World Beneath Ice. John Russell Fearn

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СКАЧАТЬ the sun we didn’t even need the screens up during our voyage. His light’s feeble, and his heat enormously decreased. Then there are those terrific dark marks all over him. What’s happened, dad? Are we running into a spatial glacial epoch or something?”

      “I’ve heard reports,” Chris Wilson answered slowly, “to the effect that the sun is dying. All things die, even suns—but this has happened millions of years before science expected it.”

      Ethel reflected. She did not appear frightened, as indeed she was not. She had been in too many tight comers to be easily scared.

      “I sort of suspected something like that,” she said at last. “Í thought first-hand information on how space looks, and the conditions on Mars, might help you and Aunt Vi. Naturally she is going to try to do something?”

      His daughter’s unswerving loyalty to the Golden Amazon—whom she called her Aunt Vi—was something which always made Chris Wilson smile.

      “I don’t doubt your Aunt Vi would do something if she were available,” Chris Wilson replied, “but she isn’t—and I can’t locate her. For the past eighteen months she’s been missing—about the same length of time you’ve been away.”

      “But she’s got to be found,” Ethel said. “The Earth is in danger of extinction—and in fact the whole solar system is if the sun should die. We can’t fight a thing so vast by ourselves. Our science isn’t up to it.”

      Chris Wilson said nothing. There was nothing he could say. He and the Golden Amazon were friends—nothing more—and that only in the line of business. The Golden Amazon had no real affection for anybody, unless it were for Ethel. Risking the Amazon’s anger in an attempt to locate her was more than Chris Wilson dared do.

      Ethel resumed. “She hadn’t returned from space before I left for Mars, to stay with the Kerrigans—”

      “She never did come back—at least as far as I know. In her last message from space—before static swamped it—she was about to express her concern about something. I haven’t seen her since—eighteen months ago.”

      “Surely, before things get really bad, she’ll turn up and help us?”

      “I sincerely hope so.”

      “If Aunt Vi doesn’t come back, what is going to be done?”

      “I don’t know. Man always survives. We might go underground. The World Council is meeting tomorrow to make a statement. I’ve made private plans. We’re giving up our London residence and going to Brazil. There’s still warmth there, enough to keep us comfortable for maybe a year. England is becoming impossible to live in these days.”

      Ethel had no particular wish to go to Brazil. Her father had maintained a residence there for some years, chiefly for the use of the Amazon when she required it, for her researches often took her to the tropics. But the place was lonely, miles from anywhere, on the very edge of the trackless forest.

      She said: “I hope nothing’s happened to Aunt Vi. She takes such fantastic risks sometimes. What can she be doing, I wonder?”

      Her father reached for his coat. “No use conjecturing, I’m afraid. Let’s get along and give your mother a pleasant surprise. She’s aching to have you back home. Tomorrow we’ll see what the Council has to say. I have to attend it. You might as well come too.”

      * * * *

      On the following day there was little change in the weather.

      The sky was grey, the wind biting, the daylight dim. Chris Wilson and Ethel found their car held up at times by traffic blocks and snowdrifts as they were driven to the World Council meeting in the centre of the city; then upon entering the great edifice, they partly forgot the external discomfort in the midst of the light and warmth which greeted them.

      In the assembly hall, its huge cupola of roof lined with batteries of cameras and television transmitters, were gathered delegates from every land, all of them members of the World Council, the elected body of the people of Earth whose duty it was to rule, extending the same justice and protection to all races and creeds.

      Chris Wilson took his place, Ethel beside him, and waited. He recognized scientists, engineers, commercial giants, astronomers—every type and profession. Then he turned his attention to the rostrum as President Vancourt, head of the World Council, rose to speak.

      “My friends....” His voice was steady but filled with a definite air of sombreness. “We are here today to listen to a statement by Dr. Blandish, our chief astronomer—a statement of such profound significance that I beg you to listen to every word without interruption. It concerns the strange condition of the sun. Dr. Blandish will explain what has happened, and the conditions which must be expected in the near future.”

      The president sat down and Dr. Blandish rose. In essence his address covered in detail the facts he had given Morris Arnside. When he finished, a murmur went over the gathering. Then Brice Torrington got up.

      “Dr. Standish, the information you have given us is appalling to the last degree. In your opinion, how long have we before the sun becomes extinct?”

      “At the most, two years. Maybe less.”

      “And at the end of that period?”

      “I foresee nothing but a frozen planet from which all life has been driven—probably underground. The seas and the air will freeze, to later escape into the vacuum of interstellar space. The light of the sun will be equal to that of a full moon, and its heat no greater.”

      “And is there no scientific way in which the sun can be revived before it finally becomes a white dwarf?” the president asked anxiously.

      “No way that we know of, Mr. President,” said Blandish. “I had hoped that there might have been present among us one person who could perhaps have helped us. I mean Miss Brant—or, as she is more popularly called—the Golden Amazon. Her science alone might be of an order to restore the sun, but I have tried for many months to get in touch with her without success. Doesn’t anybody know where she is?” he implored, spreading his hands. “Mr. Wilson, she is partly a relative of yours, is she not? Have you no idea?”

      Chris Wilson stood up to reply. “She does not tell me or my family any more than she tells anybody eke, doctor. I have not the least idea what has become of her this last eighteen months.”

      “As regards that,” Torrington said, “I have something to say, if I am permitted the floor, Mr. President?”

      “By all means, Mr. Torrington!”

      “I believe,” Torrington said deliberately, “that this superwoman—this scientific creature with the strength of ten men and the scientific skill of a witch—has taken revenge upon us people of Earth and departed to places unknown, perhaps another solar system! From the very outset of her career, her avowed aim has been to control the world. Fifty years ago, at three years of age, she was orphaned, a casualty of an attack on London. Dr. Axton, a surgical genius and idealist who believed that men had made a mess of the world, used her in an illegal experiment. He altered her gland structure, and believed that under his guidance she would grow up into a woman who could blot out war. But Axton was killed soon after his experiment, and she was adopted by the Brant family, the parents of Mr. Wilson’s wife. She grew up alongside the girl whom Mr. Wilson later married. The girl’s altered gland structure gave her the strength СКАЧАТЬ