Page:Amazing Stories Volume 10 Number 13.djvu/132

130 silence was the only result. Her face paled at the horror of it all.

It was all too hideous—the world had gone topsy-turvy. A dread silence had descended, a silence so absolute that noise could not even be imagined. It was a vast and all encompassing silence which left an unfillable void; life was a horrible nightmare.

ITH a shuddering fear in his heart Alan sprang to his feet, though Dr. Howell tried in vain to warn him of impending calamity. But too late, and Alan’s body struck the ceiling a terrific soundless blow. Even the forces of gravity had been dissolved into thin air along with the power of human communication.

Plastered against the ceiling and facing downward, Alan forced a wry grin, although the shock had nearly knocked him out.

"Turn over and push yourself downward—easy," Dr. Howell's first attempt at speech resulted in silence. "Oh, damn," he thought, with professorial dignity.

With exaggerated lip motions he at last succeeded in indicating his desires to Alan, who nodded, and turned over easily. A light push sent him down to the floor.

"Gosh," he started, and then realized that he could not even hear his own voice. Sound and gravity had gone the way of all earthly things as he had known them. But Dr. Howell came to the rescue with pencil and paper.

"Doctor," he wrote, "what has happened?"

"The destruction of all forces of the Universe appears to have been absolute. Gravity, sound, and all rays with the single exception of light, and that is very dim as you will note, seem to have been wiped out completely. The chances are that most of these things however, will come back shortly, so if you feel inclined to float around the room I would suggest that you do it now. You may never get another chance.

"However, the earth has stopped rotating completely, and probably now hangs in space, unless some other force has already begun to act upon it. We are very lucky that the sun is on the other side of the earth, as otherwise we would burn up. It will get very cold here, and we must prepare for that," he concluded.

Alan started for the door, but Dr. Howell was too quick for him, taking a jump across the room, which jump ended in a flying tackle. Shaking his head violently, he wrote rapidly: "Do not leave the room, you could easily float away in space and become lost," a horrible thought, but true enough.

"How about the people living around us? Are they in danger of floating away?" Alan asked by way of the ever necessary paper.

"Yes," replied Howell on the paper. "I imagine millions have been killed in the world-wide collapse. Perhaps thousands are now floating around in the void. If they leave the earth's atmosphere they will die for lack of air, and if they do not leave it, but continue to float about indefinitely they will, of course, die for lack of the essentials,—water and food.”

"But what keeps this building on the earth?" Mary wrote.

"The foundation is set in the ground and the frame work has been bolted to it," replied Dr. Howell. "And I suppose you are wondering just why the air has not also left and floated away. Well, the air is being held here by molecular cohesion, a force supposed to be related to gravity, but