Sixty Days to Live

'I was just saying,' smiled Sam, 'that, although your uncle is no doubt right about this comet approaching, the universe being so vast, it doesn't follow that the thing will get drawn into our orbit and smash us up.'

'What is all this?' inquired Derek amiably.

'You'd better ask Uncle Oliver,' Lavina replied. 'He scared me into fits last night by saying that he didn't think any of us had more than sixty days to live.'

Oliver shook his dome-like, sparsely covered head, from the back and sides of which wisps of fine brown hair stood out untidily. 'You're a very naughty girl, Lavina. I told you this was a most dangerous secret and must go no further, yet the first thing you do is to tell Sir Samuel here, and then Derek.'

She blew him a playful kiss. 'Nonsense, darling. Sam's as deep as a well and Derek is almost one of the family. Besides, you as good as confessed, before I went up to bed, that you were joking. I only mentioned it to Sam after breakfast this morning because I thought it would be fun to see you pull his leg about it.'

'I'm afraid Oliver wasn't joking, dearest.' Gervaise spoke with quiet firmness. 'He only allowed you to assume that he was, so that you could sleep on it and this appalling thing shouldn't come as too great a shock to you.'

Her eyes widened. 'You mean—you really mean . . . ?'

'I mean that Oliver seems to be convinced that a comet is going to smash our world to fragments on June 24th.'

'But—what do you think?'

Gervaise smiled a little grimly. 'My dear, what can any of us think, or do, except accept the opinion of an expert and make up our minds to face whatever is to come with what fortitude we may.'

Derek flung his riding crop on a chair and sat down. 'Surely, Oliver, you can't be serious? The idea that the world will come to an end in eight weeks' time is really a bit too much to swallow.'

'Naturally, it is rather an alarming thought at first,' Oliver replied mildly. 'But worlds do come to an end, you know, and there's no reason to suppose that ours should be specially immune from such a catastrophe. If you had witnessed some of the mighty flare-ups which have occurred in the heavens during the many years I have spent in Greenwich Observatory you would, I think, be more ready to accept my statement as a real probability.'

'I wouldn't dream of challenging your authority on such a subject, sir,' Sam Curry said politely, 'and you must correct me if I'm wrong, but I've always understood comets were mainly composed of gases. Even if one hit our earth, it would probably only destroy a portion of the population. In any case, there would be no cataclysmic collision such as one might expect in the case of two great heavenly bodies rushing together.'

Gervaise smiled. 'I expect you're thinking of H. G. Wells's fantasy, In the Days of the Comet. In that the cases only caused everyone to fall into a twilight sleep, from which they woke up as model socialists to develop a new and perfect world-state.'

Oliver shook his head. 'This comet may be composed only of gas and a great collection of small meteorites. Many comets are, but not all. There is, for example, the classic case of a comet which caused the great red spot on Jupiter.'

'What was that?' asked Derek quickly.

'Jupiter has a very dense, cloud-laden atmosphere which, as far as we know, was more or less uniform all over its surface until May 19th, 1664. It was then that the astronomer, Hooke, observed a huge red spot on its surface. That spot has been there ever since, and our modern instruments have shown us that it consists of fiery vapours like those of a vast volcano which pour out unceasingly right through the planet's thick cloud-layers. The only possible explanation for the phenomenon is that a solid comet of great size crashed into Jupiter in the seventeenth century with such force that it broke clean through the planet's surface making a rent which has never healed.'

'Well, even if that happened to us,' said Sam, 'it might mean great loss of life in one particular area but the rest of the world would go on much the same.'

'I fear that would hardly be the case,' Oliver disagreed, 'if it were a comet like the one that hit Jupiter. You see, Jupiter is over thirteen hundred times the bulk of our earth and its cloud-layer alone is estimated to be 6,000 miles thick. The rent that was torn in it is 7,000 miles broad by 30,000 miles long, so, if we came into collision with the same sort of body, the whole of our earth would be shattered into tiny little bits.'

'Still, it might not be as big,' Derek suggested hopefully.

'True,' Oliver agreed.

'And it might not be a solid meteorite at all,' added Sam.

Quite,' agreed Oliver again. 'The chances are, in fact, somewhat in favour of its being no more than a great mass of cosmic dust, small meteorites and flaming gas. But, even if it is, should it actually come into collision with us, the disturbance caused by its arrival here would almost certainly blot out all life on our planet.'

'Oh, come!' exclaimed Sam. 'The earth has often passed through the tails of comets without the public even being aware of what was happening.'

'True. But the tails of comets are often tens of thousands of miles in length and such comets have always swept on their way without passing sufficiently near to be drawn into our sphere of gravity; whereas in this case, if my calculations are correct, we shall pull the solid body or the mass of flaming gas right in on top of us.'

'I gather, though, Oliver, that all your colleagues are not of the same opinion as yourself,' remarked Gervaise.

Oliver shrugged his bent shoulders. 'The comet is still so distant that it has been impossible up till now to estimate its track with any real exactness and some of us consider there is still a hope that it may pass us by. Until we reach agreement there is no point in alarming the public unnecessarily and that is why we have, so far, refrained from publishing anything about it.'

'That, too,' added Gervaise, 'is why I think it should be understood between us that no mention of the matter is made outside this house. You see; if the danger became generally known, it might lead to the most appalling panic, and even riots.'

'But your own opinion, Oliver, is that it's going to hit us?' Lavina's voice had a slightly hysterical note.

'Yes, my dear. When I spoke to you last night I had just finished an entirely new set of calculations by which I proved the matter to my own satisfaction and which I feel reasonably certain will convince my colleagues that I am right.'

'But hang it all!' Derek jumped up from his chair. M can'tj believe it! I suppose the world's got to end some time, but it's! been going on for such millions of years. It just doesn't seer™ credible that it should come to an end almost without warning' like this.'

'I'm afraid that's what most people will feel,' Oliver said quietly. 'Perhaps I ought never to have mentioned it. You must forgive me if I've scared you all but when I spoke to Lavina I was a little over-excited by the success of my calculation.'

'Success!' Sam echoed, with a queer little laugh. 'Anyhow, you don't seem at all put out about the impending catastrophe yourself.'

'Oh, no, not at all. You see, as a scientist, I can only regard the ending of the world as an extraordinarily interesting phenomenon. In fact, I count it a great privilege to be living at a time when such a momentous event is about to take place and I hope to have the opportunity of making observations up to the very last moment. But, of course, you people having other interests are naturally inclined to take a rather different view. I'm so sorry if I've upset any of you by letting the cat out of the bag a little prematurely.'

Gervaise was not listening to his brother's rather vague apology for his pronouncement, which might well be calculated utterly to disrupt the even tenor of all their lives. He was studying the expressions of the people grouped about him.