malvine had been grantedeverything they asked. They had been placed in control of all naturalresources, all factories and railways, all armies and navies. They hadbeen given _carte blanche_ with the earth. All other rulers took ordersfrom them. They were, as they had aimed to be, universal dictators. Thistremendous power had been granted them, so that they might save us all,as they had promised. Then why did they not save us? men asked,chattering with cold and terror.

  They might have had their answer had they seen Hogarth sagging into hisoffice on that August afternoon. Rubbing his fleshy red face with anequally fleshy red hand, he dropped into a seat, and grumbled, "Guessit's no use, boys! Simply don't seem able to turn the trick!"

  Wiley had leaped to his feet. His horse-like teeth were unbared beneathcurling lips. "God! Mean to say she won't work?"

  "No, blast it, she won't," concurred Malvine, who had come in justbehind Hogarth. "Haven't the two of us been slaving like teamsters,along with McBride and a whole army of engineers? That cursed Deflectorhas gone haywire! Why, I'll swear we diverted gravity enough to pull theearth halfway over to Venus. And what are the results? Nil. Preciselynil!"

  Wiley stood regarding his fellow plotters in silence. An unpleasantsmirk formed itself upon his lips.


  "Well, don't worry, boys. In the long run, a day or two more or lesswon't matter."

  "No, I'll be cursed if it will!" growled Hogarth. "Nothing in hell willmatter if we die along with everybody else!"

  Wiley gasped. "What makes you so damned cheerful?"

  "Well, how we going to save ourselves? I'm putting it to you straight,old man. What if we are world dictators? We're doomed like every beetleand rat on this crazy planet. The whole rotten globe is going tofreeze!"

  "Afraid that's so," agreed Malvine, with a wry puckering of his long,fox-like face. "We've tried hard enough, but we've about shot our bolt.Frankly, there isn't any known principle by which we can get theDeflector working again."

  For the first time, a pallor had come across Wiley's features. He wasthe scheming