When the Sun went out

A Hope

What they were to do when the last machine halted forever, when those machines would no longer turn out their barest necessities, they were not able to conceive. In fact, they gave no thought to the future at all. These simple-minded offsprings of the mechanical geniuses of the world existed, living on the fruits of the machines that produced foods, and materials from the air, as well as the soil, and from minerals dug from the Earth's core.

And now the Sun, from which much of the energy that drove these machines was obtained, was dying. The Sun would be a Sun no longer. It would become cool and perhaps foster new life in its tepid waters, life that would after ages crawl out upon a new as yet unlighted land.

However, as always in man's history, time and time again, it was in dire need that his supremacy eventually asserted itself. And such was now the case. A few men of stronger will and greater intellect had realized the state of affairs into which they were being plunged, and under their inspiration for the past fifteen years, a new activity had seized the Earthlings. Those who still possessed an understanding of mechanics were called forth. Together they built new machines out of the scraps of the old, and with these commenced digging night and day a shaft in the Earth that was to be the salvation of Mankind.

Without a doubt the Earthlings could not abide any longer on the surface of the Earth. Year after year great fields of ice had come down from the North-lands gradually encompassing the land, driving its peoples further and further into the South. They were increasing in such numbers that their cold was taking hold on the Earth and the Sun's weak rays could not stave them off. It would only be a question of time before the narrow belt at the equator that was alone untouched would be conquered by the Great Ice Flow.

There had been some talk of building machines that would carry them away from Mother Earth to a new planet and a new sun. But the wisest men knew the futility of such a course. True! History did tell of several such attempts; some had been successful, some not. Yet that had been in a day when men who understood such machines had lived, and they had not been built in a moment or day. To build ships that could bear them millions of miles through space was too difficult a feat for people who had just awakened from a lethargy in which they had dreamed and played for many centuries. For the present, only one course was open. Then when Man was more fully awakened, he might make other plans.

Already Man had reached the depth of almost a thousand miles below the surface. New machines were hollowing out great caves in the Earth's bowels in which the present population hoped to survive. The construction of the machines of the past now being studied from the records that remained, new discoveries were made and it looked as though Mankind were taking a new lease upon life.

After the first shaft had been driven, a second was started. It had been found that at this depth the temperature was a little below the normal heat required for the comfort of man, but until better provision could be made it would be necessary to make that do. Heating apparatus would be installed, lights, sewerage, everything to make the underground caves livable, and then with the years to come men would continue to dig deeper as the cold of the ice-coated Earth penetrated.

Giant caves were being hewn out of the living rock to house the five hundred-thousand souls that now made up the populace of the world. As each cave was dug it was lined with Ega, a glass-like substance that was sprayed from the mouth of a machine and which hardened into a hard, almost impregnable shell, and coated to a uniform thickness and smoothness.

For the present the sole idea was to provide room enough for the world's inhabitants to seek protection from the wretchedness and bitter chill of the Earth's surface. Everything must be upon a communistic basis; so many people allotted to each giant cave. Later small caves were to be hewn out for individual comfort and privacy, but that would take time.

Underground many obstacles barred their way. Subterranean rivers were a source of trouble and sometimes disaster to the diggers, but with their newly discovered ingenuity the workers learned to overcome and divert them to their own purposes. Sink holes, crumbling rocks and other calamities often retarded progress. But sometimes Mother Nature presented them with a few of the gifts that were still left in her cornucopia. There were natural caves, a deposit of precious metals, and barriers that fell without man's efforts.

Kuila Rei

Thus had twenty great caves been dug out when at last word came from the astronomers that the Sun's power could not possibly survive the week. Night and day the work continued so that thousands might be made fairly comfortable. There was much lamenting on the Earth's crust as the world watched the fading of the Sun. It was hard enough to lose the warmth of the Sun, but to have to creep into the damp cellar of the Earth was almost too much for the soft men and women who had lived luxuriously under the shadow of mighty machines that had given them all.

Kuila Rei journeying in his flyer from the observatory wherein he had spent almost his whole life, since he had emerged from the City of the Children, thought of all this. The flyer had been built several thousand years before. Once it had been the very latest type of Lighter-than-Air machines that Science had produced. And it still was, for no better had been brought forth since. It sat like a bubble on the thin air of the globe, and in form it resembled a bubble. It was a perfect globe fashioned from a material that resembled glass, but its qualities were as different from that brittle, splintery material as night was unlike the day. Alu, the ancients called it, and it was as transparent as the air, yet as strong as Earth itself, malleable as clay and lighter than air. The greatest weight could not smash or crush it, the sharpest point could not even scratch its surface.

Within this indestructible chamber sat Kuila Rei on a seat covered with a leathery material whose back could be let down for sleeping purposes. His feet rested on a similar pad and on a bar in front of him that extended from side to side were placed the various levers that controlled the machine. Under the seat was fitted the motor contained in a small metal box, taking up no more than a cubic foot of space. The oxygen tank twice the size of the motor stood near by.

Flying thousands of feet above the ground Man had found that the thinning atmosphere was too rare and each flyer was consequently supplied with its own oxygen tank containing enough of the precious gas to sustain the pilot for one hundred hours. An open valve in the side of the globe allowed enough of the poor grade of air to flow from the outside to the tank and thence into the globe reviving the air sufficiently to the proper proportions needed for the driver. The motor, ingenious and yet of a marvelous simplicity, used for its fuel the carbon dioxide expelled by the occupant of the machine, thus also keeping the air clean and fresh. Through another vent the motor tossed off its waste.

On entering his flyer Kuila had set the indicator for Central City, and turned the height gauge to the altitude he knew it best to fly. He had no more to do but wait until he arrived at his destination. Had he been able to see the ground over which he was flying, at a height necessary to avoid the irregularities of the Earth's surface, he would not have been interested in the least. For where ages before had flourished beautiful trees and wild jungle verdure; where jeweled pools had lay dimpling in the sun; where brilliant birds and chattering monkeys had lived joyously (in that part of the world that had once been called Brazil) there was nothing now other than a wasteland, grey, bleak and cold, its face like the worn, wrinkled visage of the old.