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THE WORLD HAD CRASHED...
Only a handful of men and women, the flower of earth’s civilization, had escaped
by fleeing in a great space ship to another planet. Here, in a world without law,
confronted by new perils, they faced the necessity of building a new civilization.
Edwin Balmer and Philip TVylie tell a breath-taking story in "After
World*s Collide.** Read this opening installment and you will not want to
miss a word of this remarkable tale as it appears serially in these columns .
by
Edwin Balmer
end
Philip Wylie
Copyright, 1934, by Edwin Balmer and Philip Wylie— WNU Service
Alone In Creation, so far as they
kneWl stood forty-four men, flfty-sev-
tn women and two children—the sur¬
vivors of the end of the hurtling Earth. Two of
jianets had appeared, out
space. Once they had circled some dis¬
tant sun which we on our earth could
have seen only as a star. But millions
snd millions of years ago occurred a
celestial catastrophe; these two stran-
jer planets were torn away from their
sun.
They drifted out Into the darkness.
The light and heat from their sun
must have diminished until that sun
dwindled to the appearance of a star,
but long before that time came, there
could have been no living being left
upon either of those planets. The seas
and at last the very atmosphere—
the air—froze solid. The planets were
In the all but absolute cold of space
between the stars. At last they ap¬
proached our gun; and they stumbled
upon the path of another planet: Our
Earth.
One of these planets, hurtling out
cf space, was sweeping toward the
earth (and the moon that accompa¬
nied the earth! on an orbit that would
bring about a collision. It must de¬
stroy It utterly. This destroying planet
wa9 the larger of the two. Its com
panlon resembled the world in size
Its path, while carrying it close to
the world, would bear it by; it would
approach but not collide with the
earth; and it would make its closest
approach before its huge comrade de¬
stroyed us. Those few human beings,
Iriven by doom itself, prepared their
escape from the earth.
This Is a chronicle of the first days
>n the New World—Bronson Beta, men
of the Earth called it, as they named
the awful destroyer planet Bronson
Alpha. This is the record of the emi¬
grants from Earth who reached the
planet that replaced the World. , , .
CHAPTER I
Eliot James sat at a metal desk In¬
side the Space Ship which had con¬
veyed a few score human beings from
the doomed earth to safety on the
sun’s new planet, Bronson Beta. In
front of Eliot James was his already
immemorial diary, and over it he
poised a fountain pen.
He had written several paragraphs:
"April—what shall I call It? Is It
the second day of April, or is It the
first? The earth Is gone—smashed to
fragments; and the companion of Its
destroying angel, upon which our band
of one hundred and three Argonauts
holds so brief and hazardous a resi¬
dence, Is still without names, seasons
and months. But April has vanished
"ith the earth; and for all I know,
spring, winter, summer and fall may
also he absent n the new world.
“1 have pledged myself to write In
this diary every day, as Hendron as¬
sures me there will be no other rec¬
ord of our adventures here until we
have become well enough established
to permit the compilation of a formal
history.
Jly companions stand there in the
sunshine under the strange sky on our
brown earth—forty-three men, fifty-
seven women, two children. They have
been singing—a medley of songs which
tinder other circumstances might seem
Irrelevant Many of them are foreign¬
ers and do not know the words, but
hhey also sing—with tears streaming
down their faces and a catch 'n their
Voices. They sang ‘The Processional’
and they sang ‘Nearer, My God to
Hiee ’ After that they sang ‘Hail, Hail,
Jhe Gte Gang's Marseillaise’ All Here.’ Then they sang
with Duquesne leud-
leading and bellowing the words,
«nd weeping.
Hhat a spectacle.' Beside it, the
picture of Leif Ericsson or Columbus
‘ caching shores last dimmed
green at Is
t0 ^significance. For those ancient
explorers found the path to a mere
continent, while this band has blazed
* trail of fire through space to a new
fdanet
And”—the pen wavered—"to what
1 imagine whimsically as the new fu¬
ture readers of my notes, I make an
apology. This is our first day on Bron¬
son Beta. My impatience has exhausted
toy conscience, i must lay down my
Pan, leave the remarkable ship where-
ln l write and go out upon the face
of this earth untrod by man. I can
restrain myself no longer.”
Eliot James walked down the gang¬
plank and joined Tony, Eve and Cole
Hendron.
The leader of the expedition nodded
as several of the people on the edge
of the cliff turned toward the Ark.
“Hendronthey hailed him again.
“Hendron ! Cole Hendron !”
Their hysteria had not yet cleared
away; they remained in the emotional
excitement of the earth-cataclysm they
had escaped but witnessed, and of the
Incomparable dventure of their flight
“Hendron ! Hendron! What do you
want us to do?” they demanded; for
their discipline, too, yet clung to them
—the stern, uncompromising discipline
demanded of them during the prepara¬
tion of the Ship of Escape, the disci¬
pline of the League of the Last Days.
Hendron stepped upon an outcrop
of stone and smiled down at them.
"I have made too many speeches,” he
said. “And this morning is scarcely a
suitable hour for further thanksgiving.
It may be proper and pleasant, later,
to devote such a day as the Pilgrims,
from one side of our earth to another,
did; but like them, it is better to wait
until we feel ourselves more securely
installed. When such a time arrives,
I will appoint an official day and we
shall hope to observe it each year.”
He cast his eye over the throng and
continued; “Since 1 know all of you
so well, I feel It unnecessary to say
that in the days ahead lies a neces¬
sity for a prodigious amount of work.
“Your tempers and intelligences will
be tried sorely by the new order which
must exist Our first duty will be to
provide ourselves with suitable homes
and with a source of food and cloth¬
ing. Our next duty will be to arrange
for the gathering of the basic mate¬
rials of the technical side of our civil-
ization-to-be. In all your minds, 1
know, lies the problem of perpetuating
our kind. We have, partly through ac¬
cident, a larger number of women than
men. I wish to discontinue the use of
the word morality; but what 1 must
insist on calling our biological con¬
tinuum will be the subject of a very
important discussion.
“In all your minds, too, is a burning
Interest In the nature and features of
this new planet We have already ob¬
served through our telescopes that It
once contained cities. To study those
cities will be an early undertaking.
While there Is little hope that others
who attempted the flight to this planet
have escaped disaster, radio listening
must be maintained. Moreover, the ex¬
istence of living material on this plan¬
et gives rise to a variety of possibili¬
ties. Some of the flora which has
sprung up may be poisonous, even dan¬
gerous, to human life. What forms it
will take and what novelties it will
produce, we must ascertain as soon as
possible. I will set no tasks for this
day—it shall oe one of rest and re¬
joicing—except that I will delegate lis¬
teners for radio messages and cooks to
prepare food for us. Tomorrow, and I
use an Americanism which will become
our watchword, we will all ‘get busy.’ ’’
There was a pause, then cheering.
Cole Hendron stepped down from the
stone. Eve turned to Tony and took
his arm. ”1 am glad we don’t have to
"work today. My mind flies in a thou
sand different directions simultaneous¬
ly, It seems. Where are those cities
which, from the world—our ended
world. Tony—our telescopes showed
us here? What remains may we find
of their people? Of their goods and
their gods and their machines?
What, when they found themselves
being torn away from their sun. did
they do? That monument beside
. . .
the road that we found. Tony—what
was it? What did It mean? . . . Then
1 think of myself. Am I. Tony, to have
children—here?” her
Tony tightened his clasp upon
arm. Through all the terrors and tri¬
umphs, through all their consterna¬
tions and amazements, instincts, he
found, survived. “We will not speak of
such things new.” he said. “We will
satisfy the more immediate needs,
such as food— deviled eggs and sand
wlches; and coffee! As if we were on
DADE COUNTY TIMES: THURSDAY, MAY 16, 1935
earth, Eve. For once more we are on
earth—this strange, strange earth. But
we have brought our identical bodies
with us.”
“Sardines!” Duquesne said. He pat¬
ted his vast expanse of abdomen—an
abdomen which in his native land he
had often maintained, and was fre¬
quently to assert with pride on Bron¬
son Beta, consisted not of fat but of
superior muscle. Indeed, although Du¬
quesne was short of stature and some
fifty years of age, he often demon¬
strated that he was possessed not only
of unquenchable nervous energy, but
of great physical strength and endur¬
ance.
“A picnic in the summer time on
Bronson Beta, children,” Duquesne
boomed. “And it’s summer time, you
know. Fortunately, but Inevitably from
the nature of events, still summer. My
observations of the collision check
quite accurately with my calculations
of what would happen; and if the de¬
ductions 1 made from those calcula¬
tions are correct, quite extraordinary
things will happen. We will have a lit¬
tle class In astronomy.” He put to
use two resources—the smooth verti¬
cal surface of a large stone and a
smaller stone which he had picked up
to scratch upon the bowlder.
As Duquesne began to talk, all the
members of the group gathered around
the flat bowlder to watch and listen.
“First,” he began, “I will draw the
solar system as It was.” He made a
small circle and shaded it in. “Here,
my friends, is the sun.” He circum¬
scribed U with another circle and said:
“Mercury.” Outside the orbit of Mer¬
cury he drew the orbits respectively of
Venus, Earth and Mars. “So this Is
what we have had. This Is where we
have been. Now I draw the same thing
without the Earth.”
Every one watched intently while he
scratched on a rock an ellipse which,
on one side, came close to the orbit of
Venus, and on the other approached
the circle made by the planet Mars on
its journey around the Sun.
“Here Is our path, closer to the sun
than the Earth has been; and also
farther away. The hottest portion of
this new path of this new planet about
the sun already has been passed when
we fled here. This world had made its
closes t approach In rounding the sun,
and it had reached the point in Its
orbit which our earth had reached in
April. Now we are going away from
the sun, but on such a path that—
and under such conditions that—only
slowly with the days growing colder.”
“They will become, when we get out
on that portion of our path near Mars,”
a man among his hearers questioned,
“how cold?”
Duquesne called upon his comic
knack to turn this question. He shiv¬
ered so grotesquely that the audience
laughed. “The most immediately Inter¬
esting feature of our strange situation
will be, my friends, the amazing char
acter of our days. Many of you have
been told of that; so I ask you. Who
will answer? How long will be our
days? You, Mr. Tony Drake. You, I
know, have become, like so many oth¬
ers, a splendid student of astronomy.
How long will be our days?”
“Fifty hours, approximately,” replied
Tony.
“Excellent! For what determines the
length of the day? Of course, It is the
time which the planet takes to turn
upon Its own axis. Tt has nothing what¬
ever to do with the sun, or the path
about the sun; it is a peculiarity of the
planet Itself and Inherent in it from
the forces which created It at Its birth.
Bronson Beta happens to be rotating
on its axis approximately fifty hours;
so our days—and our nights—will be
a trifle more than twice as long as
those to which we have become ac¬
customed. Now, how long will our year
be? Let one of the ladies speak, this
time!”
“Four hundred and twenty-eight
days!” a girl's voice said. Her name
was Mildred Pope.
“Correct,” applauded Duquesne, “it
you speak in terms of the days of our
perished planet It will take four hun
dred and twenty-eight of our old days
for Bronson Beta”—Duqiiesne, not
without some satisfaction, stamped
upon It—“to circle the sun; but of the
longer days with which we are now
endowed, the circuit will consume only
two hundred and five and a fraction.
So we will rotate in some fifty hours
and swing In toward Venus and out
toward Mars, In our great elliptical
orbit, making a circuit of the sun In
four hundred and twenty-eight of our
old days—which will live now only in
our memories—or two hundred and
five of our new days. Around and
about, in and out, we will go—let us
hope, forever.”
His audience was silent. Duquesne
let them study his sketches on his nat¬
ural blackboard before he observed:
"A few ohvlons consequences will at
once occur to you”
Higgins, who had droppeo his plants
while he listened, gave his impromptu
answer like a grade boy In a class¬
room; “Of course; our summers will
be very hot and our winters will b«
very cold and very long.”
Duquesne nodded. “Quite so. But
there is one fortunately favorable fea¬
ture. What chiefly determined the sea¬
sons on the old earth,” he reminded,
“was the inclination of the earth upon
its axis. If Bronson Beta had a sim¬
ilar or a greater inclination in refer
ence to the plane of its orbit around
the sun, all effects would !be era*
gerated. But we find actually less in¬
clination here. The equinoxes wi Bron¬
son Beta will not march back and
forth on the northern and southern
hemispheres with such great changes
in temperatures. Instead, as we round
the sun at its focus,”—he pointed with
his chubby finger,—“there will be
many, many long hot days. Perhaps
our equator at that time will not be
habitable. And later, as we round the
imaginary focus out here In space so
near to the orbit of Mars, It may be
very cold Indeed, and perhaps then
only the equator will be comfortable.
So we may migrate four times a year.
From the Paris of our new world to
Its Nice—I mean to say, from the New
York city to its Miami. Does one think
of anything else?”
A silence was broken by a question
from Dodson: “How close wll 1 we come
to Venus and Mars?”
Duquesne shrugged. Eve turned to
Dodson and said; “If my figures are
right, it will be three million miles at
periods many, many years apart. Three
million miles from Mars and at the
most favorable occasion about four
from Venus.”
Dodson’s eyebrows lifted. “Is that
dangerous?”
Eve shook her head. “The perturba¬
tions of all three planets will, of
course, be great. But as far as dan¬
ger of collision Is concerned, there is
none.”
The group was thoughtful.
Eve took Tony's arm. "I want to go
over and look at the ocean.”
“Let’s go back and look at that road
In daylight,” he suggested.
Eve started. “We’ve left It all this
time! Did you tell Father about it?”
“Not yet.”
They went over to Cole Hendron.
“Last night," Tony said, “Eve and I
"The Earth We Do Not Hav*. I
Set Down Next the Present Posi¬
tion of This World on Which ws
Stand—Bronson Beta.”
were out walking and we found s
road.”
Ten minutes later every one was
gathered around the highway. V was
made of a metal-like substance. It ran
to the bluff along the sea and then
turned south. Except for that single
curve—a graded curve, which sug¬
gested that the vehicles that once trav¬
eled the road moved very swiftly—
there was no other turn. Its surfacs
was very smooth. Way was made for
Bagsley, the paleontologist. He bent
over and looked up with a curious
smile.
“That Isn’t a job for me.” His eye*
were fastened on the inscription the
metal slab bore. “You see. this is such
a thing as might be found in the futur*
of our earth but not in the past No
ancient civilization In our world could
make a road such as this, or use met*’
so skillfully."
Duquesne was talking again. “Who¬
ever lived here had a language to writ*
and eyes to read it They had road*
to travel and vehicles to go ipon them.
So they had places to go to and M
come from. The cities we saw, or
thought we saw, must have been reaL
My friends, great as our adventure*
have been, there He ahead tinttM
Infinitely more astounding."
TO B1 OOJSZUIU1A
Georgia News
Happenings Over the State
University of Georgia non-frater¬
nity students recently elected Carl
Strong, of Newnan, campus leader
for 1935-1936.
Commerce handled through Sa¬
vannah during the calendar year
1934 amounted to 2,522,154 tons,
valued at $15,500,000.
With a rainfall of twelve and a
quarter Inches to this hate, the
Valdosta section is still deficient,
according to the normal average
for the season.
B. M. Lufburrow, state forester,
opines that Georgia can produce
enough pine trees to supply the
entire United States with newspaper
and white paper.
A new publication, the Muckalee
Monitor, published by the soil ero¬
sion service project, will be issued
in the near future to farmers in the
Americus section.
Robert T. Persons, Forsyth bank¬
er and cotton mill operator, says
“cotton mills are not suffering from
the processing tax,” but are “sim¬
ply overproducing.”
George Montgomery, of Henry
county, farm agent, says $730,571
more was realized from the 1934
cotton crop in that county than in
1933. The 1934 figure was $1,132,-
571.
Taxation is a predominating sub¬
ject on the program of the twenty-
first annual convention of the As¬
sociation County Commissioners of
Georgia to meet in Savannah in the
near future.
The income from the state’s cigar
and cigarette tax is now more than
sufficient to pay current pensions to
Confederate veterans, it has been
recently revealed by the state rev¬
enue department.
The annual convention of the
Georgia County ana’ Peace Officers’
Association, which consists of law
enforcement officers from all over
Georgia, met in annual session at
Atlanta recently.
Rev. Bunyan Stevens of Rome
was elected governor of the Geor¬
gia Rotary Clubs of the 69th Dis¬
trict recently and was honored with
a banquet at the closing of the
convention in Macon.
Approximately 225 Clayton coun¬
ty farmers gathered at Jonesboro
in response to a call recently to
consider the AAA farm program,
and voted 210 to 15 to Indorse the
AAA farm program and the New
Deal.
Diplomas were awarded 146 col¬
lege and high school students and
25-year service medals were given
seven staff members at the thirty-
third annual commencement exer¬
cises of the Berry schools and col¬
lege.
Resolutions upholding national
defense aims and attacking those
who would not bear arms for their
country were adopted in the recent
Beasion of the United Spanish War
Veterans, Georgia, department, at
Macon.
Atlanta Typographical Union No.
48 held its seventy-fifth birthday
celebration at the Ansley Hotel,
Atlanta, recently. Several promi¬
nent newspaper men and interna¬
tional officers delivered speeches
on behalf of the organization.
Building projects now under way
In Moultrie or to be started within
the next few days involve an ex¬
penditure of $286,000, records
in the city hall of that city re¬
veal. Prospects are bright that
this total will be largely increased
by several contemplated additions
within the next few months.
That daylight saving time has
become popular is indicated from
reports from the various municipal
and private club golf courses
around Atlanta, which record large
Increases in the number of players
dally making the rounds after their
release from office, store and fac¬
tory after putting in a full day’s
work.
Herman Talmadge, son of Gover¬
nor Talmadge and a junior in the
Lumpkin Law School, has been
named head of the Pan-Hellenic
Council, made up of the University
of Georgia eighteen fraternities.
Talmaoge is president of the Sigma
Nu fraternity, of which his father
was a member while In school at
Athens.
Undomestication of the Coca-
Cola company as a Georgia corpo¬
ration, rendering stock held in
Georgia liable to the state intangi¬
bles tax, was authorized’ in a res¬
olution adopted by the stockhold¬
ers on recommendation of the com¬
pany’s board of directors at their
annual meeting recently in Wil¬
mington, Del.
Charles Roberts, two-year-old son
of Mr. ana Mrs. Dewitt H. Roberts,
died in Valdosta recently. Less
than two weeks ago, another son,
Dewitt Roberts, Jr., died. A third
child, Mary, is living. Roberts is
editor of the Lowndes County Trib¬
une.
Representative Paul Brown of El-
berton told his house colleagues In
the national capital recently that
insurance of bank deposits by the
federal government haa done more
to pave the way to recovery than
any other act of the New Deal
Need for Faith
in Trying Times
Permanency of Nation and
of Home Depends on
High Resolve.
This is an era of curtailments, of
economies and limitations In finan¬
cial matters in the United States,
and such a state of affairs hears
direct results In the home and on
the family. It Is a period which
should be met with firm purpose and
steady determination to wrest suc¬
cess from difficulties. Such things
have been done In former years.
They can he done today.
It is Interesting to note the high
place which faith holds. We have
heard much about the misery which
lack of confidence has brought to
the masses. We have been urged to
discard fears, and thereby restore
confidence. And the good old word
“faith” has come into Its own. Those
who have not cherished faith and
who have discounted it, have over¬
looked the fact that faith does not
apply to religion solely, but to all
things In which reliance upon others
is Involved. One of Its synonyms la
confidence. Those who have an abid¬
ing faith and confidence in a Su¬
preme Power are those w ho can meet
emergencies without the depressing
elements which are so ready to
crowd around. They have a Founda¬
tion Rock on which to stand. Ths
waves may beat about them and
times be turbulent, but they are not
dismayed.
The stability of one’s country Is
dependent upon the faith and confi¬
dence the Individual citizens havs
In It. Such faith and confidence li
the rock of the nation. However much
of a ferment certain specific Issues
cause, the belief that they are but
evanescent and that the high funda¬
mental principles of the country will
not be shaken beyond Its ability of
recovery must remain inviolabla.
Such a belief and confidence Is the
greatest reviving element. Such la
the faith that is ours behind and
below the existing clamor about de¬
pression. Such Is the faith that be¬
comes knowledge of our country’s
ultimate power of readjustment and
future success without exhausting
delay.
In the home, faith Is its founda¬
tion also. The confidence of an abid¬
ing love which can surmount tran¬
sient disagreements and disturbances
Is Imperative. The home is wrecked
where faith Is lacking. It grows Into
a stronghold of happiness when faith
is fostered, and confidence Is Invinci¬
ble.
< 2 ), Bell Syndicate.—WNU Service.
bowels and stcftnach. Ovie little Pellet for
a laxative—three for a cathartic.—Adv.
Nothing Surer
Those who belittle patriotism
haven’t got it, that’s certain.
Overcame Her Nervousness
"A few years ago,” writes Mrs.
Charles Sivil, of Hartshorne, Okla.,
“I was weak and run-down. It seemed
that nervousness was about to get
the best of me. My mother told me
about Cardui and that is what I de¬
cided to take. After I began taking
Cardui, my appetite was better. I
gained strength and was less ner¬
vous. By the time I had taken two
bottles, I felt fine.”
First, better appetite, and then
more strength and a feeling of well¬
being! Thousands of women testify
Cardui benefited them. If it does not
benefit YOU, consult a physician.
DON’T NEGLECT
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TP Aright your kidneys are not working
and you suffer backache,
dizziness, burning, scanty or too
frequent urination, swollen feet and
ankles; feel lame, stiff, “all tired
out” . . . use Doan’s Pills.
Thousands rely upon Doan's.
They are praised the country over.
Get Doan's Pills today. For Bale by
all druggists.
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