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.'""I suppose so, Tony.Did David ever tell you that, in his first conference at Capetown with LordRhondin and Professor Bronson, they were excited over realizing there would be no more lions?""No," said Tony, very quietly."He never mentioned it to me.""Tell me, Tony," she asked quickly, "you aren't jealous?""How, under the conditions laid down by your father," retorted Tony, "could anybody be'jealous'? You're not going to be free to pick or choose your own husband--or mate--or whatever he'll becalled, on Bronson Beta.And if we never get there, certainly I'll have nothing to be jealous about."The strain was telling, too, on Tony."He may not even return to us here," Eve reminded."And we would never know what happenedto the three of them.""It would have to be a good deal, to stop them.Each one's damn' resourceful in his own way; andRansdell is sure a flyer," Tony granted ungrudgingly."Yet if the plane cracked, they'd never get back.There's not a road ten miles long that isn't broken by some sort of landslip or a chasm.Land travel hassimply ceased.It isn't possible that there's a railroad of any length anywhere in operation; and a carwould have to be an amphibian as well as a tank to get anywhere."Sometimes, when day follows day and nobody arrives or passes, I think it must mean that everyone else in the world is dead; then I remember the look of the land--especially of the roads, and Iunderstand it.This certainly has become a mess of a world; and I suppose the best we can expect issome such state awaiting us," Tony smiled grimly, "if we get across to Bronson Beta."No; that's one of the funny things about our possible future situation.If we get across toBronson Beta, we'll find far less damage there.""Why?" Tony had not happened to be with the scientists when this had been discussed."Because Bronson Beta seems certain to be a world a lot like this; and it has never been as closeas we have been to Bronson Alpha.It wasn't the passing of Bronson Beta that tore us up so badly; it wasthe passing of the big one, Bronson Alpha.Now, Bronson Beta has never been nearly so close toBronson Alpha, as we have been.Beta circles Alpha, but never gets within half a million miles of it.Soif we ever step upon that world, we'll find it about as it has been.""As it has been--for how many years?" Tony asked."The ages and epochs of travel through space.You ought to talk more with ProfessorBronson, Tony.He just lives there.He's so sure we'll get there! Exactly how, he doesn't bother about;he's passed that on to Father.His work assumes we can get across space in the Ship, and land.He startswith the landing; what may we reasonably expect to find there, beyond water and air-and soil? Which ofus, who may make up the possible crew of the ship, will have most chances to survive under theprobable conditions? What immediate supplies and implements--food and so on--must we have with us?What ultimate supplies--seeds and seedlings to furnish us with food later? What animals, what birds andinsects and Crustacea, should we take along?"You see, that world must be dead, Tony.It must have been dead, preserved in the frightful,complete cold of absolute zero for millions of years.You'd be surprised at some of the assumptionsProfessor Bronson makes."He assumes, among other things, that we can find some edible food--some sort of grain,probably, which absolute zero would have preserved.He assumes that some vegetable life--thevegetation that springs from spores, which mere cold cannot destroy-will spring to life automatically."Tony, you must see his lists of the most essential things to take with us.His work is the mostfascinating here.What animals, do you suppose, he's figured we must take with us to help us tosurvive?"On the tenth of September, the inhabitants of the strangely isolated station which existed for theperfection of the Space Ship, began to look--although prematurely--for the return of the explorers intothe world which had been theirs [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]