A Brand New World by Ray Cummings

There are some things which may be pictured by a shuddering imagination. But one does not voluntarily put them into spoken words; certainly they are never printed. History will say that for twenty-four hours, August 14 and 15 of 1957, our earth was swept by a wild insanity.

The burning of Cape Town by a maddened mob will be mentioned -- the glare of the city against the night sky, the thousands who, bereft of reason, cast themselves with screams into the flames. The wrecking of the two great surface liners, with three thousand lives lost. The major riots of a dozen great cities.

The attack by crazed men and women on the Biskra arsenal; the frenzied, half-crazed soldiers who waded heedlessly into the mob, wildly firing; the ten government planes circling over the city whose aviators, crazed by what they saw in the streets and the red madness of the air, firing down with machine guns and then plunging their planes to crash headlong into the crowd.

All high lights. History will only hint at the million individual incidents. Marauding, lustful men, breaking by night into dwellings. Lone criminals, crazed into thoughts unspeakable, prowling the dark streets, seeking victims.

But the details, the full or the real truth will never be known. They revolt all but an imagination most morbid. The Red Madness of 1957 had best be forgotten.

It was late in the afternoon of August 15 before the frantic chemists in the government laboratories at Miami could assemble the purple globe and begin the broadcasting of its healing waves. All that evening they were flung out into the ether. The radio was again working -- though badly, because the purple vibrations also interfered with it. The world was assured by radio that the danger was over -- the Red Madness in a few hours would be gone.

By midnight, August 15, the "ether-plane," as scientists now term it, had regained normality. The current was cut from the purple globe. The world rested, exhausted, bewildered, gazing back stupefied at what it had been through.

For hours more, governments, soldiers, police, with sanity come at last, fought sanely with the eddies and backwash of the storm. It wore itself out. Order was restored. There remained the smoking ruins of property destroyed, and the dead, the maimed, and the thousands of poor miserable creatures with reason permanently gone.

A single day of the Red Madness! May there never be, on this or any other world, another day such as that!

On the night of August 15 we were all with Kean in the Miami War Department. He was ready to start back to Xenephrene with the purple globe. Zetta and I were sure that we had destroyed the Red Control; Graff could not use it again. Earth had no further need of the purple. Nature would hold our ether-plane at normality, as it always had before. But not so on Xenephrene. Its Infra-red world would not, like earth's remain hidden. What we had been through soon would be coming upon them. Xenephrene was very far from earth now; it would take Kean a month to get there.

Opposition developed in Miami to our sending the purple globe away so soon. But it was overruled; Kean was told to take it and go. He stood before us, bidding good-by. The same quiet dignity he always bore was on him. He turned to our officials who were gathered in a group to wish him well.

"My worl' has brought great disaster upon you. I am sorry. I think you will defeat Graff easily now. I hope so."

Our air force was to start at Graff within a day or two; we were all tense with the thought of it. Kean said good-by to Zetta; shook her hand in our earth fashion. "You choose a ver' wonderful worl', Zetta -- and a man ver' good."

A wave of color swept her, but he turned away. His gaze went to Dan and Hulda, who were standing together. "I shall never see you again. I think now, Dan, at the las', you will not mind if I say how ver' much I -- love Hulda."

Dan's hand went out and gripped his heartily.

"No, of course not, Kean. You -- you are very complimentary. I mean, Hulda and I appreciate how manly -- "

Dan was floundering. Good old Freddie came to the rescue. He clapped Kean on the back.

"Kean, listen. You think you're going back to Xenephrene to eat your heart out over a girl you didn't get. That the idea?"

"Why, I -- "

"Well, listen. Look at me -- I'm a bachelor."