WHEN THE SUN WENT OUT (4)
By:
July 24, 2023
Leslie Silberberg, who wrote as Leslie F. Stone, was one of the first women sf pulp writers. She often worked with Hugo Gernsback in Amazing Stories and Wonder Stories. Gernsback published her 1929 story “When the Sun Went Out” as a chapbook. HiLoBooks is pleased to serialize it here for HILOBROW’s readers.
ALL INSTALLMENTS: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7.
A BEAUTIFUL COMPANION
With that done he left the office, returning to the shaft by which he descended. A girl was walking ahead of him, and they both reached the lift almost at the same moment. She was dressed exactly as Kuila Rei, and on her shoulder he descried insignia the same as he wore, the insignia of the astronomers.
The suits of the Earthlings were made of a material that transmitted no heat, holding the normal body heat of the wearer. It was in two pieces, blouse and trousers. The trousers almost skin tight fitted snugly at the hips. They were designed so as to contain the feet; and under the feet were sewn heavy pieces of felt that fitted the foot. The blouse was loose to give free movement to the torso. It fell straight from the shoulder halfway to the thighs and was caught tightly at the waist with a girdle. The sleeves hung rather full from shoulder to wrist and were buckled tightly; while the collar, rather high, fitted the neck closely. From the shoulders hung a hood that could be pulled over the head and fitted tightly about the face and chin. From it a mask could be drawn over the face to protect it in cases of extreme cold and to the mask were fastened small tubes for nose and mouth. These could be attached to an oxygen tank that the wearer would carry on his shoulders. Gloves were carried in one of the slit pockets of the blouse.
Kuila followed the girl into the elevator and they came face to face. He was struck by the exquisite beauty of her clear features, a beauty that was striking even among a people who were all beautiful. Her skin was a warm olive, a complexion that had been evolved from the admixture of the five original races upon Earth. Her eyes were clear hazel, her lips a deep red. Each feature was as perfect as though hand-chiseled, from the little square chin to the fine sensitive eyebrows and smooth white temples. And framing it all was the hair of a rich blackness. Once human hair entailed the constant need of trimming, but Science had easily done away with that inconvenience by the simple means of the T-Ray. When the T-Ray was trained on the hair and beard by means of a cap-shaped helmet it not only halted the natural growth of the roots but at the same time treated them so that in a life-time not a single hair could fall from the scalp.
In response to his smile the girl smiled back brightly. “I suppose we are both ascending to the roof?” she queried in a low well-modulated voice that was strangely thrilling to a man who had not heard a woman’s voice in over ten years. He nodded, and she touched the lever that should carry them upward.
The lift traveled fast, but in the thousand foot ascent there was still time for Kuila Rei to learn that the girl was Ramo Rei; that she had returned from Mount 47 whereupon was set an observatory like the one he had just left; that she had been associated only with two woman and two men, all of whom had already passed the third cycle (150 years of age); and so therefore, she had taken no companion (mate) and was, like himself, quite alone in the new world they were to enter.
They were not immediately aware that the elevator had stopped. Only when the steady murmur of voices came to them from without did they suddenly realize they had reached the roof. Kuila managed to elbow his way through the crowd and found for them an unoccupied spot in a secluded part of the parapet.
It was now almost time for rising of the sun. Once, the annals of history showed, the Earth had known approximately twelve hours of day-light. But gradually, through the ages, the periods of day had grown shorter until now at the present time there was scarcely one short hour of light. This was due to the fact that the Sun was no longer a ball of fire, that only two spots still burned on its wide expanses. A month since the smaller of the two spots had burned out, and now it was but a question of hours before the other spot would give its last flicker.
A stillness pervaded the towering roofs and here and there a few groups could be seen whispering. On the left was the building now occupied by the twenty-seven thousand children who had been brought from the City of Children and their sweet fresh voices could be heard in song as they greeted the wan light. Almost a billion years ago the ancestors of these children had sung in the same manner to the sun to give them light and keep them in health.
In their corner Ramo and Kuila were speaking in subdued tones. There was much for them to tell each other, and the affinity which had drawn them together was strengthened as they learned that they had many interests in common. She, too, had gathered books of the past, and they both longed to see a sun in all its wonder and to feel its warmth surge through their veins.
“I contend,” said Kuila, “that we make a mistake in descending to the Earth’s core. It would be far better that we migrate to another Universe which has a sun that is still young!”
He saw the light that came into her eyes at his words. She nodded her head in approbation. “I, too, Kuila Rei, have had such dreams. At night when I was alone at the sky-eyes I studied the various planets and Universes for the possibility of transferring ourselves to another world. Buik Rei, head astronomer of Mount 47, and I have studied the proposition from all angles and he agrees it is feasible. Only we are not yet equipped for such an expedition. Long ago we might have profited by the knowledge of our forefathers and traversed Space at will. Now instead, we must begin all over again to learn what they had so gladly prepared for us.”
“Then you do believe there is a possibility?”
“Is anything impossible?”
Further discussion was halted at that moment by the cry that had gone up from the five hundred thousand Earthlings gathered on the roof-tops. There had been a change in the somber darkness enclosing them; a pale grayish light was now visible in the Eastern sky!
“The Sun, the blessed Sun!” cried the voices.
Gradually the light became brighter, and then on the Eastern horizon appeared the sun, but Oh! so different from the old bright sun.
Once it had been globe-shape, dazzling bright, so that the eyes could not look upon it. Now, all that remained of the old fire was one strange, ragged streak of light that ran vertically up the surface of the globe, and so weak and feeble was that single streak that it looked wan and livid. There was no rosy haze to accompany this dawn. All was gray, stark, nude.
The hour was passing—and, as they watched, the onlookers could see that the white streak that was the sun was gradually turning on its axis so that the single burning spot would soon be hidden from sight of those on Earth. And it would be many, many hours before the Earthlings would catch sight of it again. The grayness was gradually fading into darkness again. The myriad of stars overhead continued to gleam, sparkling in all their splendor, twinkling like the eyes of a man overcome by laughter — laughing at the plight of a doomed world.
With sighs and low murmurings the crowds dispersed from the rooms. Ramo and Kuila did not leave yet. The Earth may grow senile, but youth tells the same old story. And the two had much to tell each other. Astronomers both, they spoke the same language, had the same hopes and desires. And then, they were young.
Two hours later they agreed to descend from the roof. As they had just arrived in the city neither had taken up new quarters as yet, and they went down to the office where they would be assigned quarters. They had but to speak their name, number, and rating into a machine like the one to which they had already reported, and in answer came a small piece of circular metal having upon it, in the strange numerical writing of that day, their new address.
Each giant building was a city in itself. Each had its auditorium where gathered for general announcements, amusements, lectures and discussions, the tenants of the building. There were large conservatories where was planted what verdure and vegetation had been preserved through the centuries. A few birds and smaller animals had been kept alive in the same manner. Canned sunlight, the light of the sun that had been gathered by scientists many years before and stored in giant vats, took the place of the ineffectual sun. Here people spent much of their time.
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF: “Radium Age” is Josh Glenn’s name for the nascent sf genre’s c. 1900–1935 era, a period which saw the discovery of radioactivity, i.e., the revelation that matter itself is constantly in movement — a fitting metaphor for the first decades of the 20th century, during which old scientific, religious, political, and social certainties were shattered. More info here.
SERIALIZED BY HILOBOOKS: James Parker’s Cocky the Fox | Annalee Newitz’s “The Great Oxygen Race” | Matthew Battles’s “Imago” | & many more original and reissued novels and stories.