Spawn of the Comet Read online

withchemicals, sprayed with machine-gun ballets, the fiery termites surgedon unchecked, in ever-widening circles of death.

  Lead and steel passed through them harmlessly. Gas wafted off themlike air. Despite the frantic efforts of scientists and military men,nothing could be devised to stem that all-devouring orange tide.

  It was quite obvious by now, even to the most conservative minds, thatthe end of human life on earth was not far off. It could only be a fewmore weeks before the last stronghold fell. Daily, hourly, thosedeadly Fire Ants were everywhere expanding their fields of operations.Presently all humanity would be driven to the seacoasts, there toperish by fire or water, as they chose.

  There were some optimists, of course, who believed that the miraclewould happen--that Professor Wentworth or some other scientist woulddevise some means of repelling the invader before it was too late.

  Young Jim Carter of _The York Press_ was not among them, however,though he would have gambled it would be Professor Wentworth ifanyone. For what hope was there that any mere man could figure out aweapon that would be effective against such a deadly, such asuperhuman foe?

  Very little, it seemed, and he grew less and less sanguine, as hecontinued his frenzied, sleepless work of reporting the unendingcatastrophes for his paper.

  He often thought bitterly of that ten thousand dollars. A lot of goodthat would do him now!

  As for Joan, she faced her fate with fortitude--fortitude and asupreme faith that her father would succeed in analyzing that sinisterorange vapor and find the weapon the world waited for.

  But agonizing days passed and he did not find it.

  Then at last, on the night of August 14th, when Los Angeles and SanFrancisco were smoldering infernos, along with Reno, Denver, Omaha, ElPaso and a score of other great American cities; when Buenos Aires andSantiago were gone, Berlin and Peking and Cairo; when Australia wasall one fiery hell--then it was that Professor Wentworth summoned JimCarter to Hartford.

  * * * * *

  Hoping against hope, he hurried over.

  Once again, Joan ushered him into the house. She was very pale and didnot speak.

  At her side stood her father. It was he who spoke.

  "Good evening, Jim. You have come promptly."

  His voice was strained, his face grave. He had aged greatly in thepast few weeks.

  "Well I'll admit I clipped along. You've--found something?"

  Professor Wentworth smiled wanly.

  "Suppose you step into my study and see what I have found."

  He led the way toward the little makeshift laboratory that for manydays and nights had been the scene of his efforts.

  It was littered with strange devices now, strangest of all perhaps ahuge glass tube like a cannon, mounted on some sort of swivel base.

  Ignoring this for the moment, he turned to a smaller tube set uprighton a table at the far end of the room. In it, glowed a sinister orangelump that made the whole tube fluorescent.

  "Behold one of your monsters in captivity!" said the professor, againwith a wan smile. "In miniature, of course. What I have done is tocondense some of that vapor into a solid."

  The process, he explained, was similar to that employed by MadameCurie in obtaining metallic radium--electrolyzing a radium chloridesolution with mercury as a cathode, then driving off the mercury byheat in a current of hydrogen--only he had used the new elementinstead of radium.

  "Incidentally, I have learned that this new element is far moreradioactive than radium and possesses many curious properties. Amongthem, it decomposes violently in water--particularly saltwater--producing harmless hydrogen and chloride compounds. So we havenothing to fear from those seeds that fell in our oceans, lakes andrivers."

  "Well, that's something, anyway," said Jim. "But have you found anyway to combat the ones that have already hatched?"

  "Before I answer that question," Professor Wentworth replied, "I shalllet you witness a little demonstration."

  He advanced to the cannon-like device at the other end of the room,swung it on its swivel till it was pointing directly at thatfluorescent orange tube on the table.

  "Watch closely!" he said, throwing a switch.

  There was a sudden, whining hum in the air and the nib of the big tubeglowed a soft, velvety green. Jim gazed at the scene with raptattention.

  "Don't look at that one!" whispered Joan. "Look at the other!"

  Jim did so, and saw that its fluorescence was waning.

  A moment more the professor held the current on, while the tube grewwhite. Then he threw off the switch.

  "Now let us have a look at our captive," he said, striding over.

  They followed, and one glance told Jim what had happened. Thatsinister lump of orange metal had vanished.

  * * * * *

  But where was it? That was what he wanted to know.

  "A natural question, but not one easy to answer," was ProfessorWentworth's reply. "I shall tell you what I have done; then you mayjudge for yourself."

  The cannon-like device which had accompanied the seeming miracle wasan adaptation of the cathode tube, whose rays are identical with thebeta rays of the atom and consist of a stream of negatively chargedparticles moving at the velocity of light--186,000 miles a second.These rays, in theory, have the power to combine with the positivelycharged alpha rays of the atom and drag them from their electrons,causing them to discharge their full quanta of energy at once, in theform of complete disintegration--and it was this theory the professorhad acted on.

  "But, good Lord--that's splitting the atom!" exclaimed Jim. "You don'tmean to say you've done that?"

  "I apparently have," was the grave admission. "But do not let it seemsuch a miracle. Bear in mind, as I have pointed out before, thatnature has accomplished this alchemy many times. All radio-activeelements are evidences of it. The feat consists merely in altering thevalence of the atom, changing its electric charge, in other words.What I have done in the present instance is merely to speed up aprocess nature already had under way, inasmuch as we are dealing witha radio-active substance."

  "But what has happened to the by-product of the reaction?"

  "Your guess is as good as mine. I have not had time to study thatphase of it. Heat, mainly, was produced. Possibly a few atoms ofhelium. But the substance is gone. That is our chief concern justnow."

  It was only after abandoning chemical means and turning to physicsthat he had met with success, he said. Cathode rays had finally provedthe key to the riddle.

  "But do you think this thing will work on a big scale?" asked Jimregarding that fragile tube doubtfully.

  Professor Wentworth hesitated before replying.

  "I do not know," he admitted, "but I intend to find out--to-night."

  * * * * *

  Jim looked at him in amazement. "To-night?"

  "Yes. Or rather, the experiment will be at dawn. If successful, thiscontinent at least will be rid of the menace."

  Jim's amazement turned to incredulity and a sudden fear gripped him.Had the strain of the past few weeks unbalanced the professor's mind?

  "But surely you can't hope to wipe them out with one tube. Why, itwould take hundreds."

  "No, only one. You see, I am going to place the tube in the center ofthe circle and direct its rays outward toward the circumference in aswinging radius."

  Whereupon, for a moment, Jim's fear seemed confirmed.

  "But, good God!" he exclaimed. "It couldn't possibly be that powerful,could it?"

  "I think it can be made to be," was Professor Wentworth's graveassurance. "The greatest power we know in the universe is radiantenergy, which reaches us from the sun and the stars, traveling at thespeed of light."

  "Like light rays, these heat rays can be focused, directed; and thebeta rays of the cathode, traveling at the same velocity, can be madeto ride these rays of radiant heat much as electric power rides radiowaves. The giant, in short, can be made, to carry
the dwarf, with hisdeadly little weapon. That, at least, is the theory I am acting on."

  This somewhat allayed Jim's fears--fears that vanished when theprofessor went on to explain somewhat the working of his mechanism.

  "But how are you going to get the thing out there?" he asked,picturing with a shudder the center of the flaming hell.

  "I imagine the War Department will provide me with a volunteer planeand pilot for the purpose," was the calm reply.

  "And you will go?"

  "Yes, I will go."

  Jim debated, but not for long.

  "Well, you needn't trouble the War Department. Here's your volunteerpilot! The plane's outside. When do we start?"

  "But, my dear young man!" objected the professor. "I cannot permit youto make this sacrifice. It is