core of a dwarf star, or speeds such as we have never observed within the
system. It’s conceivable but a farfetched explanation.”
He turned to King. “Doctor, does anything occur to you that might account
for a phenomenon like Tycho?”
The Superintendent grasped the arms of his chair, then glanced at his
palms. He fumbled for a handkerchief, and wiped them. “Go ahead,” he said,
almost inaudibly.
“Very well then.” Harrington drew out of his briefcase a large photograph
of the Moon — a beautiful full-Moon portrait made at Lick. “I want you to
imagine the Moon as she might have been sometime in the past. The dark
areas we call the ‘seas’ are actual oceans. It has an atmosphere, perhaps a
heavier gas than oxygen and nitrogen, but an active gas, capable of
supporting some conceivable form of life.
“For this is an inhabited planet, inhabited by intelligent beings, beings
capable of discovering atomic power and exploiting it!”
He pointed out on the photograph, near the southern limb, the lime-white
circle of Tycho, with its shining, incredible, thousand-mile-long rays
spreading, thrusting, jutting out from it. “Here . . . here at Tycho was
located their main power plant.” He moved his fingers to a point near the
equator and somewhat east of meridian — the point where three great dark
areas merged, Mare Nubium, Mare Imbrium, Oceanus Procellarun — and picked
out two bright splotches surrounded, also, by rays, but shorter, less
distinct, and wavy. “And here at Copernicus and at Kepler, on islands at
the middle of a great ocean, were secondary power stations.”
He paused, and interpolated soberly: “Perhaps they knew the danger they
ran, but wanted power so badly that they were willing to gamble the life of
their race. Perhaps they were ignorant of the ruinous possibilities of
their little machines, or perhaps their mathematicians assured them that it
could not happen.
“But we will never know — no one can ever know. For it blew up and killed
them — and it killed their planet.
“It whisked off the gassy envelope and blew it into outer space. It blasted
great chunks off the planet’s crust. Perhaps some of that escaped
completely, too, but all that did not reach the speed of escape fell back
down in time and splashed great ring-shaped craters in the land.
“The oceans cushioned the shock; only the more massive fragments formed
craters through the water. Perhaps some life still remained in those ocean
depths. If so, it was doomed to die — for the water, unprotected by
atmospheric pressure, could not remain liquid and must inevitably escape in
time to outer space. Its life-blood drained away. The planet was dead —
dead by suicide!”
He met the grave eyes of his two silent listeners with an expression almost
of appeal. “Gentlemen . . . this is only a theory, I realize . . . only a
theory, a dream, a nightmare . . . but it has kept me awake so many nights
that I had to come tell you about it, and see if you saw it the same way I
do. As for the mechanics of it, it’s all in there in my notes. You can
check it — and I pray that you find some error! But it is the only lunar
theory I have examined which included all of the known data and accounted
for all of them.”
He appeared to have finished. Lentz spoke up. “Suppose, Captain, suppose we
check your mathematics and find no flaw — what then?”
Harrington flung out his hands. “That’s what I came here to find out!”
Although Lentz had asked the question, Harrington directed the appeal to
King. The Superintendent looked up; his eyes met the astronomer’s, wavered
and dropped again. “There’s nothing to be done,” he said dully, “nothing at
all.”
Harrington stared at him in open amazement. “But good God, man!” he burst
out. “Don’t you see it? That bomb has got to be disassembled — at once!”
“Take it easy, Captain.” Lentz’s calm voice was a spray of cold water. “And
don’t be too harsh on poor King — this worries him even more than it does