Defense versus exodus: The enduring paradox of planetary catastrophe and human survival

“ This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands; ”

“ So, ask the traveled inhabitant of any nation, In what country on earth would you rather live?—Certainly, in my own, where are all my friends, my relations, and the earliest and sweetest affections and recollections of my life. Which would be your second choice? ”

“ Mankind cannot survive forever tied to the cradle of the Earth. In perhaps six billion years our Sun will burn itself out, exhausted of its thermonuclear fuel. But Earth should become uninhabitable long before that. Nuclear war, asteroid collisions, or innumerable other planet-scale disasters could wipe out much of terrestrial life including mankind. The human species remains at risk until humanity extends itself beyond its homeworld. As a young person eventually must leave his parents' home to seek his own path, so must mankind extend its grasp far beyond its ancestral birthplace. ”

“ Once the course was corrected, Rip calculated the position for the final nuclear charge. When the asteroid reached the correct position relative to Earth, the charge would not change its course but only slow its speed somewhat. The asteroid would go around Earth in a series of ever tightening ellipses, using Terra's gravity, plus rocket fuel, to slow it down to orbital speed.
When it reached the proper position, tubes of rocket fuel would change the course again, putting it into an orbit around Earth, close to the space platform. It wasn't practical to take the thorium rock in for a landing. ”

“ Professor Hooker watches the Earth rise as he stands on the Moon!
On the back cover: The destruction of the asteroid; Medusa!
These are just two of the many memorable scenes of fantastic adventure in this thrilling classic of science fiction.
A masterpiece of suspense as a giant asteroid hurtles thru space towards Earth, and man must make his first trip into space to save his planet! ”

“ You are a chosen remnant, and the future of this planet depends upon you.
"I have been fortunate in securing the companionship of men of science who will be able to lead and direct. The ark is fully provisioned for a period which must exceed the probable duration of the flood. I have taken pains not to overcrowd it, and every preparation has been made for any contingencies which may arise.
"It is inexpressibly sad to part thus with the millions of our fellow-beings who would not heed the warnings that were lavished upon them ”

“ I'll have to build an ark. I'll be a second Noah. But I'll advise the whole world to build arks.
"Millions might save themselves that way, for the flood is not going to last forever. We'll get through the nebula in a few months, and then the waters will gradually recede, and the high lands will emerge again. It'll be an awful long time, though; I doubt if the earth will ever be just as it was before. There won't be much room, except for fish—but there won't be many inhabitants for what dry land there is." ”

“ New developments in science and technology frequently have profound religious and philosophical consequences. The observation that, rather than being the center of a rather small universe, the Earth is but a small frail speck of a spacecraft in an unimaginably enormous universe is only just now beginning to be appreciated and woven into the fabric of human religion, philosophy, and culture. The existence of an alien race of beings, as alive as we are, would similarly challenge our old beliefs. We may encounter this alien race either through SETI or through our own technological creation. ”

“ When we come to the perturbations caused by the mutual attractions of the sun, nine planets, twenty moons, one hundred and ninety-two asteroids, millions Page 14 of comets, and innumerable meteoric bodies swarming in space, and when we add to all these, that belong to one solar system, the attractions of all the systems of the other suns that sparkle on a brilliant winter night, we are compelled to say, "As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high above our thoughts and ways must be the thoughts and ways of Him who comprehends and directs them all." ”

“ President, you're gambling with the very existence of life on Earth! If an asteroid forty miles long strikes Earth, it will not only cause the extinction of every life form on the planet, there is every likelihood that it will crack the Earth's crust! There will be no escape! No escape!! Don't you see that we have to cooperate with Zimbardo? It will be easier to meet his challenge once he has turned away the asteroid! ”

“ What would the effect be upon the earth's orbit, its climatic conditions, and its life? What might happen at the worst, the mind of man refused to conjecture. But it was admitted that, beyond peradventure, the best that could be hoped for would be that the asteroid itself might suffer annihilation—in which event, its shattered carcass would lie smothering a thousand miles of the earth's surface, changing the latter's axis and sending it staggering along a new orbit under conditions which might render human life upon the globe impossible. ”

“ That Lick photograph of the Lord Rosse Nebula is its very image, except that there's no electric fire in it. The same great whirl of outer spirals, and then comes the awful central mass—and we're going to plunge straight into it. Then quintillions of tons of water will condense on the earth and cover it like a universal cloudburst. And then good-by to the human race—unless—unless—I, Cosmo Versál, inspired by science, can save a remnant to repeople the planet after the catastrophe. ”

“ The wings of Time are black and white, Pied with morning and with night. Mountain tall and ocean deep Trembling balance duly keep. In changing moon, in tidal wave, Glows the feud of Want and Have. Gauge of more and less through space Electric star and pencil plays. The lonely Earth amid the balls That hurry through the eternal halls, A makeweight flying to the void, Supplemental asteroid, Or compensatory spark, Shoots across the neutral Dark. ”

“ That there is, besides a necessity of cause and effect—which I may call the logic of space—another necessity, an organic necessity in life, that of Destiny—the logic of time—is a fact of the deepest inward certainty, a fact which suffuses the whole of mythological religions and artistic thought and constitutes the essence and kernel of all history (in contradistinction to nature) but is unapproachable through the cognition-forms which the “Critique of Pure Reason” investigates. ”

“ Whole asteroids moved across the distance, and put into orbit around the Earth, so that their mineral wealth could be extracted more conveniently. Space resorts established for tourists; new sports made possible by zero-gravity, invented and advertised. Art Kuzak had the gift of both big dreaming and of practice. He'd talked of such things, before.
Nelsen's smirk was wry. "Dispersal for survival. I agree," he said. "When they tried to settle Mars, it was being mentioned. Also, long before that. Your wisdom is not new, Art. ”

“ Mercury was left far behind, and Earth could not be seen because of the sun. There was nothing to do now but ride out the rest of the trip as comfortably as possible, until it was time to throw the asteroid into a series of ever-tightening elliptical orbits around Earth, known as braking ellipses. The method would use Earth's gravity to slow them down to the proper speed. A single atomic bomb and a half dozen tubes of rocket fuel remained.
Then, as Rip was enjoying the comfort of air during his off-watch hour in the boat compartment, Koa beat an alarm on the door. ”

“ It should give us the power we need, but-but it's clear that it hasn't been activated for thousands of years. There's no way to tell whether it's safe. This is a complicated system. If something is wrong," Mark slowly turned to face Zip, "If something is wrong, if a bolt has slipped into the wrong place, if Zimbardo bypassed a vital circuit somewhere, or if a conduit is stopped up anywhere, all the energy this plant can produce could blow back at us. The entire works could explode into a million pieces." ”

“ But the rest of the world jealously demanded that the United States reap no benefit from the fact. International tension, in fact, rose to a new high.
And Burke and the others laboriously gathered this bit of information and discovered the lack of that. They found incredible devices whose purpose or workings they could not understand. They found every possible evidence of a civilization beside which that of Earth was intolerably backward. But the civilization had abandoned the asteroid. ”

“ Millions upon millions have perished through your obstinate opposition to the truth. They might have saved themselves if they had been permitted to listen to the many times reiterated warnings of Cosmo Versál.
"Oh, if I had only listened to him, and issued a proclamation as he urged me to do! But I followed your advice—you, in whose learning and pretended science I put blind faith! Abiel Pludder, I would not have upon my soul the weight that now rests on yours for all the wealth that the lost world carried down into its watery grave!" ”

“ In consequence of the popular excitement caused by the sensational utterance of a notorious pretender to scientific knowledge in New York, the council of this institution authorizes the statement that it has examined the alleged grounds on which the prediction of a great flood, to be caused by a nebula encountering the earth, is based, and finds, as all real men of science knew beforehand, that the entire matter is simply a canard. ”

“ Professor Pludder, who was a very big man, reared up his rotund form, and, bringing his fist down upon the table with a resounding whack, exclaimed:
"I'll do nothing so ridiculous! These bulletins have undoubtedly been influenced by the popular excitement. There has possibly been a little obscurity in the atmosphere—cirrus clouds, or something—and the observers have imagined the rest. I'm not going to insult science by encouraging the proceedings of a mountebank like Cosmo Versál. ”

“ If we can save mankind now, and give it another chance, perhaps the time will come when power can be drawn out of the ether of space, and men can float in the air as long as they choose.
"But as things are now, we must go back to Noah's plan, and trust to the buoyant power of water. I fully expect that when the deluge begins people will flock to the high-lands and the mountains in air-ships—but alas! that won't save them. Remember what I have told you—this flood is going to be six miles deep!" ”

“ I don't believe there is a mountain on the face of the globe lofty enough to lift its head above that flood. Hum, hum! It's no use thinking about mountains! The flood will be six miles deep—six miles from the present sea-level; my last calculation proves it beyond all question. And that's only a minimum—it may be miles deeper, for no mortal man can tell exactly what'll happen when the earth plunges into a nebula. ”

“ Cosmo ran over its pages, stopping to read a few lines here and there, seeming to make mental notes. After a while he pushed the book aside, looked at his companion thoughtfully, and began:
"The trouble with the world is that morally and physically it has for thousands of years grown more and more corrupt. The flower of civilization, about which people boast so much, nods over the stagnant waters of a moral swamp and draws its perilous beauty from the poisons of the miasma.
"The nebula, in drowning the earth, brings opportunity for a new birth of mankind. ”

“ It was not the selected band with which Cosmo Versál had intended to regenerate mankind, but from the Ark he spread a leaven which had its effect on the succeeding generations.
He taught his principles of eugenics, and implanted deep the germs of science, in which he was greatly aided by Professor Pludder, and, as all readers of this narrative know, we have every reason to believe that our new world, although its population has not yet grown to ten millions, is far superior, in every respect, to the old world that was drowned. ”

“ The fate of a whole race is at stake. If we can save a handful of the best blood and brain of mankind, the world will have a new chance, and perhaps a better and higher race will be the result. Since I can't save them all, I'll pick and choose. I'll have the flower of humanity in my ark. ”

“ I'll telephone to all the officials, scientific and otherwise, in America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. I'll write in every language to all the newspapers and magazines. I'll send out circulars. I'll counsel everybody to drop every other occupation and begin to build arks—but nobody will heed me. You'll see. My ark will be the only one, but I'll save as many in it as I can. And I depend upon you, Joseph, to help me. From all appearances, it's the only chance that the human race has of survival. ”

“ You may prolong your lives if you will fly to the highlands and the mountains—but here you cannot enter. The ark is full."
Another volley of shots was the only answer. One broad-shouldered man forced his way to the front, took his stand close to the wall, and yelled in stentorian tones:
"Cosmo Versál, listen to me! You are the curse of the world! You have brought this flood upon us with your damnable incantations. Your infernal nebula is the seal of Satan! Here, beast and devil, here at my feet, lies my only son, slain by your hellish device. ”

“ Earth's atmosphere, with all its perils of friction, coming ever closer, and the great bosom of the planet lying waiting to receive and bury the rock hurtling towards it. Throughout most of the leagues of space that asteroid had tracked on its master's diverse errands, and in many distant places the trails of Hawk Carse and Ku Sui had crossed and left blood and crossed again; and now those three—asteroid, Eurasian and the Hawk—were drawn once more together for the spectacular and epic climax, now only minutes away. No power in the universe was to stop the plunge of the asteroid ”

“ Those people with their knowledge and now our scientists with their scientific knowledge, are interfering with God’s affairs. In order to instill fear into them, disaster on a small scale has been instigated and for the complete destruction an Asteroid has been sent towards the Earth which is expected to hit the Earth in about twenty to twenty five years and when it does, that will be the last day of the Earth. ”

“ The Earth had already inclined, and the deluge of waters had become simply a question of time, and yet Noah seems to know nothing of his intended salvation.
A decree had come indeed; the decree of Nature and the Law of Evolution, that the Earth should change its Race, and that the Fourth Race should be destroyed to make room for a better one. The Manvantara had reached its turning point of three and a half Rounds, and gigantic physical Humanity had reached the acme of gross materiality. ”

“ As star by star leaps out above,
⁠As twilight deepens into night,
As round me cluster those I love,
⁠And eye meets eye in glances bright,
I feel that earth itself may be
Lit up with heaven's own radiancy. ”

“ The glare was reflected by the silver rocket and by the cross above Van Gundy's grave and by the small harmonica and the jetman's medallion.
Captain Torkel stood alone before the grave. Laughter drifted faintly from within the rocket. It was a lonely sound to Captain Torkel. You're really alone now, he thought. Apart from Earth, and now apart from the men. You and Van Gundy.
To hell with it, he thought bitterly. Why not join the men? Why not bathe and shave and smell of lotion and put on a clean white dress uniform? Why not forget about an insignificant planet fifty trillion miles away? ”

“ If there's a God who answers prayers, it's got to be a good planet. Sirius has only one planet. This is the last chance left for the race. And look at it, Captain! The blue places must be water and the green must be land. It's bigger than Earth, but it looks almost like it!"
Captain Torkel nodded. "Whether it's good or bad, we still can't win, really. If it's bad, humanity dies and we stay on the ship for the rest of our lives. If it's good, we'll still be on it for twelve more years—six years back to Earth and another six to return here."
Lieutenant Washington began to shake. ”

“ We have seen this envelope acquiring solidity, and the geological cataclysms losing their intensity and frequency in proportion as this solid crust increased in thickness. We have looked on, so to speak, while the work of organic creation was proceeding. We have seen life making its appearance upon the globe; and the first plants and animals springing into existence. We have seen this organic creation multiplying, becoming more complex, and constantly made more perfect with each advance in the progressive phases of the history of the earth. ”

“ It sees by gravity, which is not radiation. Keller's sending instructions back to Earth telling how to make such detectors."
He busied himself with his food once more. After a moment he spoke again.
"We're going to try to get some help," he observed. "At least we'll try to find out if there's any help to be had. I think there's a chance. There was a civilization which built this fortress. Something happened to it. Perhaps it simply collapsed, like Rome and Greece and Egypt and Babylonia back on Earth. But on Earth when an old civilization died a new, young one rose in its place. ”