Fool's Paradise. John Russell Fearn
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stopped suddenly. Bland seized on the silence.
“Proof of what?” he demanded. “And what the hell do you want spectro-plates for? They’ve nothing to do with this organisation, have they?”
“Only on the astronomical side, for the observatories.”
“No observatory has asked for spectro-plates, Drew. I see everything which goes out of this organisation. So what’s the explanation?”
Drew pulled out his pipe and bit into it. “Experimental work and very essential. Concerning the present rash of sunspots.”
Milly folded her rounded arms and gave Bland a glance.
“A man who can spend his time studying sunspots doesn’t seem so indispensable to me,” she remarked sourly. “What have they got to do with the stuff this place turns out?”
“I could explain the whole thing, but the time isn’t ripe for me to do so,” Drew retorted. “All I can say now is that the destruction of those plates has ruined the work of months.”
Bland’s eyes became hard. “Listen to me, Drew. I engaged Miss Morton, and I stand by it; and I’m getting the impression that I’ve been mistaken in you, too. Your job is to supervise the science of this organisation, not study sunspots. I know we check astronomical findings with our observatory apparatus, but that doesn’t mean you can make experiments on your own.”
“If it were not for the fact I’d start a panic, I’d tell you what it’s all about!” Drew snapped.
“Nice of you! All I can see is that you have been using my time and instruments to your own advantage, besides insulting Miss Morton. There’s only one answer to that.”
The shock-haired scientist hesitated, his cold eyes turning to consider Milly’s triumphant face; then without a word he strode from the office and slammed the door behind him. Bland relaxed in his swivel chair with a sigh of relief.
“I wonder if we did right,” Milly mused.
“What?” Bland sat up again.
“I’m wondering about something he said,” Milly continued. “Something about my destroying plates upon which the saving of a world depends. There was something rather frightening about the way he said it. Maybe he should have stayed on to work the thing out.”
“Which world?” Bland asked, puzzled.
“I don’t know. I suppose he meant this one. What other world could there be?”
“Oh, there are others,” Bland assured her, none too certain of himself. “Venus, Mars, and the rest of ’em in the System. But there’s no reason why he should wish to save those, far as I can see.”
Silence. In the presence of Milly, Bland would not admit that Drew had left behind him a curious air of disquiet. Bland knew only too well that Drew was not the kind of man to keep silent about anything scientific unless it were vitally important that he do so—and somehow the saving of a world, and sunspots, had an unpleasant connection.…
CHAPTER THREE
That evening Drew found his concentration in his town apartment interrupted by the arrival of Ken West. The young engineer looked vaguely surprised as he followed Drew’s untidy figure into the small rear room he used as a private laboratory. A single globe depending from its flex cast a bright circle on the bench where the scientist had been working.
“I went to the Bland Edifice,” Ken explained, “but the watchman told me you’d left—for good.”
“Correct,” Drew agreed.
Ken sat down in sheer surprise. “You mean you quit?”
“Yes.” Drew returned to his stool and sat there like a gnome, his eternal pipe smouldering.
“But for why? You, of all people!”
“I left because of a woman—the biggest bungling female ever turned loose in a scientific organization. One of Bland’s spare tyres…,” and Drew added the details briefly.
“That girl must sure be laughing,” Ken muttered.
“Let her—whilst she may. Nobody will laugh much before long, Ken. As for that girl’s ‘victory’, I had either to tell Bland—who doesn’t know the first thing about science—that the world is doomed, and thereby set everybody by the ears; or I had to keep quiet. I decided to keep quiet, or at least until plans can be worked out to control the panic which is bound to follow. Thanks to that girl’s foolery, my proof of sunspot progress is destroyed. That will make it doubly hard for me to convince the authorities.”
“But surely other observatories took similar plates?”
“Routine plates, yes: I’ve checked up on that during today, but not enough to build up the visual story I had worked out. I had no copies because I saw no reason for them. A scatterbrained fool like that Morton woman never occurred to me.”
“It’s about the sunspot business that I came to see you. I still can’t properly believe what you told me last night.”
“Then it’s time you did,” the scientist replied. “Now I have quit Bland’s, I haven’t the apparatus for making studies of the solar disk, but Dick Hensley at Mount Wilson is a good friend of mine, and he’s giving me TV views and reports. The latest report shows the spots are still spreading, and a bolometer reading reveals a distinct drop in critical solar temperature. As temperature drops and spots enlarge, Earth’s magnetic field is correspondingly weakened. At the moment I am trying to calculate when we may expect real disaster.”
Ken glanced at the confusion of equations on the paper on the desk. Then he said, “They have been having electrical storms in Paris, where Thayleen is playing. She phoned me about them today. They seem to have frightened her, too. Queer how we miss them, only across the Channel.”
Drew shrugged. “Just chance. The storms follow electronic tracks, and where they might travel nobody can predict. If they happen to drift this way we’ll get a taste as well—but however violent the storms may be, they will be nothing compared to what will happen if the magnetic field gives way. In fact, Ken, I’d tell Thayleen to cancel her tour and leave Paris. Since it seems to be developing into a storm flashpoint, there’s no telling what may happen.”
“How am I to tell her that without giving the facts?”
“Think up an excuse. I’m just warning you: up to you how you work it out— Excuse me,” Drew broke off, as the visiphone shrilled for attention.
As Drew spoke a man’s face appeared on the tiny screen.
“Glad I caught you, Mr. Drew. I’m Douglas Billington of the Agricultural Board. I tried to contact you at—”
“What’s the trouble?” Drew interrupted.
“Hardly trouble. Rather joyous news as far as I am concerned, only I think an investigation should be made.”
“Of what?”
“The crops in Area 70—and other Areas as well—are unique! Cornstalks eight feet high, and barley bigger than that. It means a bumper harvest, but somehow it doesn’t seem reasonable that the recent sunshine has caused such a bounty. So before cutting begins, we’d like your opinion. Sometimes gargantuan growths are too rank for food.”
“Is there anything else unusual in the growth?” Drew asked, thinking.
“Matter of fact, yes. In that particular area the grass is waist-high and the trees are growing far faster than normal.”
“Area 70 is in Surrey, is it not?” Drew asked, and the image in the scanning screen nodded. “All right, I’ll be over immediately. You’d better have floodlights put up for me.”
He switched off and began tugging at his overall. Ken watched him hurriedly scramble into a coat.
“What’s