The Greatest Sci-Fi Books of Erle Cox. Erle Cox

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СКАЧАТЬ that she would not expect him to consider that their strange relations should seal his lips from motives of chivalry. Earani was too calmly aloof and to much a law unto herself to be troubled by conventions. He realised thoroughly that when the time came that he should speak, her answer would be given with no other thought than for his and her interests. So he lived on with her, alternating with a hope that left him weak with wild longing, and a fear that crushed his heart to despair.

      It was at the end of the third month that Earani began to tell them of the mystery of her being, for she reserved the revelations until Barry was there to hear them. It was one afternoon when the three were seated together in the "temple," and the talk had touched on the subject of geology. Barry had hazarded a second-hand opinion on the length of time that life in any form had existed on the earth. "Ah, Dick, my dear boy, (she had long adopted Alan's form of address), how wildly they guess, those scientists of yours. Come: I will show you." She took Alan's atlas from a table near by, and with it a volume from the library. Then she called them both to the couch beside her, and with the books on her lap to illustrate her meaning, she told them of the world's past. "You remember, Alan, how you showed me this map on the day after you recalled me to life?" and here she turned to the map of the world. "Strange as it was to me then, I knew what it meant, although the chart I was used to was so different. See, here it is," and she opened the other volume. "Before my eyes were closed in the long sleep in which you found me, this was the world I knew. See, although it is so altered, many of the lines are familiar." Their three heads bent over the maps before them, and with her dainty forefinger Earani traced the many places, still almost the same, on both charts.

      "Do you mean, Earani, that since you knew the world it has altered so?" asked Alan.

      "Indeed, it has altered, this old world. Can either of you wise ones tell me the cause?" She looked smiling from one to the other.

      Dick shook his head. "I pass–Alan, I leave it to you."

      "And you, Alan?" Her soft white hand fluttered to his arm. "Tell this Dick, who knows everything, how this old world was wrecked to build a new one in its place." She smiled into his eyes.

      Alan shook his head in turn, but before Earani could speak again he broke in: "Wait, though. It may be that I can guess. Some of our men hold that at one time the axis of the earth has moved, and that the shock must have dislocated the whole of the surface. I have always thought this theory fantastic, but it may fit."

      Earani laughed softly, and nodding her head, she turned to Barry. "Ah, Dick! You see Alan can use his head as well as that great strong body of his. My teacher is worthy of the office."

      "Was that really the cause, Earani?" asked both men together.

      "That, indeed, is what happened. Ages and ages ago the world was inhabited by a race of human beings just as it is to-day. It was a race that had gone through all the trials and struggles through which yours has passed and is passing. Some day I will tell you of it; at present let it suffice that the race had attained to the greatest heights humanity is capable of when the great calamity befell."

      She paused for a moment, as though the picture of the great lost past saddened her. Then she spoke again, and her voice came in a little more than a whisper. "Our people knew of the blow that threatened long before it fell. They were too great to fear for themselves; but they knew that on the ashes of the wrecked world another race would arise. They knew, too, that the new race would have to pass through the same great trials before it won to its own high place. What they mourned was that all the great works of their brains and hands should perish utterly. That their race should vanish was a small thing compared with the danger that all their great ideals should vanish with it.

      "Can you think of what it meant to those who had helped in the great work, and the men who knew the value of it? A little perhaps you can understand, but very little, unless you knew the people of the lost world. Oh, so long ago! And yet it seems to me so very near.

      Then after a little silence she spoke again. "And so they determined on a desperate effort to preserve their knowledge for the benefit of the people that were to come again. They had but two hundred years in which to work. Little time enough for their work, but it sufficed. On each of three carefully selected spots on the earth they built a great sphere such as the one we are now in. In the building of them they brought to bear every grain of the great lore they had, to win their purpose and make them invulnerable against the great calamity. Into each of them when all was ready they gathered together a specimen of all their art and science. The means of holding life suspended had been known for many generations, though it was but little used. Then it was determined that into each sphere one person should be placed to form the link between the old world and the new."

      "'Why only one in each?" asked Alan, who was following the story with burning interest.

      "The question was deeply debated at the time," she answered. "Although we knew that for any ordinary time the body could be kept in a state of suspended animation, yet there was no certainty that the ages that must pass before reanimation took place, if it ever did, would not cause the attempt to fail. Our people did not wish to condemn more than would be necessary, to the risk of a terrible fate. There were so many and such terrible dangers for the chosen ones to face. So in the end three were chosen."

      "How chosen?" asked Barry, eagerly.

      "In the first place," she answered, "volunteers were called for. Thousands answered the call. It was no thought of self-preservation that brought them forward. Each one knew that there were dangers to be faced by those who were selected that were worse than the death that the race had to meet, but none of the old race feared death. To them it was but an incident. No; each one was animated by the hope that in the end it would fall to his or her lot to carry the light from the dying race to the race unborn.

      "All over the world councils were held, to which the candidates were called, and the most fitted were sent forward to a central council, where the final choice was made; and so it fell out in the end that I, Earani, was thought worthy of the great honour. Why? Fate, I think; for amongst so many there would be but small difference."

      "Earani–tell us," broke in Barry. "You say there were three great spheres. The others–what of them?"

      She rose to her feet and walked to the keyboard that had been her first thought on the day she had awakened. Turning, she faced them. "The master builders who contrived this work left nothing to chance, This keyboard is in everlasting connection with those in the other two. Only absolute destruction could break the tie. Listen!" Her fingers moved swiftly on one section of the board. Then she stood still watching them. No sound broke the silence. After a moment she spoke. "There is no answer to that call, and so I know that one has failed to stand the strain of the wrecked world." Again her hands fell on the keys, and this time a deep clear note of a bell answered her touch. "You hear," she cried. "So Andax lives and waits for his release."

      Dundas and Barry looked at her in silence. The news of the existence of a second sphere affected them both deeply, but in different ways. To Barry, the news that another being of the type of Earani could be brought to reinforce her, increased the feeling of uneasiness that had already gained hold of him. Alan, however, saw in the news only a threat against his love for Earani. "What," he thought, "would happen were a man of her race to appear on the scene?" Surely he would be her fitting mate in every way? "What chance would he have against such a rival?" The thought sent a feeling of blind jealous rage through him. It was he who broke the silence. "Tell me, Earani–this Andax you speak of. Is it the name of a man or woman of your race?"

      Earani left the keyboard and walked towards them. "Andax," she said thoughtfully, as she paused before them. "Well, Andax is a man." She looked from one to the other and smiled. "He is a man, too, who would be difficult perhaps for you to understand without knowing him." She sank into СКАЧАТЬ