The professor bit his lip.
“Always fanciful.” he commented, “and visionary. Your argument is beautiful, Charley, and hopeful. I would that it were true. But all things must mature. Even an earth must die.”
“Not our earth. You look into the past, professor, for your proof, and I look into the future. Give a planet long enough time in maturing and it will develop life; give it still longer and it will produce intelligence. Our own earth is just coming into consciousness; it has thirty million years, at least, to run.”
“You mean?”
“This. That man is a great little bug. Mind: the intelligence of the earth.”
This of course is a bit dry. The conversation of such men very often is to those who do not care to follow them. But it is very pertinent to what came after. We know now, everyone knows, that Charley Huyck was right. Even Professor Williams admits it. Our earth is conscious. In less than twenty-four hours it had to employ its consciousness to save itself from destruction.
A bell rang. It was the private wire that connected the office with the residence. The professor picked up the receiver. “Just a minute. Yes? All right.” Then to his companion: “I must go over to the house, Charley. We have plenty of time. Then we can go up to the observatory.”
Which shows how little we know about ourselves. Poor Professor Williams! Little did he think that those casual words were the last he would ever speak to Charley Huyck.
The whole world seething! The beginning of the end! Charley Huyck in the vortex. The next few hours were to be the most strenuous of the planet’s history.