Читать книгу Fool's Paradise - John Russell Fearn - Страница 6

CHAPTER ONE

Thayleen West lowered her slender white hands from the piano keyboard and smiled to herself. She was satisfied with her music, herself, and her home. She had world fame as a concert pianist, and she had Kenyon, her husband—

She turned as he entered the room. It was late afternoon. The room was full of golden hues and soft, blurry shadows. Outside, through the french windows, the well-kept garden drooped in saturating August heat.

“That was wonderful, Thay!” Kenyon came hurrying forward and caught the girl’s hands in his own. He was a lanky, genial soul, an engineer and a materialist, yet it did not make him an intolerable husband. Materialism and artistry could—and did—go hand-in-hand.

“A change for us to be together,” Ken continued, putting an arm round the girl’s shoulders. “If only all Sundays were like this!”

“They will be, after this year,” Thayleen said.

Ken smiled to himself and strolled to the open windows. He gazed out on the sunlight. His keen grey eves followed the flight of a bird as it cavorted gaily in sombre blue heaven.

“You said that last year, Thay,” he reminded her. “And the year before that. By all means go on playing to the world, but—sometimes—”

Thayleen rose. She was only five feet tall, slender as a willow. With wraith-like silence she crossed to where her husband stood. Her dark head with its piled-up curls just reached his shoulder.

“Sometimes—what?” she questioned.

“Nothing, dear. Just thinking.…”

Ken smiled down on her good-humouredly. His boyish appearance, which his tousled blond hair and plain good-natured face did little to belie, had no relationship to his mind. Machines—buildings—bridges—liners—power-houses—jet planes. He was always thinking about them, or else Thayleen—or the future.

“Nothing?” Thayleen repeated, surprised.

“Well, I’m wondering where we’re going to finish up.”

“What a thought!” Thayleen laughed.

“A serious one, though. We’ve been married two years and seen each other about five times. You’re in New York, London, Paris, all over the place. I make love to your televised image, I listen to you over the radio. It’s like having a synthetic wife!”

“Not altogether,” Thayleen said quietly. “A synthetic wife couldn’t—couldn’t add one more to the family, could she?”

Ken did not immediately grasp the point. When he did, he swung round to meet Thayleen’s dark eyes with the sunlight glancing through them.

“Thay—you mean—?” He stopped and gripped her arms.

“Yes. In the autumn. Four more concerts and then I’ll retire to attend to other things.”

“Lord!” Ken looked confused. “Have—you told anybody else?”

“Not yet.”

“Then I’m going to. Particularly Anton.”

Thayleen gave a serious glance. “And be rewarded with the observation that a biological function is about to take place? Ken, dear, why waste your time? Anton’s a brilliant chap, I know, but so utterly cold-blooded.”

“Only because he’s a scientist. I’ve got to tell him!”

“As you will,” Thayleen shrugged.

Ken lost himself in speculations for a moment. Thayleen glanced up as the sun became veiled by a passing cloud. It was surprising how dark it seemed to make the countryside, which for many weeks had been drenched in pitiless heat. Strange, too, for the British Isles, which had usually managed to ruin its summer with rain. Now everybody was crying out for it. Prayers in the churches, cattle nosing into iron-hard waterholes; crops yellow before their time; farmers rubbing the backs of their leathery necks and gazing up into a brazen vault from which all moisture seemed to have evaporated. It seemed that throughout the Western hemisphere one vast anticyclone existed. The summer had, so far, been the hottest in history.

Not that Kenyon West minded. He was not thinking of the present, but of the future—of the son or daughter yet to come.

The cloud passed. The sunlight flooded down on the world again. At the far end of the garden the trees wilted, aching, as though they found it beyond them to stand up straight in the bone-dry soil.…

* * * * * * *

On the following day, the commencement of a new week, Thayleen departed for the Continent and a further round of concert tours. Ken for his part was thankful for a mountain of work to keep his mind occupied. As Chief Engineer of the immense Mid-England Steel and Iron Combine, he had plenty to do. Upon him, at the moment, rested the responsibility for the cutting of a subsidiary bore to the existing Channel Tunnel, making it possible for more traffic to be handled to and from the Continent.

Even so, he took the opportunity one evening to visit Anton Drew, his friend from college days and now the head of Bland’s Enterprises—which controlled the output of all the world’s rare drugs, medicines, chemicals, and atomic and plastic byproducts.

Ken first tried Drew’s Surbiton apartment, and then realised he should have had more sense. Drew was a bachelor who spent every waking hour at some scientific pursuit or other—and there was no better place for this than the replete scientific laboratories where he worked. Outside interests never attracted him in the least.

Sure enough, Ken found him in the remoter parts of the Bland laboratories, to which quarter he was directed by a night watchman, the normal staff having long since departed. Their interest in things scientific always evaporated at six o’clock.

Not so Anton Drew. He regarded scientific pursuits as a mother does the development of her child. More often than not he even forgot to collect his salary cheque; even more often did he forget he needed a clean overall.

When Ken came upon him, he was in the big solar observatory maintained by Bland Enterprises for the sole purpose of manufacturing solar scale maps for the world’s observatories, and cross-checking much astronomical data. In a word, the commercial genius of Mortimer Bland had turned science to account in the matter of money. He held the rights on nearly every scientific product, but it was the brains of Anton Drew that made the whole complicated scheme workable.

“So here you are!” Ken exclaimed cordially, advancing with hand extended.

Anton Drew did not answer. He was seated at a desk near the giant reflector, busy studying a sheet of figures. A short briar crackled in his mouth; his untidy brown hair was flung back in confusion from his wide forehead. With a smile Ken noticed that the collar of the scientist’s overall was half up and half down. For the rest he could only see the slim, wiry shoulders, hooked nose, jutting chin, and unusually large mouth.

Then Drew looked up, and after gazing absently with pale blue eyes for nearly thirty seconds, he seemed to awaken.

“Hello,” he greeted, and remained thoughtful.

Ken sat down, not in the least offended. That three weeks had passed since he had last seen Drew did not signify. Drew always talked as though there had been no gap in conversation.

“Busy?” Ken ventured.

“Eh? Oh, busy? Yes, of course I’m busy!” Drew brooded, allowed his pipe to go out, then brooded again. “Very busy,” he resumed at last. “It’s this unusual weather.”

“Unusual—but glorious,” Ken smiled.

“Calm before the storm,” Drew muttered, and got to his feet.

He was only small, spare as a youth, certainly not looking his forty-eight years.

“You mean thunder?” Ken asked, puzzled. “Well, I suppose it will break up in that. So what?”

Drew gave an odd glance, somehow mystifying. He made another effort to light his pipe. Propping himself against the massive eyepiece of the reflector, he scowled pensively.

“I thought you’d like to know, Anton, that Thayleen’s expecting a youngster in the autumn,” Ken hurried on. “I’ve been holding it back. Bit of a surprise, eh?”

Drew gazed into distance. “It must be the beginning of the hundred-year cycle,” he said.

“What is?” Ken looked blank. “Dammit, man, listen! I said Thayleen is expecting a baby.”

“She is?” Drew smiled briefly. “Good! Fine! Normal enough for a married couple, isn’t it? Simple biological function— Er, where was I?”

“At the beginning of a hundred-year cycle,” Ken answered sourly. “And thanks for the congratulations!”

Drew came to life for a moment. With an apologetic grin he lounged forward.

“Sorry, old man—really I am.” He clapped Ken on the shoulder. “I’ve been so absorbed in this sunspot business I haven’t been able to think of much else. Of course I congratulate you, and Thayleen too. Don’t spoil the.…”

He sucked at his pipe and continued, “This weather has something to do with sunspots. I don’t quite know what. It is rather like a man who is about to die suddenly finding himself healthier than he has ever been before. Just as though Earth, about to die, is enjoying all the calmness preceding the hell to come.”

“What are you rambling about?” Ken demanded. Drew turned to the desk and raised six photographic plates. He handed them over and, as he looked at them Ken recognised spectro-heliograph records of the sun.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Drew said. “Study them.”

“Mmmm—sunspots,” Ken said finally. “About a dozen of them, big and small. How far does that get us?”

“They are getting bigger,” Drew said. “If you’ll look carefully, you’ll find the first plates were taken eight weeks ago. There are six plates there, taken at different times. First we see two spots—one big and one small. Then, as the weeks progress, they become more numerous; until on this last plate you will find them splotching away from the solar equator down towards its poles. That has never happened before in the sun’s history.”

“I’m a bit hazy about this,” Ken said, “but shouldn’t an outburst of spots like this cause magnetic storms?”

“It should, but we don’t happen to have had any in our part of the world. Sunspots are queer phenomena. Sometimes they violently upset the weather conditions and electrical equipment; at other times they create anticyclone conditions, and calm, burning weather such as we have been experiencing lately. What is somewhat terrifying—to me anyway—is that we are at one start of a hundred-year-period of sunspots. This sunspot spread may continue indefinitely.”

Ken ventured a suggestion. “With a consequent dimming of the sun, due to so much of his face being caverned with spots? Is that it?”

Drew took the plates back and relit his pipe.

“There will be a decrease in light, yes, but that isn’t what is worrying me. It is the appalling danger to Earth’s magnetic field! The Earth is a magnet, you know, and like any other magnet is surrounded by a magnetic field. If you want proof of it, look at the compass needle revealing the lines of force between the two poles.”

“High school stuff,” Ken said. “What about it?”

“That magnetic field, Ken, is our protection against appalling disaster! If it were to break down, the consequences would be terrible, and it is because the possibility exists that I am so worried. As yet I cannot seem to get all the astronomers to worry with me, but they will as the spots multiply. The more the sunspots increase, the greater becomes the danger of the magnetic field collapsing.”

Ken gave a half-smile, and then it faded. Knowing Drew as he did, knowing his profound scientific knowledge and that he only concerned himself with facts, it was disturbing to find him so uneasy. He never worried without good reason.

“Sunspots go in cycles,” Drew, explained. “Highs and lows return in approximately eleven years—but there are other variations in their regularity which are the outcome of another independent cycle of more than a century’s duration. Up to now, the highs of the eleven-year and the hundred-year cycles have never matched, though astronomers have known for long enough it must do so about a year hence. It means the absolute maximum of sunspot activity, an activity never known in the history of the world. With those high cycles working together, and at maximum, our magnetic field might collapse!”

Ken cast a glance towards the window. There was a rectangle of evening sky with a star gleaming between the sides of lofty buildings. The extraordinary peace made it hard for him to believe.…

“Frankly, Anton,” he said, after a moment, “I’m hazy about what the magnetic field does. I’m an engineer, not an astronomer.”

“The magnetic field,” Drew said, “is our only protection against cosmic rays. It is so strong that only cosmic rays of energy greater than 200-million electron volts can penetrate it, but when these do penetrate, things happen. You find two-headed chickens, double-fingered children, five-legged calves—all kinds of monstrosities. Why? Because the parental germ plasm has been accidentally struck by cosmic radiation which has completely distorted it, with the result that a freak is born.…”

Drew took his pipe from his teeth and contemplated it.

“Under present conditions, Ken, with the magnetic field doing its normal job, the chances of a hit by cosmic rays are infinitely remote, but the cases I have instanced show it does happen every now and again. Roughly speaking, the cosmic rays aim thirty shots at every living body every second, and each body has something like a thousand trillion trillion atoms. But consider these atoms, as apart as island universes, each with their planetary electrons separated from the nucleus by distances proportionate to those between members of the Solar System— Then we see why a direct hit is unlikely. The cosmic radiation projectiles, as we might call them, go straight through empty space.

“Consider, though, the effect if the field were only partially weakened. Eight hundred million billion cosmic rays strike Earth every second with a thousand times the voltage of lightning. Imagine even a part of that inconceivable energy raining down upon us, upon everything. Life as we would know it would cease. The most incredible changes would occur. It would be…the end of the world.”

“Not very cheering,” Ken muttered, “but I don’t see the connection between the magnetic field and sunspots, though. How do they affect each other?”

“The atomic storms of the sun—sunspots—are responsible for its own magnetic field,” Drew answered. “The stronger the solar field becomes, the weaker becomes the Earth’s. That is elementary law. Hence, a vast number of sunspots will enormously increase the sun’s potential, and correspondingly lower Earth’s field. We may survive this hundred-year-cycle of spots with nothing worse than violent magnetic storms, which are bound to develop before long; or we may have something much worse to contend with if the spots continue to increase.”

Ken got to his feet.

“How long have you known of this possibility?” he asked.

“Does it signify?”

“Of course it does! Isn’t it time the authorities were told about it?”

“No use,” Drew answered, shrugging. “Even most of the astronomers think I’m a scaremonger, so you can imagine the reaction of the Government!”

“I can’t see why reputable astronomers refuse to listen to you.”

“I’ll tell you why.” Drew’s face became grim. “They just haven’t the imagination to hurdle the gap between the obvious and the possible. Astronomy, to them, is just routine. They fail to realise that these sunspots, unchecked, might cause catastrophe. In any case, if the Governments of the world were told, think of the panic! The population of Earth would look like an overturned anthill.”

“I suppose,” Ken said, after a troubled interval, “it is rather foolish to plan for the future? As things are?”

“I suppose it is,” Drew agreed, musing.

Silence.

“Well, I don’t believe it!” Ken declared at last. “It isn’t that I doubt you: it’s just that I can’t credit the human race being blotted out. Look at the things we have achieved. Destruction would just knock the bottom out of all reason for living!”

“I take a dim view of humanity myself,” Drew sighed. “Here we are in the twenty-first century, still so absorbed in thinking up ways of killing each other we still haven’t mastered some of the more virulent diseases, or how to properly feed everyone on the planet. To my mind, humanity deserves to be blotted out.”

“Anton—do you think I should tell Thayleen of your theory?”

“Why worry the poor girl?” Drew gave a shrug. “If she thinks the world is coming to an end, her musical gifts may go to pot. Why bother upsetting her? She’ll know soon enough when the news can’t be suppressed anymore.”

Ken gave an uneasy smile. “I came here to tell you I expect to be a father, and you hand me the end of the world! We certainly cover the ground, don’t we?”

“Yes. Like you, there is much I wanted to do.”

“Wanted?” Ken repeated. “That sounds as though you regard the end as inevitable, and not just a possibility.”

“I have been trying to let you down lightly,” Drew admitted quietly. “Perhaps that wasn’t very sensible, since you are anything but a weakling. Beyond a shadow of doubt, Ken, the end of the world is coming, because it is scientifically impossible to escape it.”

“But you hinted at a doubt—!”

“I’d have let you go away thinking that, only my past tense a moment ago tripped me up. Listen, Ken, the naked facts are these: sunspots are constantly increasing, and we are only at the start of a hundred-year-cycle in which is incorporated the normal eleven-year cycle. The spots cannot possibly get less for the next hundred years! A century, man! Whether they will destroy the sun as they progress, I don’t know, though I imagine his collapse into a white dwarf is possible; but long before that happens, this world of ours will have become the target for the full blast of cosmic rays, and we ourselves will only be memories.”

“It sounds defeatist,” Ken said. “There are plenty of brilliant scientists in the world, you amongst them. Knowing what is coming, can’t something be done to avert it?”

“As far as I can see, no—though some worthwhile notions might emerge when all the scientists of the world get together to fight the problem. It seems to me that we are unprotected against naked cosmic power, and no science of our devising can master it. All we can do is try and protect ourselves, hang on to a battered shell of the world in the hope that we may survive.”

Ken was silent. For a long time he looked at the bench without seeing it.

“I shall not tell Thayleen,” he said at last.

“I shouldn’t. Let her enjoy what’s left of her life.”

“But not to be able to plan for the future! To know that one cannot see beyond a few months—! I just can’t grasp it!”

“It takes time,” Drew admitted. “But there it is.”

Ken did not afterwards remember shaking hands or saying goodbye. He came out into the calm summer evening and contemplated it. Deep down, he wondered if for once in his brilliant career Anton Drew had not made a mistake.