WHEN THE SUN WENT OUT BY LESLIE F. STONE Science Fiction Series No. 4 Published By STELLAR PUBLISHING CORPORATION 96-98 PARK PLACE NEW YORK _© 1929 By Gernsback Publications, Inc. Printed in U. S. A._ The dying Earth lay wrapped in its dismal coat of what was soon to be the complete darkness of a sunless world. Just as she no longer had the Moon, her Lamp of Ages, to light the night skies as she whirled on her course through the limitless ocean of Space, so now she was about to lose the Sun which, after billions of years, was at last burning out. Cold somber darkness of everlasting night was to engulf the eight planets to which old Sol had once given heat and light. History tells of the Sun in all its glory, of a bright, warm Earth, of joy on the globe. It tells, too, of the moon, a shell set aglow by the sun's rays and reflecting on Earth the beauty of silvery light. But with the light from the sun growing more and more feeble through the preceding thousands of years, the Night's fixture had faded too until now it was no more than a dark body flitting past by day. Only at times during the night did a stray gleam of the sun illuminate, for a fleeting moment, the dead face, as a shadow passing across the white icecapes. Now there were only the stars, distant and aloof, smiling disdainfully upon the senile planet Earth, to light her night and her day too. In Central City most of the few hundred thousands of people who now comprised the entire world's population had already gathered. The rest were hastening to join the multitude, so that together they might watch the sun in the throes of death. Then would they make their descent to the bowels of the Earth wherein the once proud Earthlings planned to make their last stand against their arch-enemy, Nature. Kuila Rei was one of the tardy ones. As his name denoted, he was of the race of astronomers. He was the last to leave Mount 83 upon whose summit he and his fellow scientists had for many years kept the Sun under surveillance, publishing their minute calculations as to the hourly condition of the waning star. Kuila, like many, objected strenuously to his removal to thousands of feet below the Earth's crust. He knew that several centuries before the Earth had been warned of the critical state of the Sun. Then had been the time for action. However, for the last million of years the Earth's people had been retrograding, and now except for a few hundred men and women of Kuila's ilk were mental and physical weaklings. They had been content to live on what their mighty ancestors had provided for them, using only what knowledge had come to them through the ages, and making no attempt to improve their condition.