World Beneath Ice. John Russell Fearn
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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 of ten powerful men together with a beauty never seen in a normal woman. And ageless life! Long has she boasted that she will live at least 500 years. When last seen eighteen months ago she looked only twenty-five.”
“This is purely a recital of known facts,” the president commented.
“Mr. President, I am refreshing the memory of those who forget this woman’s real upbringing. When she became a woman, the wonder girl’s staggering strength and mental power made her attempt the conquest of Britain as a prelude to mastering the world. She might have succeeded, but at the last moment she was apparently persuaded to turn over a new leaf by her natural mother.
“Instead of conquest, she gave us valuable scientific secrets—such as safe atomic power using copper instead of dangerous radioactive material. This led to the mastery of space and the colonisation of other worlds. But this woman is not a natural person! Alone of her kind, she hates humanity! She has said so time and again. Therefore, what more natural that when she had the chance, she should try and destroy us all?”
“You mean that you think she is the cause of this solar disaster?” the president asked, puzzled.
“There’s no doubt about it! Ask Dr. Blandish. If she had not flung that alien armada into the sun, it would have been as normal as ever today. I insist that she did it knowing what the later effect would be. Unable to conquer us by her own methods, she has used cosmic means to do it. Probably, even now, she is somewhere in space, listening and laughing at our discomfiture.”
“That’s a lie!” Ethel cried, leaping up with flaming cheeks beside her father. “You’ve no right to accuse my Aunt Vi like that!”
“She is not your aunt, Miss Wilson,” Torrington corrected, with a cynical smile. “However, I assume you call her such purely as a term of endearment.”
“Never mind what I call her! There isn’t a word of truth in your statement— Stop tugging at me, dad!” Ethel broke off angrily. “I’m going to have my say! Listen, all of you. I know Miss Brant better than any of you. I’ve been with her during her exploration of other worlds. She has saved my life many times, and all of yours, and not taken a scrap of credit. How dare you say she’s trying to destroy us?”
The metal king said: “Miss Brant is not a normal woman with feminine sentiments, but a scientific machine utterly pitiless in her methods. If she is not waiting to let us die in the midst of this solar catastrophe, why doesn’t she come forward in our hour of dire need?”
“There must be a good reason,” Ethel retorted.
“Yes, indeed!” Torrington agreed.
“Sit down, Rosy!” Chris urged.
“I’ll not have Aunt Vi’s name blackened in her absence. If she were here herself, Mr. Torrington wouldn’t dare say such things.”
“If she were here there’d be no need,” Torrington observed. He turned to face the president again.
“Mr. President, unless the Amazon returns and explains her conduct satisfactorily, it is the opinion of myself and my colleagues that she should be put under technical arrest. That is, should she ever be found, she must be brought to trial to explain why she has remained absent and deprived us of her scientific skill. She is a servant of the public, and knows it.”
“You mean she should be brought to the bar of the Tribunal of Justice?” the president asked.
“I do. I am prepared to admit that in many ways, she has helped us in the past, but deep down she has always been a menace—and I remain unshaken in my belief that she only threw that alien armada into the sun because she knew it would destroy the sun and us. She stands today in our eyes as the greatest scientific criminal in history.”
Torrington did not stop here. His speech obviously had been prepared in consultation with the higher-ups in world affairs, and so skillfully did he emphasize his points that at the finish there did not appear to be a single redeeming feature in the character of the mysteriously absent Amazon.
“Very well,” the president agreed. “Should Miss Brant return, she will be put under arrest and made to explain her actions in court. Now, we must turn to the vital matter at issue. How do we save ourselves from this disaster?”
“We must go underground,” Dr. Blandish answered. “I am not an engineer, but I understand from Mr. Torrington and others that the problem of tunnelling below the earth and installing vast underground habitats filled with every modern necessity is not beyond possibility. If we do not do this, we shall die in the frozen wastes that are inevitably coming. Travelling to other worlds in the system will not help us, either, since they rely on the same sun.”
Torrington got on his feet again. “This, Mr. President, is surely a matter to be settled in a more personal atmosphere? I have around me the men who can build the shelters, arrange the food distribution, control the transport.... It will mean that every living being must be indexed, and all available space must be mapped out—”
Chris Wilson and Ethel did not wait to hear anymore. They went out silently from the hall, and Ethel asked: “Do you scent a deliberate plot, dad?”
Chris nodded