Wonder Stories v02n09 (1931 02)
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y^ajjn ■ 1 “ ^WDther Science Fiction StorsesV| sleeping war'W By Dr. D. H. Keller "THE OUTPOST ON THE MOON" By Joslyn Maxwell In TKis Issue THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION" By Ray Cummings DUST OF DESTRUCTION By P. Schuyler Miller nl ; , ^ 1 V f / i1 . I # (
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<7^ Vol. 2, No. 9 February, 1931 TABLE OF CONTENTS 918 DUST OF DESTRUCTION by P. Schuyler Miller As a feathery avalanche, the “dust" fell, while in the craters of the moon the ray s of destruction stabbed out on a defenceless earth .... THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION by Ray Cummings T 936 “He’s very gentle,” said the scientist. Yet from the heart of the ape there leaped out the tremendous power of outraged nature .... A FLIGHT INTO TIME by Robert H. Wilson 944 Without a shock, without effort, he found himself thrown into that strange Twenty-second^ century world .... THE MURDERS ON THE MOON-SHIP by George B. Beattie 958 Panic reigned on the space ship as the unknown terror struck again and again .... they suspected and feared each other .... THE SLEEPING WAR by David H. Keller, M.D 980 Like a tomb of the dead became the metropolis, Philadelphia the scenes a great plot was brewing destruction .... THE WORLD WITHOUT by Benson Herbert while behind OQjC until It was a world without sense or reason, like a terrifying nightmare . at last the explanation came .... THE OUTPOST ON THE MOON (Conclusion) by Joslyn Maxwell 1010 Face to face with the Ganymedians, our explorers take part in the battles of a strange race . ... is the conclusion triumph or tragedy ? .... SCIENCE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 1041 THE READER SPEAKS — Letters from Readers 1043 ON THE COVER taken from P. Schuyler Miller’s thrilling “Dust of Destruction" we see the martyr scientist, Dick Haverford, plunging to suicide on the monster tube, to destroy it and destroy forever the Lunarites’ power to kill off the peo- ple of earth. WONDER STORIES— Monthly — Entered as second class matter ia the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under act of March 3, 1879. Title registered U. S. Patent Office. Trademarks aod copyrights by permission of Gernsback Publications, Inc.. 98 Park Place, New York City# owner of ail trademark rights. Copyright, 1931, by Gernsback Publications, Inc. Text and il- lustrations of this magazine are copyright and must not be re- produced without permission of the copyright owners. WONDER STORIES is published on the 3rd of the preceding month. 12 numbers per year, subscription price ia $2.50 a year in United States and its possessions. In Canada and foreigo countries, $3.60 a year. Single copies 25c. Address all contributions for publication to Editor, WONDER STORIES, 96-08 Park Place, New York. Publishers are not responsible for lost MSS. Contributions cannot be returned un- less authors remit full postage. WONDER STORIES is for sale at principal newsstands In the United States and Canada. IF YOU WISH TO SUBSCRIBE to WONDER STORIES, make out all remittances to the Stellar Publishing Corp. Be sure to mention the name of magazine you wish to subscribe for, as we are also agents for the magazine RADIO CRAFT, subscription price of which is the same a3 WONDER STORIES, and for WONDER STORIES QUARTERLY. Subscriptions can be made in combination with the above publications, at a re- duced club rate. Ask for information. Subscriptions start with current issue. WHEN YOUB SUBSCRIPTION EXPIRES, we enclose a renewal blank in the last number. No subscription continued unless renewal remittance received. CHANGE OF ADDRESS. Always give us old as well as now address and notify us as Car in advance as possible. STELLAR PUBLISHING CORPORATION H. GERNSBACK, Pres. S. GERNSBACK, Treas. I. S. MANHEIMER, See'/. Editorial, Publication and General Offices, 96-93 Park Place, New York City. Chicago Advertising Representative— L. F. McClure, 737 North Michigan Ave. London Agent: Hachette & Cie., Paris Agent: Hachette Sc Cle., Australian Agents: McGill's Agency, 16-17 King William St., Charing Cross, W.C. 2 111 Rue Reaumur 1T9 Elizabeth St.. Melbourno 11 ■ 914 ■
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VOLUME 2 No. 9 Wmm Stones FEBRUARY 1931 .... Prophetic Fiction is the Mother of Scientific Fact .... Hugo Gernsback, Editor-in-Chief DAVID LASSEE, Managing Editor FRANK R. PAUL, Art Editor C. P. MASON, Associate Editor THE WONDERS OF THE SIMPLE By HUGO GERNSBACK HE most difficult things for the human mind ever to un- derstand are possibly the — to us — simplest things, and the simplest phenomena in nature. It seems that nature has conspired against us in such a way as to keep the true essence of the material world hidden from our knowledge, perhaps for ever. As a matter of fact, it is doubtful that we can ever know from our own senses the ultimate truth of anything in our world. Take, for instance, such a thing and as simple to us as a light beam. Science to- day knows little more about it than she did two thousand years ago. We do not know whether light is composed of parti- cles,— as once imagined by Newton, — or whether light is in the form of waves. We know nothing as to the propagation of light in open space; nor do we know much of the composition of the sunlight in gene- ral, except that we may call it by other names, such as electro-magnetic waves, radiation and the like. The same may be said of all other radiations as well; be- cause practically nothing is known about their innermost workings when we come down to the final analysis. When we contemplate the simple phe- nomenon, manifest all around us every moment, which we call gravitation, even our best-informed scientists will cheerfully admit that they know next to nothing about it. We do not even know the speed of the propagation of gravitation, whether it be radiation, or whether it be a ray or beam or what not. We haven’t the most remote idea as to how long it takes gravi- tation to travel a given distance. For in- stance, suppose the moon were suddenly to leave her accustomed orbit and fly off at a tangent, how long would it take the dis- turbance created thereby to reach the earth? Would the gravitational force travel at the speed of light, or would it be in- stantaneous? Science has yet given us no answer to this. We simply do not know what it is all about. Yet, all around us, these mysterious forces go on right under our own noses; and we must admit that we cannot solve the mystery, at least so far. The reasons for our poor knowledge of such “simple” phenomena may be far more complicated than we can admit at first. As Sir James Jeans points out, in his recent book “The Mysterious Universe,” most of these unknowable things are prob- ably unknowable only because most of the ideas under discussion are mere creations of our own minds. The human being, after all, is only a complete biological accident; and the hu- man being has little relation to the world at large. And the human mind is prob- ably constituted in such a manner that it can no more understand the ultimate de- signs of nature than a dog could under- stand, or even recognize a technical volume on astronomy. The dog could see the book, he could see the printed pages and the illustrations; but it would all mean nothing to him, — because his mind is con- stituted on such an entirely different plane of reasoning, and to him, of course, the book is totally meaningless. It is so with the human mind. The plane of our reasoning is probably entirely out of any relationship to the ultimate de- signs of nature and our reasoning in most cases as to nature’s designs is, probably, entirely irrelevant and, certainly, entirely inadequate to comprehend what it is all about. The human mind immediately tries to make a mechanical analogy of the un- knowable when, most probably, there can- not be a mechanical analogy for such so- called simple things as a light beam or gravitation. It is even to be doubted that our senses interpret the outside world at all correctly; and, just because a number of people arrive at a similar conclusion, that does not prove that the natural phe- nomenon is in accordance with their un- derstanding. It may be something entire- ly different. For instance, a few hundred years ago, it was entirely contradictory to the best human reasoning that part of the world’s inhabitants could face the sky one way, while the rest would face it another way; one part seemingly standing “upright,” the other part seemingly hanging with their heads “down.” It took a long time to di- gest even this simple proposition, which is entirely contrary to human instincts and human reasoning. It may be so with most of the other phenomena which we witness with our imperfect and usually misguided senses. 916
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WONDER STORIES 917 *2500 Reward! For the Capture of an Unknown Man Twice he had entered the St Clair Mansion. What was he aiter ? Who? What was in danger? Berteau, the famous detective, had warned St Clair that tha myMtmnou m maraadar would com* again. And now — a noise in the passage! The creak of an opening door. A shot in the dark! A capture! Is this wounded stranger the mysterious intruder? Who could tell? Yet Berteau identified the man without hesitation and won the $2600 reward. How did be do it? Easy enough for the Finger Print Expert. He is the specialist, the leader, the cream of detectives. Every day’s paper tells their wonderful exploits in solving mysterious crimes and convicting dangerous criminals, FREE More Trained Men Needed The demand for trained men by governments, states, cities, detective agencies, corporations, and private bureaus is becoming greater every day. Here is a real opportunity for YOU7 Can you imagine a more fasci- nating line of work than this? Often life and death depend upon finger print evidence — and big rewards go to the expert. Many experts can earn regularly froip $3,000 and more per year. Learn at Home in Spare Time And now you can learn the secrets of this science at home in your spare time. Any man with common school education and average ability can become a Finger Print Detective in a surprisingly short time. The Confidential Reports No. 38 Made to His Chief MaH coupon now for free copy of confidential report Secret Service Operator No. 38 made to his chief. Get our big free book telling how you can become a real Finger Print Expert — gain fame and earn big rich rewards. Get our low prices and Easy Terms. But don’t delay. Mail Coupon NOW! Institute of Applied Science Dept. 69-82 1920 Snsnyiide Avenue. Chicsgo, Illinois INSTITUTE OF APPLIED SCIENCE 1920 Sumyside Ave., Dept. 69-92 Chicago, HL Gentlemen:— Without any obligation whatever, send me free copy of Operator No. 38’s confidential report, also .your new, fully illustrated Free book on Finger Prints. Tell me all about your low prices and Easy Terms! Liter- ature will NOT be sent to boys under 17 years of age. Mame Address Age .
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ray* (T7 Tustrated bp Paul) melted and fell hissing! Intelligence directed those the Intelligence that threatened the Earth! 918 Dust of Destruction By P. Schuyler Miller
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DUST OF DESTRUCTION 919 THIS old Earth of ours has passed through some pretty severe crises in its long and fruitful career as a minor planet — afflicted with a variety of life — but never has its danger been so great as in the frantic J weeks following the inverted cyclone of August 23, 1967. I was near Norfolk when it happened; I was one of the little group that saw the thing through to the end, and now that it is over I am attempting a narrative that will set forth in a fashion more readable than technical the story of the “death-dust” from the Moon — the green dust of destruction. In 1967, Norfolk, Nebraska, was a city of perhaps twenty thousand people. No one knows why the Dust struck there first, but the fact remains that it did. The Things had probably been experimenting for some time with a sort of sliding-scale of frequencies before they hit on what they were looking for, and there is ample evidence of extreme auroral acti- vity and atmospheric fluorescence for years back. The day be- fore, Tuesday the 22nd, I had been motoring west on a canvassing trip, and I remember that the radios of eastern Nebraska were raising a brand of Cain that even my patent static eliminator could not iron out. At 8:37 on that Wednesday morning I was A S our author states, -*■*- “ this old earth has passed thru some pretty severe crises in its long and fruitful career ,” and so has the human race, for that matter. We have won what civilization and com- fort we now possess only by the bitterest struggle for millions of years against the onslaughts of nature and other forms of life. And even what we have now we hold by a thread. Our life on earth is so un- certain that it would need only a very minor change in physical conditions to wipe us from the face of the globe. A change of a relatively few degrees in temperature either way, a change in the composition of the atmosphere; a minor solar disturbance are all things that are unimportant in the cosmos but totally disastrous for us. Mr. Miller is no pessimist but he treats in a new, ori- ginal and refreshing fash- ion of some of the troubles that might befall our old race and globe at any time. He shows, too, that inside of all of us, even the most callous there exists the hero and the martyr. Given the chance we would be willing to protect and save the race from any disaster, though our efforts may mean a terrible agony and even death! This is a most unu- sual story! burning up the road between Stanton and Norfolk and had stopped for gas about ten miles from the latter city, not far beyond Stanton, where I had miraculously filled my sales quota during a lull in the interfer- ence the day before. The Moon was well past full, hanging low in a cloudless sky. I remember talking with the proprietor of the gas station about the rocket that Norfolk’s favorite son, my old pal, Dick Haverford, meant to aim at the Moon in a week or so, as soon as he gave it enough test-flights in the upper atmosphere. I jokingly said that I was willing to throw over my job if he would take me along, and the proprietor called me a fool and flooded the tank over, effectively transferring the compliment. I was sunk to the back teeth in what is generally called a horse-laugh when out of the west came a flash of blinding light, followed by a shatter- ing crash of sound that rattled my wind- shield and splintered the closed windows of the gas station. Then from the east came a wind — the wind — and like a man in a dream I watched my hat scale r off down the road toward a murky pillar of smoke or dust that was vomiting into the sky over Norfolk. The station was sheltered by a low hill of sorts, but in front, at the side of the road, grew a real old New Eng-
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920 WONDER STORIES land elm, over a hundred feet tall, shading the station with its great green umbrella. Now, as I watched it, the green leaf sur- faces turned to show their pale under sides with the coming breeze. Then the twigs began to bend and let their leafy ends stream out toward the west, not with the fit- ful tossing of a brewing storm, but slowly, steadily, as if a mounting force were draw- ing them out. And now I saw that the great upper branches were twisting and bending, to give way to the wind. Slowly, like a weary laborer bending to his load, its mighty green crown drooped and the six- foot trunk took on a taut curve. And then it broke. With a white flare of splintered wood, it went bobbing off down the road like a giant stalked tumbleweed, while the shattered stump screamed aloud with vi- bration above the sullen roar of the rising wind. Sand and gravel splat- tered the back of the car, and 1 looked around to see that the top of the lit- tle cut that sheltered the station was being torn down by the wind. All manner of things Were tearing past and over- head— roofs, uprooted or broken trees and bushes, the tops of autos — and still the wind mounted with its droning roar, a queer unreal quality of leisurely, sleepy growth in its tone. As the wall of the cut wore lower, great air currents ripped nearer my car, where I sat in a sort of daze. I could detect now an ugly whine lurking under the sullen roar. Everything happened at once. There was a new crash from beyond the edge of the cut and the fat proprietor fairly dove into my open car as a huge bushy maple popped over the rim and crashed full into our rear, driving me headlong into the open. In an instant the tempest caught us, the open top flapped forward and off with a snarl of ripping fabric, and I was bowling down the open road with the owner of the gas-station gripping my neck in a frantic stranglehold- The wheel was no good for steering — it was of use only as a pillar, a post to which I could cling. The road ran straight for a mile or so, and for maybe a minute we swept smoothly between stripped fields where the grain clung in a mat to the ground. Then we struck a curve and the Buick took a wire fence below the level of the road like a racing greyhound, struck in a swampy meadow, and somersaulted end for end. I felt the garage man loosen his grip; then sensed a changing perspective of earth and sky, and my own grip loosened and I was being carried bodily by the wind. The other man was now a blurred form in the air ahead. UR tattered clothes offered little gliding surface, and gravity very soon asserted itself. A second fence loomed, pro- bably the other side of the field. The other fel- low cleared it with a foot to spare and vanished in the dust beyond, but I met it fair and square, and with a crack of rotten posts and screech of freed wire was rolling head over heels through the water-stripped mire of a small pond. With an ominous buzz of splintered fibers anoth- er elm whipped past me, butt first, and struck the opposite bank of the pond, driv- ing deep into the mud. In the fraction of a second that its course was checked, I found myself firmly wired into the heart of the mass of stripped branches, and then my strange steed was up-ending it across the fields, filling me with a wholesome fear of death every time its mighty crown struck the ground and new splinters sang around my head. Then there would be a breathless, rising glide — a heart-shaking swoop — an instant of crash- ing limbs and flying branches — then on and up again.
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DUST OF DESTRUCTION 921 I can’t even start to describe that race with the wind, straight across Nebraska for ten fearful miles to the devastated city of Norfolk. My tree was a big one, and for a large part of its trip it traveled crown foremost, dragging the heavy butt, but every now and then it would drop, up-end, and drive like a dart until it struck some ob- struction with a shattering crash and spun end over end for a new start. I know that w< drove clear through the walls of a farm- house where people still clung for shelter, and that we hurtled through a brief grove of splintered tree-stubs that were screaming madly above the wind with shrill vibration. I knew, too, that the wind was falling some- what, for its throaty roar was growing deep- er and lower. But when the trunk of my tree snapped off and we hit Norfolk I can- not tell. I was probably unconscious. # » * A rising sun found me plastered amid debris of tree and fence and city against the still-standing wall of a bank-vault, up to my neck in a fluffy green dust that was piled in great drifts and dunes all along the remaining walls of 'Norfolk. To a keener sense, it might have been gritty, for it seem- ed angular and crystalline, and on my ton- gue it felt granular, but to eyes and fingers it was merely a fluffy emerald powder that seeped and drifted through and into every- thing and everywhere. It was light enough to retain considerable air, except where it was packed in a thin crust along the walls, and when I felt something squirm against my feet I was able to burrow in and drag out the man still alive and kicking. He was a physical Hercules, but the wind had stripped him clean; for, unlike me, he had had no buffer. It was a miracle that no bones were broken, though his mighty muscles were purple with the ruptured cap- illaries of great livid bruises. Around his waist still hung a cartridge belt and auto- matic, and in that instant I recognized the face behind the tawny uncut hair and stub- ble of beard. He was “Red” Brockton, tramp and bank-robber, whose pictures and finger-prints adorned the post-office wall in Sheldon. He showed signs of coming around, so my discretion prompted the transfer of his little arsenal, and my valor consequently survived a rather abrupt de- pression. I do not know how or where he had gone to sleep, but he woke with the fine green dust in his hair and his ears, and the barrel of his own gun centered on his stomach. I had read somewhere that such a target often secures a moral hit long before phy- sical contact would register. It seemed to work. “What the hell?” he wanted to know. I was noncommittal. “Leggo that gun — you’re pointin’ at me!” he bellowed peevedly. “Nix.” I informed him. “I’m perfectly comfortable as is. You just lean back and contemplate Nature at her best— or worst, if you like it better.” “Funny guy, ain’t you? Well, the lead’s yours — I pass. What’s your hand?” “I have openers — or an opener.” “Yeah. / had it last deal.” “Sure, but this is now — and here. Feel- ing at all agreeable and open to sugges- tion?” “That depends.” “Naturally. Listen here. I’m going to make you a proposition. Are you listening to it?” “Shoot.” “It’s this way. I don’t have to tell you that something or other has raised particular hell right here where we’re sitting, and for plenty of miles around. We’re luckier than most, so it’s our play. Well, let’s play it, and play it straight!” “Um. Go ahead with the spiel.” “I guess there are plenty of people around here who need help, and not too many to help ’em. The really lucky ones are dead. I’m pretty well, and you look as if you could still lift a safe or so, under the sore part. I know you, or I wouldn’t have your gun, but my memory isn’t so good after I’ve been working hard for a spell — say at relief work — and I have an idea there will be others around who have just about the same kind of memory. Of course, if I’m lifting houses off of people, I’m going to need both hands, but that’s no
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922 WONDER STORIES drawback if you have everything straight. How about it?” “Well, it’s a proposition. Suppose I ac- cepted, an’ then plugged you?” “You couldn’t. 1 keep the gun.” “Hell! I thought there was a catch in it! How about afterward?” “Afterward is none of my business, that I can see. I woke up sitting on you and I acted accordingly. If we gang up on this relief work, you’re just a husky house-lifter so far as I’m concerned, and if any police turn up who have better memories than I have, then you’re on your own, unless you want to take a chance on what pull I have here in town.” “Good with me, feller. I’m on. You know me. Well, who are you while we’re teamed up?” “Call me Hank, if you want to. It saves time, and it’s been done plenty of times before. If you’re in a hurry, you won’t use a name anyway, so why worry?” “Good with me. You can stow the gun, if you want to. My say-so is good.” The City of the Dead TOGETHER we climbed up on the flat top of the wrecked vault and . looked around. On every side the city lay in ruins, banked deep with the glittering green dust of destruction, like long drifts of powdered jade or emerald. And yet, the green wasn’t quite so emerald or jade, either. It was more^like some of the spectrum lines my old Physics Prof had showed me, from the light from some of the diffuse nebulae of the Milky Way. The wind had snuffed out any fire that had started, just as you would blo\f out a match. All around us was just a desert of green dunes and jutting ruins of cement and metal-work. Whatever had hit Norfolk had hit unmercifully hard! Our work would be all too easy. For three hours we searched the ruins of Norfolk for living victims of the storm— all in vain. What we did find sickened us until we hated and feared to drag aside a timber or dig into a mound of the green dust. A few, like ourselves, had been blown in from outlying districts, and were merely scratch- ed or bruised — dead of shook, mostly— but of all the twenty thousand and more who had lived in Norfolk before the disaster, not one was alive or even recognizable when the dawn of August 24 broke. The dead reminded me horribly of the old, cruel ex- periment of the frog in the exhausted bell- jar, for the awful truth was that every living thing within the grasp of that inverted cy- clone had exploded! Bloody ribbons of terribly torn flesh remained, clinging to raw bones — no more. About noon of Thursday we ceased our dreadful search and hunted in the cellar of a ruined grocery store for food. Water there was in plenty, spouting from broken mains and piping, washing away the light green dust from the horrors that it hid. Thanks to the incessant flow, a thin green mud was forming in all the depressions, mottled here and there by a hideous brown- ing red that turned us weak and pale from memories of what it meant. No other re- lief workers appeared. They had enough to do in the territory where the real hurri- cane had laid the land waste for miles and miles. But with noon came a gleaming shape of metal and crystal dropping slowly from the clouds through the slow drizzle of rain, sending Red in a headlong dive for shelter. It was a giant stream-lined rocket, such as theoretical publications had so often shown, soft golden vapor drumming gently from three great jets as it eased to the clean- swept intersection of Norfolk’s two largest streets. Forgetting Red for a moment, I ran to where it had landed, banged with my grimy fists at the polished walls rising a hundred feet and more above me, kicked frantically at the unresponsive metal, clawed at the port whose outline I could see just above my head. I was mad with a mixture of relief and terror, joy and anger, and like a child I took it out in petulant physical defiance of the great rocket. From far above a voice shouted angrily. “Hey, you, cut that out! What do you think you’re doing anyway?” That voice — Dick’s voice! I stared up, fifty feet, to an open port. A head was sticking out, a brandished fist threatened
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DUST OF DESTRUCTION 923 me — Dick’s fist! I let out one whoop of joy, jumped five feet in the air, danced from foot to foot in excited eagerness. “Hey, Dick, it’s me! It’s me — Hank! Come on doWn here and get me before I go clean crazy!” “Hank! Why, you old son-of-a-gun — what are you doing here? Where on earth did you spring from? Hey, Doc, for the love of Mike look who’s here!” Another head popped out, above his, white-whiskered like an image of George Bernard Shaw in the old Thirties— by all the gods, Doc Jarvis — old Jarvis, our Phy- sics Prof! What was going on here? A ladder of flexible cable unrolled from the port, Dick scrambling down as fast as it fell. He dropped the last ten feet and began to hammer me on the shoulder, my sore shoulder. I hammered right back till he quit. “Dick, what has happened here? How did you escape and when did you finish the rocket? Where have you been? Where are you going? How ?” “Wait a minute! What am I — a World Almanac? Give me time, for the love of Mike! And tell me how you get here and struck it out without exploding when the pressure went down.” “Oh, I cams in with the wind. But how did you know they exploded here? And — hey, where’s Red?” “Red who?” “Why, Red Brockton. He was with me a minute ago when you landed. I’ll bet he thought you were the police, and lit out! Hey, Red! Where are you? It’s all OK, come on out!” “Police? What kind of company are you keeping, anyway? Who is this Red Brock- ton?” “Never mind who he is, if you don’t know now — he island that’s enough. Maybe he is wanted by the police, but you’re no more of a preacher than I am, and what’s not my business is none of yours. Sabe?” “Oh, sure. No offense. I just wonder- ed.” “OK. He’s a hard liver, but he worked here with me like a regular man today, and I’m for him! There he is — hey, Red! Come on over here and meet my friend.” 1 INTRODUCED him to Dick, and to Doc, who had come down while we were talking. I told them what I had seen, and what had happened, and Red confirmed my description of the catastrophe with a rather guarded story similar to mine. “And now, where do you come in?” I asked Dick. “We were on -our first trial trip — five hundred miles or so out of the atmosphere — - and we saw the thing hit, and what happen- ed, and we came in as fast as we could with- out heating up too much. What you have said confirms most of Doc’s ideas, and be- lieve me, this thing is plenty big! The next time it happens, they’ll have it under con- trol, and in quantity, and then— goodbye Earth! We’re done for — a race stamped out completely — unless the four of us can put a stop to whatever is brewing. I take you for granted, Hank, you’re one of us. How about you, Brockton?” “Where you goin’, an’ how long?” “It’s the Moon we’re aiming for, and we’ll hit it. We may not come back, but we’ll die fighting for this old Earth of ours! It will be a bigger lay than anything you’ve been in, Brockton, and you’re big if you join us. You don’t have to, if you don’t want to, but I’d like you along. Coming?” “Good with me. This state hasn’t too much love to waste on me, and ft won’t put me out any to leave it, even for the Moon. I’m with you.” “Good. And listen here — I’m not asking who you are or what you are. If Hank knows, he’ll keep his mouth shut. He knows how. I’m boss unless you all dis- agree with me or we’re separated and thrown on our own. Are you still with us?” “Oh, sure. Let’s get goin’, if it’s like you said. It don’t pay to stall any in a tight place.” “Right. Come on.”
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924 WONDER STORIES CHAPTER II The Threat from Beyond IN THE main chamber of the rocket, the port was carefully sealed and Doc raised us while Red and I stuck to the pad- ded chairs. It was just like going up in an elevator, the floor pressing hard on our feet and our breath coming slowly to heavy lungs. For a moment, after we got higher, Doc threw in nearly full power and as the great rocket sped ahead in its course we were plastered into our air-cushions by the enormous acceleration, as if a giant were shoving us back. The cabin became a whirl of bursting color-bombs, and my blood pounded in my ears. But as our velocity became constant, or nearly so, conditions returned to normal and I felt able to look from a port at the Earth and to take notice of the rocket itself. The clouds that the sudden storm had brought rolled in a great white sea far be- low us, veiling the surface of the Earth, which was already assuming the shape of a great bowl. To the west the mountains were jutting above the low-hanging clouds; to the east appeared the momentary glint of the Great Lakes and the deep green of the Appalachian forests. As details melted and faded one into the other, the deserts began to take on a reddish-yellow tint. They were at great variance with the mottled green of the Mississippi valley, bounded on the west by a chain of dazzling white. Dappled with clouds through which the great central rivers appeared in silver etch- ing against the shadowed green — they were a sight that no man’s experience had equal- led. . The rocket itself was worthy of notice. The cabin where we were was roomy, about fifteen feet in diameter and of equal height, with heavily padded walls and ceiling. There was a broad seat running all round the room, padded with air-cushions of course, with straps set in the walls at shoulder level. Here and there were deeply sunk padded recesses like chairs, while other firmly fixed swivel seats were placed about the room. Large ports, at sixty-degree in- tervals, were sunk about five feet in the walls, while a bulging quartz bulls-eye, set in a metal frame, gave a clear if lens-like view of the outside world. There were cupboards set in the walls, with books, chemicals, and the like, and the space be- neath the seats was utilized for other label- ed cupboards for food, spare implements, and such accessories. Doors led into the hollow walls of the ship. In the very center of the room was a great circular control table, with huge levers set about it and keyboards flush with the white- enameled metal surface. Beside the three control chairs, a master-control and two duplicates were set bakelite panels with a formidable array of meters and gauges, each with its dial and graphing stylus. Arid in the very center of the table, sunk a little below its surface, was a plate of frosted glass in which was mirrored a panorama of the outside heavens, divided into rec- tangular sections by a system of cross-hairs. Beside each control chair, a binocular eye- piece permitted a reduced view of this same panorama, with a switch to permit an en- larged view of any section of the plate. Now Doc had turned over the controls to Dick, and had settled down to give us an idea of what was happening. We had put on coats over what remained of our rags, and even Red was looking reasonably at his ease. “In the first place,” began Doc, “you pro- bably want to know how this ship is pro- pelled. In rockets of this type, fuel is al- ways the big problem — maximum energy for minimum weight. The early experimenters and writers developed the other details — construction, materials, everything but the hull and the fuel. Up ’til now, liquid hy- drogen was the best bet. With the discarded shell system and a small residual body, you could probably get to the Moon and back, if you were careful and ran on a mighty narrow margin. With refueling posts in space, you could get to anther planet. But nobody wanted to try it, and no govern- ment would risk the havoc caused by the falling of cast-off fuel-shells. “We, Dick and I, used hydrogen to get clear of the Earth. Then, following Dick’s
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DUST OF DESTRUCTION idea, we built a laboratory out here between Earth and Moon — just as writer after writ- er worked it out nearly forty years ago. We used the heat of the sun and the cold of space to run our turbines. We maintained artificial gravity by centrifugal force. But we did more. «TX ISINTEGRATION or else creation of matter alone can supply the limitless atomic energy that dreamers have wrote about. Science has found out that in the stars and in space these processes are go- ing on. And so came Dick’s idea. “Here in the void, using the electrical energy of the solar turbines, we learned to build up the elements clear through to ur- anium,* just as Nature does. We could not control the energy produced, however, so disintegration alone was left to us. It was Dick’s idea to build far beyond uranium, un- til we came to an element whose disintegra- tion we could control at will, providing well-nigh unlimited power in small mass and bulk. We did it, and our synthetic element, aslron, controlled by the apparatus here be- neath our feet, is winging the ship on her way. “Now for the catastrophe that is threaten- ing Earth. Out here, we saw the great ray flash into the atmosphere and blot out Nor- folk. Men, that ray came from the Moon! I know how it acts, and I know what will happen to our old planet if we do not kill this thing right at its source, and do it quick- ly! “You, Hank, have seen Coolidge’s cathode ray at work. Remember how it makes rock salt turn violet, and how acetylene gas falls in a dense yellow powder? There is your clue. This is a ray, a cathode ray gen- erated on the 'Moon, of such a frequency as will pump energy into the nitrogen of our atmosphere and cause it to fall in the fluffy green powder that you saw. The observa- tory, above, was in the path of the ray, •Uranium is one of the radio-active metals, which disintegrates into lead, giving off energy at the same time. The point is that this dis- integration is terribly slow and can neither be accelerated nor slowed up. It has been felt that if it could be accelerated then man would have limitless energy at his command. 925 and I have studied what happens to the air. “Four-fifths of the atmosphere— equal to twelve pounds of pressure out of the fifteen per square inch that exist on the Earth’s surface in our neighborhood— fell in green dust. From what I have seen, Norfolk must have been buried thirty feet deep in the stuff. It was an inverted cyclone, pour- ing dust upon Earth just as a real tornado sucks it off. Norfolk was smothered in dust, though the oxygen remained, but there was one more fatal result. Suddenly the atmospheric pressure over Norfolk was dropped to a small fraction of its normal value, and, like a frog in an evacuated bell- jar, every living creature exploded from his own internal pressure! Then the rest of the surrounding atmosphere rushed to fill the breach, and the awful storm came and spread dust and destruction far and wide. . “One thing more. Whatever creatures in- habit the Moon are waging this war of death on our Earth. Perhaps they do not know that we live there, any more than we have been aware of their presence. Their science shows them an ideal planet within arm’s reach — theirs for the taking. They need it, for some reason or other. But the pressure of the atmosphere may be many times too great for them to bear. I don’t know. But if true, their science comes to their rescue with this cathode ray of just the proper fre- quency, and presto, the pressure drops to less than a fifth of its normal value wher- ever the ray strikes! “Men, I believe that just as soon as they can assemble power enough, they are going to ray every bit of nitrogen out of our at- mosphere! Every living thing on Earth will die, and then the Moon-creatures will come there and take over the Earth for their own! I think the destruction of Norfolk was more or less accidental — the end of a random range of frequencies. They will try once more, to make sure, while they are building up the necessary power, and then — poof-*and we’re out of the picture for all time! We’ve got to stop them, and do it quick!” “If that’s how it is, I’m all with you, to the limit!” put in Red. “I suppose you’ve
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926 WONDER STORIES got somethin’ to keep us from blowin’ up ourselves when we get there?” “Yes, space suits for all of us. They have weighted shoes, to take care of the gravity, but we will have greater mobility if we do not use them. We can decide when we get there.” “Be sure Brockton gets everything straight, Doc,” put in Dick. “If we’re sep- arated or killed he may have to know what to smash. There won’t be much time to waste when the scrimmage starts.” “That’s all right,” said Red, “My business made it necessary for me to learn somethin’ of science. I know what he means, an’ what to smash when I get there, an’ I think I’ll leave off those lead shoes if I can. When I’m in a hurry I want to move fast. Another thing, do I get my gun back now? I have a hunch I’ll need it before we get through.” “Sure, Red,” I answered. “Here you are. You’re one of us now. Dick, have you an- other one for me?” “Right in the cupboard when you need it. Better put yours there, Brockton. You won’t need it for a while yet.” “OK. But you can trust me, honest. And I wish you’d call me Red. That’s my real name, no matter what else I call myself for a while.” “Come on, Dick,” I said, “loosen up a bit. Don’t be such a crab. Red’s just as good as any of us here, and don’t you for- get it! Maybe he slipped up a few times — who hasn’t? There aren’t many ways you can get the thrill of adventure and fighting out of your blood, except by bucking up against authority of some kind. You did it plenty in college! I’m not forgetting some things. If you can’t get it out of your head that you’re the million-dollar citizen of Norfolk and the United States of America, why, I gay you’re no man to lead us!” The Second Attack! <cpv ON’T take it that way, Hank!’ It’s U only that we three are old friends, and he’s an outsider. I can’t just take him as an old-timer right off the bat.” “Well, I can,” said Doc. “My memory can lapse as well as the next man’s if we get back, but just now I’m remembering a few things I’ve read in the papers and books. Mainly I’m remembering an old Englishman by the name of Robin Hood, and wondering if his hair was red. Shake, Red!” “Thanks, Doctor. I sure appreciate it! It hurts always to be on the outside lookin’ in — on the defensive against everyone. Maybe you think I came along just to get clear of the police, but I didn’t. I liked the way Hank, here, put things up to me when he dragged me out of the dust-pile; and I liked your looks, yes, an’ his too. I thought then you were men I could fight alongside of for a while — sort of gang up against the things from the Moon, an’ what- ever’s makin’ it! I’d still like to, if he’ll let me in on it, all the way.” “Right, Red. Teamwork it is, from now on, and stop us who can. I’m Dick — don’t forget that. Between us we’ll have ’em lick- ed, or I miss my guess. Here, Doc, for the love of Mike take these controls while I get some clothes on these birds! We’ve been talking so dead serious that we never real- ized that they look barer than Fijians in their bathing suits! Red may stick out of my clothes in places, but Hank is your size, near enough. We have to be dressed right up to the hour when we meet the Man-in-the- Moon’s daughter!” During the three days that we were in space on our way to the Moon, I explored the rocket until it was thoroughly familiar, and learned the technique of the control- board. Below the control-chamber were store rooms, packed for any emergency, and the mechanical maze of the discharge- room at the very bottom of the ship, with a confusion of orderly-disorderly machine- giants feeding astron to the jets. At the very top of the rocket was the great room where Red spent most of his time, a huge quartz-windowed observatory with metal shutters that could be opened from inside and a twelve-inch refracting telescope with all the attendant instruments of modern as- tronomy— spectroscope, micrometers, bolo- meters, and all the rest. The view was wonderful — of stars and
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DUST OF DESTRUCTION 927 nebulae and planets, with the Milky Way strung in a great necklace of suns across the black throat of space, and the pock-marked white desert of the Moon dead ahead. We had flexibility enough to maneuver the sun - to our rear, where its blinding light would not interfere with our view of the heavens. The little laboratory ip space showed too, for a while, a faint speck of light against the dappled Earth. Doc was busy most of the time making observations, and Red, who never tired of the view, helped him more than any of us would have suspected. As we neared and passed the neutral point of attraction between Moon and Earth, we took advantage of the lack of gravitational pull to put on the heavy space- suits and practice maneuvering in them. A constant tension of every muscle was neces- sary to prevent any sudden motion that might wreck us and the ship alike by dash- ing us into the midst of the controls. But before it became necessary to decelerate the ship for the landing, we were reasonably adept at the art of walking in a field of reduced gravity. Red and Doc were by far the best. Red’s uncanny control of his every muscle was simply amazing. He was one of those rare individuals who can twitch parts of their skin, like a horse, and practically every part of his body obeyed his mental control. A few times only did he experience the sensa- tion of utter helplessness that comes from moving too suddenly, with the accompany- ing suspension in emptiness, like Mahomet’s coffin. With Doc it was not the control that was so perfect, but a knowledge of exactly what motions were or were not safe. Still, he took a few pretty tumbles, and once Red had to drag him Out of the very top of the ob- servatory, after he had been thrown off his seat by the lurch of dodging a meteor swarm. Meteors, incidentally, bothered us very little and, as we traveled well below our top speed, we were able to avoid the big swarms with little or no damage to the ship. We were about an hour from the Moon, decelerating continually, when the great ray stabbed again, straight from the mighty crat- er of Tycho. We were watching the image of the Moon in the ground-glass, and as a pale shaft of light darted from the heart of the giant crater, Dick rocked the ship with the laterals, to get a view of the Earth from the side ports. Almost instantly the center of the darkened disc of Earth was marked by a stab of brilliant white light, a pin-prick against the red-rimmed black. The Moon- creatures had struck again, for certainty, and now we had barely time enough to make Tycho before they should loose their ray for the final time. We must stop them, be- fore they began their last awful barrage of death, and we must stop them for good! WE dropped slowly into a great crater at the southern apex of the Mare Nubium — the Sea of Clouds, as the old as- tronomers called it. The region near Tycho was a blistered wilderness of craters and ring-plains, great and small, but in that desolate labyrinth of crevice and crater it would have been next to impossible to find the rocket again. Hence we chose a prom- inent spot and dropped the rocket well under the eastern wall, where the shadow of the great cliffs would hide its polished brilliance from hostile observers. By common consent, Doc was the first through the air-lock. Scrambling awkward- ly through its rather narrow port, he jumped and dropped with uncanny slowness to the ground, throwing up a thick spray of pumice from the foot-thick layer that covered the crater floor. Indeed, this fine pumice cov- ers most of the Moon, deepest in those great rolling plains known to men as Seas, where it often buries entire craters; and but a fine dust on the lofty tops of the crater-rings and mountain-ridges. The rest of us fol- lowed him as fast as we could, and we raced across the crater floor for the south- ern rim, shooting high with every leap and despite our recent practice, sprawling awk- wardly to the ground again on landing. Red forged ahead rapidly, with Doc not far behind him, and when we reached the foot of the cliffs they were clambering from crag to crag high above us. I at least, knew how to fall, having had considerable practice, so I threw caution to whatever winds the Moon might have and went up the
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928 WONDER STORIES first almost perpendicular slope in three great bounds. Then I dived for a higher pinnacle, jumped from there to a knife-edge of lava that ran up at a sixty-degree angle, scrambled along this for about half a mile, and then tackled the last up-grade in a series of flying leaps that took me past the scramb- ling forms of Doc and Red, who had not my momentum. I popped like a released cork over the final ridge, and started headlong down the other side in a growing avalanche of bleached and weathered pumice. When the others reached the summit, I was perched on a spire a quarter of the way down the outer side of the ridge, ten or twelve feet above the level of the rim it- self. The panorama was certainly magnifi- cent. About one hundred and seventy miles to the south rose the great rampart of Tycho, jutting mile on mile into sheer empti- ness. Between it and our crater lay a jagged maze of craters, great and small, through which threaded the dazzling white streaks of Tycho’s mighty ray-system, streamers of white spreading in a huge network across the entire surface of the Moon. From the rim of the crater they looked like cracks that had been filled with a dull white ena- mel. Behind, beyond our crater, lay the great dark plain of the Sea of Clouds, while a narrow streak of dark stuff lay off to the right, running straight for Tycho, like a somewhat broader crevice that had not been filled with the white stuff of the ray-system. A bay of the Sea of Clouds ran up on the left, the lunar west, as it is reckoned from the point-of-view of Earthly directions. And everywhere, rising in a wonderful chaos of sun-bleached rock with here and there a streak of delicate color, were the southern craters of the Moon. I could have stayed there for hours, just looking out over that wonderful panorama of planetary wreckage, but we had no time to waste. We were all connected by radio, in addition to having microphones to pick up sounds from the outside, so I threw in my switch and caught Doc in the midst of an excited lecture to the effect that there could be life of sorts here after all, as he had seen a very, very faint flicker of convection cur- rents rising from the hot rock of a small craterlet in the wall. Dick reminded him that we already knew perfectly well that there was life here. We had come, he said, to find and wipe it out if we could, or make terms if it was neces- sary. There was no time to listen to lec- tures if we were going to have a stab at saving life on our planet from utter des- truction. And so, perched there on our pinnacles at the crater’s rim, we planned our campaign of attack. CHAPTER III The Army Moves Up FIRST of all, we would proceed separ- ately, and as secretly as possible, in order to keep all our eggs from being smashed together. We would go straight to Tycho, unless we discovered anything to change our plans, in which case we were entirely on our own. We would scout out the situation, reach the ray or the power source if possible, and put a spoke in the lunar wheel in any way we could. If we couldn’t carry on alone, we would hunt for the rest of the gang and wade through in a body. After we left the crater, and until we grouped again, we were our own mas- ters, proceeding as we saw fit, but wasting no time in gaping at the lunar landscape. Red, as the best walker of the bunch, was to advance through the. maze of craters to the left; Doc would go straight through for Tycho; I would cut in from the right, along the dark ray that came up from the north; and Dick, as Napoleon of the expedition, would do as he pleased— all perfectly clear, and all too simple! We already had concentrated food in our belts, enough for a week’s ration, and had strapped on our weapons — an automatic and a sort of short-sword or bayonet. Red and I, as best shots, were given two rifles. And so, with waves of the hand, we set out. As I leaped awkwardly off to the south- east, I saw Doc slipping down the crater- wall in a cloud of pumice, Red striding like a bulbous Colossus through a minor inferno of small pits and craterlets, and Dick stand-
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DUST OF DESTRUCTION 929 ing alone on the rim, staring off toward Tycho, and I wondered what his plan could be — a plan that only Doc and he knew. It was about thirty miles to the dark strip. I made it in about an hour, thread- ing an erratic way through the jumble of crags and craters with more than usual care. As half of the rifle-squad, it behooved me to move quickly. Then, for very nearly fifty miles, I hopped and floundered through a two-foot layer of dark pumice and ash, along the course of the black streak. It wasn’t really black, but more of a dark grey, from the quantity of powdered lava and ash that was mixed with the white pumice. The streak itself was a great, low-walled crevice that had been widened by erosion and volcanic action, through which black lava had welled up. Here and there were little pits or blow-holes in the lava, and I thought I could detect billows of vapor in their depths — moisture of some sort. Now and then I had to rest for ten or fifteen min- utes, and ate a capsule of the concentrated food from the container in the cheek of the helmet, for the going was hard and I over- exerted shamefully most of the time. All in all, it was about ten hours before I reach- ed Tycho, and plenty had happened in the meantime. As I advanced to the south, the walls nar- rowed and the left-hand ridge became a more or less continuous dyke, so that I climbed up to its top in order to make bet- ter time and get an idea of the country I was headed into. There wasn’t much new in it — a few pretty big craters and a flock of smaller ones between me and Tycho, a few short rays of the white stuff running out and sinking into the surface here and there, cracks, ridges, deep pits with their sides and bottoms in shadow — just another lunar landscape. It was going to be the easiest going off toward the southeast, where a bigger ray than usual cut off straight for the horizon like a polished white rib among the bleached rocks. I crossed the crevice, and struck off in its direction. All this time I had seen no signs of the life that we knew must be here. In the deeper pits and the bottoms of some of the crevices I saw vapor that might well have been water, and there were faint convection currents above the heated rocks that told of an atmosphere of sorts. But the sun shone down with such fury that the rock must have been at a blistering temperature. My suit kept out most of the heat pretty well, but the sun’s glare on the white rock hurt my eyes even through darkened lenses. Not much life could live here — the Moon-creatures must be underground or in the larger craters like Tycho and Coper- nicus. And then, in the shade of a small, deep, crater, I found what would have set Doc off in a whirl of excitement — lichens!* They were real honest-to-goodness lichens, sun-bleached to a yellowish white, with huge, bulbous spore-cases of bright crimson. How they could live on this volcanic desert I do not know, but there they were, just as if this were a mountainside at home. I went on with a distinct thrill at this first life on our supposedly dead satellite. By this time I could regulate my leaps better, and so make far better time; and as the rib or ray of white stuff drew nearer I put on full speed and reached it in a helter- skelter flurry of dust and rock chips. AS I had guessed, it was a low rib of some white, porcelain-like material, running out from Tycho to parts unknown. The top was only about ten feet above the mean level of the surface, and its section was decidedly oval rather than circular. As far as I could see from my vantage on a pinnacle, there was no opening in it any- where— just a long flat tube of dusty white porcelain or enamel threading its way among the craters, straight for its goal. It would be easier going on top, so I launched myself from my pinnacle in a great flying-leap for its top. I must have been traveling pretty fast, for when I hit there was an instant’s checking and then I shot on through and fell thirty or forty feet to the floor of the crevice that it roofed. The stuff was very thin and let quite a bit of light through, so that I could take stock of my suroundings with success. At last I had ample evidence of intelligent life on the Moon! ~ •A lcw form of plant life formed as a fungus on trees, rocks, etc.
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930 WONDER STORIES Here was a natural crevice that had been roofed and floored with white, heat-insu- lating porcelain, with metal ribs shoring up the sides. Sunk in the smooth floor were little parallel metal grooves, running the length of the tunnel, some six or eight feet apart. Down the crevice a hundred feet or so, another tunnel ran at a steep angle down into the rock, and in the darkness below I could hear thinly the roar and grind of machinery and the gurgle of water. Even as I was crouching at its mouth, try- ing vainly to pierce the darkness, my micro- phone registered a swift whirr and click from the direction of Tycho, and I pressed back into the tunnel-mouth as a great fif- teen-foot wheel swept past along the farther groove. At its center was a little cube of perhaps two feet on a side, with a round crystal port in the front. No sooner had it passed than its sound died — it stopped. I was discovered! There was no time for hesitation. In- stantly I stepped back into the dark of the passage, felt its steep slope drop beneath my heels, and slipped swiftly back into the dark. For half a minute or less I shot be- tween crowding walls, then a bright light burst on me and I fell with a great splash into a deep, eddying pool, the deafening throb and beat of machinery dinning on all sides. For one breathless instant I seized the impression of huge polished metal forms and whirling wheels, of globes of white light set in a low ceiling, then the vortex sucked me down and into a great conduit through which the water raced toward dis- tant Tycho. For maybe ten minutes I was swept along in the rushing torrent, buoyed up by my space-suit. I could tell that I was being borne deeper than ever into the bowels of the Moon, down God knows where, into the heart of the realm of these Moon-things. Would I escape? Would Earth be saved? Or would we die horribly, all four of us, and Earth become the plaything of crea- tures such as no man had seen or imagined? Again light burst upon me, and I fell for hundreds of feet through space to bring up with a breath-taking spat on the surface of a great body of water. Enveloped as I was in a buoyant space-suit, it was hard to see much, especially as I was lying face down in the water. By dint of much writhing and kicking, I managed to assume an erect posi- tion and look around me. I floated in a huge metal reservoir, hun- dreds of feet in diameter, into which poured great jets of water from far above, where the walls of a cavern closed into a narrow cone from which flooded the blinding white light. Up from the hidden region beneath the tank wound a spiral stairway, to an opening in the cave-roof above. It was of metal, with two-foot treads and no rail to speak of — merely a strip of metal on either side. Opening out of the great reservoir were myriad open channels into which the water poured, and toward which I was drift- ing helpless in the grip of a strong current. I felt for my rifle — battered, water-soaked and useless. My automatic was in a sealed belt-pouch, safe. Just as the current sucked me into the nearest channel my roving eyes caught a weird shape toiling up the metal stair— a glistening biped-thing with globular cran- ium and goggling, glassy eyes, neckless, with short, thick arms and stubby legs and hands like metal claws — some strange mon- ster of the Moon. Then I recognized it, even as a blaze of flame burst from the dome above us and the metal stair crackled with blue fire, hurtling the long thing head- long into emptiness — the figure of a human being in a space-suit! The Great Deluge! THE lunar water-system was a gravity- flow, with all the dips and thrills of the wildest Earthly roller-coaster. I was whip- ped through great caverns of roaring mach- inery, through narrow, dark tunnels bitten into the rock, across great chasms opening to the outer air. Then came a last mighty upward swoop, and the stream slowed and dropped into a pool that lay open to the heavens at the bottom of a huge cylindrical pit. All around me in the half-dark bulked towering shapes of glittering metal, half alien, half familiar. My eyes strained into the darkness and the truth leapt to my mind.
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DUST OF DESTRUCTION 931 Here were the rockets of the lunar races — waiting to leap out into space at the signal of the success of the destruction of the earth’s atmosphere. I scrambled out of the shallow pool, ran to the nearest rocket. There were no ports — merely ten-inch openings with curved, tight-fitting caps, little loading ports of some sort. How could the Moon-things en- ter— or were they even now sealed snugly within these metal walls, waiting to drive forth to the conquest of the planet they had killed? I stared around me. This was the floor of a small, deep crater, smoothed and altered for its single purpose. No doors opened into it, but in the walls close to the floor were sealed, circular holes, the mouths of some sort of tube. Now my microphone caught a whine and whirr as something hurtled by beyond the wall, bound for the great crater of Tycho, the lunar metropolis through whose heart I had rushed in the grip of the flowing waters. And now I knew — they were pneumatic tubes for communication between the cities of the Moon! Where lay my duty- — here, helpless, with the ships, or there, where the ray still burned? Or was it even now too late? Which must it be? I turned to the tube, jerked open the scuttle of the air-lock, crammed myself inside. There was a dim glow of light, and a little trigger of sorts. Edging forward, I jammed against it. It gave way. With a mighty rush of pent gases I was hurtling toward Tycho and the ray! * * * And now, for a moment, I must digress to make clear the movements of the others, as I later learned them. Doc took the short- est course, straight across a fairly open ter- rain to the looming rampart of the great crater. It had taken him perhaps six hours — uneventful hours — to gain the rim. He had not even seen lichens such as I had dis- covered. From the summit of the ring- mountain he looked out over the' barren waste of the crater, nearly sixty miles across, with a giant central cone of ragged rock. Otherwise it was utterly bare — no cities, no life— only rough rock and pumice’ and a scattering of small crevices and cra- ters. It was more than an hour later when he had worked through the thick dust to the central peak, and here he found the evidence he sought — a narrow black tunnel, leading down into the core of the mountain. His subsequent trip was short. The tun- nel opened directly into a great arching hall of many metal levels, where huge, strange machines poulded, unguided — an automatic metal world. Into one end of the great ser- ies poured molten metal, vanishing into metal maws. From the other rose huge polished hulks, rocket-ships, to drop into a tunnel and disappear. Like those I saw, there were only little hooded holes in their sides, like oil-cups on terrestrial machines. He found a plunging stream of water, dropping out of the upper heights of the mountain, followed it, and came at length upon the great cavern of the reservoir, where a narrow spiral stair rose to the far distant roof. Halfway to the top there came a flash of blinding light, a numbing thrill of electric energy, and he toppled from the stair, missing the tank entirely, bounding from girder to girder until he struck the floor and lapsed into uncon- sciousness. * * * Red saw much more. Far to the west, he had, like me, burst into one of the porce- lain runways. But when a great wheel swept past him, bound for Tycho, he was able to grasp its protruding axle, just above his head, and draw himself up. The speed must have been dreadful, and even his great strength was nearly broken, but he managed to cling unnoticed to the end. The runway dipped under the crater’s rim and opened into a spacious hall under the central cone, a hall into which other tunnels converged and pneumatic tubes opened. It was huge beyond all words, soaring clear up into the summit of the mountain, and wonderfully carved with strange geometric grotesqueries and laced with metal spans above his head. But he noticed only its filth, for the place was literally crawling with vermin — with great, disgusting shaped insects! They were all of a foot long, crusty green things with many-branched wiry antennae.
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932 WONDER STORIES Their feet were broad and flat, like green snow-shoes, and had suction disks on the bot- toms, with which they clung to walls and floor. The things swarmed over him in great wave-like clouds, over his arms and helmet, clogging his motions and sucking at the joints of his armor with a sort of sac that was slung under their bodies. As they crept over his helmet and peered evilly into its interior with many-faceted eyes that were filmed with playing color, he noted other strange organs clustered on their und- ersides— suckers, and toothed cups, and more — perhaps adapted for sucking food from the rock itself. On their rough green backs were the remains of rudimentary wings, and also round prismatic structures that seemed to glow in the light and fluc- tuate with its shading. THEY were everywhere, all over every- thing, crawling with a rasp and pop of suction-disks that his microphone brought clearly to his ears. Evidently the air was much denser here. Shuddering, he swept them from him. These were the things that were driving the lunar peoples from their planet to ours! These were respon- sible for the doom of Earth! He strode angrily across the floor, crushing them be- neath his lead-shod feet with vicious satis- faction. Where a pneumatic tube entered the hall, a buzzer was sounding shrilly. He yanked viciously at the scuttle. As it burst open, a flood of insects broke over him from the tube within, and he wheeled in disgust and horror and rushed madly across the room and through an open arch- way, mashing the things in scores beneath his feet! They were everywhere in here too, but not so bad as in the great hall. Here were the huge metal girders that supported some sort of tank, and a spiral stair of many steps, winding up and up through a maze of beams and girders to a distant roof, whence a Bright light was pouring. On the floor beneath the stair lay a queer, crump- led form, over which the insects were swarming, striving to tear at its joints with their devilish suckers. They were prying at every crevice, a huge filthy wave of dis- gusting life that rasped and creaked like rusty machines in their eager hunger. It was a globe-headed thing, with queer, short arms and legs, heaving slowly with its heavy, intermittent breathing. God, it was one of the other guys! He leaped forward, and even as he drew Doc’s unconscious form from beneath the sea of clinging bugs, a great wave of rasp- ing and a shrill, ear-splitting whine rose in the first hall, while a mighty torrent of the insects poured through the arch and over him, piling up a yard deep on the lower part of the stair. They were coming then, attacking at last, the lunar people, driving these vermin before them! Snatching out his automatic, he fired point-blank at the thing that loomed in the archway! * # # With the glancing blow of the slug on my helmet, I stumbled and fell, grabbing at my gun, then saw who had fired and yelled frantically into my transmitter. Here I was back again in the room I had left — return- ing here still in search of the ray! Lower- ing his gun. Red stepped back against the base of one of the great props that held the tank, resting Doc against it, and calling to me to come. I came. Back to back, Doc and the girder behind us, we fought the advancing horde. I mowed savagely in-1 to the crusty sea of green life with my club- bed rifle, smashing them in great swaths that oozed thick yellow slime and were swal- lowed by the thousands that poured over them to do us battle! God! No wonder these things had driven the lunar people to contemplation of the destruction of a planet! And with all their teeming millions and billions, it could not be long before they too would clamor for escape from this dead hulk in space! Doc had come to., now, and was leaning weakly against the girder, fumbling at his -belt. His hand came away with an oval metal canister — a hand grenade. It flashed at the low arch, struck just above its summit, and in an awful blast of shat- tering sound the wall before us collapsed, shutting off the outer hall. Again, again, and mangled insects were writhing in their death-throes in the two great pits he had
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DUST OF DESTRUCTION 933 blasted in the cavern floor. But still they came, seeping through the crannies of the wreckage, worming out of narrow slits and crevices in the masonry of the walls, rising high about us and flooding over us in a rasping tide of green horror that crept and clung and dragged us down. The foot of the stair had been blown clean away by Doc’s second bomb, but the free end hung loose ten feet above our heads. There was no escape that way ! And my rifle swung and Red’s great boots kicked and trampled, and Doc beat and slashed with the flat of his bayonet-blade. And still the tide of green rose about us and bore us down.' CHAPTER IV Toward the Tube! i ( T T EY!” bellowed Red above the din, A A his voice thin and resentful in the microphone. “Where’s your loud-mouthed friend, Haverford, now? Is he still cud- dlin’ his precious hide back at the ship, or has he got some slinky plan to sneak in and get all the glory while we do the dirty work?” “He had a plan,” gasped Doc. “He was coming here by air, in a little one-man rock- et plane we had stowed away for explor- ing ... He figured the ray would be in the top of the cone . . . that he might be able to get at it with grenades, after we got here. But he hasn’t come — he hasn’t tried. May- be they got him, damn them!” “Who got him? The Moon things?” “Yes, these insects. I — I think these are really the creatures that are attacking Earth. I have seen no other form of life as advanced as they are — they have a language, use the pneumatic tubes and the machinery, seem to have a definite purpose in their attack.” “But it can’t be these! Maybe the real things are besieged up there in the peak, like us.” “I hope so. These are too hard to kill, for us to ever be really safe. And. I think they can live in the open, when the sun is up. Maybe there are other things that we have not seen, but these insects are intelli- gent— they have the ability to survive. Perhaps we may never see those others, if they exist.” “Well,” gasped Red, “you two settle it out of court. As for me, I’m goin’ up — an’ that now!” With the words, he kicked free of the crawling sea of life and jumped for the end of the stair, caught it fairly, hung dangling by one arm. Slowly he pulled his body up, flung a leg over the lowest step, and was up. He lay a moment, pant- ing, then wound his legs around a metal rod and reached down for Doc. With my gun, I cleared a small space, and he jumped, fell short by inches, tried again, and catch- ing Red’s outstretched arm was up! And then, after a moment’s wild slaughter, I fol- lowed, felt Red’s hand on my arm, and scrambled to safety, just as a newer, greater wave of the insects broke over the place where we had been! None too soon had we made the trial, for now bright bursts of light stabbed from high on the walls of the cavern, white flames of heat that fused the support against which we had leaned and sliced it through in a shower of flaming metal. Slowly it buck- led, dropped, and then, as the enormous weight of the water above surged across the mighty reservoir, the huge tank sagged and toppled, crashing into the wall, deluging the floor with thousands and thousands of tons of foaming water. A hundred feet from the swinging lower end, Doc fainted, and we paused in our mad scramble up the metal thread of the stair. Again the rays stabbed at us. The stair beneath melted and fell hissing into the flood. Intelli- gence directed those rays — the intelligence that threatened the Earth! We had marked the places of attack, niches in the walls of the great hall, with crystal ray-tubes set behind stone barricades in the mouth of tunnels from which the in- sects were pouring to join the swarm below. Quickly Red unstrapped his rifle, took care- ful aim, fired at a moving bulk in a tunnel mouth. The thing went still. I grabbed Doc by the shoulder and began to drag him up the stair, while Red crouched at the end, snipiAg at the things in the dark niches.
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934 WONDER STORIES A hundred feet below, huge waves were surging about a tangled metal wreck, alive with green things that fought vainly for life, all attack forgotten. Ten huge torrents dropped thundering from the shadows above, smashing at crumpled metal and crushed insect, beating the welter into foam. Red had scored an- other hit, a ray-tube burst in a flare of blue light. They had stopped raying us now, afraid for their lives as the walls crumbled into muck beneath them. Wherever a form moved, there a bullet spat evilly against the rock and there was no more motion. Slowly we toiled up the wisp of metal that wound up and up into the hollow heart of the peak — up to the great cathode ray and the unseen things that guarded it. Slowly Red followed, covering our retreat. A sudden ray blazed, searing the stair be- tween us. As the lower steps sagged, he launched upward in a mighty leap, wormed to safety, and fired at the niche from which the ray had come. A dim, half-seen shape squirmed erect with a queer, chirping cry — a thing seemingly unlike the things below, larger, differently shaped, more — human! Or was it a shadow-distorted insect, some larger, more advanced form, like the rulers of the termitary, that rose and toppled into the seething cauldron beneath? The light of the place was fading, and our minds strained by fear and peril. Which did we see — master insect, different from his fellows as in the breeds of the ter- mites and ants of Earth, or — something else — something far more terrible? We never knew. UP, inch by inch, clutching wearily, weakly at the narrow railing, stumb- ling with heavy feet over too-low steps, with Doc half-creeping, half-carried at my side. Up endless feet, twenty, a hundred — toward the narrowing cone. Where the stair dis- appeared into the rock, I saw a great diaph- ragm like the iris of a camera stopping the opening to the summit of the peak. The stair vanished through a tiny hole in the rock beside it, disappeared into a pocket of black dark, where something stirred — new danger. I screamed hoarsely to Red, the rifle barked, and a tube burst, fusing half the upper stair with its furious heat. As the stair sagged, I saw the freed diaphragm snap open with a mighty clang. Beyond lay the chamber of the ray! For an instant, clinging to the tilted stair, we saw it, lit by the blinding glare of the great tube that perched high on jetty insu- lators. Into its base ran huge twisted ca- bles, through it coursed a mighty, awful flame of loosed energy, dazzling electric blue and blinding white. Driving out from its blazing target of the grey metal poured a great shaft of shimmering luminescence — out into space — out to a dying Earth. But in the wall of that little chamber in the peak was a great gap through which the sun poured its brilliance, revealing that which lay in the shadow of the tube. We say a tiny form — a human being — battling bravely, fiercely for its life and the life of its race, struggling against things that numbed our comprehension — Moon-things of horrid leaping shadow — or were they insects, fearfully altered by a sportive evo- lution from the pattern of the hordes below? For a single second of time the form ripped free, hurled off the figures vainly clamoring at him, and raced up the side of that gigantic pyramid of black that held the ray — up, up to the shimmering shaft that beat out into emptiness, to another world. For an instant it hung poised, weap- onless, silhouetted against the mighty crys- tal sphere of leaping flame, then hurled it- self straight as a dart for that fiery chaos. There came a roar of unleashed lightnings, a blaze as of the fires of Creation, a. beat- ing tempest of thin wind that strove to rip us from our narrow perch, and the summit of the mountain crumpled and fell, shatter- ed, into the deathly silence that followed. We found an exit, a tortuous hole through the wreckage that led us down again through those great rooms where once mighty mech- anical giants had thundered the energy of • death to Man. They bulked silent in the darkness, their driving power gone. No water flowed, no globes of light lit the cav- ern, no thin air circulated through the swift- ly fouling corridors.
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DUST OF DESTRUCTION 935 Somewhere, the insect-thing9 gasped in death, or crept torpidly about using again the strange organs of life that evolution had given them in adaptation for the conditions .'of this barren waste. Somewhere, perhaps, those other, half-seen things lay still at last, masters or robots — God alone knows which. ^ And not Tycho alone had died, but Coper- nicus, and Ptolemy, and those other great crater-cities that Man has never seen. For all the Moon fed its power, its very life, into the giant tube — that would strip a planet of its life in preparation for a new era of weird horrors. In a way, I hope that life is not entirely gone from the Moon, for that would be a terrible price to pay, even though that self- same doom must otherwise have come to Earth. Dick would not have wished it, Dick who somehow came too late, or per- haps too early, to his destination. We who live can plan otherwise, now the deed is done and over, but its doing was none the less magnificent and worthy of a man of Earth — Richard Haverford, a Titan! 1 We did not wholly prevent the horror of the green death-dust on Earth. In a broad swath the ray had cut across Asia and half of Europe, slaughtering millions outright and rendering millions more homeless in the storms that followed in its wake. The air of the world is rarer, noticeably so, and its pressure less, much as on a mountain- top; but many of the diseases of the low- lands are passing before the elixir of the rare, clean air. The green dust of death remains, spread by the tempests over all the face of the globe, from Pole to Pole. No chemical has yet altered it, nor any of the weapons of physics, but men have much. to learn, and when it is at last disrupted it may provide a source of the great energy poured into its making, so that the Moon will at last prolong life where it had once dealt death. We may return to the Moon, or adventure to another planet — Doc, Red, and I. Others surely will. The rockets of the lunar faces are there, and their great cities of machines and mighty underground system of commun- ication raying out from their greatest cities. . Man will certainly acquire their secrets, the secrets of a race that no man but one has truly seen, and that man dead. I think that we will again follow the call of space and lead the way for science. Dick would have done so. THE END » /y IT WAS A CHASE THROUGH INNUMERABLE WORLDS for that unknown Master C-X that led three valiant men to "The Scarlet Planet” (by Don H. Lemon) where they encountered a civilization whose nature and customs defied the rea- V/ son and imagination of man. Beautiful women vampires who died voluntarily by drowning and were immortalized in their tombs; half-human beasts; strange cities and stranger instruments of torture all mark this marvelous novel-length story. RAY CUMMINGS adds to the power of this issue by his intense drama of the conflict of three desperate hu- mans fighting off the death of suffocation and starvation in interplanetary space. Adrift . . . alone . . . they struggled — in ‘"The Mark of the Meteor” In The scientist revealed at last — at his best and at his worst — is a strange creature. “The Man of Bronze” (by A. L. Fierst) we find an unusual story of stupendous scientific weapons . . . the conflict of nations be- hind the scenes . . . torture and triumph for some . . . and disaster for others . . . Edsei Newton has written for this issue a very unusual story “The Hour the Conqueror Came” The strange concoction of a weird brain— multiple— is destined to play an important part in the lives of people. It spreads . . . engulfs . . . and leaves nothing to mark its path of ruin ... Also in this issue “The Martian Nemesis” by George B. Beattie "Pithecanthropus Island” by I. R. Nathanson AND OTHERS ALL IN THE WINTER 1931 WONDER STORIES QUARTERLY ON ALL NEWSSTANDS JANUARY 1, 1931
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The Great Transformation By Ray Cummings ir. he ape raised the dripping knife, his gaze turned again to Edith THOSE who anticipate reading here a conventional tale of familiar type, cast in the mould accepted as fictional form had best pass by my few unimport- ant pages. I am not skilled in suchr" crafts- manship. My chief told me once, when my report was made, that the affair should lie in oblivion. Certainly I was not the one to write it in the guise of fiction. Nor was it suitable as fact for our audible news- casters for it would have aroused too much of doubt, suspicion and horror .... Yet, I write it. For my own diversion, if you will; perhaps, with that morbid qual* 936
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He thought he could interfere with nature* s laws , and change the work of a million years ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ity of the human mind which makes us like to dwell upon a horror . . . My name is Georg Blake. I was, that summer of 1948, a novice news-gatherer for the London Vocal-Times. I was in the editing room of the Tower — a sultry Au- gust afternoon when the chief called me. “What do you calculate out of this? Georg?” An old-fashioned, type-script letter. He tossed it at me and I read it. Signed in ink, quaintly handwritten, “Dr. John K. Rob- erts.” I had never heard of him. The letter set forth briefly that its writer was upon the eve of a medical experiment which would 937 be of great interest to the public; which might indeed prove of stupendous' im- portance. He was (he wrote) a physician and surgeon retired now many years; a scientist who knew other scientists for the charlatans they really are. Hence, he de- sired no recognized scientific witnesses; his discovery would be given to the world through the medium of the public news- casters. If the Times cared to avail itself of the opportunity he would be glad to have it send a representative. Someone trustworthy; discreet; intelligent; prefer- ably with at least some knowledge, or in- terest, in science. My chief grinned as I handed him back
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938 WONDER STORIES the letter. “That’s you, Georg. You want to follow it up?” A trickster, this fellow Roberts; this thing, some publicity trick. A charlatan, no doubt — himself, not all the other scientists in the world whom he so glibly, contemptu- ously accused . . . I had anticipated from his letter that he would be an old man; but I was not prepared for the ancient aspect which was his. A man of eighty — or if he had told me a hun- dred I would have be- lieved it. Yet there was about him — de- spite his shriveled frame, his palsied hands, his cracked sen- ile voice — a sense of driving power. A per- sonality vaguely sin- ister. I recall that at once I no longer thought him a mere trickster. And I feared him — feared, at least, this necromancy I was about to witness . . . It was sundown when I arrived at the lonely little house set upon the edge of a moor . . . They had looked strangely at me when in the village I inquired for the place . . . He had a daughter; I could have thought her his grand-daughter at the very least — a slim, pale girl of per- haps sixteen. He called her Edith. A somber girl queerly poised; a girl who who have been beautiful without that mantle of appre- hension which so obviously enwrapped her. THEY entertained me at supper. We were four in that household; we three humans, and the ape . . . We sat, after sup- per, in a small room which was the library. I had not yet seen the ape ... » “There is,” said the old man, “no quality of the human mind which differs essenti- ally from that of the beast.” I had found him pleased to have me ar- gue with him. “There is the soul,” I said. “If you could call that a mental thing — ” “A birthright, young Blake. The soul is a heritage. N o t h i n g mental, nor physical. Hah! you could call it spiritual as they do, and still not know what it meant. A her- itage and a promise of futurity, nothing more. Science is not con- cerned with that — ” Ah, I can say now how great a fallacy he voiced! “Science is not con- cerned with that, young Blake. We deal in tangibilities. The human mind works in thus and such a fashion. We humans reason with logic — because we have had the training — the evolution through millions of generations. We have the qualities which now we call human be- cause we have developed them. Respect for the property and life of others; desire for law; knowledge of justice — those things J ALTHOUGH science has V ' changed our whole world in a wonderful man- ner, it is only a blind or foolish person who would say that the changes have not brought many evils. Man cannot interfere with the laws of nature without doing himself a great deal of harm even while he is improving his lot by great leaps and bounds. Many of the broadest- visioned scientists are be- ginning to have grave doubts as to how far we should go in upsetting the “ balances ” of nature that have been built up over millions of years. We wish to stimulate genius by means of work on our glands, we wish to transplant glands from monkeys to prolong our own bodily mechanism. Al- though these things may provide a temporary boon to us, their ultimate effect on the delicate mechanism that is our bodies is un- known. They perhaps start in motion some unknown forces, that may succeed in wrecking our nervous sys- tem. Mr. Cummings had these dangers of modern science in his mind when he wrote this perfect gem of a story. He has poured into these pages all of his accumu- lated wisdom and keenness, and wrought his words into a picture whose sheer **\ drama cannot be surpassed! f
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THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION 939 which raise some of us above the level of beasts.” “And we have thfe soul,” I repeated. “Yes. The consciousness of a Creator; the wonderment of the Hereafter; a philo- sophy which tries to envisage the universe and make it mean something. A mere abil- ity to reason! We learned it in a million years of upward struggle; we give it to our children as a heritage, and we call it the soul. It is nothing but the quest for the unknown — ” He raised his skinny, palsied hand. He turned to the girl as she sat regarding him with her brooding dark eyes. Why, in those eyes of that girl I could see more than he said was the soul! Some- thing— in your eyes as you read this, and In mine as I write — which no millions of genera- tions could breed upward from the level of the beasts ! He appealed to the girl. “This young fel- low would lead us into theosophy, Edith.” She said timidly, “I do not understand these things, father — these things you talk about so much — ” His sudden, cracked laughter made me shudder. Demented, this dotard! But he said very quietly, “Nor do I, Edith. You speak like a true agnostic. You do not understand, and you are too intelligent to blindly believe.” He waved away the subject with a vehement gesture. “I was saying, young Blake, the human mind is the mind of a beast who has been trained to think more clearly. The brain — do you know the difference between the mind and the brain?” I stammered at his sudden question. “The brain,” he said, “is the physical mechanism by which the thinking is ac- complished. A physical thing of cells and membranes and blood flowing through it, with sugar for the chemical energy to en- dow it with consciousness. Why, it is so physical a thing that if for one second you stop the supply of sugar, consciousness vanishes . . . The beasts have brains — one species a brain quite comparable to that of man — ” “The apes—” “Exactly. The anthropoid apes, and we call them that because they so closely re- semble mankind. An ape is only a man un- developed— a man backward a million years, but still a man — ” I RAY CUMMINGS The Divine Elixir T seemed to me that the girl was shud- dering. I heard the sharp involuntary intake of her breath; she was half turned away so that I could not see her face. “The brain of an ape, young Blake, is convolut- ed, like yours. The brain case, in some indi- viduals is only slightly smaller — ” I sat, as the girl was sitting, and listened to his sacrilegious talk numbly. He had secured the brain of a man re- cently killed in an acci- dent. A young man. In- telligent, of gentle birth and breeding. And he had a living ape to whom now — tonight — • he was about to give the qualities — the ‘es- sence— of that human brain. To make the backward man we call an ape, a man of human, developed reasoning, like our- selves . . . This thing, so horrible . . . His words, so cold and precise, hewing to scientific logic when every instinct within me denied them with revulsion. This horrible thing . . . But was it because I as the man, was revolted at taking the ape upon an equality with me? Was it mere vanity? Is that what makes us look with revulsion when they tell us we have ascended from the apes? Is it vanity causing us to endow our- selves with a soul — something intangible, not to be understood — to pander to our
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WONDER STORIES 940 vanity so that we may say, “Ah, this at least I have, to make me superior to the beast — ” Is it my vanity — and yours — that makes us think we see in human eyes the light of the soul, something no beast could have? I shuddered as he led me to the ape. I tried not to show it. ^ smiled. “You keep him — it — indoors ? ” “Yes. He is very gentle. We have him in a room here — Edith feeds him. He likes Edith—” Words, so horrible. He said, calmly, “I had my distillation ready this morning — ” My thoughts were flying far afield, but I strove to hold them on his words. At what we call death, he said, the conscious human brain ceases to function. The heart is stilled; the blood no longer flows. Yet the brain momentarily is unchanged. If the heart were again to beat — the lungs again to breathe, to cleanse the fouling blood — then the brain could function again. There is no precise moment of death. It is gradual. With the ceasing of the func- tions, disintegration begins — a mere dis- solution of the physical cells. He had ob- tained this human brain before the disso- lution had progressed far enough to harm it. He had cleansed it; and by a process which he had over years perfected, had dis- tilled from it an essence — an elixir— carry- ing, in a few drops of fluid, the living mic- roscopic sperms which are man’s heritage of Divinity . . . •Heresy! Blasphemy! We passed through his laboratory. The room was unlighted, save by the shafts of moonlight that slanted in through its win- dows. The sashes were raised this hot sum- mer night; the breath of the moor came in to mingle with the smell of chemicals . . . The old man paused his tottering step. The girl stood aside — slim white figure in the moonlight. He fumbled at a shelf. “I have it here . . . Edith, have you the apple — ” The girl clutched an apple in her hand — “he likes apples — ” That sudden chuckle of a mad- man! “ — he likes apples — ” He pressed us on through the dim labor- atory. I saw that he was carrying a small hypodermic syringe. He showed it to me, but I shrank away f^om it. This thing — in- fernal . . I stood silent while under a light he care- fully filled the syringe. “I will inject this, young Blake, and in a few moments the living sperms will be absorbed into his blood — carried to his brain — to function in a moment . . . Have you a note-book? You are my witness — ” I steadied my voice. “You will have the ape — what he becomes, will prove — ” “Yes, of course. And you will recall, and testify what the ape was, before we en- dowed him. He is a beautiful physical specimen, just matured . . . Come, Edith — ” THE ape ... He was in a small room at the end of the wing. The old man was carrying a blue vacuum lamp; its glow mingled with the silver shafts of the moon- light; it threw swaying shadows of us on the walls. We passed the length of a hall, and came where it ended, to a barred door.j Edith unlatched it. She was the first to enter . . . A small room on the ground level. Its rectangles of windows were crossed with metal bars. The moonlight cast monstrous patterns of the bars on the floor. There was a further door leading down a step to the ground. It stood open; I could see a small yard out there, enclosed with an iron cage. Our front door from the corridor opened inward. We passed through — closed it af- ter us; and put the lamp on a table. I no- ticed its glow reflected from a full length mirror on the wall behind me . . . The ape ... I saw it crouching in a corner on a litter of cloth. Frightened at us; shrinking back, but soothed by Edith’s quiet words . . . The old man sat in a chair by the small wooden table; he laid the apple at the base of the lamp. There was another small chair; he waved me to it. “Sit down. I want you to study him a moment . . . Edith, make him stand up so we can see him properly — he is really very gentle—” I listened, with outward calm. I stared, trying not to shudder. This man — crouch^
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THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION 941 ing here on his litter. Backward a million years, but nevertheless — a man . . . The old doctor’s words were calmly precise, pe- dantic as though he were upon a lecturer’s platform . . . These cold, calm details! . . . This was, he said, a young male gorilla, family of Simiidae. I would notice the am- ple capacity of the brain case. I would ob- serve that the supra-orbital skull ridges were not yet clearly defined. It would be evident to me also that in this youthful specimen the face bore a very close re- semblance to man, since it had not yet at- tained its full brutality of expression. The carines had not developed fully; and the thickening of the skull, with its growth into crests and ridges, was not yet noticeable. The skeleton was the same as man’s; the teeth, the same number; the shape of the jaw— not so curved as man, an angle on each side, with a canine tooth set at the apex of each angle . . . Oh, the cold passion of science for detail ! But what I saw was a thick black hairy body crouching in the shadowed room cor- ner. A face, black of skin, with features cast in a mould to mock mankind . . . The beast was chattering as Edith ad- vanced upon it. “There, Timmy, don’t be afraid — ” Its human name! Mockery! The ape reared suddenly, and the girl retreated. Afraid? I could fancy so . . . I turned to eye the closed door behind us. The old man said, “We’ve got something nice for you, Timmy. An apple — you like apples — Edith, keep him back — ” The Great Transformation SHE stood confronting the ape. “Wait, Timmy, keep back — Edith give it to if you — Her very words and tone as though this great brute were a small helpless child . . . Grewsome ... I know too, that the girl was revolted; forcing herself to this task. , “Wait, Timmy — Father, shall I — shall I feed it to him now?” “No. Presently — •” The ape stood nearly as high as a man. Thick bulging chest; great muscular arms dangling to the middle of its shank. It took a step backward, walking upon the clenched knuckles of its feet. The moon fell upon its face. It was eyeing me, the stranger . . . And then I saw it stare into the mirror — staring at its own image; and then staring again at me. I sat tense. Its gaze held me. Those dark pools of its eyes! What lay down in there? What thoughts? What gropings^ Was this brute indeed a man? . . . Its gaze turned to Edith. Did I see it soften? I thought so . . . The ape relaxed. It sat down suddenly upon its litter, crouch- ing in an attitude horribly human. The old man held up the apple. “See Timmy? Look what’s for yoti.” The black lips bared the pointed teeth. Travesty of a human smile! The old man drew from his pocket a long clasp-knife. He opened its blade; he cut the apple into quarters. “Here, Edith — give it to him.” He laid the knife, still opened, by the lamp-base. I recall that, clearly. But at the time I scarcely heeded it. My heart was pounding, seeming almost to smother me . . . Edith’s face was white as the moon- light as she came and took the pieces of apple. “You’re sure — father — ” I heard myself murmur, “Had we better not — wait outside?” “Fools! He is very gentle — like a child. Soon he will be a man — like us! A kindly — man. Amazed, no doubt, to realize him- self ... Sit still, young Blake — ” Ah, I was as irrational as both these other humans to have been there! A confusion was on me. I sat transfixed. The ape was grinning. Pleased with an- ticipation of this coming delicacy. It stretched out a thick hairy arm and took the segment of apple. It was absorbed in eating; and the old man, mustering courage, held its forearm; punctured its thick in- sensitive skin; injected the fluid into its veins. The room was very silent. Black and white with the shadows and patches of moonlight; and a glow by the table from
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942 WONDER STORIES the lamp, where now the old doctor and I sat watching. Edith stood back against the wall; her slim white figure was blurred in a shadow. Moonlight lay upon the ape. It sat gob- bling its morsel like a pleased child. It fin- ished; and stretched out its arm again . . . “Give it another, Edith — ” She handed it the rest of the apple. We were waiting for the injected fluid to take effect. Heresy . . . Blasphemers, all of us . . . But of course nothing would happen. We would wait, and this old madman would be chagrined; this poor terrified girl would be relieved; and I would go back and my chief would laugh . . . A minute passed. Or an hour? I could not say. The ape had long ago finished the apple. Edith was standing back again, away from it . . . The ape sat crouching. We sat like carved statues, waiting . . . Nothing — would — happen — that injected fluid would not take effect . . . Nothing would happen . . . But there was something. What was this? Nothing — But the ape suddenly was trembling. Crouching; and then it passed a shaking hand across its black forehead, as though dazed. A terror swept me, but I could not move. What horrible thing was this? With that one simple gesture of the ape’s, it seemed to me that everything was changed. This black hairy beast — or was that a man, im- prisoned there in that thick, powerful body? A man, dazed, confused, frightened . . . The ape hitched, shuffled on its litter, and slowly reared up on its hind legs. Stood with long, dangling arms; stood swaying as though dizzy . . .Its fists were tight . . . A panic must have swept us. I heard Ed- ith give a sharp, horrified cry. The old doctor shoved back his chair. I stood up sharply; my chair overturned with a crash. An instant. The ape’s gaze was roving; the narrow black forehead was wrinkled in a frown. It stared at its mirrored reflection. It was puzzled. It held out an arm as though regarding it; and lowered its head to gaze at its hairy flanks. Puzzled . . . And then it turned to stare at Edith . . . A moment . . . All its muscles tensed. It leaped. But not at the girl; leaped for this table beside which, frozen with horror I was standing. The hairy body struck me, and struck the table. I was flung back, scrambling. The table and lamp crashed. The lamp was extinguished. But in the moonlight, suddenly vivid, I saw the ape’s hand holding the knife which it had leaped to seize. The old doctor screamed — a long, shuddering last scream. He was fumbling at the door; and the scream died in a gurgle as he fell with the knife buried in his back. I do not know what I may have shouted, or what I did. The wizened body of the old man blocked the door. The ape stood again with the knife — dripping crimson now — ■ upraised . . . I found myself in the center of the room with Edith clutching at me; my arms around her — the ape advancing upon us . . . A second. Oh, there can be an eternity crowded into a single second of terror! Whirling thoughts. Things horrible, to be seen in a second . . . I stared for that single second across a patch of moonlight, into the eyes of the ape. And there were many things I saw. . . My frightened fancy, if you will. Yes! Call it that . . . The ape’s black lips Were mouthing with words it could not form. And I saw, back in those eyes of the beast, things that should not have been there. A soul? Something human. A human realization. A man — the consciousness of a man, tortured with real- ization. A man, imprisoned in the body of the beast — suddenly realizing . . . And gazing at me, and at Edith— the woman. Realizing with horror, and despair . . . And acting with desperate frenzy. But not the acts of a beast! The acts of a man — de- spairing, irrational with his sudden hor- ror ... He had murdered the old doctor who had brought this upon him . . . And perhaps, too, an all-wise Creator was stamp- ing out this necromancy. The ape raised the dripping knife. It seemed, in that second, as though with the eyeballs of a beast but the look of a man.
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THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION 943 his gaze turned again to Edith — the woman. And softened — wistful . . . The knife-blade plunged down into the bulging black chest. Not the act of a beast! A suicide . . , The monstrous body of the ape fell at our feet; writhed and lay still; lay in a patch of moonlight on the floor, with a black pattern of the window-bars crossed upon it. THE END. FOR THE MARCH ISSUE we offer “The Return From Jupiter” the long awaited sequel to Gawain Edwards’ “RESCUE FROM JUPITER" ! Those who read Mr. Edwards’ tremendously gripping story of the depopulation of the earth and the rescue of its last two inhabitants by an expedition from Jupiter, will be thrilled to their very being by the even more powerful sequel. There are many problems left hanging by the “Rescue.” The earth is still barren and depopulated. Will it remain so? Will the last earthling and his beautiful daughter be content to remain as guests of the Neinans, inhabitants of Jupiter’s satellite? Or will they wish to return to the planet of their birth? This story of the salvaging of a fair world, the enslavement of a race, and the tremendous forces of greed, heroism and martyrdom marks a new triumph for science fiction. From the pen of R. F. Starzl another of t\e rising stars on the horizon of science fiction we offer “The Terror of Aryl” a strange story of strange deeds on a strange world. Like "Marooned in Andromeda,” the present story excels for its vivid descriptions of the plant and animal life and the tre- mendous cosmic forces released on a planet closer to the sun than Mercury! The struggles of the two buddies of the Interplanetary Police ar<^ heartbreaking on this hostile world. But they succeed in their great mission, and Mr. Srtarzl brings the story to a smashing finish. Francis Flagg is always welcome In the pages of "our magazine.” His present story “The Synthetic Monster” is one of those realistic bits of life, that despite the amazing details, convince the reader that they could happen. The monster remains in the background of the story, menacing . . . terrifying . . . Thru it Mr. Flagg shows us again the dangeb of mere man dealing with the great forces of nature. “The World Without Name” introduces a newcomer to our ranks Edwin K. Sloat He gives us a story of the struggle of alien dimensions . . . Faced with a disaster to his race, man rises again to the emergency supreme and triumphant. If he make^t a mistake by trying to peer too deeply into the secrets of the universe, man pays for his ‘‘sin'’ by facing the conseauences. Suppose that our world were faced with an invasion of horrors from another dimension. Would any of us sacrifice our lives in the attempt to stop it? AND OTHER STORIES AND “WONDER” FEATURES IN THE MARCH ISSUE
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A Flight into Time By Robert H. Wilson V (illustrated by Marcbicni) He rose and found himself grasping an arm — a prosaic 20th century arm. He had returned! 944
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A FLIGHT INTO TIME 945 I SUPPOSE it had to be Storrs — or an- other impractical artist like him. If the thing had happened to Edison, or Millikan, ©r any of a half dozen others, think what we might have learn- ed! Even if it had been one of the rest of our crowd standing on that street corner . . . But it was Fate, giving with one hand and taking back with the other, that vouchsafed to Ted Storrs the “Vision”. We have to piece it together as best we can from what he noticed and remem- bered. He was standing at the foot of Market Street, where the gold- topped Ferry Building is silhouetted against San Francisco Bay and the Oakland shore. Around him was the press and rush of the noon crowd, the clat- ter of street cars and the whistles of police- men directing traffic. It was the twenty-ninth of September, 1933 — that much is sure, for we were going over to Berkeley that after- noon to see the first football game of the season — and the hour, according to Ted, was exactly noon. Wait- ing for the rest of us to show up, he had stopped to set his watch by the Ferry Building clock. Just twelve, it was, the two hands straight together, and as Ted matched his watch with them, he let the second hand touch sixty before snapping in the stem. “May I bother you for the time?” came 7 1ME is but a stream says the modern scien- tist, and if we could get out of the stream for a moment, we could project ourselves into another part of it and therefore actually travel in time. Or, as Einstein said, space is curved; and since time and space are sister and brother, it may well be that time itself is curved, perhaps into some higher dimension. In that case also time traveling should be possible if the proper apparatus can be devel- oped. No doubt the traveler in- to the future will see and experience things beyond all imagining. But what of his own feelings about them? Suppose he were to find himself in a veritable Utopia. Would he wish to stay on and enjoy it? Would he find himself at home with people of that new day and age? Might it not happen that among his own race, even among his own descendants, he will find himself a stranger, and that he will have such an overpowering homesick- ness for the dirty, drab, and muddled atmosphere of the 1930’s that he would feel he must go bark? Mr. Wilson answers some of these questions in this in- tensely realistic and excit- ing story. a voice, “I’ve let my watch get hours slow;” “Certainly,” Ted obliged without half thinking, holding out his own timepiece at the end of its chain. The inquirer was an oldish man, with white hair and beard calling to Ted’s mind a Con- federate General. His shirt collar was open and without a tie, and his ensemble was a variety of heavy silk loose fitting garments, resembling, Ted thought humorously, pajamas. And his watch, on which Ted’s attention had uncon- sciously focussed a watch strangely wafer- thin — was marked un- mistakably with ten hours and a hundred minutes. It was that, together with the silence sud- denly striking his ears as few noises ' could have done, that caused Ted to look around. What he saw made him gasp. Almost di- rectly above his head hung a mammoth sus- pension bridge stretch- ing far out to the east and across the Bay. Behind him, a Market Street five times as wide as before was dwarfed into a narrow canyon by pyramidal skyscrapers stunning in the mass of their bases, dizzying in their pointed heights. Along the street, along airy between the buildings, sped myriad vehicles that in the distance were but hastening dots. Through the air, and swooping down now and then under one r causeways swung
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946 WONDER STORIES of the bridges, wingless, torpedo-shaped, sil- very vessels were sailing. And all in such perfect silence that you could hear the breeze sweeping in off the bay. The glorious white and silver of the build- ings, with their window crystal and roof- garden green ; the gigantic, unearthly beauty of t^ie picture, held Storrs for a moment. His art is by no means altogether an excuse from working. Then his mind recovered from the first paralyzing impression, and he turned back to the man with the strange watch. “Would you mind telling me,” he began, “just where and” — for the thing, incredible as it was, had begun to dawn upon him — “and when I am?” The man, who had started to walk away with- out ever really looking at Storrs, was nonplussed. “If you want to know the street — ?” “Hang the street! Is this San Francisco?” “Yes, certainly.” “Then what year is it?” “Why, eighty — , twen- ty-one eighty nine.” “You mean — ? And your clothes aren’t right.” THEY stood staring at each other. “I mean that five min- utes ago, by my watch, I was standing on this same corner in the year 1933, and now you tell me it’s two hundred and fifty years later. The thing’s non- sense.” “Not at all. Time motion is a theoretical possibility, though the chance of its work- ing is far less than that of your being an impostor. Let’s see.” He pulled on a pair of glasses. “Your clothes seem to fit the date. Your watch is a museum piece — the mechanical type went out a century ago. Still, you might have got hold of one.” This view of the impossibility was too much for Ted. “Look here, if you think I’m lying, what about this?” He pulled out the day’s newspaper from his pocket, and shoved it in the old fellow’s face. As the man looked at the fresh jnk and fingered the texture of the paper, be seemed more convincd, and a pocktful of “ancient” coins and bills completed his conversion. “We’ll have just one more test, and then I’ll believe you. But I never really thought it could happen, certainly not in front of me.” Then, growing conscious of an omission, “My name is Rodgers. I’m sorry to have treated you the way I did, but the thing shocked me too.” Walking still a little dazed, Storrs fol- lowed Rodgers down the elevated sidewalk on which they had been standing. They rounded the corner and entered a small, brilliantly sunlit of- fice. In spite of the attractive appearance of the place, it was a police station, with a sergeant at the desk in white uniform and gold braid who took Ted’s fingerprints, then mo- tioned him to a bench and watched him stern- ly while Rodgers and a higher officer car- ried the sheet into an inner room. Ted’s thoughts, such as he can remember them, were highly con- fused. Once away from the actual sight of this new San Francisco, his disbelief in the reality of his experience increased. He must at least be dreaming, and he tried sev- eral times to pull himself awake. He play- ed a little with the idea that he was mad. Then as time dragged on, the very prosaic reality of the station-house showed how far from fantasy was his plight. He spent at least five minutes in the ef- fort to shift his position unobtrusively so as to gain a reflection of himself in the cur- tained glass inner door, and thus settle the feeling growing upon him that after such a long time his hair was bleached white and his face shrunken beyond recognizability. He was almost ready to risk a reprimand ROBERT H. WILSON
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A FLIGHT INTO TIME 947 and walk over, when the door opened, giv- ing him a fleeting but perfectly normal image of himself — Rodgers stepped out. “It’s all right now, Mr. Storrs.” He had a slightly chastened look from his commun- ications with the higher powers. “But you see, we had to be suspicious. There’s rath- er a big prize out for the first man to achieve motion in time, and a number of fakers have appeared. However, we just got a check on your fingerprints, and they aren’t those of anyone on earth fifty years ago or born since. Though you’ll probably be ruled out of the money because your experience was involuntary, the Committee will want to see you as soon as it can assemble. Meanwhile, I am deputized to make you their guest and mine.” He took Storrs by the arm, and led him out into the bright street again. So it was tiue. Somehow, he had got into the year — what was it? 2189. Ted had less diffi- culty in believing it than more workaday people, and he followed willingly enough in- to the rest of his strange adventure. The walk gave him a chance to get his bearings further. Diverting his mind from the maddening problem of how his transfer in time had been accomplished, he began to pay more attention to his surroundings. The buildings, huge even to his first glance at a distance, became positively monstrous at close range. The base of one would cover a whole block, and the upward-glancing eye could not take in all at once a single vast front. Only from far off could he compre- hend their roughly pyramidal shape, with continual broad set-backs. But especially in the less strictly business district, the green of roof-gardens on all these flat surfaces called to mind far more the Hanging Gardens of Babylon than Egypt’s dead piles. And although the gen- eral plan of each building was the same, there were subtle differences — number and depth of set-backs, straight angle or vary- ing curves of upward slope — that saved the effect from monotony. Instead the whole city, Ted declares, had an indefinable, mul- ti-dimensional symmetry that was strange- ly beautiful, giving the effect of an elabor- ately planned design. A Magic City THE route Rodgers took led, for its first part, along the broad sidewalk, level with the show windows of the buildings. It was a dozen feet above the street level proper, and constituted a first, though com- paratively narrow, setback. Continuing in its same width, it passed in bridges between every two blocks, leading foot passengers directly and safely above the traffic. The vehicles, most of them, were a sort of glori- fication of the “cut-downs” of present-day college boys: small, low-slung, with a sort of rakish beauty. Though they swept down Market Street twelve abreast, there was no odor of exhaust from them in the air. They moved in almost total silence: even from the bridges directly over them, all Ted could hear was a faint hum of their many motors, and a slight swishing of tires. Then, as Storrs and his conductor turned to their left, a huge escalator carried them up to a new level. Just above a vehicular way, a somewhat narrower path, and wide- leaping bridges, made a road for them more than halfway up the buildings’ sides. The sky was visible now in its whole spherical shape, and the wind swept along, whistling in the wires of the guide rails. Here pedes- trians were fewer, and perhaps this very fact drew Ted’s conscious attention to them, just as here and there they began to slow down from brisk walking to notice him in his antique attire. In spite of the wind, the direct sun was warm, and clothes could be as scanty as taste prescribed. Among the men, the paja- mas similar to those of Rodgers were decidedly predominant, although there were sometimes a sort of riding-breeches in mili- tary-looking uniforms. Coats, if present at all, were of a light blazer type, or of loose flannel again. By the unbreakable tradi- tion of a thousand years, women still wore skirts. But they were far above the knee — cloaks being worn for protection if needed — and above the top of light buskins touching the calf of the leg, stockings were unknown. Some women’s hair was bobbed, others’ long and put up; that of a few, caught hack, fell down to their shoulders. Ted does
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948 WONDER STORIES not remember seeing a single hat on either sex. Both women and men wore bright colors, and yet in the large it was a note of soft, creamy white that predominated. All this last part of the way, Rodgers seemed abstracted, absorbed in his own in- terrupted thoughts, and almost forgetting his guest. Even when they had turned off to one of the buildings, and left the set- back garden for his apartment, he was silent. Ted tried to seem as preoccupied, examin- ing the room intently, but his inspection was only forced and he remembers practi- cally nothing. Furnishings are very much alike in all periods, except to their amateurs. Aside from a passing interest in the silent clock, apparently run by chemical or radio- active means like Rogers’ watch, there was only one thing that claimed his attention. This was a picture on the mantel above the electric fireplace with its resistance coils: a nude, and apparently a photograph, though in color and with a three-dimen- sional quality more to be expected in hand work. The subject, a girl with straight body and soft, short brown hair, was really beautiful, and made doubly so by the treat- ment. In profile with one arm outstretched, she stood against a billowing rose-colored mist where faint silver arabesques seemed almost to move, and which brought out in strong contrast the coral and white of her skin. The blending of real and fantastic, of the solid and the tenuous, was perfect. The thing was a work of art, and Ted, who ordinarily scorns photographs, had to share his enthusiasm. “A marvelous picture, there,” he declared, as his host came up beside him. “My daughter,” said Rodgers, in his voice only pride and not a trace of resentment, “my daughter Anne.” STORRS met Anne herself at dinner. Her dress, blue like her eyes, was a clinging silken wisp, sleeveless, and falling but a little below her hips like a Grecian tunic. Her bare feet were in soft, jewelled sandals, and there were diamonds in the silver net over her hair. “Synthetic,” she explained to him later, and the jewels were as cheap as glass, but they had all the sparkle and beauty of natural gems. “Mr. Storrs, who has got to us somehow from the year 1933,” Rodgers introduced him to his daughter. Her handclasp was firm, like a boy’s. The old man seemed re- lieved at the presence of a third person, and transferred to , Anne the none too easy task of finding subjects of conversation with the strange visitor. Before the meal was over, he excused himself: “Terribly sorry — have to unload a new shipment at the Museum— my daughter — home on her vacation — take care of you.” Except at meals, and on a few necessary occasions, Ted never saw Rodgers again during his stay in Anno 2189. “Dad’s an old dear,” Anne explained, “but he’s simply too absorbed in his Early Twenty-First Century. If you had arrived here from a hundred years later, he would have monopolized you utterly.” She laughed. CHAPTER II A Visitor from Venus THEY sat across the table from each other, finishing an ice whose refreshing flavor was strange to Ted, coming apparently from some new fruit. The meal, served from the common kitchen of the building, had been full of such new vegetable compounds, com- pletely replacing meat. As the sky turned grey through the casement windows, Anne leaned over and switched on the light: three tubes overhead, arranged in a triangle, that glowed like molten silver and gave out a pure white,, soft radiance. Storrs thinks, now we bring it to his mind, that this uni- versal source of illumination was almost wholly without heat, but he did not notice particularly, and cannot be sure. And then suddenly, as they were about to rise, a blind- ing purple beam flashed in the window. It was gone in an instant, but only after another did Ted’s eyes recover from the brilliance. “I thought so,” declared Anne, springing to her feet. “The Venus Accommodation is overdue again. Let’s find out what’s the matter.” Without waiting for a reply she dashed out into the hall, snatching a cloak about her. Ted followed, a little dazed.
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A FLIGHT INTO TIME 949 It was hard to keep up with her as she hurried ahead, running along the narrow bridges hung over darkness. Then an im- posing gateway, where she showed a pass to gain admittance, an elevator shooting up at breakneck speed, and they came out upon a vast landing field in the midst of the city. It was blocks square, resting upon the tops of buildings. From a tower at its center flashed the great purple searchlights beams. A dozen ships hovered and wheeled above it, maneuvering for a landing, and more were rising. Anne left Storrs in the crowd at the edge, behind a railing barring the field proper. It was his first chance to examine the inter- planetary and air vessels at anything like close quarters. The latter were torpedo- shaped, and except for small stabilizing and steering fins at the sides bore no trace of wings. Instead, while propellers at their noses provided forward power, lift was ob- tained directly from big helicopter screws along the top. The blades were larger than those of the propellers, spiralling in row upon row around their shafts. They seemed more than a little flexible, and made a flap- ping noise at low speed. They could float a vessel at any chosen height, and three sets of them lifted bodily into the air a ship as big as a Pullman car. Smaller, speedier machines, with their steering fins at wide angles and their heli- copters slanted forward, put up their noses and used their propellers to gain height more quickly. In the purple light, darting here and there or hovering almost motion- less, they seemed to Storrs the most incredi- ble things that he had ever seen. When Anne returned, she had the explana- tion of delay. “Number Three ship again. The other two got through the squall on coming into the atmosphere but the man let it come down too abruptly and twisted a wing, which threw him off his course. He even lost the radio beam, and had to limp back to it on his batteries. And then, hop- ing to speed up later and hide his fault, he didn’t radio that things were all right. This makes the second time; no more interplane- tary flying for him. He’ll be in any min- ute now.” It was true. The searchlights had been turned horizontally to the west. Their pur- ple beams sheared straight through the growing mountain of fog. In another in- stant, there became visible in the heart of the cloud the approaching flyer and the dots of its escorts. Even far in the distance it gave the impression of size, and as it hurt- led toward them its apparent dimensions in- creased. In an incredibly short time it was bulking overhead, large as a good-sized steamboat. Its shape was that of two torpedoes lashed together sideways, giving it a big, blunt front. Its rocket tubes were silent now as it glided in — the great wings supporting it. Almost directly above Ted, so that he had to crane his neck to see it, the ship came to a dead stop with the drag of a small brak- ing screw in the tail. Immens?, solid, five hundred feet up, it seemed about to fall and crush everything in a great cataclysm. Ted took a step backward. INSTEAD, it seemed to descend slowly, almost imperceptibly, to the stretch of field cleared for it. Its passengers — Ted could see them easily through the windows: yellow-faced Venusians and returning Amer- icans— were undisturbedly pulling on their coats. In their faces he could see a little annoyance, but no trace of fright, at the experience of their voyage. The ship had scarcely alighted (on row after row of big rollers, projecting but an inch or two from its bottom) when they were swarming down the companionways dropped from its side. In fifteen minutes the vessel was empty, and with a gang of overalled workmen steering it along, its brake propeller towed it back- ward into a shed. And then, more to make conversation than from any of the scientific curiosity that should have been gripping him, Storrs asked the one intelligent leading question of his stay in the future : “I gathered from what you said that aside from rockets these ships have electric power. Just how do they manage it?” Anne’s reply, made with all the sketchi- ness of one so familiar with her subject that she cannot appreciate her hearer’s ignorance,
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95Q WONDER STORIES heard and remembered as sketchily by a casual and un scientific mind, is perhaps, a little, just of its vagueness — one of most fascinating parts of Ted’s story. I give it here, all he told us at first and all he has man- aged to remember in response to questioning, the hopelessly brief and tantalizingly sugges- tive outline of the foundations of a new world : Two views of the city of the future, in which Ted Storrs found himself. The upper pic- ture shows a bird’s eye view of the great canyon of gigantic skyscrapers, the little dots rep- resenting new style surface cars. The various levels of traffic are shown with suspen- sion bridges connecting the mammoth buildings. The lower picture is a close up view of on- of the traffic levels, the surface cars in the lower center of he view disap- pearing into the black mouth of a tunnel. These photos are of an actual model of the city of the future, and represent a scene from Just Imagine , a Pox Movietone production, which had its pre- miere at the Roxy Theatre, New York on November 21. Copyright 1930 Fox Film Cor - one but a smalf group of super-trained minds — of whom Anne frankly admitted she was not one. Power so generated was in- credibly cheap. Ted did not dream of get- ting figures, and without knowledge of cur- rency basis and price levels they might be worthless. But suffice it that the use of Practically all the power of 2189 was — or should I say will be — electrical, and in origin sub-atomic. Common earth, mined in quantities so small, relatively, as to give no effect of eating up the ground beneath one’s feet, was so treat- ed that its mass wa\ transformed almost wholly into energy, and gave up that energy in electrical form. The process was not so touch secret as so complex and delicately involved as to be incomprehensible to any- labor-saving devices was limited only by the
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A FLIGHT INTO TIME 95T proficiency, and not the efficiency, of their design. Moreover, this power was supplied to all freely moving vehicles — airships, seagoing vessels, automobiles as well as interplane- tary flyers — and to substations in places too small for generators, by a system of ra- dio transmission. The method made use of an involved combination of inductance and capacity effects, of electrostatic and electro-,, magnetic principles, to fill the ether, not with waves eternally broadcast, but with lines of force tapped only when, and for as much power as needed. A network of trans- mitters kept up a concentration over all civilized lands and great beams were laid along the coasts and the transportation routes over ocean or waste. For journeys to Mars or Venus — the fly- er was transmitted over a gigantically pow- erful beam — rockets being used as auxiliary power. But that is so distressing in that Ted gave us just about enough information to meet our curiosity without explaining how things worked. All this Storrs had explained to him on that huge, eerily purple-lit landing stage. It does not seem to have impressed him as much as it should. It was only when they were walking home, in the cool night, over the airy bridges, and Anne, systematically bringing her discussion back to its starting point, was explaining the aircraft safety devices — higher possible speed for the mo- tors of uninjured screws; separate power supply circuits for each helicopter and pro- peller ; emergency storage batteries of radio- active gold which could keep the heaviest vessel running for hours — that he even real- ized the perhaps unusual extent of her knowledge. “Miss Rodgers, have you studied up on these things?” he asked. “Studied up?” she laughed. “Well, once. I work as pilot on the Polar Special to Moscow.” As | have said, Storrs had less trouble be- lieving his situation than would have some of the rest of us. His mind simply refused to grasp the incredibility— I had almost said the impossibility — of it all. Besides, when one has actually experienced a thing, the evidence of the senses is' highly conclusive. Still even Ted, when he wakened the next morning, was much inclined to count the whole thing a dream. He lay in bed, he says, for fully fifteen minutes, burrowing under the covers to escape the sunlight, fully satisfied than when he chose to look around he would find himself in his own room. Sport in 2189 IT was a voice that called him out of som- nolence, and brought him back to the reality cf his trip to the future. “Good- morning, Mister 1933. Like to play some tennis?” Anne’s head peered around hie half-opened door. “Betcher life,” Ted replied, realizing as soon as he had spoken that the slang would be as antique as “ods bodikins” today. “I don’t know what that is but here are some things. Catch.” The “things” landed squarely in Ted’s face. They proved rather less than the equivalent of a modern track suit, and he donned them with a little hesitation, thinking that something had perhaps been omitted. At breakfast, however, Anne was wearing very much the same costume: abbreviated “shorts”, and a mannish shirt with brief sleeves and throat open in a deep V, both of silky white. Mr. Rodgers was just fin- ishing his meal as Ted entered. Beyond a perfunctory greeting, and a good-bye kiss to his daughter as he departed for the Mus- eum, he paid no attention to either of them. When they arrived at the tennis court, out on one of the broad setback areas of the building, there were half a dozen other young people playing and waiting. “Mr. Ted Storrs, one of our ancestors,” Anne in- troduced him to them. They were greatly entertained by his account, which half of them doubtlessly believed to be humorously fictitious, of his marvelous leap to their era. The court, a pleasant, creamy brown, was constructed of a springy composition very easy on the feet. The dimensions seemed the same as those of today — although Ted who would never think of pacing them off.
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952 WONDER STORIES reports that the service line looked a little farther back. The rackets likewise had a normal appearance, although cast in one piece out of some sort of condensation pro- duct with a marked “whip”. Strings were opaque. The balls, while keeping the tra- ditional white, had no covers. Their sur- face, instead, possessed an inherent rough- ness that never wore off — the result, it was explained to Ted, of the constant breaking^ open of bubbles in the rubber sponge — and that gave such friction as to permit the cutting of all but the hardest balls played. The rules and scoring had not been modi- fied by two hundred and fifty years, except for the abolition of the second chance at ser- vice. But if the external character of the game was not greatly changed, the play itself had been marvellously improved. Speed, hair- breadth accuracy of placement, service that broke like baseball pitching, all testified to centuries of scientific study. And these, as Anne confessed, were far from champion- ship players. Yet one girl, especially — her name was Margaret, and she wore what would pass for a modern bathing suit with dark blue trunks and white top, while a rib- bon of flexible copper held back her au- burn hair — had a game that not only out- classed all the men present, but would even, Ted insists, make serious trouble for Tilden Or LaCoste. Before the morning’s play was half over, seemingly bothered at its restriction, she had yanked off the shirt of her suit. Her bronzed torso, as she swung into dazzling service or drives, made Ted think of a boxer’s, though without any masculine sug- gestion. A clock somewhere had just struck nine (10:48, it would be, in our time) when Anne suggested a swim. The crowd fol- lowed her to a man as she ran off along a path through potted shrubbery. Putting all his force into it, Ted was glad to find that in this exercise of pure strength he could catch up to her, could have passed her. They reached the pool together. The water was smooth and clear, with a marble rim and a strip of grass around it. It was shut off from the sun by the mass of the building. Anne raced straight for the edge. Lagging behind a little, Ted watched her as she pulled the garments from her sweat- gleaming body, stood poised white and naked. Overhead, between the spans of two bridges, a silvery airship hung glitter- ing in the sky. Then she had plunged into the blue-green, limpid water. The others hurried up, shouting noisily, some having thrown off half their clothes as they ran. One girl, stooping too near the edge to untie her shoes was shoved in fully dressed. Those already swimming splashed up at the others. . “Come on in, the water’s fine.” That banal con- juration, Ted reflected, must have now all the connotations of quaint antiquity. CHAPTER III A Perilous Age THE water was cool as Ted stripped and plunged in, the rush of it along the skin refreshing to his hot body. He swam until he was tired — the easy, almost mech- anical stroke of the others carried them at racing speed without apparent drain on their energy — then stretched himself out on the grass to dry. From there, he could see that much of the new effortless speed came from a strange twisting thrash of the legs, together with a careful exactitude of arm movements that looked the result of mathe- matical study. But what most engrossed Ted’s attention was the picture before him, the flashing bodies of various shades of brown — some of the women’s were a light, creamy tan in spite of all their exposure — and their green- ish glimmer beneath the water; the white background of the building, with its great mass towering overhead. His fingers itched, he says, for a brush. It came over him too, a little,' lying there, that besides the material spotlessness he had noticed in the new San Francisco, there must be a spiritual cleanness about this civilization to permit of such glorious nakedness. That afternoon, Anne took him to see the Bights. Her car, occupying an exceedingly small space in the apartment garage on a
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A FLIGHT UNTO TIME 95? level with one of the vehicular causeways, was a snug fit for the two of them. The machine ran from radio power with a silent electric motor, and although steering was done as at present, a small panel of push- buttons along the inside of the wheel con- trolled speed, transmission, and ordinary braking. Traffic in the streets and on the higher levels was fairly easy, facilitated both by the small size of the vehicles and, as Anne explained, by a housing system which so far as possible incorporated a fac- tory, the apartment residences of its em- ployees, and a complement of retail stores, in a single great building. Riding mostly in the streets proper, al- though at times climbing long inclines to the upper causeways, they visited the great manufactories of the city; the foundries where out of common earth was extracted the aluminum used in the alloys, incredibly light and strong, that had taken almost com- pletely the place of steel; the textile mills where automatic machinery spun its own synthetic threads and wove them into the finished product almost without human in- tervention, where a huge loom furnished a single canvas for an artist-workman to vary constantly the colors and patterns as they came forth; the generating plants where, looking guardedly through solid feet of fil- ter glass, they could see matter,- as it disap- peared in a seething flame, giving up the energy that ran the wheels of this new civi- lization. They went to a number of public buildings, auditoriums, libraries, museums — Ted noticed, in passing, a 1933 air- plane among the exhibitions — buildings beautiful in their long straight lines and great, light-filled spaces. It was late after- noon when they came to the Cathedral. The marble pile, cruciform at its base, rose by scarcely perceptible set-backs in a single spire that towered almost twice as high as the other buildings. Within, its architecture was such a glorification of the girder, as had been Gothic, of that equally mechanical device of the pointed arch: an airy tracery that yet carried the suggestion of the mass it supported. The lines of the place carried the eye upward, up to the great cross-beams where people walked, dwarfed almost to nothingness before the majesty of the House of God; up to where windows that were solid jewels made of the slanting sunlight a rainbow mist; up and up to a luminous infinity that the eye could touch at but could not grasp. For a minute, Ted stood looking at it. Then Anne drew him off to one side, in a corner of the transept where they could be undisturbed. Her voice was low, befitting the silence of the holy place, when she 3poke : “I brought you here, for the last place,* to show you and tell you a great truth. We could not have you stay here, or go back to your own time, thinking that our material achievements are the heart and height of our civilization. That was the world’s ideal once and by that it nearly called down its own ruin. <CTT had been a rich world, that early A twenty-first century whose garish re- lics Dad collects so carefully, until in its love and fear of war, its use and misuse of science, it had built up huge populations that threatened the very food supply and made food sources a cause of conflict. It was an ugly world, so full of blind toil and hectic amusement that man almost desired the relief of strife. It was a cruel world, with God and good forgotten in material- ism, with exploitation and crime rampant in every land, and with the two great con- federations of the East and West eyeing each other across the Pacific and the Russian bor- der with mingled greed and hatred and fear. Then, in the year 2031, came the cataclysm. “The Oriental scientists discovered atomic disintegration six months before the West, and plunged into war with atomic bombs and all the terrible engines developed in a hundred years. They almost won at the first plunge, sweeping. down to the line of the Rhine and the Danube, laying waste Australia and all North America west of the Rockies. Then the West rallied and held its lines on land and in the air, while scientists on either side worked desperately to dis- cover more deadly and better controlled
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954 WONDER STORIES forms of the horror of disintegration now common to both parties. “For twenty years, hopelessly, the strug- gle raged, the Americans now pushing the Chinese back into the sea, the Russians and Indians retaliating by seizing all but the tip of Africa; and the people suffered. They died by tens of millions in the artnies, died in ever greater numbers from explosions and poison gas and disease germs in the fac- tories at home. “Toward the last, when both sides had set- tled down to a stalemate policy of mere raids and devastation, they even began to starve in the big cities, and class warfare broke out against the rich and the farmers. Those last five years, when the whole world seemed about to go under, the birth rate dropped almost to zero, and the world’s population had fallen to a quarter of its pre-war level before the conflict and its after effects were over. Russia, France, and central Europe were almost wholly de- populated. In a last sortie with newly developed ray disintegrators, an American air fleet manned by women and fifteen-year old boys simply blew Japan off the face of the globe — there’s only a shoal there now. “It was then, when it seemed just possi- ble that at huge cost the Oriental peoples might be annihilated, that the war-weariness and reborn conscience of the West refused to permit such sacrifice or such slaughter. The West offered peace, and the East though with a new weapon of its own in pre- paration, as gladly accepted it. At Hono- lulu in 2050, without conditions, without victory, was signed the peace that has en- dured until today — and shall, we hope, for- ever. “The next fifty years were the dark ages of modern times; a struggle, at times seem- ingly hopeless, to reclaim the world from devastation and ruin, to restore agriculture and civilization before the remnant of man- kind starved or returned to the brute. It was a hard, painful time, and yet it proved to be the foundation of our world today. In the time of their misery, the peoples of the earth called upon the God they had for- gotten, and He was there to answer their prayer. Joined together by a common loss. a common struggle, and a common hope, they forged ahead in a new unity toward the ideal world we think we are approaching. “We have learned much from the history and the precepts of those days. We have learned that, if civilization is to endure and advance, the world must consciously strive to make itself just and beautiful and happy, as well as prosperous. We have learned that the key to science is not its acquisition but its use — the principles of all our devices were known in the last century, and turned to destruction. We have learned not to be too proud, thinking how near we once came to the edge. In the heart of each of us is still something of that spirit which brought the world up out of its danger, literally the Spirit of God moving over the face of the earth.” An Astounding Discovery THE next day — Monday, he subcon- sciously persisted in calling it, although he knew it to be Friday in this year — Storrs was left to his own devices all the morning. Rodgers, of course, was at the Museum, and Anne remembered she had to fly down to Los Angeles to keep an engagement. Not trusting himself to find his way in the new San Francisco, Ted kept within the apart- ment, spending most of his time in the lib- rary. He had counted on looking through the books on Rodger’s shelves, but to his con- sternation he found himself incapable of reading them. Their language, when he puzzled it out, was the same as that spoken, or practically his own — since" the English tongue, stabilized by printing, had been al- most entirely unchanged by centuries. But the phonetic spelling and symbols that had been developed made the sounds as hard to get at as in, say, shorthand, and Storrs had not the pertinacity to go through more than a sentence here and there. Other books on the shelves were Spanish, that most phonetic of modern tongues, in close to its present-day spelling; but Ted knew only enough of the language to recog- nize it. A third bookcase contained vol- umes whose sounds were pure gibberish, but
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A FLIGHT INTO TIME 955 which he judged from the illustrations and ornaments must be Chinese in the standard phonetic spelling. It occurred to him as very likely that after the destruction Anne had described these three were the peoples who had survived in sufficient preponder- ance (the; Spanish in South America) to make their tongues as nearly a universal language as the world could hope to achieve. Turning from the useless books, Ted de- cided to risk injuring the machine by ex- perimenting with the radio in one corner of the room. It had, he found, single dial tuning, and he let the various compensa- tors alone. Jacked into the set was a sort of mask containing light-weight earphones with goggles over the eyes. Remembering a vague something of modern experiments in television, he put the thing on, and turn- ed the dial slowly in the dark. The first station he reached was audible only, a talk of some sort in sing-song Chin- ese. The next one he caught, not by music, which he might have missed altogether, but by a rainbow flash before his eyes as he turned the dial past. He went back more carefully, and music and scene became clear- er, though the latter remained for a while badly blurred. He finally discovered that the goggles were adjustable for focus, and as he turned them the picture came out, startingly clear in its colors, and even more startingly solid. The bright-costumed dancers that whirled about the ballroom were as real and close as if he had been standing among them. It seemed as if he could touch one couple as they spun, and he almost toppled over the receiver in his involuntary attempt to do so. The music, too, was dimensional— the two phones, apparently, being fed by different currents — so that he could judge to Which side of him were the various in- struments of the unseen orchestra. The thing was a marvelous toy, and grow- ing more expert in its manipulation, he turn- ed for hours from scene to scene, from a glimpse of the black sea-bottom with a self- luminous monster swimming straight at him, to the Opera at Calcutta, where the tradi- tional costumes and the familiar, melan- choly strains of La Boheme brought him a pang that had in it a sort of homesickness. At length, however, the weight of the eye- pieces became a strain, and it was rather disconcerting to keep turning his head and have the view remain the same. He. turned the machine off. He was really glad when, just as he had finished a dinner ordered up on his host’s account, Rodgers appeared to inform him that he was wanted by the Committee on Motion in Time. HE met the Committee. There were five members: two white-haired men who looked like brothers; an ample German Frau; ' a young fellow of Ted’s own age, with a wild shock of hair; a withered old Chinese woman, fingering constantly a bit of jade. They had already heard the out- line of Ted’s story, and seemed, in the main, convinced of his honesty. However, there were a few test questions for him — fine de- tails from their ancient archives, as the early transoceanic flights and baseball standings, and a long list of prices. He answered correctly such a great proportion of these, and so frankly confessed his ignor- ance of the rest, that their remaining doubts were stilled. At once they poured out the flood of their own queries: “Young man, now that you can speak in confidence, tell us what were your methods.” “Was the prime agency physical or psy- chological?” “Do you think you could do it again?” — this from the artistic-looking youngster. “What were your sensations as you passed through two centuries?” Storrs answered them one by one, feeling just a little ashamed that his real accom- plishment was so far below their anticipa- tions. He had had no methods, and his leap into space, wholly involuntary, had proba- bly taken place through external and phy- sical means. His only reason for thinking the process might be reversed was that it had already taken place the one way. He had felt no sensations whatever, his shift in time being unnoticed and, if one could so use the word, instantaneous. “Then you did not simply speed up the normal flow of time, as we have been hoping
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956 WONDER STORIES to do.” The Frau’s pronouncement mir- rored the general disappointment. For perhaps fifteen minutes the five pon- dered the problem, while Ted shifted rest- lessly in his chair, and Rodgers was ab- sorbed in his own speculations. There was not even the ticking of a clock to disturb the silence, for the radioactive machines worked noiselessly. At last the* Chinese matriarch, who had hitherto remained silent, spoke : “Would you mind telling us again just what year it was before you made the jump?” “Nineteen hundred and thirty-three,” Ted supplied her. She almost shouted, “Two hundred and fifty-six years! Don’t you see, the Nn of my helical theory. Two hundred and fifty- six, four to the fourth.”* CHAPTER IV The Last Evening ALL five began talking at once, arguing, articulating wildly, scribbling mazes of formulae on the table cover. Ted could only catch a word here and there. The rest, when English at all, was, in vocabulary and thought, simply over his head. At last they seemed agreed, and the old man who acted as chairman turned to Ted. “Mr. Storrs, you have performed a great service to our investigations. Your exper- ience has proved, in confirmation of Mad- ame Ng’s hypothesis, that our time stream is curved helically in some higher dimen- sion. In your case, a still further distor- tion brought two points of the coil into con- tact, and a sort of short circuit threw you into the higher curve. The verification of the helical theory is beyond reasonable doubt.” He paused, and cleared his throat. “Now, as to yourself. You may, if you wish, remain in our era. The Committee will be glad to take care of you, and for a while, at least, the History people would pay high for your services in settling some of their problems about your period. On •She meant, ‘‘four raised to the fourth pow- er,” or 4x4x4x4 — 256. the other hand, we would be more than glad to make the attempt, harmless if it fails and very likely to succeed, to send you back to your own times. “We have an electrical space-distorting coil whose side thrust perpendicular to the time-stream we have tried hitherto to sup- press, but which we shall now emphasize. If you stand at the same spot and the same time of day as your first jump, this will have a good chance of throwing you back to your own curve of the stream. “In case you wish to avail yourself of this opportunity, the sooner you decide to do so the better — both because the two curves must be separated rapidly, and in view of the fact that adjustment of your mind to our time would make the jump progres- sively harder. We can have the machine fixed up by tomorrow noon, and perhaps you had better make up your mind by then. Either way you decide, you have our thanks for what you have already done.” The company rose together, and Storrs took the signal to leave. Outside the door was a group of newspaper reporters, who tried to persuade him to don his old clothes, which he had sacrificed for more congruous attire, for a photograph. This much of civilization had not changed in centuries.) Ted got rid of them at last with a brief statement, referring them to the Committee for technical details. Then, in company! with the still more irritated Rodgers, he set) out for home again. When they arrived, Anne had got back1 already, and had dinner coming up for' them. She was silent during the meal, while they told her of the day’s developments — > Ted of the conclusions of the Committee and its projected experiment, Rodgers of the “find” of an early twenty-first century library opened up by a farming company’s power plow in the Middle West. The sun still shone when they were through, and Anne, excusing them to her father, threw Ted a cloak and pulled on some wraps her- self. “If you don’t mind, I’ve one of my favJ orite views to show you.” They drove to one of the tallest down- town buildings, parking in the huge space
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A FLIGHT INTO TIME that underlay all of it. An elevator shot them up to the small, flat roof, and they climbed the tower that stretched still farther above. At its top, with their feet braced against a battlemented edge, they could sit secure and gaze out over the city. In the west, the sun was sinking beneath a growing pile of clouds. Up where they sat, its light still made day, but down in the streets the shadows were creeping in. Gray, growing ever darker, they climbed the sides of the building with clutching fingers. In the increasing gloom, the great pyramids bulked larger than ever, black and a little terrible. Now only a few of their high tops were afire. Now the sun had set, and the Cathedral spire alone shone a faint rose i« the afterglow. The night rushed in. WITH its coming, as at a common sig- nal, the lights of the city flashed forth. In windows, along streets and cause- ways, projected from the single headlights of the little cars (there were no electric signs) , they were not glaring, but of the soft silver Storrs had noted before, looking a little bluish in the distance. As the dark- ness became complete, they were all that could be seen: gleaming, insubstantial, lovely. The bridges — the little ones across the streets, the great spans thrown over the Bay and the Golden Gate — hung from their cables that were loops of light, like things out of another world. It was like a fairy city, a city built of gossamer and dreams. Overhead, the stars were coming out, and against them glowed, here and there, the firefly lights of airships as they passed. Beside Ted, with her chin resting on her knees, Anne had remained silent. Now she spoke, reading his mind: “You’re going back, then?” “Yes. It may be foolish of me, but some- how— ” “I know. You could get along very nice- ly here. Work is not too hard, and very interesting, while we have things that the millionaires of your day could not possess. Some of us — would like you to stay. And yet it would seem to you, as it must seem now, a sort of unreal dream. That is one absolute thing about time, in spite of their 957 theories. I could never be satisfied in the future or the past.” The fog was rolling in in a great wave, white and soft and cool and still. Now one, then another of the bridges over the water was shrouded in it and disappeared. The city itself was blotted out, only leaving the vapor faintly luminous. When, over the faint glitter of lights that was Oakland, the moon rose, its rays fell upon a white, billow- ing sea that had covered San Francisco. Here and there, as where the two of them were sitting, a black peak rose above the high-piled fog. The rest was a dazzling, solid barrier, that left them isolated, for the moment, from the world. Then a cold wind from the sea blew in, whirling ghostly mist- tendrils in the air. They rose and turned to go. The morrow passed like a flash. One minute, so it seemed to Storrs, Anne was mockingly reading to him the morning pa- per, with his full-colored picture on the front, and beneath it the headlines, “UN- WILLING VISITOR ARRIVES FROM 1933; May Try Return Trip.” The next, he had placed himself, as well as he could guess, upon the spot where he had made his entry into this world, and the members of the Committee, with their assistants, were assembling around him a complicated ar- rangement of coils and plates. It made him feel, he says, and he smiled a little then to think of it, like the filament of a vacuum tube. There was rather a crowd outside, with motion picture photo- graphers and a radio televisor to catch the scene as he disappeared into nothingness. Anne was there, too, and her father, she in her uniform ready to pilot the “Polar Spec- ial” at one. As the preparations drew on endlessly, Storrs became nervous. He even thought of giving up the venture, only to be dissuaded, strangely, by the consideration that it would disappoint these people. At last they were ready. All but two of the indicator lights on a many-dialed control board were glowing brightly. Storrs felt a little giddy, and judged that the prelim- inary circuits must be getting in their ef- fect. (Continued on Page 1039)
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Ihe Murders on the Moon-Ship Terror Stalked Among The Passengers of the Space Ship — As The Unknown Struck THE last case was aboard: the final handshakes were over. The last pas- senger, a fussy little fellow in a check suit, had at length given heed to the frantic hoot- ing of the siren, disengaged himself from the powerful embraces of an oversized yet lachrymose female: and, clutching his ticket in one hand, and a tenanted parrot cage in the other, made a breathless and hatless dive for the gangway. To old and seasoned space-fliers like Pro- fessor Galloway and myself, there was something ludicrous in all this emotional bustle, this fuss and pother over a little hop to the Moon; but, then, in all probability the majority of the voyagers had never before left the Earth, while there might even have been some, incredible though it may sound to my twenty-first century readers, who had never before travelled beyond the boundar- ies of their own continent. Nevertheless, as the captain radioed the starting signal for the first atomic explo- sions to propel our bullet-like liner through the twenty-mile starting tunnel in the Welsh hills, I fancy that even my bald- headed and fossilised old friend must have felt an odd thrill, although the only emo- tion he displayed was extreme irritability at the departure time being at least two minutes behind schedule. Whatever old Galloway felt, I know that I, D.S.O., explorer, one-time secret service man, and erstwhile War Correspondent though I was, never left for a trip to the moon without a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as we commenced that tre- mendous acceleration through the tube. And 958
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By G. B. Beattie Illustrated by Wilson He pressed the button of his torch and saw the creature’s head being forced through the aperture ... he attempted to write . . . despite all the refinements in the way of gravity stabilisers, velocity equalisers, these “stats”, and those “stats”, with which all modern moonships were equipped, on this particular occasion, that sinking feeling seemed more intense than ever before. It was as though my reactions were warning me of the terrible events which were to take place, before the X22 reached its destina- tion. The X22 was one of the Packet Company’s latest vessels, with eight-cylinder atomic propulsion engines, and a host of mechan- ical gadgets which did not interest me in the slightest, for I am no engineer. What did interest me was the excellent cuisine, and the really comfy little cabins, to say nothing of the varied and extensive stock of sparkling wines laid in by the discrim- inating purser. And noting the general air of luxury, comfort, and home-from-home- ishness, as we made our way through the Earth’s atmospheric belt, I forgot all about my premonitions, and began cheerfully to anticipate this two months’ trip as a veri- table oasis. It would be, after the hard- ships old Galloway and myself had under- gone on the wild mesas of South America during the past two years, collecting his confounded specimens, and contracting malaria. Once we reached the Professor’s Lunar observatory, I knew the old grind would begin again, but for the next two months, I told myself, I was just going to vegetate in blissful tranquillity, and friend Galloway could go to the devil and take his beloved fossils with him. The professor had other ideas however. We had scarcely reached the zone of outer space, when I encountered him in the bil- liard room, surrounded by a group of ad- miring passengers who were plying him with questions about the moon, his work, space, the fifth dimension, the missing link, and a hundred and one other scientific puzzles, for Galloway’s brilliance and catholicity of accomplishment were by-words throughout the whole world. A BORN showman, my old friend rose superbly to the occasion. His eyes sparkled, his long white mustachios, which
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960 WONDER STORIES always reminded me of a comic opera bri- gand, seemed to take on a fiercer aspect. And even his polished bald head seemed to glisten with greater iridescence, as he spoke of his wonderful laboratory and ob- servatory on the moon, of the artificial pro- duction of air and the synthesis of water on the satellite: of the strange two-dimension- al natives of the moon, who could live intelli- gently without water, food or atmosphere, and finally of our two years’ search among the rocks of the little known South Ameri- can plateau for fossil specimens of “missing links” in the evolu- tionary chain. Final- ly, with a soft graci- ousness which was in total contrast to the vicious irascibility which he was wont to display in controversy, he hoisted a chubby little fellow of about seven years old, who had asked him if “He found any bird’s eggs in South ’Merica?”, and promised to show him on the morrow not only birds’ eggs, but alligators’ eggs, and strange animals in stone that had roamed the earth ages ago. The next few days passed peacefully enough, with Profes- sor Galloway very much in the limelight. Through the windows of the lounge he would point out the beau- ties of the heavenly bodies set like jewels in the dead blackness of outer space: he would discuss orbitary navigation with the spatial officers, or repeat his little scientific talks to the passengers who were delighted and surprised to find such an eminent per- sonage, as accessible and agreeably inform- ative. But, wherever my old friend went, he was accompanied by little Jackie Hil- liard, whose parents had much ado tearing the young rascal away at sleeping time to get him to bed. In all my long ex- perience, I had never seen Galloway unbend to such a degree, nor had I ever known him show so much affec- tion for anyone as he appeared to do for this small boy, who, I should imagine must have tried Galloway’s colossal mind with his infantile queries; but then space flying, like sea voyaging, seems to make people more friendly. The child’s parents were a good- looking young couple: none too well off, if I might judge by ap- pearances, and no doubt making their way to the moon with a view to settling down there and improving their prospects. Our other passen- gers were more inter- esting to the student of humanity. Most in- teresting was Docteur Emile Fouchard, of psychic and meta- physical fame, a tall gaunt man with a trim beard, a air of mystery, and the clothes of an undertaker. He had little to say, but when he did speak he gesticulated like a circus contortionist, and almost invariably J TMAGINE a handful of ? people, travelling on a space ship between the earth and moon. In their midst is a merciless de- stroyer. He strikes not once but five times — each time in a different manner. The crew and passengers are terrified — they suspect each other — madness be- gins . . . such is the ma- terial that this story is made of. It is enough to say that fear is the greatest aid of the murderer; just as it is ultimately his own undo- ing. If he wishes to kill any person he need only make them aware of the fact and arouse in the vic- tim’s mind such a feeling of terror that he will be- tray himself to his as- sassin. For when terror grips us, we cannot reason, we cannot take the ordin- ary precautions that should be used to defend our- selves. Then, too, it is fear of apprehension that leads the criminal to ultimately leave some track that will betray him. For in the game of chess that he plays with the forces of order, it needs only one false move to lead to dis- aster. We are sure our readers will enjoy this engrossing story of humor, tragedy and mad terror in the in- ^ ter planetary spaces. '
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THE MURDERS ON THE MOON SHIP 961 in a low musically intoned yet uncanny voice he would quote some adage anent the insecurity of human life, or throw out some dark hint of coming peril. After the first day or two, the other passengers made a practice of “seeing him first,” and giving him the air, and for hours he would sit musing in a chair, fingering an exotic ring, which he had informed me came from the tombs of the Pharaohs, or poring over his favorite volume, a leather-covered copy of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”. The fellow got on my nerves, there was something sinister about him: that’s the word, sinister, although the American purser, Minott, used another characteristic Yankee term; something to do with insects; ah, yes, “bughouse”, that was it. At least that was how I remember it. A Goodly Crew IT was almost a relief to turn to Mrs. Van Stokes, who, if she was fat and vulgar, and over- poweringly reminiscent of pork, was at any rate cheerful and happy. She claimed to be the widow of a rich pickle packer, although I suspected her widowhood was of the grass rather than the common or garden variety. She furnished a sort of comic relief to our scene. Then there were the Ruttledge twins, Beatrice and Cornelia, sprightly young lad- ies of twenty summers apiece: honorable, leaders of the Bright Young , People who attempted to paint London red, and only succeeded in imparting a rose pink tinge to some of the more insignificant suburbs. Born practical jokers, they found Dr. Fouch- ard, and poor old Galloway ready made butts for their rather broad humor, which consisted in such silly tricks as binding Fouchard’s feet together while he browsed over “Hamlet”, or neatly tying the printed legend “Lost” to the back of the professor’s smoking jacket while one of his impromptu lectures was in progress. Next to Fouch- ard, I liked the Ruttledge twins least of all among my fellow passengers. Then there was Adolph Bratz, the piano virtuoso, long haired and unkempt, but with a lurid reputation alike as a hammer breaker, and home breaker. He was very friendly with Mr. and Mrs. Hilliard, and I later found that he was financing their trip, though why, I couldn’t imagine, for neither of the Hilliards knew a Beethoven Sonata from the five-finger exercise. And last but not least in self-importance was the fussy little fellow in the check suit, who rejoiced in the name of Henry V. John- son. He was a physics teacher in a small- town high school, and was out with the purpose to teach the world; his trip to the moon being the re- sult of his winning a prize offered by a Sunday Pa- per: place the most pop- ular planets in order, first prize a trip to the moon, all found! You know the kind of thing! Anyway, Johnson had won, and here he was, with his parrot “Priscil- la” in the bargain. (He confided to Galloway, “As one scientist to an- other”, that he was taking the parrot, to test the lunar atmosphere, before he stepped out of the ship to risk a breath himself. To his mind it was a new way of “trying it on the dog” which somehow got to the ears of the Ruttledge twins after which Johnson’s life became a misery). So you will see that we were rather a mixed lot. McFee, the Scottish engineer, put it very pawkily, when he whispered to me on the second day out, “Present com- pany awllways excepted; Majorr, they’re a gey queer carrgo this trrip.” The personnel of a space-flier is not of course very extensive. Captain Brant I knew well: we had played in the same foot- fall team, and I had perfect confidence in his courage and ability in all emergencies. Like myself, he was getting a little worse for wear these days, but there was plenty GEO. B. BEATTIE
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962 WONDER STORIES of life in the old dog yet, and he could have given many a younger man a good run for his money at- half a dozen forms of ath- letics. With Minott, the purser, McFee, the engineer, Olsen, the radio-man, and Shep- pard, the navigator, we had as hard-boiled a group of officers as ever stepped aboard a space-flier. , Of menial members of the crew of course, there was no sign, for the purely menial tasks were carried out by robots of striking design and characteristics. I had almost forgotten a most important member of the personnel, Mrs. McNamara, the stewardess, a cockney with an accent you would cut with a knife, and a temper that made old confirmed bachelors like Galloway and my- self thank our lucky stars. CHAPTER II. The First Disaster HERE we were then, seventeen souls speeding away from the earth, as fast as atomic disintegration could carry us, each with his or her own secret ambitions and aspirations: each with his or her own secret fears. From the first, our isolation welded us together into a large family and before we had been a week out, we felt we had known each other all our lives. Then, like a sudden thunderbolt, came the first blow which heralded the reign of ter- ror through which we were to pass, the first blow which was to undermine our con- fidence in one another, and to make us go about suspecting each other and fearing for our very lives. The first blow was comic, ludicrous, “damned silly nonsense,” as Galloway put it. Johnson’s blessed parrot was found dead in its cage! Just that, nothing more! There was no sign of molestation. The cage was undamaged. It stood on the cen- tre table, in Johnson’s cabin just as he had left it when he retired for the night. In the morning, the parrot was lying dead in its cage. Everyone sympathised with the little physics teacher to his face, and 'smiled at his forlorn countenance, behind his back. But Johnson was not so easily pacified. He openly accused Professor Galloway of poi- soning the bird, and raved and ranted for an hour or more to Captain Brant, who had great difficulty in controlling his own sense of risibility. Nothing would please John- son but a thorough examination, not only of the carcass, but also of the bird seed and water. The matter was somewhat complicated as Galloway was the only one aboard who had the necessary technical qualifications for such a task, and the professor was unfor- tunately, “prisoner at the bar” so to speak. Questioned as to why a eminent professor like my friend should stoop to such a petty and unnecessary act, Johnson reiterated again that it was professional jealousy. He had got the better of an argument with the professor the night before, Galloway had got very angry: ergo, Galloway had poi- soned the parrot out of spite. Everyone took the matter as a joke ex- cept Johnson, and of course Galloway, who lost all of his amiability, and gave vent to a string of expletives that almost upset the ship. We left the two reviling one an- other, and I turned in with Captain Brant, for a smoke and a yarn. “Come to think of it, you know, Major, the professor 'was a little bit rude to the dominie last night.” “Oh!” I ejaculated for I had spent the evening discussing Brahms with Herr Bratz. “Yeah, the old man had been displaying some of his fossils and lecturing a select group about the discrepancies in Lamarck’s theories, when Johnson butted in with a query about suspended animation. This up- set Galloway, who inquired ^whether he wanted any more irrelevant information for his kindergarten cranium, such as the nam- ber of legs a caterpillar possessed, or whe- ther elephants lay eggs. But little John- son stuck to his guns and told a cock and bull story about a toad that was found by some miners blasting, embedded in rock formations at least a thousand years old. The miners thought it was a fossil, but some director of natural history thought other- wise, applied oxygen and restoratives, and the toad came to life, and for a matter of three weeks or so, frisked about, at the end
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THE MURDERS ON THE MOON SHIP 963 of which time he was attacked by another toad in the laboratory and died. “Old man Galloway fairly snorted at that : he was sore at his little lecture being inter- rupted with such twaddle, but Johnson, with a smile of triumph, produced old faded cut- tings authenticating his story. This fairly riled the professor, who described the whole affair as a silly hoax, one thing led to an- other until Galloway so far forgot himself as to call Johnson a liar, to which John- son’s parrot made the classic retort, and Galloway’s sense of repartee was worn so thin that he could only reply that if such states of suspended animation really exist- ed, the sooner Johnson entered one the better, and he had better take his con- founded parrot with him. And that con- cluded the programme for the evening. Both went to their own cabins looking dag- gers at one another.” <(TTM. I see. Still surely no one be- U lieves Galloway would do such a stupid act.” “No, only Johnson can conceive such ac- tion, and he is' suffering under a sense of grievance. When he comes to his senses, he’ll realise like the rest of us that the damned thing died a natural death. It’s just coincidence that he quarrelled with the professor the night before.” As I made my way to my own cabin, I could hear Galloway and Johnson still at it: the one arguing angrily against the other, much to the secret amusement of the Rutt- ledge twins. Come to think of it if there was foul play about this beastly parrot business, it looked much mote like these mischief-making young females’ work than poor old Galloway’s. But then, although they were fond of fun I could not picture these young ladies descending to such use- less cruelty. The day wore on, and for the first time Galloway did not lecture in the billiard room. Truth to tell, this con- founded parrot business had got on every- body’s nerves, and one and all were glad when sleeping time arrived, and we could make excuses to steal off to our own cabins. Personally, I felt awfully disturbed. Even a stiff peg of O.P. whiskey could not woo for me sleep, and I lay tossing from side to side. After all, there was something damiied funny about a healthy parrot pop- ping off suddenly like that, and Galloway had behaved very strangely for him since coming aboard! At length I fell into a troubled sleep in which parrots with beaks like pterodactyls chased me all over the moon. A loud gurgling woke me. I sat up, fully awake, ray heart pounding with the sudden start. Footsteps? Yes, then a cry for help: it- was Galloway. Was John- son attacking him? I grasped my auto- matic and made my way to the place from which I guessed the cry to have come. It was Johnson’s cabin. Switching on the light, what a sight met my eyes! Galloway stood supporting Johnson. Both were in their night attire. From Johnson’s neck the blood spattered and spurted like a foun- tain despite Galloway’s efforts to swab it. In Johnson’s face was a drawn look of ter- ror, such as I had never before beheld, and on the floor I was horrified to note the pro- fessor’s ivory paper knife in a pool of blood. The noise had attracted the others, and passengers and officers alike were crowd- ing into the doorway. Brant waved the women back, and closed the door. John- son was already beyond help, a jagged wound through the carotid of the size he had experienced was more than any man could survive. The Captain took in the sit- uation at a glance. McFee stood over the professor with my automatic, but Galloway seemed too dazed to comprehend the situa- tion. When at last he realised he was un- der arrest for murder, he protested his in- nocence bitterly and vehemently, and called Brant and the rest of us aH the fools and dolts, urging us that while we fooled about with him, the murderer was making his es- cape. Pro and Con BUT the damning evidence of the paper knife, and the wound in Johnson’s neck, which was just such a gash as the ivory knife would make, at length made him real- ise that further protest was useless, and
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964 WONDER STORIES with a sigh he resigned himself to the in- evitable. What an object lesson, I thought to myself, for those with uncontrollable tempers. A few hasty words over some scientific triviality had led one of the most brilliant men of science to commit a cow- ardly murder. I couldn’t bring myself to believe in his innocence despite his pro- tests. I knew his bursts of passion too well ; but I listened to his faltering account of the incident, with a quaking heart, for we were friends of old standing. According to Galloway, he had been awakened by a peculiar swishing noise which he could not describe. He arose to investigate, and switching on the light, grasped the paper knife as the only avail- able weapon, although what he feared aboard the moonship, he had to admit, he could not say. Then he heard Johnson cry out, a deep gurgling sound followed: he raced into Johnson’s room, and by the glim- mer of light from his own cabin opposite saw that Johnson was lying back in his bed bleeding grievously from the neck. Drop- ping the paper knife, he attempted to ar- rest the flow of blood with the bed covers and was so doing, when I made my entrance. We all listened politely, but none of us were very impressed. The defence was just a shade too complete. It covered all the obvious points, as for instance, why Gal- loway had not switched on the light, and the presence of the paper knife, and w.e were all really relieved when Captain Brant had him conducted to a spare cabin under guard, so that we might talk more freely. Of course, the only thing to do under the circumstances was to radio the spatial sta- tion from which a speedy magnetic rocket with a police official would be dispatched to take charge of the case, but we were one and all bowed down with the horror of the tragedy. That is all except Dr. Emile Fouchard. The inhuman wretch seemed in his glory, and punctuated our gloom with his horrible fatalistic quotations of which his crop seemed at all times to be full. Suddenly, he veered round excitedly “Captain, you av ze wrong man. I am sure. In ze first place, look at ze daggair. It lies in a pool of blood. Zat is true, but note carefully, ze point does not lie in ze blood, and for two inches from ze point, is it not white and glistening, innocent of blood? Has the assassin then used ze haft of ze daggair, to make ze puncture? No! for ze haft is blunt. It looks then, that ze pro- fessair is of an innocence as he declare. “Considair too, he made a cry for help. Would he have made that cry if he had been guilty before the murdair ’ad been smooth- ed ovair, and he made his escape. He was assist ze victim, when he knew that if guil- ty, recovery would spell disaster for him- self.” The latter part of le docteur s speech did not impress me much, for Galloway would have acted just so, I knew, had he, in a mo- ment of passion struck Johnson. He would have done everything in his power to undo the wrong, but the evidence of the paper knife was conclusive. For a couple of inches from the point, there was not the slightest trace of blood and it’s general ap- pearance bore out Galloway’s statement that he had dropped the paper knife to render first aid to Johnson. Brant’s face was a study. “Well, if the professor did not kill Johnson, who the Hades did, Can you tell me that, Docteur?” Fouchard smiled that horrible sinister smile of his. “Ah, who can zay? There are now sixteen of us aboard, it may be any one of us. Who knows? But one of us it must be, unless a spirit . ... ” “Tush,” put in Brant roughly. “Pretty hefty spirit made this mess. Besides, none of us here believes in spirits.” “No, zat is a pity. ‘There are more things in ’eaven and earth that are dream’t of in your philosophy’. Who knows, who knows?” and the docteur glided out of the room. “That bird puts years on me,” said Min- ott, the purser. “Betcha life he knows more about the job than he says.” ttr I ^ HAT’S quite enough; Minott,” re- X buked the Captain, “Tell Olsen to radio the spatial station, and inform them of the occurrence. It’s out of my depth, and I need help. In the meantime, Major, let us have a talk with the professor, and
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THE MURDERS ON THE MOON SHIP 965 see if we can do anything to solve the mys- tery.” We moved to Galloway’s prison. My old friend looked twenty year6 older than he had the previous night. The terrible ac- cusation was bearing heavily upon him. He welcomed us with a wan smile of hopeless- ness, but when we informed him of our finding of the knife’s innocence in the af- fair, his face brightened perceptibly, and he wrung our hands with delight. There was still much to clear up how- ever. As Brant said, if Galloway was in- nocent, who was guilty? And, even more mysterious, if the paper knife had not made, the fatal wound in Johnson’s neck, what had? We had searched the apartment, but no trace of a weapon could be found. Gal- loway was as nonplussed as the Captain and myself. While we were investigating, I noted some scraps of '“burnt paper by the side of the lamp. Well, there might be a clue here. The three of us took up the scraps. Whoever had done the burning had made a bad job of it, for there were several scraps containing words in a feminine hand. It was a tedious business smoothing out the fragments, but what a reward, what a clue! When we had finished, it read, with many a gap between': — “Dea n You must me see you. My husband knows all. s n r game if rent h w intrigued cad Rotter m you remember I just love sneer t make a false move I kill sight sin trice” Brant gave a low whistle. “A most in- criminating document”. “Yes,” said Gal- loway, “We never thought of the women, but it’s a case of ‘Cherchez la femme,’ once more.” “Um, question is, which woman? ‘trice’ i3 obviously Beatrice, but there are three Beatrices aboard. One of the Ruttledge twins, but we can count her out as she’s a spinster: the Van Stokes female, who may or may not be a widow: and Mrs. Hilliard.” “Well, I bet it’s the fat woman,” put in the Captain. “I hate the sight of that amor- ous overfed creature. Just the kind to be carrying on an intrigue with every man she meets. In fact, she’s been chasing me around since the moment she came aboard.” “Um, yes, but I never heard of a fat man committing murder. Captain!” “No, Major, but this is a fat woman, and Belle Guinness wasn’t exactly two-dimen- sional, y’know!” Even under the horrible circumstances, we had to laugh at the Captain’s prejudice. Still, that wasn’t getting us any further. I was inclined to agree with Galloway that the most likely Beatrice was Mrs. Hilliard, modest and demure though she had always appeared. For one thing, she was the only woman who could be definitely proved to have a husband, for another, that husband was aboard, and the note seemed to me to reveal the fact that the husband had discov- ered the intrigue since coming aboard, even if it had been of long standing. CHAPTER III. Another Tragedy MY own theory was that Hilliard had dispatched Johnson, in a jealous frenzy. But there was such an inglorious uncertainty about the whole affair, that Brant could hardly arrest anyone. Finally, it was decided to keep Hilliard under sur- veillance, while I kept an eye on the Beat- rices. I made my way to the lounge, where the women were huddled together. As yet, they merely knew that Johnson had met with some accident or other, and when I entered, I was plied with questions from all of them. Well, I’m not much of a bad news breaker, and I blurted out the truth before I knew what I was doing. Mrs. Van Stokes had hysterics, Mrs. Hil- liard was visibly affected; the stewardess crossed herself, and only the Ruttledge twins seemed cool: damned callous in fact: didn’t turn an individual or collective hair, so to speak. Still, they busied themselves looking after the other females, fetching water and smelling salts, and all that kind • of thing. I suddenly remembered I had a bottle of brandy in my cabin, and was hastening
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966 WONDER STORIES along the corridor when I met Minott, the purser, with a face on which sheer funk was written all over. “Ma j or Burnett — come — Olsen — horrible — dead, bumped off in the radio room.” We hastened to the room. Olsen was in a standing position, his right hand on the electric light switch, as though he had just entered the room. His posture was almost lifelike, but when I looked at his face, my God, what a look of loathing and terror was there! I have seen scores of dead men on the battlefields, but I never saw such a haunting look of dread as I beheld on Ol- sen’s dead face. Minott and I closed the door, retraced our steps to my cabin and each took a tot of brandy. Then we search- ed out Captain Brant. When the Captain heard of the second murder, he was almost beside himself. There was something devilish uncanny about the whole affair. A murder or two on land, in an hotel say, well, it was bad enough: but one could get away from the location, but here driving through a vac- uum in a shell-like contrivance : here we had some fiend in our midst and we could not get away from the peril. There were only fifteen of us now, and it must be one of the fifteen, yet who? who? who? Brant, having himself radioed the spatial station, rounded up the passengers and of- ficers alike. It was then that we missed Herr Bratz, the pianist. Come to think of it, we hadn’t seen him when the first mur- der was discovered, and he had never turn- ed up since. Putting two and two together, he seemed a bit sweet on young Mrs. Hil- liard, was often in her company. Looked as though Hilliard wasn’t the murderer af- ter all, but that Bratz and Johnson were rivals, and Bratz had dispatched the physics teacher, and then hidden himself. Olsen’s death squared with that. Bratz had over- heard the Captain suggesting the calling of the spatial station, and fearing immediate detection, he had disposed of the wireless man. The problem was, where was he hiding? An organised search was commenced. Bratz’ cabin lay at the further end of the corridor. It was empty, nor was there any indication that anything was amiss. A large quill peri lay in a bottle of ink, and on the same desk, a pile of music manuscript paper was ar- rayed. The chair in front of the desk had been pushed aside slightly, as though the musician had been interrupted in his com- position by some noise outside, and had arisen to investigate the cause. Outside the cabin, the corridor hereabouts terminated in a cul de sac, which was rather dark, even when the lights were on in the passage. We were just about to leave the cabin, when Mrs. Hilliard, who had fol- lowed us, uttered a little cry, and darted into the dark corner, where she fell to her knees sobbing “Jack, oh! Jack”. A DARK object lay by her. It was Bratz, dead as a doornail. Here then was the end of the mystery. Bratz was the murderer and he had committed suicide. Even as we assisted the grief-stricken wo- man, I couldn’t help thinking that it was funny a noted pianist should have “Jack” for Christian name; a silly woman’s pet name, I supposed. It was while we were grouped around Bratz, that McFee announced sighting the spatial station’s rocket, and in a very few moments we were conversing with Marshal Merrivale, the investigation officer from the station. Now, if this account was a fiction thriller, instead of an authentic narrative of cold fact, Merrivale would be introduced as an exceedingly brilliant amateur detec- tive, with a knowledge of all branches of science, half a dozen unheard of detection machines, a private fortune and a liking for opium. On these lines, Merrivale was rather a disappointment. He was a small man, with rather nice gray eyes, a moderately high broad fore- head, protruding ears, tight-set lips, and a good deal of chin. He was about thirty-six or so to judge from appearances, and ob- viously physically fit although by no means of the ultra-athletic type. He didn’t take drugs, he didn’t smoke incessantly, nor drink absinthe: he didn’t even chew gum. Of course, we had all solved the mystery by this time. The culprit was dead by his own hand. We handed over the evidence
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THE MURDERS ON THE MOON SHIP 967 In the form of the ivory knife. The in- criminating document, and what few other odds and ends there were to Merrivale, and then we all informed him of our own pet views on the matter, to all of which he listened with grave politeness. The truth is, we were all immensely relieved now that the murdered was dead. Three deaths in one night were horrible enough, but infinitely more horrible had been the suspense, with suspicion hanging over everyone. And with the relief, our tongues were loosened. Mer- rivale must have been fed up with all the twaddle we talked, but he heard us out. Only Dr. Fouchard dissented from the popular view that Bratz had committed sui- cide. Hilliard was attempting to pacify his wife, who was almost beside herself with grief. Funny kind of cuss, Hilliard must be, I admitted, but I could not agree with Fouchard that the husband had dispatched both Johnson and Bratz. At length, Mer- rivale must have tired of our chatter, for he turned to the Captain abruptly and inti- mated that he would like to inspect the rooms where the murders had taken place. I accompanied Merrivale, and for some hours we worked together although I must confess my contributions consisted in fetch- ing and carrying of the most elementary kind. Examination of Olsen’s body showed that he had been poisoned, but the poison was one which Merrivale could not identify. The administration had been through a puncture in the back of the neck, as though a minute hypodermic had been used. In Bratz’s case, a similar puncture was found on the wrist of the right hand, and several punctures on the back of the left hand. The same poison was evident. In Johnson’s case, no trace of poison was found, the big jag- ged wound being evidently the only cause of death, nor were there any traces of the tell-tale punctures of the skin. I could see that Merrivale, unlike the all- triumphant investigator of tradition, was all at sea, so to speak. Two things puzzled him greatly, the fact that if the murders had a common source, the murderer had varied his technique: if he possessed such a subtle means of poisoning, why had he resorted to the comparatively clumsy method of stab- bing in the case of Johnson, and then again, where was the weapon which had dispatched the little^ schoolmaster? Merrivale, unlike the usual ’tec, was only too glad to talk about his deductions; probably on the prin- ciple that two heads are better than one, even if the second be only of the mutton variety; and we discussed the situation to- gether for a long time. Too Many Theories <<"V7’0U know, Major, I am sure of one X thing, and that is, that the pianist did not commit suicide. For one thing, you see in the case of Olsen, the radio man, the poison evidently acted so rapidly that he had no time to stagger toward a chair. He just died where he stood, with his hand on the light switch. That he saw his assailant is evident from the look of horror on his face. He was evidently attacked the moment he switched on the light, and died the next in- stant. Bratz died from the same poison, administered in the same way. But where Olsen has but one puncture Bratz has sever- al on his hands. Now, if the solitary punc- ture on the right hand was self-inflicted (an ambidextrous pianist such as Bratz could of course easily operate a hypodermic with his left hand) even if the poison did not kill him instantly, it would most cer- tainly act with such rapidity that the right hand would be instantly rendered powerless; certainly it would be paralysed to such a degree that it would be impossible to trans- fer the hypodermic syringe from the left hand to it, much less inflict the other wounds on the left hand. And even more elemen- tary, how is it we have not recovered the syringe, or other injection instrument? The assumed suicide could not have had the strength to have thrown it far or to have risen and concealed it, yet we have found no sign of it in the darkened cul de sac.” I had to confess that our theory of suicide did not sound so probable after all. Merri- vale continued: — “There is another very elementary point which everybody seems to have missed. Al- though Bratz was the last victim to be dis- covered, examination of the bodies clearly
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968 WONDER STORIES demonstrates that he was the first to die. There is little doubt that he was killed about 11 P. M. last night, while Johnson was not killed until about 2 o’clock in the morning. It is therefore evident that not only did he not take his own life, but that he could not possibly have killed Johnson, nor silenced Olsen.” “Ah, then Johnson killed him, and then took his own life,” I suggested. “And, I suppose rose from the dead, and bumped off Olsen at 3.30 a.m.,” comment- ed Merrivale satirically. “Hardly admissi- ble! Of course, as Olsen died last of the three, he’s technically the most likely to have killed the others, and then slipped his own cable, but there are several factors against that theory. First, there’s that look of horror: then, Olsen was a big burly mus- cle-bound individual, who would have found it a physical impossibility to put that punc- ture in the back of his own neck: then again, there’s no sign of the weapon. No, I believe all three were murdered and there- fore the murderer is still at large.” “Um! not a very pleasing prospect, Mar- shal. Still, one thing puzzles me. Olsen was leaning against the jamb of the door: his assailant was evidently directly in front of him, from the look of horror in his eyes, yet he had just as evidently been attacked from behind, although there is very little space between his head and the wall.” MERRIVALE was about to reply when Dr. Fouchard strolled in. With his usual insolent suaveness, he commenced right away to air his views much to Merri- vale’s apparent amusement and I must con- fess, my own annoyance. “ ’Ave you obsairved, Monsieur de Police, zat juist by ze place where Olsen died, ze wood of ze jamb is damage’; as though a blunt instrument ’ad been forced against it?” He was obviously excited and gesticulat- ed wildly, throwing his arms about. As he did so, I subconsciously noted that there was a difference about his hands, but could not think what it was. We examined the jamb, and sure enough, to the left of the spot where Olsen’s head had been, the wood was splintered as though someone had made a vicious jab with a ragged edged jack-knife. Fouchard smiled in triumph. He turned to me and wiggled his middle finger. “And you, Monsieur le Majeur, ’ave you noticed the ragged tears in Herr Bratz’s smoking jacket?” I quickly seized his gesticulating hand and held it firm, “No, we have not, but we have observed the startling fact that you no longer wear that massive Egyptian ring!” Fouchard tried to withdraw his hand, but I held him firm. His face blanched. “Sure- ly,” he stammered, “You do not tink I ’ave commit ze murdairs. For what motive, I ask?” “Look here,” spat out Merrivale, “What the blazes has the disappearance of your ring got to do with the murders? Major Burnett never mentioned murder. Still it seems to have turned you a bit queer.” “Yes, no, he knows ze ring was not or- dinaire: it ’ave ze subtle Egyptian poison, so zat ze great Pharaoh may himself release from ze bondage of life. I carry it, and tink, I may sometime grow tired of life, too. Yesterday, I lose the ring. I search, I can- not find him. And you suspect me, it is terrible! terrible!” “Um, gets nuttier. Anyway, whether your story is right or wrong, Docteur, you’re un- der arrest right now. If we can find the ring, we’ll analyse its contents, if any, and compare the poisons. If they are identical, then you can only be innocent by a devilish long coincidence.” Despite Fouchard’s gesticulations and protests, Merrivale had him locked up in his cabin, pending further inquiries. Per- sonally I was quite convinced of his guilt. Merrivale had an open mind. If the Doc- teur had mislaid the ring, it was possible a third party had found it and committed the murders with its aid. On the other hand — well — I was developing a headache over the whole affair! We commenced a thorough search of the passage in which Bratz lay. We verified the fact that there were several ragged tears in Bratz’s attire. We also found several scratches and jagged holes in the flooring
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THE MURDERS ON THE MOON SHIP 969 about the body, but I for one did not over- look the possibility of Fouchard having made these marks and also the mark by Olsen’s head, to throw a red herring in our path of investigation. As we were about to conclude our investigation, I noted something glistening in a corner of the orna- mental skirting. 1 picked up the object: it was Fouchard’s ring. The Marshal and myself made our way to my cabin to talk things over. Here we encountered Gallo- way, who had been sleeping for the last hour or so, and Captain Brant. We ac- quainted them with the latest developments. “Well,” was the Captain’s verdict. “It looks to me as though you have the right man. Fouchard did the murders, and at- tempted to fasten them on Bratz, by leav- ing his ring in the pianist's hand, so that it would look like suicide. But the ring slip- ped from the pianist’s lifeless fingers, and being round, rolled along for a considerable distance before lodging in the skirting. 'That upset the docteur’s plans, and he evidently searched the spot for the ring without suc- cess, while you were examining the radio room. He then conceived the plan of mak- ing the ragged tears in his jacket, and when he got you safely out of the radio room he duplicated the performance there on the door jamb to throw you off the scent.” “Very likely, but perhaps not, Captain. If that were so, why should Fouchard be the only one to contest the general idea of suicide on the part of the pianist in the first place? Surely it was in his interest to foster the idea. Anyway, if Professor Galloway will assist me, we’ll make a thor- ough examination of the ring and its con- tents.” CHAPTER IV. Muddied Trails WE were advancing down the corridor to Galloway’s cabin, when we heard the most terrible row going on below. We hastened down the companion way fearing the worst, to find Mrs. McNamara engaged in a fierce altercation with Minott. When we finally could arrest the flow of Billingsgate from the fair stewardess’s lips, we learned that tabloid foods and vitamin concentrates had been disappearing myster- iously. Minott had called Mrs. McNamara to account for the discrepancy in her stock of these goods, and this was the result. We all laughed heartily : this bit of comic relief was welcome enough after the tension of the last twenty-four hours. The incident sufficed however, to delay the examination of the ring, and Merrivale must have mo- mentarily forgotten about it for on ascend- ing, he announced his intention of inter- viewing the Hilliards, with a view to ascer- taining the connection between the incrim- inating letter and the affair. There was also the undoubted affection of the lady for Bratz to consider. When we entered we saw that Mrs. Hil- liard had composed herself somewhat. The boy was sleeping peacefully in his cot; while Hilliard was resting on the arm of his wife’s chair. As we entered the woman rose and came towards us saying “I hope you will excuse me, gentlemen, but, you know my brother’s death has come as a fearful shock.” “Johnson your brother?” I cried, astound- ed. She shook her head. “No, the man you knew as Herr Bratz was my brother. He was no more German than you. Major, but at an early age he realised that talent alone would not get him far with an English audi- ence, who always dote on foreigners. He studied for a time in Germany, became ‘Herr Bratz’, and was lauded to the skies by the public. As plain Jack Wilson from Rochdale, he would never have had a look in, in the West End. So thoroughly did he practise the deception, that he learned Ger- man like a native, and seldom spoke any- thing else. We all kept his secret: he was good, kind, and generous, though he was a bit wild,” and Mrs. Hilliard fell to sob- bing again. “Well, that clears up one mystery,” said Merrivale. “Now, we do not want to hurt you in your sorrow, Mrs. Hilliard, but there is certain information of vital importance which you alone can give us. Do you re-
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970 WONDER STORIES member writing a note to Johnson shortly before he died?” “Why yes,” she said frankly enough. “I sent him an invitation to come along and see us. Jackie ran along with it and popped it through the door. You see Frank (her husband) and I once met him on a con- ducted tour in Holland, and we did not recognise him at first, he had changed so; so as soon as it came to us who the little man in the check suit was, I sent him an invitation to come along for a game of cards with us.” “That was all?” “Why yes.” “Now, I do not want to pain or offend you, Mrs. Hilliard, but, er — that was noth- ing in that note, which a married woman — , er — no impropriety?” Mrs. Hilliard flushed slightly, but looked very puzzled. “I do not understand,” she said slowly. “Well, nothing that you would not like your husband to know?” Frank Hilliard jumped up angrily, but Merrivale waved him aside. “No of course not,” protested Mrs. Hil- liard indignantly. | A HANK you. Now, do you mind writ- JL ing your usual signature on this piece of paper?” , The lady complied. Taking the pasted note from his pocket, Merrivale compared the writing on it with the signature. There was not the slightest doubt that the two were written by the same hand. _ “Then, you admit you wrote this note?” “Yes, but »” Her face went white. “There’s something missing : I ” Her husband picked up the note. “What is the meaning of this,” he demanded mad- ly. “Is this your innocent note? I’ve no idea what it means, but evidently you have been carrying on with Johnson, and thought I had discovered, you — ” “But, Frank, I can explain. It’s really quite innocent. I swear. The missing words and letters: oh, how can I prove it?” “The note is in pencil, I observe,” put in Merrivale calmly. “Perhaps you used a writing pad.” “Yes, I did. I’ll get it” Merrivale took the pad, and taking off the top leaf, he held it up to the light. The indentations of the pencil were clearly seen, but the fact that other notes had been written on the same pad before made exact decipheration difficult. At length however, he turned with a smile. “Mrs. Hilliard, we all owe you a most humble apology for our most unfounded suspicions. I’m only too glad to say that what I have discovered proves your story, and innocence to the full. The original note you wrote was as follows, was it not? “Dear Mr. Johnson,” (not Dearest Henry, as we had thought) “ You must really come along andjet us see you. My husband knows all sorts of new card games, quite different from those which so intrigued you at the Arcade at Rotterdam as you will remember. I just love to see you two sneering at one another when you make a false move: It’s a killing sight. Do come, and renew an old acquain- tanceship. Yours sincerely, Beatrice Hilliard.” “And, Marshal, may I trouble you for a reconstruction of the letter as you thought it would read?” put in Mrs. Hilliard. Merrivale was embarrassed. “Well, real- ly, Major Burnett looked after that depart- ment.” It was my turn to flush. “Um,” I stam- mered, “It was something like this: Dearest Henry, You must let me see you. My husband knows all. It is the end of our game. If the rent he art of a woman, intrigued by a cad, a Rotter, means nothing to you, remember I just love you: sneer at me, or make a false move, and /’ll kill you on sight.” I paused and coughed. “We couldn’t quite make out the “sin” bit at the bottom, but of course now we know it was part of “Yours sincerely”. “And you really thought that of me, Ma- jor Burnett?” “Well, I’m really awfully sorry, you know, we, that is, ” I commenced apol-
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THE MURDERS ON THE MOON SHIP 971 ogetically, but I never finished the sentence for I received the finest slap on the face it has ever been my pleasure (?) to accept, and Mrs. Hilliard swept indignantly from the room. On Watch! HILLIARD rated us soundly, too, for a bunch of damned idiots and altogether, my interest in mystery elucidation fell with a wallop. Merrivale seems rather pleased, no doubt because this little drama repre- sented the destruction of the final link in the chain of evidence we had so magnanimously presented to him on his arrival. No doubt, now that he had so effectually blown down our house of cards, he felt he could start afresh. As sleeping time was drawing near, it was decided to lock up the passengers in their cabins for their own safety, the offi- cers, together, with Merrivale and myself electing to form a guard. As Merrivale was really the only man who could not possibly be guilty of the murders, he was given the keys of the cabin. And as everybody sus- pected everybody else, despite the fact that we had Fouchard locked up, the guard on each occasion was double. First Minott and Merrivale were to keep watch, then Sheppard and Captain Brant, and in the final watch, McFee and myself. It was the most uncomfortable guard I ever was on. With three corpses in the refriger- ator, and a homicidal maniac at large, or at the best only held from us by a flimsy par- tition, the patrolling of the eerie corridor was a sinister business. Add to the fact that one did not know whether one’s mate on guard was the guilty party or not, and the horror of the whole business may read- ily be imagined. Of course, I was sure Dr. Fouchard was the man but then the Captain with a total lack- of reason was equally em- phatic that the Van Stokes woman had some- thing to do with it. When Sheppard awakened me to take my turn with McFee, I had, strangely enough, been dreaming of my old home in Somerset oblivious to the horrors of the preceding hours, hpt I woke curiously alert for all that. I noted at once that the vanes of the door ventilator of Fouchard’s prison cabin had been opened to their full extent, a matter of perhaps two inches each. I questioned Sheppard, but he simply laughed. If Fouch- ard was trying to escape that way, he wasn’t likely to achieve much success. Besides, where could he escape to on a moon flyer? Anyway, what were ventilators for but to let air in: he had no doubt opened the contrivance himself to secure more air cir- culation during the night! McFee was still sleepy. Like most Scots, he was pretty calm in an emergency. He certainly didn’t seem to fear the murderer very much, for after patrolling the corridor with me once or twice, yawning the while, he sat down on a box, in a shaded corner, nodding in a som- nolescent way which provoked my soldierly ire. Finding it useless to get the engineer to keep intelligent guard, I paced the corri- dor myself reviewing the situation as I did so. COME to think of it it was damned fun- ny that a man should be so negligent of his own personal safety as to go to sleep in this fashion. I had overlooked the fact that McFee had been working harder than any of us all the voyage out and was sub- jected to high temperatures all the time, but my mind was hardly functioning normally yet McFee’s behavior told me only one thing at that moment; — that he had 'noth- ing to fear from the menace, because, of course, he was the murderer. I stirred him gently. He was fast asleep. I hurriedly searched his pockets. There was nothing to connect him with the crimes : some chunks of tobacco, a few valve tips and washers, a wallet with a photo of a girl in kilts, not a shred of evidence. I paced the corridor again. This thing was getting me: I was perspiring. I felt an overpowering sense of horror : I could swear I smelt an earthly graveyard odor pervad- ing the whole corridor. I could stand it no longer, I must have a stimulant. I made my way to my cabin. Confound it, I had pulled the door to, and that snap lock had shut. Merrivale had the keys too. I continued the pacing, reproaching myself
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972 WONDER STORIES for my weakness. What conduct was this for a soldier? I squared my shoulders, but it was all of no avail. This wasn’t a bat- tlefield, and my nerves that had stood a thousand barrages, had gone to pieces under the strain. I must have a drink: I must! I must! Merrivale was sleeping, it wouldn’t take an instant to get the keys from him. I made my way to his bunk. His door was open. Securing the keys was the work of a moment, and in another minute I was in my own cabin, gulping down neat brandy. With a sudden revulsion of feeling, I realised what a coward I was. I made my way into the corridor again. Anyway, I’d better wake up McFee before I got a re- turn of the blues. I hastened down to the engineer: the lazy blighter was still asleep, gone to the world, his head fallen forward on his chest. I shook him, but he never stirred, f gave him a vicious kick, and an- other and another. I raised his head, but it fell back on his chest again. A horrible fear assailed my mind. 1 dragged the Scot into an erect position, and shook him fran- tically: then in a frenzy, I pulled him into the better lighted part of the passage, and looked into his face. The murderer had struck again: McFee was dead, and all round his throat were vivid purple marks, in symmetrical pattern, to show that the life had been choked out of the stalwart Scot. I cried aloud in terror, and the others came running into the corridor, and then, well, it’s hard for a D.S.O., to tave to con- fess it, but I must hfive fainted, gone clean over. CHAPTER V. I Am Accused! WHEN I came to, I was in my own cabin, and Merrivale and Galloway were looking at me with a queer sternness. I made to rise, when Merrivale suddenly covered me with his automatic. “Oh, no you don’t, my gallant Major. We’ve got you at last. You may as well make a clean breast of it. We can’t figure out your motive, unless the Brazilian fever has warped your mind, but we’ve got enough circumstantial evidence to convict you. I figure it out this way. You stole Fouchard’s ring: you were the only person aboard who seemed to know it contained poison: killed Bratz, why, I don’t know : polished off Olsen when we was about to call assistance from the Station, after doing a bit of curiously' amateurish work on Johnson, just to fill in the time, I suppose. “Then with devilish ingenuity you pro- duced the mutilated note to Johnson, to in- criminate the Hilliards. When Fouchard began to doubt your red herrings, you ac- cused him, and showed his ring was miss- ing. Then it was you, my dear Major, who managed to find the ring again. Curious coincidence, isn’t it! But Fouchard knew too much for you: you hastily evolved a new plan. I may as well tell you now, I never suspected Fouchard: I locked him up for his own safety; but equally I made the tragic mistake of never suspecting you. “I let you retain the ring pending exam- ination, what a fool I was! In the night, you strangled your fellow-guardsman, stole my keys, unlocked the prisoner’s cabin and killed Fouchard with his own ring.” “What,” I cried, “Fouchard dead too?” “What the Hades do you expect? Dead as a doornail. But the time for dissembling is over: we have ample minor proofs. For instance you’re the only person aboard with the strength to strangle noiselessly a man of McFee’s build; Galloway has told me all about your South American exploit with the puma, when you have him by throttling the brute with your naked hands. Now, we’ve got the rough outline, I’d like you tc fill in the details.” For a long time I sat speechless, bowed down with this fresh horror. Fouchard dead too! Where was it all going to end? Of Merrivale’s idiotic accusations I didn’t think very much; we had pretty nearly all been suspected in turn, still, what a fool I’d been over those keys! Eventually, I told the truth about the whole affair. Mer- rivale smiled incredulously, but I could see that Galloway half believed in me. “Anyway, Marshal, it’s up to you to ex- amine the ring. Three people are supposed
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THE MURDERS ON THE MOON-SHIP 973 to have met their death through its agency, so there cannot be much poison left in it now.” Galloway took the ring, and carefully pressed the stones, catching the dripping fluid in a watch-glass. It was at once ob- vious from the quantity collected that the hollow ring must have been full of the liquor. Merrivale frowned. “Proves nothing. The poisoner evidently has a reservoir from which he refills.” “Hardly applicable to me, considering I stole the ring, Marshal,” I retorted. “But examine the mechanism of the ring. When the green stone is pressed inwards, two fangs protrude. In every wound I have examined on the bodies, there is but one puncture, not two. Again, the fangs pro- trude on the inside of the ring, not on the outside, the idea being that the would-be suicide pressed the stone while wearing the ring. It would therefore seem to be impossible to murder a person with the ring excepting by first placing the ring on their fingers, and then pressing the green stone. It is certainly obviously impossible to inflict wounds on the back of the hand, or the neck, such as we found on Bratz and Olsen, with this ring. Again, you accuse me of strangling McFee, but no human fin- gers ever made that symmetrical design on the engineer’s neck. It is as though a broad hand of watered silk had been compressed with titanic strength round the Scot’s neck, leaving a record of the pattern on his neck.” WHILE I had been speaking, Merrivale had been pacing up and down rest- ively: he could see he was wrong, but, did not want to admit it. Meanwhile, the pro- fessor was busily engaged in testing the poison in the watch glass. At length he turned to us: “I’m afraid I cannot tell you very much about this. It is certainly a rare reptilian venom, and in some respects may be said to resemble the poison found in the bodies, but the lack of suitable reagents on board forces me to confess that any accur- ate determination or comparison is impossi- ble.” I turned to Merrivale, “Come, Marshal, I think you must admit you are wronging me, but handcuff me if you like. I would like to see Fouchard.” “Well, Major, somebody must be guilty, you know, and it certainly looked black against you after that key business. By the way, why did you try to break down the shutters of Fouchard’s door, when you had the key?” “Um, suppose that’s a trip question, but as I don’t happen to be guilty it doesn’t act. What do you mean?” “Well, all around the ventilator there are small irregular holes, as though, some- one had been trying to force open the vanes with a screwdriver, or similar instrument. You know, something like the marks we found over Olsen’s head, and on the floor by Bratz’s body.” “Well, I know nothing about that, but I did notice the ventilator was open when I went on guard, and it was shut last night.” “And, it was tight when I concluded guard,” agreed the Marshal. “Then .the murder must have happened while the Cap- tain and Sheppard were on guard.” Captain Brant and Sheppard were ques- tioned closely, and when the Captain ad- mitted that he had left the corridor on sev- eral occasions to attend to other duties, I could see that Merrivale had immediately mentally pounced on Sheppard as the guil- ty one. But a mild form of third degree in- quisition failed Jo produce any result, and in the end, we all tailed into Fouchard’s shrine that was yesterday a prison, and the day before a cabin, to see if we could fur- ther elucidate the mystery. Fouchard was sitting bolt upright in a chair in front of a small Sheridan table. He was facing the door. In his left hand he held a pocket electric battery pointing straight at the ventilator. His lifeless thumb had fallen from the press-button, so the light was no longer on, but had it been, the zone of the ventilator would have been com- pletely illuminated. His right hand sprawl- ed, with the index finger extended, over the table. On his face was a look of hor- ror, but there was something more; — there was a look of recognition. Without doubt, Fouchard had seen the
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974 WONDER STORIES murderer, and what was more he had recog- nised him before he died. I had been standing a little to the left of the others when I noted a peculiar wavy line on the highly polished table by the Docteur’s left hand. I drew Merrivale’s attention to it, and standing behind Fouchard, we saw that the dull line travelled obliquely from left to right in a series of waves and terminated at the right hand. It could only be seen from certain angles, and “My God, Ma- jor, it’s a word,” ejaculated Merrivale. “Fouchard has wet his finger, and written a message on the highly polished table top, knowing it would dry dull. See: — C — 0 — R — N — E — I — L — and then, the poison had done its work, I suppose.” “Um, took a long time compared with Olsen’s case then,” I could not help saying. Not Murdered! tt'VT’ES, that’s puzzling, but it’s evidently X a message: a name: by Jove, one of the Ruttledges is called Cornelia, too. I have it! How blind I’ve been! Those young demons would do anything. Another Loeb and Leopold type of crime. Quite obvious, these two have had every thrill in the world : they’ve made the world hum with their mad caprices since they wore pinafores. That’s it: sheer ennui, the motive. Jaded with the ordinary vices and jokes, they’ve planned this super practical joke on the world. All these deaths on a space-ship! What more intriguing, what more thrilling? Captain, arrest the pair of them at once!” “One minute, Marshal, you know Corneil isn’t the exact way to go about spelling Cornelia, you know, and anyway, I don’t quite see how one of the young ladies could get through the ventilator, for you know, you held the keys. And again, you haven’t solved the problem of how Fouchard lasted out long enough to write that word after being poisoned.” Merrivale glared angrily. “Um, you can’t expect a Frenchman, even if he is a doctor of philosophy, to spell a damned outlandish name like that correctly: as for the keys, well if you could steal them, so could she.” “You forget she was locked in her own cabin by your own good self,” I said test- ily. Merrivale flew in a rage. “I’ve a jolly good mind to arrest you for obstruction. Major Burnett: what are these women to you? By Jove, I begin to see light, you are working wonderfully well, you are. I’m by no means convinced of your innocence yet, despite the evidence of the ring. You are right: Fouchard could not have written that word after being poisoned. No, you did, after you had killed him, so that you would throw the blame on the girl. But you are bound to have left finger prints on this table,” and Merrivale began, with febrile haste, to examine the table. I was not so much angry as amused this time. Despite the seriousness of the situa- tion, there was something funny about the pendulum attitude of the investigator. Pro- fessor Galloway was really wild however, about this fresh accusation. He had just finished conducting an examination of the corpse, and he tackled Merrivale with all the vitriolic eloquence in his makeup in my de- fence. When he had concluded, he observed calmly, “And it may interest you to know, most perceptive of marshals, that Fouchard did not die of poison!” “Not die of poison?” repeated the be- wildered Merrivale. “No, there is no trace of a puncture on the body, nor of poison in the blood.” “Then what the blazes did he die of?” “Heart failure!” said Galloway tartly. “Then, he, — he — wasn’t murdered after all?” “Directly, no: indirectly, yes. He un- doubtedly saw something to horrify him: he undoubtedly recognised somebody, 'and saw clearly that they had come to menace him. He then evidently scrawled, or was scrawling the warning message when his heart succumbed to the shock.” For a moment, Merrivale hesitated and then: — “Well that bears out my first theory. We’ll interview these young dev- ils.”
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THE MURDERS ON THE MOON SHIP 975 CHAPTER VI. The Stowaway THE Ruttledge twins received us graci- ously. “Look here,” began Merrivale brusquely, “There’s been a couple of fresh murders through the night, despite the guard.” “Oh I say,” put in Beatrice. “This voy- age is getting too like the ten little nigger boys for my peace of mind!” “Yes, well we think, that is (as he caught my frown) 1 think, you young ladies know a good deal about this. It may interest you to know that the latest victim left a message in which one of your names ap- pears.” “Indeed, Mr. Detective,” put in Cornelia, “How positively thrilling.” “Yeah, it’ll be more thrilling still when we land, and the judge puts on his black cap.” “Don’t be so damned silly,” put in Beatrice, as she lit a cheroot. “You surely don’t think we have got anything to do with this nasty sticky business, do you?” “Of course we don’t, really ,” I put in, “but unfortunately Fouchard, the latest vic- tim, scrawled a few letters which read very similar to your sister’s name, and we were wondering if you could throw any light on the mystery. I am afraid the Marshal’s enthusiasm has evaporated his sense of chivalry. I can assure you the only person the admirable Merrivale hasn’t suspected yet, is himself, and our inquiries are purely routine.” “I see.” “Do you by any chance happen to know Dr. Fouchard well? I mean — there’s no hint of romance!” They both snorted and commenced to speak at once. From the babble, I gathered they had never seen the doctor before this journey, and thought him “perfectly horrid.” No, he had never sought to pay either of them attentions, in fact, on the few occasions they had met, he had been rather rude. This information rather upset a new theory I had been formulating, — that Fouchard had died from a perfectly na- tural heart attack, and feeling life slip- ping, he had scrawled subconsciously the name “Cornelia,” because he admired the girl. How long the inquisition would have proceeded I don’t know. Merrivale was get- ting ready to lire a few more shots, when a terrific din was heard in the direction of the galley. We all made our way in that direction, and were astounded to find Mrs. MacNamara belaboring a gigantic African negro (who seemed to have sprung from nowhere) with a quart bottle. Merrivale pulled out his automatic, but the negro stood quietly enough, and gave no sign of resistance. Mrs. MacNamara explained volubly that her stores of tabloid foods had been con- tinuing to diminish with astonishing rapid- ity. Finally, like the bold woman she was, she had laid in wait, armed with the quart bottle, to see which of the staff was pilfer- ing, and had been nearly knocked backwards to see the huge son of Ham emerge from the trap door leading to the hold. Nothing daunted, however, she had at- tacked him right manfully, with the result that we overheard the row. The African’s story was that he had been touring England with a travelling circus which had “gone bust”, as he picturesquely termed it. He had tramped about the country for some time, and eventually had lit upon the space ship. Watching his opportunity he had crawled aboard and concealed himself, stealing out now and then to purloin the stores from Mrs. McNamara’s larder. Merrivale heard him out, then “And what is your name?” “ Cornelius Twinkle, Sah!” Mr. Cornelius Twinkle in another couple of minutes was safely down the hold again, but this time with massive leg irons, and manacles about his herculean form. HERE then, was the murder. We all felt relieved, most of all Merrivale, who was most amiable and apologetic. “Of course I had the stowaway idea back of my mind all the time, but I had to badger you ladies and gentlemen, in order to find out as much as I could. That’s how we investi-
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976 WONDER STORIES gators work you know! Anyway, we don’t need to fear any more.” I had to confess I was puzzled as to mo- tive, but Merrivale airily assured me that he had it all cut and dried. The negro evi- dently knew and hated Dr. Fouchard: but he had made a mistake on several occasions and killed the wrong men. To me this seemed a bit thin, particularly in McFee’s case, but Merrivale was sure the Negro had strangled McFee, as he was the only person aboard, excepting myself, who had sufficient muscular development. However that might be, there were no more murders during the next twenty-four hours, although I noted everyone paid great attention to the locking of the doors and the thorough closing and securing of the ventilators at sleeping time. I couldn’t sleep. For one thing, Mer- rivale had sniffed so avidly at every red herring which crossed his path, that the mere fact that we had discovered a stow- away named Cornelius did not seem to me at all convincing. To my mind, the crimes were the acts of a maniac, and the big nig- ger seemed a perfectly sane, and rational person. In fact, I took a decided liking to him from the first time I saw him. An- other thing, if he was such a terrible be- ing why had he refrained from attacking Mrs. McNamara? The more I thought about fit, the more clearly I recognised that the Marshal, like most officials, was intent on getting a scapegoat first, and then prov- ing that he did the crime. The advent of the big Ethiopian was no doubt like manna from Heaven to the bewildered investigator, who had seen clue after clue crumble to nothing. I verily believe, he had reached a point of such mental instability, that he would have accused Johnson’s parrot had it been alive. Um, funny job that parrot’s dying should herald all these murders! Of course, if people had just died it might have been a case of parrot-fever spreading through the ship, but there were stabbings, poisonings and a strangulation. Very ill-rested, I arose at the appointed waking time, to join the others, who were overjoyed to find a full roll-call. We had breakfast in the dining room, and at this meal we managed almost to capture a spirit of light heartedness. Merrivale was in fine vein, and was just recounting a thrilling episode in his career, when Minott dashed in : — “Say, folks: the chunk of ebony’s done himself in overnight.” Mrs. Van Stokes fainted immediately, and Captain Brant rebuked the purser for his tactlessness. Merrivale, Galloway and my- self accompanied Minott to the hold. Yes, sure enough, the big nigger was a mass of congealed blood across his chest, and in his right hand he clenched a small but ugly looking knife. Merrivale was over- joyed: this put the crown on his work: proved the negro’s guilt. Galloway on ex- amination thought there was a spark of life in the huge carcass yet, so we began to unshackle the negro. As we did so, I noted that there was a nasty gash almost as high as the collar bone. “Say, Merrivale, how do you account for this, when the half hundredweight hand- irons only allow the nigger to raise his hand a little above his waist, and they are un- broken yet? He no doubt had the knife concealed about his waist, but how did he make that wound: also, with a knife like that about him, why didn’t he attack the stewardess, if he’s the guilty party?” A Big Black Crow! THERE was no time to spend in argu- ment however, if we were to fan the glow of life into a flame again. We bathed his bloody torso, with warm water, and then we discovered that there were not just one or two wounds, but that his whole chest was a mass of ragged tears: not clean cuts as one would imagine a knife to make, but jagged affairs, something like the wound in Johnson’s neck. The poor negro looked just like, well, like an apple that a bird’s been pecking at. We bound him up roughly, and took him upstairs, meeting the Ruttledges on the way. The sisters lost all their attitude of cynic- ism at the pitiable sight, and insisted on Cornelius being taken to their cabin, so that they could nurse him. Powerful restora-
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THE MURDERS ON THE MOON SHIP tives were poured down his throat, the Lisle rays were applied, and every possible means we had aboard used to revive the negro, but though the man still lived, he remained un- conscious. Leaving him in good hands, I took my flash-lantern in one hand, and my automa- tic in the other, and stole back into the shadowy hold. I examined the stool on which the negro had sat, and the wall be- hind it. The former revealed nothing, but the wooden partition of a radius of per- haps a foot around where the nigger had sat was one mass of irregular indentations, as though someone had been playing a game of darts, with outsize weapons. Something like bad grouping with a machine gun, but the marks registered were ragged, not at all clear cut. The thought of a murderer using a kind of machine gun with some elementary form of bullet crossed my mind, but I dismissed the idea as too fantastic. One thing was clear, whatever had made the marks on the wall had made the wounds •in the negro’s chest, and very obviously he had drawn his knife, not to slay, but to de- fend himself. I prayed that he might soon recover con- sciousness, so that we could learn the na- ture of the menace, for it was evident the murderer was still at large. I made my way back to the lounge. There I found Mrs. Hilliard almost be- side herself, with her husband and Gallo- way not very much better. Jackie had dis- appeared! They had searched every cabin, without result: not a trace of the youngster could be found excepting his handkerchief which was recovered by Minott about the spot where Bratz was murdered. Well, there was nothing for it but fur- ther organised search. Armed with auto- matics, we split up into two groups, and commenced to search throughout the whole ship. Minott, Merrivale, the Professor and myself undertook to search the fore-part of the vessel. As we moved forward, Mer- rivale whispered, “Damned funny thing, Minott always seems on the scene of these affairs: he found Olsen, and the nigger: now, he’s found the handkerchief.” 977, Poor Merrivale, he would be suspecting himself next! We searched here, there, and everywhere, but we found no trace. At length there only remained the little room in the nose of the ship, where the professor’s fossils were stored. In the happier earlier days of the trip, Galloway had often taken the boy along here to show him the “funny beasties,” and it struck me that possibly the child had felt a longing to visit the museum once more, and had, unobserved, slipped along. Sure enough, as we emerged from the shadowy bottle neck passage leading to the room, young Jackie emerged from the door, holding his finger to his lips. He had heard us coming and evidently did not want us to disturb something or other. When we got near enough, he said “Shush, you’ll wake the funny animal!” Galloway started. “The funny animal!” “Yes, ’Fessor, one of your funny stone animals is breathing, I can see it’s sides go- ing wiggly woggly, and it has such a funny long tail and a head like a big black crow.” “A big black crow.” Somewhere at the back of my obtuse mentality a subconscious train of thought was trying to burst through. I found myself repeating an old French lesson of forty years ago. What was it? Bird — oiseau Eagle — aigle Buzzard — bus e CROW— C 0 R N E 1 L L E . So that was what Fouchard meant by his messa'ge! He was warning us against this thing with a head like a big black crow! Thrusting the boy into the passage, we entered the room with automatics drawn. A strong earthy musk-laden smell pervaded the chamber. At first we could see nothing, so gloomy was the place, and then we saw A LARGE chunk of stone of the Meso- zoic period, retained because of its covering of fossilised vegetation, had been split in twain, as though pried open, and there on the top of the pieces reposed the strangest living thing I have ever seen. As the boy had said it had a head like a big black crow, but its beak was the beak of a
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978 WONDER STORIES flying lizard, a pterodactyl. Its body was fish-like, yet snake-like, but it had the pecu- liarity that it was practically two-dimension- al. Although nine inches or more in depth, it was not more than a quarter of an inch to half an inch in thickness. The body terminated in a long snaky tail, while a couple of protuberances like fins folded close to the body. That the animal lived, we could not doubt, from the slight respir- atory movements. “My God!” cried Galloway. “The Meso- zoic Missing Link!” The sound of his voice awoke the creature. It stared at us an in- stant with its malevolent cobra-like eyes, and then without warning, it spread its fin-like wings and soared with great veloc- ity over our heads. Merrivale’s automatic spat out, and the creature fell at Minott’s feet. As it did so it curled its long tail round the purser’s leg, and buried the sharp spine into the fleshy part of his calf. With a little cry, Minott dropped to the ground. We riddled the beast with shells, but poor Minott had gone to join the great majority, for the poison had been exuded from it’s sac through the spine of the creature’s tail just as in the case of Bratz and Olsen. As the creature writhed in its last agony the powerful beak struck the floor again and again, making the same kind of splin- tered marks we had observed so often be- fore. We covered poor Minott’s face, and took the boy to his harassed parents. Then we all gathered together in the lounge and of- fered up a prayer of thanksgiving, for our deliverance from the menace. There isn’t very much more to tell. When Galloway, who was fearfully shaken by the whole business, had recovered a bit, we dis- cussed the whole affair. “You see,” said the professor, “The study of evolution is even yet but in its infancy. For one thing, our fossil record is very in- complete. The oldest igneous rocks na- turally yield nothing from their fiery ori- gin: many of the earlier sedimentary rocks too, have been so denuded, or metamor- phosed by the action of heat and pressure that they, preserve no fossil records of the creatures which roamed the Earth in by- gone days. “All my life I have found the study of the evolution from one type to another intrigu- ing, and the fact that when a higher type evolves from a lower the latter does not entirely disappear, is most interesting. Such survivals are sometimes called ‘sports’, the idea being that they are freaks of nature, but when we remember that in the Mesozoic period the reptiles were predominant, and these cold-blooded beings were of giant size, herbivores, carnivores, flying and marine forms alike; while in the following Caeno- zoic period the warm-blooded mammals at- tained ascendancy, and the reptile now only survives in the insignificant crocodile, snake or lizard, it can be seen that these ‘sports’ represent rather the gradual discarding of the former types. They are rather Nature’s throwouts ! . An Explanation it * GAIN, while there are examples of s\. sudden change and acquisition of new parts, to enable the individual to conform to altered environment, such as the develop- ment of bird-like forms from the reptiles of the Mesozoic period, there is not, as Darwin imagined, a clear-cut line of demarcation be- tween species, and attributes of earlier spe- cies often linger after they have lost their usefulness. “For instance, in the Eocene period, mon- keys with arboreal limbs have yet teeth dif- ficult to distinguish from the Eocene horses: carnivores with hoofs exist, and herbivores with sloth-like claws. “It is these seeming paradoxes which make the subject of evolution so interesting to me, and it is in the study of the missing links of the chain that Major Burnett and myself have spent the last two years in South America, with what tragic success you know. The specimen which has caused all the trouble is undoubtedly a link between the birds and reptiles of the Mesozoic per- iod. The scorpion-like spine of the tail must be looked upon as a further ‘sport’ of nature, probably surviving from a still older form, although we must admit that
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THE MURDERS ON THE MOON SHIP 979 as we reconstruct the dinosaurs from bony skeletons, we hardly know whether they were equipped with paralysing or lethal venom or not, although the provision of such would be quite logical.” “But, how did the damn thing come to life after hundreds of centuries?” put in Merrivale. “Ah, that is where I owe Johnson, poor chap, an apology. You remember he spoke of a case of reptilian suspended animation. I had heard the tale before, and I am afraid I lost my temper for I always looked upon the yarn as of the Aesop vintage. In some sedimentary rock formations at Butte, a foreman and three miners swore affidavits (mind,- this 'is a hundred years ago) that they they had chipped a toad, which they first took to be a fossil, from the solid rock. They then realised the thing was hibernat- ing, but it was of a different species from any other they had ever seen. . “So they sent it on to the Bronx, New York Zoological Park, where the director re- vived the toad, and it ran about for a short time all alive and kicking, the director com- ing to the conclusion that it was an authentic case of suspended animation, the reptile hav- ing crept into the soft mud thousands of years before. With the passage of time, and pressure, the mud had formed stone, and en- cased the toad. “I’ve seen the preserved carcass myself, . but I never thought the story possible. But here we have had most terrible proof of the authenticity of suspended reptilian anima- tion. What awoke the creature in this case, 1 know not: probably some unknown ray emanating from the operation of the atomic motors. The splitting of the stone is easily explained, as it is in easily divisible lamin- ated strata, and we have had ample demon- strations of the reptile’s strength.” “Yes, but I don’t understand why it should adopt different methods of killing,” said Merrivale. “There is nothing inconsistent in that. Many creatures are armed with several types of natural weapons. A scorpion, for in- stance uses his poison spine tail to attack some creatures, and his strong claws to attack others. What I think actually took place was this: — The creature escaped from its prison of stone and flew through the fore-part of the ship into the living quar- ters. Working late on his composition, Bratz heard the thing fluttering in the cor- ridor, went to investigate and was struck on the hands, as he was trying to ward off the creature’s beak attacks, by the venomous tail spine. The tears in Bratz’s jacket were of course made by the beak. ttTN the case of Johnson, who always X slept with his door ajar, it looks as though the creature maliciously attacked him in his sleep, and as the first blow sev- ered an artery, he merely woke momentar- ily to give one cry. In Olsen’s case, it had taken refuge in the radio room, and as Olsen turned on the light he saw it: that accounted for the look of horror. It must have been near him too, for while the mark on the jamb of the door was made by the beak it curled its tail around his neck and pierced the poor devil’s neck with its poison- spine. “In Dr. Fouchard’s case it was different: the doctor was sitting at the table, undoubt- edly disconsolately reviewing our unfair accusations of him, when he heard the crea- ture, no doubt startled by something, trying to edge the vanes of the ventilator open. You remember that its body was practically two-dimensional. If it could get its head through, then the rest would be easy. “Fouchard pressed the button of his torch and saw the creature’s crow-like head being forced through the aperture. An in- telligent man, he immediately connected the beast’s appearance, (for he could read- ily see it was no ordinary crow), with the murders, and fearing his hour had come, he attempted to write the word Corneille, (crow) on the table to warn us. Then his heart, always weak, gave out. Either the animal was frightened by Fouchard’s torch, or else, it couldn’t get its head through, but it must have lurked about the corridor, perhaps under the very box on which Mc- Fee went to sleep. “You remember, Burnett, you complained that the passage smelt earthy, like a grave- ( Concluded on Page 1040)
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The Sleeping War by David H. Keller, M.D. (Illustrated by Marchioni ) They went into the city and saw the streets crowded with the inert forms — the traffic, now silent, a mass of confusion. Then they, too, joined the lifeless throngs. 980
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THE SLEEPING WAR 981 «rpHERE was a Chinaman in town- to- -L day,” announced William Buzzard, the Recorder of Deeds of Monroe County. He slowly placed his feet on top of his desk and started to blow smoke rings through the dead air of the closed office. The County Treas- urer laughed at him. “What are you try- ing to do, Bill? Kid me? Think I never took my collars to the laundryman? Long as I can remember there has always been a Chink in town.” “This was not that kind of a Chinaman,” slowly retorted Buz- zard, talking out of one corner of his mouth. “That’ s new3 to me. Is there more than one kind of Chink?” “You would think so if you ever saw a real one. This one today was only a yellow boy, but, believe me, Han- kins, he had class. He drove here in a swell car and he had on the very latest in New York haberdashery, and I ought to know, because I jus| had a chance to read an arti- cle called, What the well dressed man will wear in 1935. He gave me this elegant piece of tobacco I am smoking. “You will observe from the smell that it is no cheap five center. And then, to show you that I know what I am talking about when I say. that he had class, he had me record a deed for him which shows that he had just paid four hun- dred thousand dollars for the four thousand acres of land around Resica.” “I’m dreaming ! Wake me up !” murmur- ed the County Treasurer. “You don’t mean to tell me that the New York people have finally unloaded that Resica land?” “I do. And I re- member when I could have bought that land for five dollars an acre.” “All I have to say,” remarked Peter Han- kins, “is that they must have put the deal over when the Chink was asleep. I thought those yellow boys were smart.” “They are smart,” nodded Buzzard. “Smart as the Old Boy himself. I have read about them and seen moving pictures about them until I almost feel that they are smarter than the aver- age white man. I bet that this Chinaman had some reason for want- ing that land at Resica. Perhaps h e would have been willing to give more if the New Yorkers had held off a while. You will find out some day. He has something up his sleeve about that land. He knows something about it that makes him want to own it — oil or something like that. And I could have bought that land r for five an acre.” A few days after the deed for the Resica land had been recorded a well-dressed Chinaman wandered casually into the main offices of the Highway Depart- ment in Harrisburg, Pa. There was a slight difficulty in finding the correct official to r Of] often happens that some of the great advan- tages that men expect to gain by gathering together in large cities turn out fin- ally to be boomerangs. People collect into com- munities of hundreds of thousands and millions to take advantage of mutual economic and social advan- tages; and give up their own identity so that they may have the strength of the whole group. They are thus better protected against disease and poverty. These of course are the as- sumptions. But when trouble does come to a large city, it comes as a great disaster. Epidemics of diseases, great fires, out- bursts of crime, etc. are all prices that we must pay to enjoy city life. Think how easy it would be to spread abroad in our great cities a contagious germ to decimate thou- sands! Or how easy it might be to poison our wa- ter supply. Suppose that a great evil force wished to strike at our national life, and he started with the large cities. How might he go about it? Dr. Keller answers this question in this story full of his un- matched humor, pathos and tragedy! i
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992 WONDER STORIES talk to, but at last he was in conference with a politician, who was smoking as fine a cigar as it had ever been his good fortune to light. With such a present in his mouth, it was im- possible to be anything but polite to the donor; so, he asked, in his best manner, as he gazed at the visiting card in his hand : “What can I do for you, Mr. Wand Foo?” “I trust that my request is a very simple one,” began the Chinaman, opening a map and spreading it out on the table. “Condes- cend to gaze upon this map of Monroe Coun- ty. Here is a little place called Marshall Falls. From it a road runs through a thinly populated country and finally it ends up in Pike County, in what is called the deer coun- try. This road runs through a four thousand acre tract of land, recent- ly purchased by my asso- ciates. We regret the existence of this road, and desire your honorable aid in closing it.” The politician looked at the map closely. “Where’s your land?” he demanded. “Around a place called Resica.” “Hemmm! There is a good iron bridge there.” “Exactly. The exis- tence of the bridge an- noys us.” “Well, it’s there, isn’t it?” asked the politician sharply. He was beginning to be slightly annoyed. “You knew that the road was there arid you knew the bridge was there when you bought the land, didn’t you? We cannot close roads and tear down bridges just to please peo- ple. How do you suppose the hunters would get up to the deer country?” “If you look at the road carefully, you will see that there is another road that could be used. That road could be im- proved, and I am sure that it’s immaterial to the deer hunters as to the specific road they use, so long as they finally arrive at the hunting ground.” “It cannot be done!” declared the High- way Official, with an air of finality. A PECULIAR smile played over the Oriental’s face. He slowly pulled a red leather wallet from his inside coat pock- et. Opening it, he took out a pile of bills, one of which he handed to the politician. “Have you ever seen one of these?” he asked. The Pennsylvanian looked at it, picked it up, looked at it again, and handed it back. “It’s a grand!” he murmured at last. “It is. At least, I presume you call a thousand dollars in your currency by that name. Now, watch me. I am placing these bills, one at a time, before your- honored eyes. When 1 you feel that your Department could close that road and permit us to enjoy the privacy we desire, please indicate your willingness to cooperate with us. I presume you are sure of privacy? It would be so annoying to have visitors — while I am placing the bills in front of you.” The Highway Official hastily left his desk. He did not return till his of- fice door was locked and the window shades drawn. Then and only then did he seat himself and whis- per, “You can start your argument.” There was a slight trembling to his voice. The Orffental took the sheaf of bills in his hand and, with a gesture that was almost grandiose, placed one of them in front of the politician. There was a slight pause, and then another bill was placed on top of the first, and then a third bill followed. Silent- ly they fell like autumn leaves, only with a iriore definite regularity, as far as their landing was concerned. The Official simply looked at the bills, trying to realize that each was worth a thousand dollars and that if he did not say “STOP” at the right time, he might fail to win one of them. Twenty-five — twenty- DAVID H. KELLER, M.D.
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THE SLEEPING WAR 983 six — twenty-seven. What was the China- man aip to? What did he want to close the road for? Why? Thirty-nine — fifty- three — Was it the same wallet? Or had he taken another one from another pocket? Was that last one sixty-nine or seventy- three. Hell! He had lost count. Some- thing snapped, and he heard the Chinaman speaking to him. “I am afraid that you are no longer in- terested. Perhaps I had better take my mon- ey and leave. There are other pieces of land that we can buy besides Resica. We do not have to have Resica for our pur- poses.” “Oh! I am interested, all right,” insisted the politician. “Just a little hot in here and I lost count. How many are there in that pile?” “I am laying them down, not counting them,” whispered the yellow man gravely. “Still, if you wish to, I will lay down some more. No doubt the money will have to be divided, and you will have to keep a little for yourself.” “If you only knew, Mr. Foofoo, how hard a thing like this was to put over, you would turn your pockets inside out.” “My name is Wand Foo and not Foofoo,” explained the Chinaman. “Now, suppose we ask your honored attention while I con- tinue to place the pieces of paper you think so much of on the pile in front of you.” Once again the gesture of placing the bills, one at a time, began. At last the official held up his hand, “That will do,” he sighed. “And you will close the road?” “Yes. Of course, it will take a little time. I shall have to see some of the boys, and talk the matter over with them.” The visitor arose, and bowed courteously. “I thank you for your attention. I neg- lected to say that when the road is closed and all the details attended to, I will see that you have a sum equal to the small pit- tance I have placed within your worthy hands. I might add that if you fail, or try in any way to evade the terms of our gen- tleman’s contract, your lovely wife will be- come your lovely widow.” Without A Gate! JAMES Johnson was a hardened politi- cian, but his hands trembled as he gath- ered up the paper money and jammed it in a tight wad into his pocket. “Not trying to scare me, are you?” he sneered, as he started toward the door. “I never try to do anything,” murmured Mr. Wand Foo, as he sauntered towards that door. “At least I never try to do any- thing without succeeding. I shall expect the road closed, Mr. Johnson; either closed or the cash returned, and I am sure you do not want to return it.” The official slammed the door on his vis- itor and locked it. Back at his desk, he started to count the money. One hundred and twenty thousand! And the Chink had said that there would be as much more when the road was closed. How much would he give the other boys? And what did the yellow fool want the road closed for, anyway? Two times a hundred and twenty thousand made a quarter of a mil- lion. That was a lot of cash to pay for an old road. Well, he had better get to work. That was a mean thing to say about what would happen if he failed. He ought to have slapped the Chink in the mouth. But a quarter of a million was a lot of money, even if a part of it had to be split off to other interested parties; so James Johnson lost no time in starting the strictly legal proceedings necessary for the aban- donment of the road leading through the Resica property. Of course, the affair caused some comment, but relatively few persons were interested, and Johnson saw to it that the local newspapers made no great objections. There followed a number of busy months at Resica. The road was not only closed; it was torn up. Several deep ravines were filled with the debris, which was in turn covered with several feet of rich earth and planted with laurel and rhododendron from the Stroudsburg Nursery. The road bed was also planted. Soon there was but little proof that a hard-surfaced road had ever bisected the Resica tract. Then something more unu-
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984 WONDER STORIES sual happened. A contractor from New York appeared on the scene and started to run a fence around the four thousand acres. It was not an ordinary fence ! The old peo- ple in Monroe County had been accustomed to fences of stone, of split rail, of barb wire, and even of roots of pine trees, but this fence was a novelty to them. It was of wrought iron, twelve feet high, the tops end- ing in lance points of needle-like sharpness. Woe betide the man or animal who, at- tempting to climb that fence, slipped on the top! Another peculiar feature of the fence, which was not noticed till it was finished and then observed by only one person was the fact that the fence had no gate! There was no place of entrance or egress! Work had been finished, all the construction ma- terial taken away, even the nearest neigh- bors had ceased to be interested in the strange behavior of the rich fools in Resica, before a single person realized that the fence had no gate. CHAPTER II The Story of Resica LUKE Hoofer, East Stroudsburg philan- thropist, was drowsing idly on his front gallery one hot afternoon in August, 1936. He was not an old man, but his life had been a busy one and he had reached the time when he appreciated long periods of relaxation. He had been born on Dutch Hill without a cent in his pockets, in fact without any pockets; and had attained wealth and some degree of local fame solely through his own efforts. He Was somewhat surprised when he was aroused by the unex- pected appearance of a nephew whom he had not seen for years. It was not to be won- dered, that the first question he asked the young man was what he was doing in Mon- roe County. “I am doing a little loafing, Uncle Luke,” was Abe Summers’ reply. ‘‘Rather young for that, aren’t you?” was the caustic answer. “When I was your age, I never loafed.” “Well, you know how to do it now. Ser- iously, I am up here on a little mission for •he Government.” “That so? Seems I did hear the girls say that you had some kind of a Govern- ment job.” . “That is about right. That is one -reason why I came to see you. What do you know about Resica Falls?” “I know I could have bought it once for a few dollars an acre.” , “I don’t mean that. What kind of a place is it? Were you ever there?” “I have been there several times,” Hoofer replied. “First time when I was a little lad. I went up there and stayed all night. That was in 1880. When I was full grown I used to see it now and then when I was deer hunt- ing. Lately one of my partners had a sum- mer shack near the falls, and we used to go up there for Sunday dinner.” “Then you know about the place? Tell me about it?” “In a way there is not much to tell. Way back in the last century some men from New York bought a large tract of land around a place called Moonshine Falls. There was a fifty-foot drop of Marshall’s Creek at that place, and they figured that a lot of horse- power could be developed from the water falls. There was a fine grade of building stone there, and no grist mill for many a mile, so it seemed like a fine location. “They were city people and must have put the cart before the horse, because they fig- ured that if there was a mill, people would grow grain to take to the mill. I under- stand it was their plan to make flour and haul it to the Delaware and send it to Phil- adelphia by Durham boats. “They dug the mill race and built the mill, and that was some mill, Abe. At least two hundred feet by sixty, with three-foot walls and as fine windows as I have ever seen. All the woodwork hand-made and nailed together with hand-forged spikes. They built over twenty-five stone houses for the working men and a mansion for the Boss, and when they -finished they had a real town. Just then news came north that the States had won the battle of La Resi- ca in Mexico. You see, we were fighting the Mexicans then, and that was big news,
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THE SLEEPING WAR 985 just like the battle of Gettysburg, Manila Bay and Belleau Woods were later on. So, they had a big time and free eats and the New Yorkers decided to name the new town Resiea instead of Moonshine. “I don’t know what happened to the town. I suppose they ran the mill for some time, and perhaps they never had grain enough to make it pay. At least, the place was abandoned by the time the Civil War was over; and when I first saw it, it had al- ready decayed. Everybody moved away. There seemed to be some kind of a curse on the place; no one wanted to live there, and yet I never could find out why. And when the land was offered for sale, four thousand acres of as nice woodland as you ever saw, but no one wanted to buy it. I understand that it has been bought lately by some for- eigners.” 0, it is Marshall’s Creek that makes O the falls?” “Exactly. The same creek that makes Marshall’s Falls lower down, before it emp- ties into the Delaware. You see, Marshall was one of the men hired by the proprietors to make the celebrated Indian Walk, the time the Indians were robbed of the Shaw- nee Flats. Right up there was where the walk ended. The Indians were never satis- fied \>ver that business deal, and I guess they were robbed in good fashion.” “Let me tell you something, Uncle Luke,” said the young man in a low voice. “I was sent up here to look into the Resiea business, and there are some peculiar details about it. I have just been up there, on foot. In fact, I walked around the outside of the four thousand acres. They have a fence around the whole place.” “I have heard about the fence.” “It is there, all right, and it is a real fence, too. I walked around it. Tied my handkerchief on one of the iron rods and kept on walking till I came to the hand- kerchief again. It is one of the finest fences I ever saw and must have cost some money — but there is not a sign of a gate.”- “What’s that?” “There is no gate. I thought that there might be a removable section serving for a gate, but I do not think so. There is just a fence; no way to go in and no way to go out except by airplane, and the place is all woods; so, there would be no “place to land.” “That is rather odd,” commented the old man, “but let me tell you this, Abe Sum- mers. That is not the only peculiar thing about that place. First is the price they paid — four hundred thousand dollars, and it is not worth it. Then there was the mat- ter of the road. They had the road closed and the bridge torn down. I don’t know what it cost them, but I believe some of the county bosses made a good thing out of it, and no doubt the highway people at Har- risburg were in on it. Anyway, the road was closed. ’Course you know about the fence, more than I do, because I have not been interested enough in it to drive up to see it. From what I hear, those people have put about a million dollars into that investment, and that is a lot of money to pay just for land.” “What do they want it for?” “How should I know? Summer resort? Lumber? Electric power? No. Nothing like that. Did you examine the deed?” “Yes; but that does not tell anything. Just gives the price and the description and the parties concerned.” “It tells one thing, Abe,” remarked the old man slowly, “and it seems to me that that one thing is the most peculiar thing that has happened at Resiea for a number of years, and enough strange things have hap- pened there. That place was bought by a Chinaman, by the name of Wand Foo. Anytime a Chinaman buys four thousand acres of land in the deer country of Monroe County and puts an iron fence around it, why, that is a matter of real importance. I am not working for the government, but if I were, I would keep the Chinaman in mind.” “I will do that, Uncle. Guess I better be going. Say hello to the folks for me.” “Where are you going, Abe?” “Back to Resiea. I am going to find some way to go through that fence, or over it.” “You will find that Marshall’s Creek goes under it,” whispered the East Stroudsburg
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986 WONDER STORIES philanthropist, as he shut his eyes and went back to sleep. The young Government em- ploye heard and remembered the remark. The next morning he slowly walked up the road from Marshall’s Falls. It was early in the morning but already hot, one of those days without wind, when the grass- hoppers whirr through the air and the upper sky of deep blue is dotted here and there with dragon flies, darting like miniature warring planes after impotent foes. It was just hot, without a breath of moving air. Sum- mers took things easy and at noon came to the end of the road, an abrupt pause em- phasized by the tall iron fence. There was no sign of a road on the other side of the fence, just a forest of fern, shrub and trees. Turning to the left Summers followed the fence. Under the Creek! IT was growing dark when the sound of running water warned him that he was near Marshall’s Creek. It was running at the bottom of a heavily wooded ravine, and he was tired from his all-day walk. He made a hasty supper of chocolate bars and peanut butter sandwiches, washed it all down with water almost as cold as ice, made a bed from some ferns, and had no difficulty in going to sleep. He was only thirty years old, but he had slept on the sands of the Sahara, the muddy shores of the Amazon, and the snow-clad mountains of Alaska. The fern bed alongside of Marshall’s Creek was real comfort, compared with some of his couches. The next morning he was ready for some more chocolate bars. The water was still cold, too cold to use for shaving with com- fort, yet, true to his training, he simply had to shave before starting on the day’s work. His belt was pulled up an extra hole, and he was ready. “And I hope,” he said to himself, “that I get something to eat before another day passes.” From close up the fence looked more for- midable than ever. It ran down into the ravine, over the creek, and up the other side. It looked as though the iron bars went down into the bottom of the creek bed. Previous experimenting had shown Sum- mers that the bars of the fence went several feet into the ground and were connected there by many strands of heavy barbed wire. It all seemed very difficult; in fact, impos- sible to get through. In order to obtain a better view of the top of the fence, he lay back on his bed of ferns. Just then he heard a squirrel scold and a blue-jay cry. Across the ravine he heard a twig snap. Raising his head cautiously, he saw a man at the top of the hill, on the other side, and that man was walking down into the ravine, along the inside of the fence. Summers hardly breathed. He was glad that the ferns and shrubs around him were so thick. Even after the man had gone for fifteen minutes, he still lay there. Then he cau- tiously sat up. “That was a sentry,” he exclaimed. “Those people are patrolling the fence. And unless I was dreaming it was an Indian, and what is an Indian doing inside the fence? An Indian working for a China- man! Some combination! But now is the time to cross the fence. Wonder how cold that water is?” Rapidly undressing, he tied his clothes into a bundle and threw it over the fence. Then he dived into the creek. The plunge took him to the bottom of the creek bed. He was hunting for something that he was not sure existed, an opening under the fence, •made by the swirling water in the spring freshets. The first time under brought no results except to show him that the bottoms of the bars were as sharply pointed as were the tops and that there was a lot of barbed wire in between. Again and again he went under, each time at different places until at last he found what he was looking for, a place where he could go under. It was a chance and a rather desperate one, but one worth taking. He came out on the other side, fighting for air, and shiv- ering from cold, his back badly cut by the barbed wire. The warm air felt good after the cold water. His clothes felt good. He was hungry and tired and sore, but the im- portant thing was that he was inside the fence.
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THE SLEEPING WAR 987 The next thing was to go to the falls. Resica Falls, where the mill race was, where the grist mill and the village of twenty-five houses had been built during the Mexican War. Resica, the mysterious! There he hoped to find a Chinaman and an Indian, and there he hoped to find an answer to the mystery of Resica. HE followed the course of the creek, sat- isfied that it would lead him to Resica Falls. At or near the falls he was sure that he would find the new owners of the pro- perty. His course was slow, not only be- cause of the necessity of caution, but also because he was held back by berry briars, large rock, and rhododendrons so thick that the place well deserved the name given it years before by the early settlers of Devil’s Hell. It was hot in the woods, and he was tired and very hungry by the time he heard the sound of falling tormented water, which announced his proximity to the falls. To his surprise, he saw a small bungalow ahead of him, and remembered his Uncle’s saying that one of his partners used to have a summer camp at that part of the property, just on the other side of the iron bridge. The bridge was gone, but the little house re- mained, and was, no doubt, in use. Abe Summers belonged to the now school of detectives, who believed that a straight line was the shortest distance between two points. At times their code is a dangerous one, often it results in the unpleasant death of the operator, but always there is a gam- ble in it that makes life worth living and more often than not it* brings results. The old style detector of crime would have secreted himself in the woods, spied on the house and the inhabitants for some days, formed conclusions as to their activity which way have been right, but just as possibly wrong, and would have avoided any con- tact with the parties being observed. Summers was hungry and tired; he had accomplished one of the objectives of his program and had reached Resica Falls. Now he walked up to the door of the little house in the woods and knocked. No an- swer coming to his summons, he opened the door and walked in, through the little rooms — No one there; but there was a com- fortable chair, and on the table in the back room a meal, apparently served for one per- son. “And that person is Abe Summers,” ac- knowledged the detective to himself. “I ad- mit that it is not the act of a perfect gentle- man to eat without being invited, but I am hungry. Besides, there are certain features about this house and this meal which makes me wonder if I was not expected. A man who spends a million to insure privacy has, no doubt, a very efficient secret service of his own. And there was the Indian. Not surprising to see an Indian, but it was a thrill to see him roam through the primitive woods, dressed in the costume of his ances- tors.” He ate slowly and then cleaned up and washed the dishes when he was through. After that he walked leisurely through the house, examining everything thoroughly but disturbing and touching nothing. He spent over an hour studying a large map of New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania. It took him a long time to grasp the meaning of it, but at last he began to smile and relaxed in the comfortable Morris chair, which seemed to be provided for his special com- fort. “Very clever,” he acknowledged to him- self. “Remarkably clever. That explains the absence' of a gate. Now that I am warm and fed and a part of my curiosity satisfied 1 think that I will take a little well earned sleep.” CHAPTER III Wand Foo Explains IT was late when he awoke. Candles in a silver candelabra were burning on the center table. On the other side of the table a man sat, his fingers interlaced, his gaze directed into vacancy. Summers took out his watch, looked at the time, wound it and replaced it in his pocket. “I fear that I overslept myself,” he stated simply. “When I saw that you were asleep, I did
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WONDER STORIES not wish to disturb your honorable person, Mr. Summers.” “You know me?” “How could I forget an antagonist of years past! Surely you recall your activi- ties in China, when you gathered details concerning our Russian friends? How can you forget Wand Foo?” “I have not forgotten him,” confessed Summers. “I am so glad,” purred the Chinaman. “Ever since you blocked my game in China, I have had you on my mind. When we came to America, I hoped that you would be selected by the Secret Service to investi- gate our activities. Not that it made any difference, you understand, but I felt that it would add to my pleasure to have you interested in our plans. Everything worked out nicely, and now you are our guest. I am sure you will be pleased to meet some of our compatriots, strange bedfellows in a way, but united by a common bond of hatred.” S He clapped his hands and two men came from the doorways of the room where they had been concealed in the shadows. The Oriental introduced them, “This swarthy gentleman is Georgius Sergiov. You can call him George for short, ft will be so intimate and informal. He represents the great Russian republic, and comes to America, thoroughly commit- ted to aid us in every way possible. When the time is ripe, his countrymen will come to the United States and reorganize the coun- try according to their own ideas of equality and fraternity. At present this is a rich land, but when we finish it will simply be a province of a new nation yet to be organ- ized; when thf time comes, however, for this to happen, the directing force of that new world empire will be in Russia.” “And not in China?” interrogated Sum- mers. “Ah! The question of a cunning diplo- mat in trouble ; and starting at once to raise discord among his enemies. Why should China crave power? We were cultured gen- tlemen when the Slav was a painted savage and the Anglo-Saxon a skin-clothed animal. We were writing and using gunpowder when the other world nations were in the stone age. Our history was lost in antiquity when Egypt was in her swaddling clothes. China can wait. China has always been able to wait. Four hundred million population and dying like flies, but back of those yel- low flies a national consciousness of world supremacy. We are willing to allow Rus- sia to occupy America. “This other gentleman has a rather dif- ficult name to pronounce, but in English it means Troubled Water. He is a full- blooded Indian and as such is more entitled to the name American than you or any of your people. His being here has a singular history. He is a lineal descendant of the Indian tribes who once owned all this land. They were cheated out of it, badly deceived at the time of the Indian Walk. His fam- ily lived here at Resica. Naturally, they never forgot the treatment accorded them by the white race. For four generations they have been made to live on the western reservations, but always they remembered their home. When the time , came, they re- turned to it — not all of them, of course, yet all who were left of the family. “But Troubled Waters retained the tradi- tions of his family and their knowledge of Resica and the falls. After he became rich from the sale of his Oklahoma oil lands, he traveled and I met him in China, and after we talked matters over we became friends. He told me about the falls and the tunnel, and I saw possibilities enough in the idea to propose a certain plan to the Russian government. So we three are here, just the three of us, and now you have joined us.” H A ND that makes four,” commented -ti- Summers. “And I am sure that you will be interested in our plans, Mr. Summers, because you have always had such a flair for being in- terested in other people’s business. Brief- ly speaking, we are going to conquer the United States. Just the three of us. Is not that interesting? Of course, our armies, later on will come into the country and mop up the place, but the main work will be done by the three of us.”
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THE SLEEPING WAR 989 “But I thought there were four of us?” asked Summers. “You are going to be just an interested spectator. Remember that we did not in-, vite you. Since you are here, however, we intend to have you stay. Here is our plan. Centuries ago a race, who lived here before the Indians, built a tunnel from Resica Falls to the ocean. At the far end we have a very pretty summer home built, and no one, not even the clever Mr. Summers, would suspect that one could walk from the cellar of that home to Resica Falls. Our precious supplies are being carried from there. Some- day Government officials may come to our iron fence and demand admission and we will very gladly let them in and show them everything, but at the end they will have learned nothing. “Our machinery is very simple. At the top of the falls, at one side, in a cave, we place the barrels. One at a time these are connected with a little silver pipe which empties the contents of the barrel, a drop at a time, into the water just as it dashes over the falls to mingle with the Troubled Wa- ters. That is the part of our Indian friend so very much enjoys. He sits there and watches the drops disappearing so evenly over the falling water. His race died that way, one at a time, like dropping water, or falling leaves in autumn. Now, as he watches the medicine falling into the water, he sees the doom of the descendants of the people who destroyed his ancestors and robbed them of their homes. “That is our modern method of making war. Did you know your nation was at war? No doubt you are ignorant, but war las begun. We have started now — the drops are falling, sixty a ^ minute, and thir- ty-six hundred in the hour. Soon we will have results in Philadelphia, and the small- er cities around Philadelphia. Then we will do the same thing to New York, and New Orleans, and Los Angeles. And when the morale of the people is destroyed, when fear covers the land like a panic, then our troops will move in, how — you need not know. But it means the end of the war.” “That is very interesting, but I am not sure of your conclusions,” said Summers. “I cannot see how three of you can accom- plish all that disturbance.” “You weary me with your arguments and objections,” answered the Oriental with an air of finality. “Friends, suppose you show him the pipe and the barrels and then place him in the tunnel and lock the iron gate. I might say, Mr. Summers, that the tunnel is many miles long and you can wander through it as you wish. At the other end you will also find a gate; so, you can stay there and think, and while you are doing it, your nation will begin to die.” The detective saw that resistance was use- less. These three men were not in any way ordinary beings. Life to them was a commonplace, murder a banality. For some reason they did not kill him at once, but he knew that they would change their mind in a split second if he showed resis- tance. He allowed them to search him, and followed them into the twilight. The last rays of a setting sun were turn- ing the boiling water of the falls into a fairy land of fantasy. The three of them, the Russian, the Indian and the young Amer- ican, walked through the wood till they came to a little shining pipe which seemed to come out of the rock on one side of the falls. The free end hung over the falling water. “The barrels are in a cave over there,” growled Sergiov. “The Chinaman said we were to show you the barrels, but what’s the use! I think he must be foolish to even let you live.” “If I had my way,” commented the In- dian, “I would take him out on that rock and slit his throat and let his blood join the medicine. Still, orders are orders, and I suppose we might as well carry them out. But what the idea is, is too much for me. Come along with you. Have you the key, Sergiov?” “I have the key, and here we are,” an- nounced the Russian. “Orders were to turn him loose in the tunnel, but nothing said as to how.” With that he struck the detective a crushing blow on the head with a blackjack. It was hours before Summers really knew what had happened to him.
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990 WONDER STORIES The Great Epidemic THE events of the next two weeks will always remain as one of the great tragedies in American history. There had been previous disasters by war, fire, flood and tornado. Cities like San Francisco had been leveled by earthquakes. Other cities like Chicago razed to the ground by fire. But never before had two million people gradually gone to sleep and kept on sleep- ing. The first cases were so scattered, and so unconnected that the real peril of the situa- tion was not realized. Here a few and there a few of the people of the lower Dela- ware Valley went to sleep and could not be aroused. The next day there were hun- dreds more of the sleepers, but even then the symptoms were so mild, the sleep was so natural, that there was no realization on the part of the authorities as to the mean- ing of it all. In fact, it was not until the epidemic had taken thousands into the arms of Morpheus that real apprehension began. It was thought at first that it was a wide- spread epidemic of lethargic encephalitis * But certain symptoms of that disease were uniformly absent. In fact there was no symptom except a natural sleep, perhaps heavier than usual. The women and chil- dren seemed to be the first affected, and they, simply feeling drowsy, went to their beds. The men, because of a greater resis- tance, were the last to be overcome. Inside of a week, over two million persons were asleep. It meant an end of all activities in the great city. Transportation stopped, the pro- duction of power ceased. Commerce, the ordinary relation between people, came to an end. The waitress in the restaurant, the mechanic at his bench, the broker at his desk, the surgeon operating on his patient — one and all became sleepy and yielded to their desire to rest. It did not take long for the great medical minds of the nation to realize that some- thing terrible, menacing, deadly, was at •A variety of brain fever known aa “sleeping sickness.” work in Philadelphia. Two things had to be done. One was to take proper care of the victims, the other was to determine just what was causing the sleeping epidemic. It is to the credit of the medical frater- nity that at this time there was no end of volunteers who went into the doomed city to care for those who lay in a death-like trance. The greatest medical minds of the nation volunteered to determine, in spite of the obvious danger, the cause of the epi- ' demic. They went into the city, saw the streets crowded with the inert forms — the traffic, now silent, a mass of confusion. Then they too joined the lifeless throngs.' Few returned to tell the story. The thought of a great city, devoid of all protection, helpless to the last degree, stirr- ed the imagination of the underworld. At once a small army of degenerates, reckless to the last degree, gamblers all, moved like a devastating army towards the city of the sleeping people. They went to rob and they remained to sleep. On the streets, with their bundles of loot beside them they fell down to their tortured dreams, victims of the same dire fate that stilled the activi- ties of their intended victims. It was felt that in spite of the best inten- tions little could be done for those already suffering from the weird disease. The Government threw a line of soldiers around the city and finally forbade either entrance or egress. Ships evaded Delaware Bay. A silence, greater than even the silence of the dead, hung over the dreaming metropolis. A nation trembling from sympathy exert- ed all its mental resources to solve the prob- lem that had destroyed the consciousness of one of its great cities. The world, apparent- ly a unit in sympathy, offered any resource at its command. Philadelphia, long jeered at as the sleepy city, was remembered at a thousand altars in prayers as earnest as they were impotent. And then a message came from the Sov- iets, the Red Nation of the World. It sug- gested that other American cities in addi- tion to Philadelphia might fall asleep; and offered as an alternative submission to a peaceful conquest by Russia and China.
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THE SLEEPING WAR 991 . THE message was delivered secretly to the President of the United States. Whatever his motives, his decision was to keep it secret. There is no doubt that had he done otherwise, a national panic might have resulted. Millions of men were still out of work, the classes were disturbed over the Philadelphia situation, the masses were ripe for revolt. Rightly or wrongly, the President decided to allow a few days to lapse before arriving at a decision. Meanwhile, the Coast Guard of New Jer- sey had taken an unconscious part in the course of world politics. They had had under observation for some months a very ornate, but isolated summer home. It was, according to theiv conclusions, the head- quarters of an aristocratic set of bootleg- gers. Now and then a ship steamed in and unloaded a number of small barrels which were carried via boat and wheelbarrow to the summer bungalow. In spite of their closest watch, they had failed to see any of it leave the house for distribution. A wild night had been selected for the un- loading of the next lot of kegs. The Rev- enue Officers were on hand and the attack on the house was a perfect success. The Russian crew were captured, and in the cel- lar of the house two Chinamen escaped a similar fate by committing suicide. The Guards were just leaving the cellar when they heard a call for help. Following the sound, they came to an iron gate hid behind some empty kegs. A hoarse, feverish voice cried to them desperately and explained to them that the keys to the gate might be ob- tained from one of the dead Chinamen. A few minutes later Abe Summers stag- gered out into the cellar and collapsed on the floor. The first thing that he did on recovering his consciousness was to go to the telephone and tell Mr. Wand Foo, in very excellent Chinese, that the ship had just come in and had succeeded in landing thir- ty-seven kegs of the drug. Summers had not been very happy. The days spent in the tunnel, with an iron gate at each end, had been tortured years. He had found water in abundance and a few living things, like salamanders, and toads. He had groped his way through the dark all the distance from Resica to the shore of the Atlantic Ocean, only to find another gate. His life had been an adventuresome one, but never before had he come so close to the con- sciousness of death. And his sufferings were made all the more horrible by his reali- zation of an unknown danger which, in some way, was threatening the people of the Dela- ware Valley and which danger he was un- able to prevent. Now, for a wonder, Fate had not only saved his life but had placed him in control of one end of the tunnel. First, he made the effort to keep the three conspirators in ignorance of the fact that the outlet to their fortress in Resica was in the hands of their enemies. The next thing was to find what had happened to the people of Philadel- phia during the long, tedious, tormenting days he had wandered, a hungry desperate man, in his tunnel prison. It did not take long for the Coast Guards to answer his eager questions. The people of Philadelphia and the vicinity had fallen asleep, victims of a peculiar and terrible epidemic that, up to the present time, had not even been given a name. That was it! That was the explanation of the liquid drop- ping through the silver pipe into Resica Falls! Even though greatly diluted, it had drugged the city. It must have taken so little to produce such mighty results; and there were many barrels left. Thirty-seven had been landed that night. Enough, if properly distributed, to numb the sensibili- ties of the nation, certainly enough to so stagnate the life of the great cities so that the conquest of the United States by the Soviets would be simply a matter of time. Summers sat in a chair in the summer bungalow and thought it all out. The Rus- sian and the Indian were just pawns in the game. Wand Foo was the real brains. It was the Chinaman who had formulated the attack. It was his shrewd brain that had determined just what drug to be used. It was, no doubt, something that was unknown to the Occidental pharmacist. The yellow man had boasted of the superior knowledge of his countrymen. Summers was a detective, not a physician, but it did not take a medical mind to leap
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992 WONDER STORIES across the picture puzzle and arrive at the next step in the solution. If Wand Foo knew the poison, he also knew the antidote. There was only one thing to do. Get the man and make him tell! CHAPTER IV Tracks of Mud! THE detective slowly ate crackers and water, sweetened with sugar. He was weak, but, gradually, as the sugar began to circulate through him, he began to think more clearly. The only way the Chinaman could be taken alive was by surprise. Ev- en if Resica was captured, there still re- mained the long, dark primitive tunnel, a bad place to capture a man in, especially if the man was desperate. Summers felt peculiarly alone. He had been sent out by the Secret Service with the instructions to clear up the Resica mystery. The final statement made to him was that in no emergency was he to do anything that would cause publicity. It was to be a one- man game. And more than ever did the detective see the wisdom of this advice. If the peoples of the United States learned 'the real facts, war could not be prevented and war with Russia, China and Mexico would mean war also with Japan. It might be a successful war and, no doubt, it might be a popular one; but it would mean the loss of millions of lives. It would rock the peace of the world. Meantime, the Coast Guards were growing more curious. They felt the air of mystery, and were anxiously awaiting the time when they could ask a thousand questions. It had been useless to question the Russian prisoners, but who the starved white man was who had shown them his Secret Service badge, and what interest he had in the boot- leg game they did not know. Whom had he telephoned to? Summers could not satisfy their curiosity. “You’ll have to consult my Chief,” he ex- plained. “But I will say that these men caught me and nearly starved me. Lucky for me you raided the place when you did. Better be careful of that liquor. Not or- dinary stuff, by any means. Give me a gun and let me watch these foreigners while you go and report the affair to your Head- quarters.” He spoke with an air of authority, and they believed what he said. When they came back, they found two dead Russians. There was a note pinned to one of them with the simple explanation that they had tried to escape. The detective was gone. It was not till some minutes later that some one suggested that they look in the cellar. When they did so, they found that the iron gate was locked. Outside the house they found the muddy tracks of a motorcycle — leading to the cellar door. They were members of the Coast Guard, but they were also very human men. The statement made to them that the liquor in the barrels was no ordinary stuff interested them. They tried some. When the relief Guards came, they found two dead China- men in the cellar, two dead Russians in the parlor and three sleeping Americans in the kitchen. There was no one left to tell the story of the starved man in the tunnel. # * * Wand Foo was rather happy. He had every reason to believe that the morale of the nation was baUly undermined by the calamity in Philadelphia. Thirty-seven more barrels of the drug had been success- fully landed in the summer home which secreted the other end of the tunnel. Sum- mers, who had done him great harm in past years, was slowly starving to death in the tunnel. Perhaps it would have been best to take the Russian’s advice and killed him at once, but it certainly was pleasant to think of his slowly dying, with ever-increas- ing hunger gnawing at him like a fox. Ev- erything was working out nicely, but there was one thing that worried him and, try as he would, he was unable to determine what it was. He wondered if he was growing old, losing his cunning? In the meantime, he formu- lated plans for the attack on New York City, an assault that would end in the sleep- ing death of eight million persons. Per- haps after that the President of the United
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THE SLEEPING WAR 993 States would realize that it was best to ans- wer letters from foreign nations. SUMMERS had had one experience with the prehistoric tunnel. Bleeding from the scalp wound from the terrific blow of the Russian, he had recovered consciousness in that tunnel and had staggered under the Delaware River and under the width of New Jersey only to find at the end of a wild delirious, staggering walk there was an iron gate at the other end. During those days of starvation, hope had remained in his heart for no other reason than the fact that he was an Anglo-Saxon, fighting for the very life of his country. For the second time he entered the tun- nel, but this time he went in voluntarily, wheeling a somewhat muddy but serviceable motorcycle with an excellent head lamp to light his way on the wild ride back to Resi- ca. He had locked the gate behind him, because he did not want any interference with his plans. He had also two automa- tics and plenty of ammunition, several packages of creckers, a can of sardines, and unlimited hope. He was not sure that the key to one gate would unlock the other one, but he hoped so. Back of his anxiety to return to the Falls was a curious interest in the tunnel. He had been told that it was very old. Now, with the light guiding his way, his hands gripped about the handlebars and the roar of the machine filling the cave, he was able to confirm this statement. The floor was worn smooth' by the millions of feet that long centuries ago had walked from the Ocean to the Falls. On the walls were rude carvings of animals who ruled America when the Gulf of Mexico began at St. Louis and who now remained only as rock pictures and fossil bones. Summers determined that he must not be the last one to travel through that tunnel. When this “little af- fair” was cleaned up, he must make the exis- tence of the tunnel known to the Smithson- ian Institution. He chugged on and on with the regularity of a machine. There were short periods of rest to be rid of the deafening roar of the machine; and scant periods for eating. At last, with a sigh he saw cracks of daylight at the other end of the tunnel and heard the thunder of the falls beyond the gate. Day- light indeed, but little more, for once again in his mind he saw Resica at the close of the day, at the crimson purpling of a sun- set. Now for the key! Would it open the gate? It did. Summers took that as an omen. From now on it was to be a poker game, but the cards were stacked. One man against the representatives of three great nations, two living and one dead; and the one man held all the aces. He locked the gate behind him. His first thought was to stop the constant dropping of the drug into the water. After that was done he would attend to the Russian and the Indian. He was no longer a calm, metho- dical detective. He had become, from neces- sity, a killer. Lady Luck was with him. Troubled Wa- ters was lonesome and a trifle bored. There had been long periods of complete inactivity and a gradual deepening of the feeling that the Chinaman did not consider him a vital factor in the program prepared for the conquest of America. He was not even confident that if those plans were car- ried out successfully, the remnant of his nation would be happier or more prosper- ous. He had seen something of the Russian temperament in the last few months, and he was not sure that the Russian would be as kind a ruler as the Saxori had been. He had hoped some day to be able to live at Resica, but who was there to live with? His race was almost gone. There was not a pure blooded Indian maiden in his tribe, and the half breeds would rather live in New York than amid the solitude of Resica. He sat cross-legged on the rocks at one side of the Falls and thought over these matters. The thunder of the water lulled his caution, while the shimmering sheen of the sun in his eyes hypnotised him into a twilight sleep. He awoke for a second with the crash of a bullet in his brain, died as he plunged downward over the falls and went to sleep eternally in the dark green of the. whirlpool below. “And now for the Russian,” whispered
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994 WONDER STORIES Summers, as he started to walk to the little bungalow. Luck was again with him. The two men he was hunting for were in the living room, laying their plans to leave Resica the next morning. They were seated on opposite sides of a table, and the Rus- sian was facing the window. A Lesson in Torture «T HAVE it now!” cried the Chinaman, A with a complete departure from his usual suave manner. “Something has been troubling me, and now I know what it is. We will not wait till tomorrow to go to the cottage by the ocean. We will go tonight. Listen to me and learn how the little things of life are of the greatest importance. My servant telephoned to me that thirty-seven kegs of the poison had been successfully landed and were stored in the cellar. But that servant is a well-educated man. He has the blood of Mandarins in him and was educated in England. He spoke to me in Chinese, but one phrase he used was not inflected in exactly the manner of a Man- darin. I heard that phrase, but my mind slept. Now it is awake. Georgiov, that was not. my servant who spoke to me over the telephone.”. “Then who was it?” asked the Russian, somewhat annoyed at the sudden garrulous behavior of the Oriental. “That was none other than my friend, Abe Summers.” Just then a shot filled the silence of the room. The Russian slumped in his chair and dropped to the floor. Once again the killer, fighting for the security of his coun- try and not willing to take a single chance, had spoken. “And do not make a single false move, Wand Foo,” commanded Summers, “and you better keep your hands up till I frisk you. I do not want to kill you, but I may have to, if you don’t behave.” Had the Chinaman been dealing with a stranger, he would have taken a chance, but he had come in contact with Summers once- before. He felt that for the present he was in a precarious -position. At any moment he expected the Indian to come, and then, even with the Russian dead, there would be two to one. Summers might be persuaded to talk; the white man might be bluffed, out- witted. Wand Foo hoped for the best, but at the same time, obeyed the command and raised his hands. The detective tied those hands with the Oriental’s own sash. He tied his feet and body.to the chair with a rope he had carried with him from the sea-side bungalow. When he finished, the Chinaman was trussed in no uncertain manner. The dead Russian was dragged into the next room, the center table pulled to one side, and then Summers started to talk. “No use to spill a lot of words. Wand Foo. I know what you tried to do to my country. In spite of your efforts I lived on, though I nearly starved in the tunnel. Now I am back, and I hold all the aces in this poker game. Poor Troubled Waters is dead at the bottom of Resica Falls. Your Rus- sian friend is dead. So are your people on the Atlantic Coast. Just you and I left, and you are rather helpless. “Now, I know that you are no fool. You know a lot more than I do — about some- things. You know all about this sleeping drug you have put into Resica Falls and from there into the Delaware River. But you know another thing about that dope; you know the antidote. And you are going to tell me. “Of course you will refuse. You. think that I will kill you and then you can save your face, and join your honorable ancestors. I would not think of killing you, not all at one time. But when you had me in your power in China some years ago, you gave me some personal lessons in torture. Do you remember? Well, I am going to pay you back — teach you the same lessons, and maybe show you some new tricks; but just as soon as you tell me how to save those unfortunate sleepers in Philadelphia, I will stop the education. Now do you under- stand?” “You cannot torture me, Mr. Summers,” announced the yellow man with a smile. “You are a white man, and white men do not use those methods. You would kill me, but you would not torture me.”
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THE SLEEPING WAR 995 “Is that so? Well, all I can say is that you better watch me for the next hour. You are going to tell me what I want to know, and I know that you are going to. In the meantime, I will build a fire in that fire- place and start to work.” HALF an hour later Wand Foo agreed to come across with the information. He was not at all happy, for various reasons, but the part that hurt the worst was the con- sciousness that he had made a mistake in estimating the character of an Anglo-Saxon who was aroused. Both men were sweating. No one will ever know what Abe did to Wand Foo, but it was sufficient to break the determination of the Oriental to die rather than surrender the information. “Enough!” he cried. “Stop! The rem- edy is simple. A few drops of a ten percent solution of sodium bicarbonate injected by hypodermic under the skin will wake the sleeper.” “Wait a minute till I write that down. That is the truth, is it?” “Absolutely.” “Have you any in this house?” “Yes, in that table drawer. I always have some hypodermics loaded — in case of accident.” Summers confirmed the statement, placed a hypodermic syringe on the table, and left the house. Twenty minutes later he return- ed, and explained his absence. “I went to get some of that poison. You lied to me in the past and you might do it again. I am going to make you drink some of this stuff, and then, after you fall asleep, I am going to give you the antidote. If it works, you will awaken. Now, open your mouth. Oh! Yes, you will. Want some more persuasion? Here, drink this. I am going to give you a big dose, and then I am going to find something to eat and take a little sleep myself.” He enjoyed that meal, but before it was over he heard the Oriental call him. “Ah! Mr. Summers, a little matter I forgot — in the excitement of the last hour. There is a little vial of tablets in the draw- er. I am not sure of their Latin name, but I am sure that your chemists will be able to identify it. One of them has to be dis- solved in the sodium bicarbonate before it is effective. I thought that you should know that.” “I thought there was something like that,” answered the detective with a grin. “Now you just go to sleep, and when you start to snore I will shoot you with the needle and wake you from bye-bye-baby land. I hope you have a happy dream.” Summers did not mean to sleep so long, but he was completely tired, and it was day- light before he awoke. There was no doubt about the sleep of the Chinaman; it was a narcosis from which no amount of yelling, shaking or pinching. could arouse him. The detective fixed the antidote, injected it and then started to eat breakfast. In an hour the Chinaman was awake. “It worked,” agreed Summers. “Now you and I are going to Washington, just as fast as we can, to tell our story there.” “I cannot walk through the tunnel,” said Wand Foo, decisively. “Not with my feet the way you left them.” “We are not going through the tunnel. We are going through the fence. You will walk with your hands bound and I will ride behind you with a very muddy motorcycle until we get an automobile.” “There is no gate to that fence.” “Think that I do not know that? But you know how to get out. Secret panel or something, and you are going to show it to me; either that, or I am going to hoist you up on top and stick one of those iron points through you. You are positively the hard- est man to handle I ever argued with. You do not seem to understand that I mean busi- ness.” Six hours later Luke Hoofer received a call from his nephew. The young man did not even have time to leave the automobile, but called the old man out to the street. “Just how bad are things in Philadelphia, Uncle?” “Bad enough, Abe. Millions of people asleep, and th$ whole district quarantined. Where have you been?” “To hell and back again. By the way! ( Continued on Page 1038)
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The World Without By Benson Herbert ( Illustration by Marohioni ) An incredible, nightmarish monster, ten yards long, was warily feeling his head with a set of antennae .... 996
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THE WORLD WITHOUT 997 ABOVE the subdued din around the din- ner-table where in the fashionable even- ing clothes of the day were gathered all the white people worthy of note in Cairo, could be heard the dictator- ial voice of Mr. Parl- ing, the mathemati- cian. Broad-should- ered, stout but not fat, with legs set wide apart like the Colos- sus at Rhodes, he dom- inated the company and delivered h i s speech with the gusto and rhetoric of an ora- tor. He was a perfect type of dinner guest. He would emphasize a point of his discourse with a blow of his fist on the table which threatened to spill the wine. Opposite him with glowering eyes sat Dr. Klington, philosopher and amateur archeolo- gist. His lean hard frame, long ascetic features, and hair of the colour and texture of fine copper wires, were in utter contrast to the appearance of the speaker. For more years than either of them would care to admit, they had waged a wordy war, mainly through the medium of the press. Few were the scientific controversies in which the one parti- cipated without the op- position of the other, and now for the first time they had encountered each other in person. The guests who were “in the know” smacked their lips in anticipation. Their amiable host had realised too late and with a deep sense of chagrin the trouble he might cause by inviting them both to the same din- ner. He trembled at the thought of the con- sequence of this tact- less act. What non- sense was Mr. Parling saying now? — “ . . . and it is my firm opinion, based upon irrefutable the- ory, that our universe is composed of a gredt number of three-di- mensional worlds ex- isting side by side in a fourth dimension, just as the two-dimen- sional leaves of a book lie side by side in a third dimension . . ” Mr. Parling droned on while the host won- dered if his new social idea of allowing ev- eryone present to speak upon his own special subject hobby was as good as he had first thought it. His mental peregrinations were suddenly termin- ated by the sound of a low, highly-cultivated, insistent voice; the in- evitable had happened at last. Dr. Klington had interrupted the thread of Mr. Parling’s discourse. “I beg to question that latter statement of yours, Mr. Parling. Such an utterly absurd idea can have no foun- dation when opposed by the doctrines of the very keenest brain of the last century, I mean the eminent and profound scientist, the Frenchman Henri Poincarf!” ^ ACCUSTOMED as we\ ***■ are to our world in which the laws of nature are well-known to us, we are apt to forget that what seem to be absolute laws are really only approxima- tions. Since cause and ef- fect seem to follow with precise regularity, we con- struct from them laivs of nature. The truth is that our laws of nature are just convenient explanations of things. But it is possible that the real and ultimate laws of the universe might be very much different than we imagine. Our uni- verse might stand in the same relation to the uni- verse of reality, as the universes of microscopic creatures stand to us. .4s Alphonse Berget said, writ- ing in Candide (Paris) re- cently, “By the side of the microphysics of the infin- itely little, we have a cos- mophysics of the infinite- ly great. And beyond? May not our universe it- self, huge as it seems, be for some vaster being noth- ing but an aggregation of molecules, of which each is a solar system? What un- imagineable physics must govern the movements of the vast solid made up of such units? But is it not fine that the brain of man is able to rise to the height of such thoughts ?” The present story dealing with this theme is one of the most unusual we have read.
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998 WONDER STORIES “Henri Poincare! He wag a mathemati- cian, yet he was also a philosopher, and like all philosophers he was a dreamer!” A buzz of excited voices swept around the table for this was a direct attack upon Klington. Developments after that threatened to de- part from a mere discussion and become a brawl, in which the excited guests did not hesitate to join. The affair promised to be a welcome relief from the boring speeches which had hitherto marred the evening. Mine host’s voice was heard occasionally above the tumult, pleading but futile, “Now, gentlemen, do be a little more quiet, please!” Events were brought to a sudden silent standstill, broken only by faint whisperings, by the booming voice of Parl- ing. “Stop!” he cried. “Dr. Klington,” he said in a quieter tone now that silence had been restored,' “would direct experimen- tal evidence convince you of the truth of my asser- tion?” j Klington smiled sarcas- tically. “It certainly would.” ] “If you care to call at my bungalow tomorrow morning / shall be pleased to offer you such evidence * » » Klington did not fail to keep the appoint- ment. He was let into the bungalow by Parling himself. They were both a little stiff and cold in manner as they walked to the sitting-room and Klington haughtily took a seat. He was instantly aware of a strange sweetish aroma which faintly prevaded the atmosphere of the room, but on looking around he could not see its source. His antagonist stood before him in the charact- eristic Rhodian attitude, legs wide apart, and began to speak. “You probably know that the firm of con- structional engineers for which I work is at present building a dam across the White Nile in order to facilitate irrigation.” The philosopher nodded assent. “While excavating for the foundations on the bank of the river, the workmen came across a sealed chamber hollowed out in a rock face, and within the chamber was dis- covered a sarcophagus. It was temporarily transported to my bungalow, en route to the British Museum. There it is, behind your chair.” KLINGTON turned his head and per- ceived the origin of the odor. It was a stone burial receptacle of the usual type. An inspection of the interior showed noth- ing more startling than mummified remains and a scroll of some ma- terial, probably papyrus, with an inscription on the outer surface. “I understand you know something about archeology,” said Parling. “Can you tell me what these hieroglyphics mean ? ” “Certainly. Hum. This i s rather strange. It means — Before Isis exist- ed, ,this was. Very pe- culiar. But what has this got to do with the que» tion?” “You will soon see.” Parling took the scroll, unrolled it and revealed within a flexible bar of some bright pur- plish material, about three feet long and two inches wide. One end of the bar was fitted into a small transparent globe containing a yellow liquid. The bar could apparently slide right through the globe, a groove hav- ing been made for it. Parling had assumed a confident over- bearing manner and the light of triumph was in his eye. He pushed the rod till the end projected about four inches beyond the other side of the globe. “I found it entirely by accident,” he said. “Found what?” said Klington, manifestly puzzled and a little contemptuous. “The secret, of course,” said the other* BENSON HERBERT
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THE WORLD WITHOUT 999 “Now watch the end of the bar carefully.” With these words he continued slowly to push the rod through the bowl. And then it was that Klington began to think he was being hypnotised. He could no longer see the end of the rod. Up to four inches from the bowl there was firm solid matter, but beyond that, nothing! Parling chuckled at his astonishment. “You’re wondering where the end of it has gone, eh? Well, you see it’s perfectly flexible? Just where it ends off it has undergone a double right-angle bend. And through some unique property conferred upon it, no doubt, by the presence of the liquid in the globe, one of those bends is in the fourth dimension. The other bend na- turally brings it into some other world par- allel to our own. It certainly is not in our world,” — and he passed his hand through the space where the missing end of the bar would normally have been. “1 defy you to explain the phenomenon in any other way.” Klington was decidedly sceptical. “How do I know you are not tricking me?” he said. Parling scowled and thrust a finger be- fore the other’s eyes. It was stiff, lifeless and almost brittle. “See this finger? I had placed my hand on the rod and moved it aloflg towards the vanished end in order to attempt to follow the bend into another world. I succeeded! — to my cost. The chances against the oth- er end of the rod being on the surface of a planet were billions to one, so it is not sur- prising that my hand emerged into the frightful cold of the outer space of some other world. I quickly withdrew it, but the result is as you see.” Klington’s lean face showed a curious mixture of expressions as doubt struggled with conviction. Parling was speaking again while he clamped the rod and globe to a mechanism on the table. “With the aid of this vernier arrangement I can project the bar along the fourth dimen- sion any desired distance correct to a ten- thousandth part of a centimeter. I rigged it up this morning in preparation of your coming. In order thoroughly to convince you, I propose we make a journey into one of the many universes parallel to our own. Is your philosophic courage equal to such a trip?” There was only one answer which a man like Klington could give to such a chal- lenge. “But how can you be sure that the world we enter will be hospitable? It is not just necessary to land on the surface of a plan- et; it will have to be moving at about the same rate as ours and in the same direction, or else it will be impossible to transfer from one to the other. Also, of course, the cor- rect atmospheric and temperature condi- tions will have to be found.” “That’s easily arranged. Nothing simp- ler. We’ll first of all fix the end of the bar at a certain distance and slide a ther- mometer along it, and other instruments of course such as a barometer, a container to get a sample of the air to be analysed, and a camera to see how far from the surface of the planet we are. That universe not being suitable, we’ll simply alter the distance by means of the vernier and try another. Shall we start now?” And so they began the hunt for a suitable cosmos. Klington very soon lost the last traces of doubt, and the two men forgot all their former antagonism in the common in- terest of the search. They became, in fact, as enthusiastically excited as a couple of schoolboys. The method adopted for projecting the thermometer along the fourth dimension was at once ingenious and simple. A loop of cord was passed round the rod and at- tached to the instrument; with the help of a clcse-fitting flexible sleeve around the bar the thermometer could easily be pushed along it without the hands of the operator coming in contact with the other world. Since the thermometer was bound to the bar, it was forced to follow the bend into the fourth dimension. Other objects were treated similarly. In all the first few attempts, the mercury in the thermometer was frozen solid. Af- ter a week’s work they found a small piece at the end of the bar was melted clean off. Apparently the last attempt had projected it into the interior of a sun.
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1000 WONDER STORIES By this time the sarcophagus had been removed, but Parling secretly retained the purple rod and globe in order to continue the experiments. At last they discovered a world whose temperature was quite tolerable, only eight degrees Centigrade. Disappointment await- ed them on analysing a sample of the atmos- phere, however. An uncomfortably large percentage of chlorine was present. But this did not deter them. Klington suggest- ed obtaining gas masks with small tanks for liquid oxygen. On taking a photo with a clockwork-shuttered camera weighted so as to swing the lens towards the centre of gravity of the new world, a firm greyish ground was perceived about forty feet away, with long slender black stems growing ten feet high and five yards apart. The clear- ness of the print indicated that the ground was almost at rest relative to our earth. Having obtained a rope ladder, they came to their final difficulty. The flexible bar could not possibly bear their weight. This was overcome in the following manner: All the ladder except about a foot of one end was projected into the outer world. The visible end of the ladder was then fast- ened to a stout stanchion in the wall, and disengaged entirely from the bar. The vertical in the other world was in- clined at an angle of thirty degrees to that of the earth. To transfer themselves from one world to another, ail our dimension- travellers had to do was to grasp the visible rope of the ladder, feel along it with their hands till they came to the next invisible rung, grasp it, and pull. A fortnight after their first meeting all was ready for the journey of exploration they intended. They donned their masks with eager haste, strapped on haversacks containing a fortnight’s supply of food and also oxygen tanks, and attached leaden weights to their feet in order to counteract the effect of the small amount of gravita- tion in the new world. Parling stood by the ladder. “Are you ready?” he enquired of Klington who nod- ded, too excited for words. Parling fum- bled about for a moment with invisible hands for the invisible rung, gave a tug, arid van- ished silently. After an instant of hesitation, Klington followed. CHAPTER II The New World THE first sensations Klington experienced were the change of direction of the puil of his weight through an angle of thirty de- grees, and an immediate drop in tempera- ture As he clambered down the ladder swaying with the motions of Parling below him, he became aware how necessary was the thick coat he had brought with him. Rung by rung he advanced towards a land never trodden before by earthly feet. The chlorine gas present in the atmosphere, though not sufficiently dense to prevent dis- tant vision, gave to everything an unearthly green tinge. Shortly the tops of the forest of black stems became apparent, and he ob- served that the tip of each stem branched off into several short and pointed spikes. A few more rungs, and with a thrill of anticipation Klington stepped from the lad- der to the ground. Vision was remarkably clear except for the upper heavens which were blotted out completely with clouds of green. The widely separated black growths of- fered almost no obstruction to the view. The ground was pitted with innumerable straight deep ruts, varying in width from eight to ten feet, and leading in every di- rection. Where two ruts ran together, there occurred a circular pit whose depth could not be estimated owing to the jet blackness of the interior. Some indefinable quality of strangeness about the landscape seemed just to be elud- ing his attention. Something was puzzling him, and he could not locate it, something that was entirely differentiated from any- thing he had previously experienced. His confused mind groped as if in blindness; he turned to express his bewilderment to Parling, and found him closely examining the nearest black bole. Its texture was smooth and glossy, its
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THE WORLD WITHOUT 1001 width a mere inch, surprisingly thin for such a length, and every few seconds it quivered gently. Were they plant growths? If so, they had no terrestrial counterpart. Parting cautiously put out his hand and felt the velvety surface. With a cry of af- fright he recoiled suddenly, but too late. The thing gave a sudden tremor and lashed about with irresistible violence. Parling was instantly flung off his feet and precipi- tated over the edge of a circular fissure be- hind him! Klington rushed to the hole and peered over the edge. Nothing was visible but he heard a curious slithering sound, — and a despairing voice. “Quick, Klington, for God’s sake help! I’m on a kind of slippery ledge and I can’t hold on much longer!” Now the ladder was a hundred feet long in case by chance this new world they had entered moved away relatively to the earth. With great presence of mind, Klington flung the loose end into the pit, and held it firm while Parling clambered up, none the worse for his scare. “Phew! What kind of a plant is that? Was that a reflex action?” said Parling. “That darkness has reminded me. Wait here a minute.” Parling climbed up the ladder and van- ished into the world of their birth, shortly reappearing with two electric torches re- marking that they might require them. Despite all of Klington’s philosophy, he could not forbear a twinge of uneasiness as he waited along in this world of unknown perils. Suppose Parling, prompted by their former antagonism, pulled the ladder back into the bungalow, leaving Klington strand- ed? But Parling’s immediate return put his thought to shame. All was now in readiness to start a tour of exploration. Before they left, Parling attached a large white sheet to the top por- tion of the ladder, to serve as a guide on their return journey. Then from a point half way up the ladder the surrounding land was surveyed to determine the direction they should take. “Notice anything peculiar about the hori- zon?” asked Parling. That was it, the horizon! It was that which had been puzzling him! There was no horizon! The desolate plain on which they were situated moved upwards in front and behind and on the right in a great con- cave sweep, — and never ended. It contin- ued on and on, mounting higher, until hun- dreds of miles away it was lost to view in the green mists of the sky. Only on the extreme left was there a short semblance of a horizon, where a definite edge could be seen. This was assuredly no ordinary planet which they were visiting. There was no sun in the heavens, but a brilliant glow on the left, which lit up everything clearly, seemed to proclaim the presence of some solar body below the brief horizon. PARLING discerned a mighty chain of mountains on the right almost having the appearance of hanging over their heads, about fifty miles away as near as could be judged, and it was towards these that they finally decided to make their way. With their rifles and a plentiful supply of ammunition, they set off. Walking was by no means difficult; the fissures were easily cleared at a step owing to the fact that the leaden weights were insufficient completely to supply the gravitational defi- cit, and it was simple to avoid the widely spaced stems. They covered about twelve miles without a single mishap or an en- counter with any inhabitant of this desolate region, and then called a halt for a meal. Perhaps it should be explained that the masks Parling and Klington were wearing were quite different from the type used in the Great War. They permitted free move- ment of the mouth and were adjusted in a moment. After a short meal the march was re- sumed, and within an hour they emerged from the forest of black boles and found themselves on a gently sloping plain, en- tirely free of fissures and of a much harder, though not rocky, character, which led di- rectly towards the foot of the mountains. These latter far surpassed any earthly heights, and formed a tremendously awe- inspiring spectacle. Composed of a dazz- ling smooth white material, they rose sheer
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1002 WONDER STORIES in an absolutely vertical line from the plain to a height of at least twelve miles. Imagine the confoundment of our little terrestrials at this breath-taking revelation. Consternation, dismay, terror, admiration, seized them in turn aSthey gazed upon the glorious albous magnificence of those sharp peaks crowned in green mists. In perfect order they stood, in a straight line, all of similar shape, like a line of guards shield- ing the mysteries of the land beyond. Broad at the top as at the bottom, many overlapped or were in actual contact in parts, and at most only a narrow crevice separated them. Each peak was of a uni- form width of four or five miles, and seem- ed exceedingly thin (as measured in the direction in which the travellers were go- ing) for their height. Parling and Klington pushed on rapidly across the plain with burning curiosity to discover the secret of those celestial crags. What manner of world was this in which Nature was so lavish, and so — regular? Such was the slightness of gravity that by the time (as indicated by Klington’s watch) Cairo was in darkness, they were but a mile from the nearest peak. Speechless with as- tonishment at the close view of the mon- strous mass and weary with exhaustion, they struck camp on the plain and com- posed themselves to sleep. All this time the brilliancy of the illumination had neith- er diminished nor increased. Parling was suddenly awakened by a hiss- ing whisper from Klington. “Parling! Sh! Lie quite still and tell me what you hear!” A moment of silence. “Not the slightest sound!” “Put your ear on the ground, then.” “Yes! Yes! A faint thudding sound.” There could be no doubt about it. Ev- ery thirty seconds a distinct booming noise was heard, and — was it imagination? — the ground appeared to rise and fall gently at each noise? Did this portend the approach of some unknown danger? Attacked ! BARELY had they fallen asleep again when Parling was aroused by a pecu- liar sensation on his brow. He opened his eyes and started up in horror, unable to utter warning to Klington, his vocal cords momentarily paralysed. An incredible nightmarish monster, ten yards long and with ten spidery legs on each side, its head set on a long thin arching neck, was warily feeling his head with a set of antennae eman- ting from the place where its nose ought to have been! Parling stumbled over Klington, instant- ly awakening him, obtained his rifle and fired haphazardly. The Stygian beast im- mediately turned and galloped with tremen- dous velocity towards a crevice between two mountains, and vanished. The two men gaped for a full minute before recovering their wits. Then Klington spoke, shakily. “Well that’s the first sample of Other- world animal life we’ve had, and if the rest are like that, we shan’t have to protract our visit too long!” After that, one watched while the other slept. The lack of fuel was much regret- ted for the cold seemed more intense when lying still.- At six A. M. Cairo time they prepared to set off once more. Parling stood up and faced Klington. “We have a choice before us,” he said. “We can either return at once to the ladder or continue to the other side of the barrier through the crevice, where we will meet heaven knows what perils. For myself, I am extremely curious to discover what lies behind that white wall, but seeing that the object of our expedition is accomplished, namely that you are thoroughly convinced of the truth of my' theory, I am quite will- ing to retrace our steps if you do not care to proeeed.” Klington’s answer was brief and to the point. “I move that we push on at once,” he said calmly. That settled the question. In a few min- utes they were at the foot of the nearest mountain and examining with great wonder
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THE WORLD WITHOUT 1003 the smooth polished surface thereon. The wildest imaginings filled the brains as they surveyed the colossal structure. “Surely this must be artificial,” said Parling in an awed tone, as Klington tested its hardness by kicking it. “An artificial barrier ten miles high is quite incredible,” retorted Klington. “Nevertheless we have seen many incred- ible things in the last few hours. It is my opinion that on the other side we shall find the builders of this wall. Think what a tremendous degree of civilisation they must possess for their engineers to construct such a huge barrier!” Before he could theorize further the two were fighting for their lives. A horde of creatures similar to the one previously seen, were rushing down upon them from the mountain pass. Useless to flee — they were galloping along at over two hundred miles an hour. The terror of despair gripped the hearts of the Terrestrials as they fired into the midst of the advancing mass. As if by magic, the leviathans instantly dispersed to all sides and sought shelter. It was ap- parently the sound of the explosions that they could not withstand. Frequently in their journey through the pass the travellers were attacked by these horrible denizens of the mountains, but noise never failed to frighten them off. The way through the pass was rough and difficult. Often Parling and Klington could barely scrape through between the two crag-side3. The path moreover was steep and rose to an elevation of several hundred feet about half-way and descended as steep- ly on the other side. If it were not for the advantage of lesser gravity they could never have performed the feat. As it was, over five hours were required to pierce to the other side. The latter portion of the jour- ney was beset with dangers owing to the increasing slipperiness and unevenness of the road. Then at last their arduous trouble was rewarded. They safely maneuvered a tor- tuous gully, wedged themselves through a narrow cleft, and came in sight of the con- cealed domain behind the barrier. CHAPTER III Where Red Ruled THE most striking thing about this new territory was the fact that every object in it, except the cliffs behind, was red. A great red plain stretched before the daring Terrestrials, traversed by numerous folds, and covered with a low, red, bushy vegeta- tion in which swarmed a myriad forms of almost microscopic life not unlike mundane insects— but all red. Each step they took a squelching noise and a red viscous ooze emerged in slow trickles from beneath the vegetation. Several miles away from the cliffs the land appeared to be in deep dark- ness. Of Parling’s anticipated mighty civilisa- tion and great engineers, there was to his keen disappointment, not a single sign. He still hoped, however, that they might live underground, or else how to explain the regular beating sound they had heard on the grey plain, apparently emerging from the bowels of the earth? While Parling was cogitating thus, Kling- ton suddenly became alarmed and, seizing his pair of binoculars, he stared intently through them vertically upwards at the green sky. “Parling, look straight up,” he said tense- ly, “there’s a vast white thing falling through the green clouds!” Parling, extremely startled, looked up al- so. Were his senses playing him tricks? Had his mind given way under the strain of the recently uncanny happenings? If so, how did it come about that Klington’s illu- sion was the same as his? The appearance took the form of a line of huge white cliffs hanging upside-down in the sky at least fifty miles away, and falling straight tow- ards those other cliffs below, which they so greatly resembled. He was also conscious that the illumination which up to now had remained steady, was gradually fading. What could this new development mean? Were they to be plunged into darkness and crushed helplessly beneath countless tons of rock? And where was the rock falling from? A sudden fantastic thought enter-
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1004 WONDER STORIES ed his tortured mind, almost too bizarre for utterance. “Klington,” gasped Parling, seizing him fiercely by the arm and slowly pointing upward with the gestures of a fanatic, “Klington, it is as if — as if a colossal mirror were falling above our heads, and what we are seeing is the reflection of the white ranges we have just passed through !” Indeed, Klington readily imagined that one was the reflection of the other, so alike were they in every visible detail. All at once he sprang to life. “Come,” he said, and spun Parling round, “we have no time to lose. If the apparition is really a rock falling from an immense height, it will take over an hour to reach the ground. We re- quired five hours to pierce the pass; to re- turn is therefore foolhardy. Only one way lies open to us, and that is directly across this red plain away from the mountains. It is our only hope of life. We must flee as far as possible from here before the catas- trophe occurs! Come!” And the two dispensed with some of their leaden weights and began to run across the red ooze in mighty leaps of fifty yards each. The seeming utter impossibility of what they had witnessed had staggered their minds; all logical connected thinking ceased ; a dull apathy settled upon them, and only the motor centre of their brains kept their leg muscles in feverish activity. On- ward they progressed in Herculean strides; they did not even dare stop for meals, but ate as they ran. No word, but only unpleasant squelching sounds, broke the silence; they reserved all their breath for runn/ng. Ever the light continue to fade, ever they approached the dark shadows of the farther side of the plain. But what was the use of their flight? Such a mass crashing down from the skies would shake the whole planet to its very foundation. Anything was better than inactivity; to stand still and watch an awful doom approaching would have been inviting madness. Often Klington and Parling wondered if they were not already insane, and undergoing illusions rivalling those of an opium dream. SUDDENLY they were both flung on their faces by a terrible continuous cracking noise interspersed with frightful peals of thunder, as if Thor were splitting the earth in twain with his hammer. They were unable to do anything but cling hard to the vegetation and stare at the monstro- sity in the heavens while the medley of sounds accompanied by a terrific blast of hot air swept over them. Had the falling rock at last reached the ground? But no! They goggled in their amazement. The line of rocks, now only half a mile from the topmost peaks, were no longer accelerating but were actually slowing down! Their speed now was reduced to not more than a few feet a second. Whence then came the awful sound and the wind? The last vestige of reality left the scene as the lone human beings stared about with frightened eyes and failed to per- ceive the origin of the dread tumult. There was a vague mass faintly in sight far away to the left, and shadowy outlines above in the skies indicated something huge like a canopy as if supporting the suspended rocks. The light, now reduced to a mere dim twi- light, gave them no cheer. They had been saved for the nonce by a miracle so incredi- ble that their benumbed wits had not as yet even realised the situation. Then as suddenly as it had begun, the deafening din ceased, but the warm blast continued blowing, without noise, and left the world once more a wilderness of si- lence. The men staggered to their feet and found that they were just within the region of dense shadow they had perceived before. Seeing that all immediate danger was ap- parently over, they decided to recuperate their fatigued bodies with sleep and food. Parling was the first to awake. While his fellow-voyager slept on, he occupied himself in throwing away an empty oxygen tank and replacing it with a full one. An Unexpected Peril KLINGTON was aroused from his deep sleep by a light touch on his shoulder. He opened his eyes, stared upwards at Parl- ing, and grunted interrogatively. Parling
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THE WORLD WITHOUT 1005 had unconsciously assumed the old familiar attitude, legs stiffly apart like a statue; his arm outstretched pointed over Klington in tile direction of the white mountain-chain. “Look,” he whispered. The other slowly got up and turned around. The two simply stood and watched, absolutely incapable of further wonderment, while the new danger rapidly advanced. A wall of some liquid, apparently water, at least a mile high and so long that it stretched out of sight on either hand, was bearing down upon them with the velocity of a tidal wave. With one accord they turned and fled into the darkness. They soon found themselves going steep- ly downhill, and it became so black that it was necessary to use the torches. The lat- ter saved them from countless mishaps as they sped through the gloom in gigantic leaps. Their velocity was now almost equal to that of the oncoming wave, but how long would it be before they tired and their doom overtook them? They were now practically falling down the precipitous grade, and making good progress, but while the slope no doubt aided them, it also speeded the water behind them. The swish- ing and roaring of its passage had just be- come audible when the ground suddenly smoothed otit to a gentler slope. Gasping for breath, they raced on side by side, and ever as one stumbled, the other tarried to help him up. After many weary miles were covered in this manner, their overworked muscles were forced to slow down. Not so the waters, however, which inexorably swept on. The latter could no longer be seen, owing to the dense black- ness, but their nearness was easily judged by the increasing noise they made. Dully Klington and Parling realised that their ad- venture was at an end and their story would never reach the world. Rut wait! Klington had an inspiration. “Parling,” he sobbed almost incoherently, “turn the oxygen regulator throttle full on!” No sooner had they done so when renewed life flowed through their veins. They felt rejuvenated, intoxicated. Once more they struggled onward, with the roar of the wa- ters always present in their ears, like mon- strous grasshoppers advancing inexorably. The respite was brief, however; for a time it worked well, but the extra flow of the life-giving fluid used up their energy at an enormously increased rate, with the result that after a short interval of super- human activity, they fell inert to the ground utterly exhausted. Nothing now could pos- sible save them, it appeared. As they lay groaning in the oozing vegetation, waiting hopelessly for the end, they became once more conscious of that regular booming sound emerging from the bowels of the earth, which they had remarked before, but now at a greatly increased volume. And now the mighty swirl of waters was upon them, and all wild speculations as to help from the originators of the mysterious beating were engulfed in the lashing fury of the wave. Up, up, it swept them right to the top of its lofty crest. Klington, feebly trying to float on the smoother up- per surface, felt himself borne along irre- sistibly, whither? His torch was still firm- ly grasped in his hand, as the drowning man is supposed to clutch the straw, and the ray inadvertently fell upon Parling, a few feet away. Klington could barely credit his senses. Surely the weird effect of the solitary gleam playing about in a sea of darkness, com- bined with the fatigue of his faculties, was deluding him. With an effort he swung the torch round until it again illuminated the figure of Parling. No, it was impos- sible, impossible! He was reminded of the days of his far-off childhood, when the old Bible tales of long ago were related to him. For an amazing miracle was being enact- ed before his very eyes! Parling, who ap- peared quite as startled as himself, was ac- tually— walking the waters. Klington’s blood ran colt} as he turned his attention to himself and realised that so far he had never yet been submerged. In fact he was merely lying on the surface as naturally as one lying on a couch. He stood up and be- gan to walk towards Parling. Imagine, if you may, the amazement of that incredible meeting! These two, who had never expected to see each other again
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1006 WONDER STORIES in the flesh, had once more been saved in a miraculous fashion! THEY walked to each other, shook hands, and grinned in delighted astonishment! Then it was noticed that the water gave way a little under their feet, but that the surface was not even broken. It was as if a tight impenetrable skin was stretched over the entire seething liquid. It was comparatively quiet up here, so far above the noisy tumult where the water came in contact with the ground, and con- versation was unrestricted. The inklings of a great idea had come to Parling when first the wave swept him up in its embrace, and now he became wildly excited, whooped with joy, and slapped Klington on the shoulder so that he fell flat, for it was a difficult task to keep one’s feet on the smooth skin-surface. “I have it!” I have it!” he cried, in tones suggestive of a man who has suddenly solved an almost insoluble prob- lem. “Have what?” enquired Klington, rather annoyed at his companion’s unaccountable exuberance. Parling calmed down somewhat, then said grandiloquently, “With all your philosophy, you have no doubt been unable to see the ex- planation of all the mysterious occurrences which we have recently undergone?” Klington assented bewilderedly. “Ah, Klington, it must be due to bad training in your youth! Your philosopher- masters have told you that everything is re- lative, and you believed them, but such is your mind that you are unable to apply it in even simple cases! Klington, it requires the mind of a mathematician to do that! My explanation, at once elementary and logical, embraces everything from the black forest to the flood which now carries us along! And if it is true, then it also indi- cates another danger ahead, far more ter- rible than the ones we have yet exper- ienced— ”, and Parling stopped for a mo- ment and peered into the gloom ahead. Before he could say another word, before the astonished Klington could utter a single question, the surface of the water tilted and assumed an angle so steep that it was no longer possible to remain upright. Kling- ton and Parling instantly were upset upon their backs and began glissading down to a fate that was, at least to Klington, unknown. They had no time to remark upon this frightful contretemps; it was as much as they could do to keep their feet foremost. But extinction was not yet to be theirs. tThe waters swept round a gradual curve ~to the left, ever steepening, but the Terrestrials, since they were not actually immersed in the fluid, did not partake of its friction and hence careened on in a straight line, owing to their own inertia, in the direction of the tangent. They were crushed with stagger- ing force against a rocky rough mass — the first elevated land they had encountered since leaving the albous mountains — jutting up out of the water to a considerable height. With the energy born of despair they clung with all their weight to the slightest projections the island afforded, and Kling- ton with great difficulty managed to haul himself upon a narrow ledge, in the process dropping his lamp, which was instantly swept away in the current. Parling’s torch, however, indicated the precarious position of his companion, who had obtained a grip on the ledge but could not pull himself up. Klington carefully made his wa.y along the ledge, bent over and removed the torch from Parling’s grasp, placed it in a cranny so that it shone upon Parling, and heaved him out. A few feet further on the ledge abruptly terminated, so they were obliged to walk along it in the other direction. Not far, however, had they progressed when they were forced to stop. An impassable wall blocked the way, and they stood, helplessly flashing the torch around. Yet there was still a hope. The beam revealed no passage round the obstruction, but about twelve feet above their heads the ledge seemed to con- tinue. Klington, the lighter of the two, climbed upon Parling’s shoulders and thus enabled him to reach the upper ledge. It was then an easy matter to help Parling up the rock- face. The new ledge sloped steeply up- wards, and the slipperiness and narrowness
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THE WORLD WITHOUT 1007 of the path made it extremely difficult to walk. For an eternity they plodded on- wards in silence, broken only by a discon- certing gurgling sound that became louder and louder as they mounted. The path took a sharp turn to the left, fol- lowing the contour of the island, and the travellers, weary and hungry, found them- selves on a wide platform surrounded by rock on three sides and having blank space on the other. Klington and Parling shud- dered with horror as a flash of the light revealed a ghastly pit of unestimable depth into which the waters plunged in the form of a vast whirlpool, originating the gurg- ling noise. But for the timely interven- tion of this island, they would now be lost in its depths. “As I thought! Just as I thought!” said Parling, gazing into the abyss. CHAPTER IV An Explanation and a Tragedy WHEN the Terrestrials had made them- selves as comfortable as possible on the rock-bound square and partaken of food, they slept for some six hours. Parling refused to say a word until he had rested. As for Klington, his mind was in a whirl at the anticipated explanation. Had Parling really the solution to all the peculiar pheno- mena which they had seen? — the lack of horizon, the sensitive black boles, the inter- lacing regular furrows, the unchanging il- lumination, the abrupt and orderly white mountains, the hideous denizens of the pass, the strange underground beating with its accompanying ’quake, the plain where ev- erything was red, the falling rocks which never reached the ground, and lastly this turbulent sea sprung from nowhere? — or were the hints he had thrown out merely the gibberings of a maniac? In the morning, or rather, when he awoke, he was agreeably surprised to find that the lamp was now unnecessary. The light, though faint, was good enough to enable him to perceive nearby objects. He aroused Parling, and after they had eaten he immediately enquired of that which he was intensely curious to know. “It is really very simple,” said Parling, “in fact, almost obvious, at least to a dis- cerning intellect like mine!” Klington was much too interested to par- ry, and Parling went on. “The key to the mystery lies in this — we are not on a planet at all!” An exclamation escaped from Klington. Parling rose up and stood on the edge, his back to the gulf, in his favorite attitude of emulation of the Rhodian Colossus. He was the triumphant man now. “No” he said dramatically, “we are not upon a planet — but on the skin of a mon- strous, Gargantuan animal! Is it not ob- vious? We landed on the lip of the beast, where sensitive stems no doubt were analo- gous to down in our world, and travelled down to one side of the lip. There was no horizon almost on every side because we were on the slope nearest the mouth, and the ground curved upwards all around un- til it was out of sight. You can understand that, at least. ‘The mountains we encountered, Kling- ton, were indubitably teeth! And I suppose the large swift-footed organisms we met there can be likened to the bacteria in our own teeth which cause decay if not removed by toothpaste. Well, we journeyed between two of the teeth of the monster, and thus entered its mouth. Time and space seem both to be greater in this universe than in ours, for the heart-beats we heard were quite slow. ‘The similarity between the creature and humanity is so great that the interior of its- mouth is red, as we saw. The sea that swept us here is, of course, merely saliva, and the cracking sound we heard during the gale must have been some tit-bit the monster was crunching at the other end of its mouth! We shall soon see it.” “But how do you explain the miracle of walking on the waters?” interposed Kling- ton excitedly. “I don’t quite understand that,” said Parling slowly, as if unwilling to divulge any flaw in his theory. They fell silent for a moment. Klington
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1008 WONDER STORIES was reflecting deeply. Suddenly his face lit up. “I’ve got it!” he cried. “Why, it’s quite obvious, and is a strong corroboration of your idea.” It was now Parling’s turn to be con- fused. “Indeed,” he said. “Yes,” said Klington, “it was due to sur- face tension! Have you ever seen a micro- photograph of a fly crawling on the surface of a stream? The surface tension, common to all fluids, gives the appearance of a tight elastic skin stretched over the water, — just the effect we observed. Compared to this Brobdingnagian animal, we were much less than any insect. The phenomenon is not due, of ceurse, to the large volume of liquid present— or else no boat on an ocean could ever sink on our earth — but to the fact that the molecules themselves composing the saliva are correspondingly bigger than earthly molecules.” PARLING was pleased at this support of his theory. “The philosopher’s mind,” he said, “can lead on to fresh facts, once the mathemati- cian has shown the way. “The apparently ‘falling rocks’ which caused us to depart in such a hurry, as I suppose you have guessed by now, were none other than the upper set of teeth of the monster.” Parling turned around and pointed to the tremendous hole below him. “And this, Klington, is undoubtedly the creature’s throat! Think of it, man, think of it! It must be at least five hundred miles deep!” Then swift and sure, on the heels of this statement, came death. The island which had stood them in such good stead, gave a sudden spasmodic twitch as if revolting at the thought of these presumptuous and dar- ing mortals from another world. With a terrible despairing cry, Parling, who had been standing on the very edge, toppled over, hands madly clutching at empty space, and vanished into the boiling maelstrom! Klington was flung against the hard side- wall and knocked unconscious by the shock. When his senses revived, the light was as bright as day. No doubt the monster was again opening its mouth. For several min- utes he lay dully, while slow realisation came to him of the loss of his companion and of the fact that he was now absolutely alone in a strange world, aye, imprisoned in the jaws of a nightmare animal! How long he remained there he had no means of telling, for his watch had stopped at the impact. Many times the island was shaken by' spasms, but none so violent as the first. He kept as near to the inner wall as possible, in fear of sharing the fate of the unfortunate Parling. Then came the dread moment when he fitted the last oxy- gen cylinder to the breathing tube, and still the waters had not subsided. He remember- ed Parling’s haversack, which lay where Parling had had his last sleep. To his joy it contained a plentiful supply of the essen- tial cylinders. At that instant the roaring of the waters ceased, and he went to the brink and looked over. The whirlpool was now reduced to a mere trickle. It was nec- essary to go at once before a second deluge appeared. Klington fastened his haversack, replen- ishing his diminished supplies with those of Parling, and, climbing down the narrow ledge, jumped up to the floor of the mouth. He had gone but half a mile up the slope towards the white barrier far away in the distance when a fresh surprise greeted him. The ground curved upwards much steeper than he had observed it before to a height of several miles, and ran flat for a time un- til it encountered the tops of the white moun- tains! He could not imagine what had occurred for a considerable period, then it came to him in a flash. The monster had merely raised its tongue, the tip of which was now resting on its teeth! It was no good climbing to the top of the teeth, so he made a detour to the left, in which direction he thought lay the nearest edge of the tongue. After a journey of many miles, he came at last to the edge, clambered down the rough side, and stood upon the mouth-floor proper. He continued along the five-mile wide channel between the cheek and the tongue until he came to the teeth. The
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THE WORLD WITHOUT 1009 abort journey over, in the pass between two of them, where he encountered the usual microbe-like creatures, he stood on the clear plain which alone separated him from the vicinity of the one link with the earth. Klington raised a powerful pair of pris- matic binoculars to his eyes, and scanned the forest of black stems for the white sheet which indicated the position of the ladder. Imagine his horror and dismay when it was nowhere to be seen ! For half an hour he searched, while a cold tightening grip at his heart made itself more and more felt. Then to his great surprise his attention was attracted upwards. With an unpleasant jolt he perceived that some chance move- ment of the beast which bore him had caused the ladder to ascend to a height of four or five miles. It was also much near- er than before; he could even make out the end of the rod beside the rope ladder? and the sheet. What a terrible predicament he was in! Hope seemed lost as he gazed with hungry eyes at the precious connection to his world. Desperate Moments IT was moving so quickly that he could just perceive its motion. It was almost half way between its former site and the nearest tooth. A faint hope surged in his breast. It was his only chance for life, for soon the last of the oxygen would be utili- zed. If the motion continued in that di- rection, the ladder would shortly be close to the peak of the tooth. Instantly, for no time was to be lost, he flung away much of his provisions, and all the leaden weights, retaining however the remaining cylinders, and returned through the gap in huge hops. Without a pause he trekked alongside the tongue until it was near enough to the ground to make the ascent practicable. Without daring to delay for meals on he climbed up the steep difficult slope of the lower portion of the tongue, until he ar- rived at the flatter upper portion. Here going was much facilitated, but he djd not relax his efforts, and by exercising hid will- power to the utmost, he forced his tired limbs toward the tip of the tongue. While down in the pass below, he had noted the tooth towards which the ladder was moving, and counted how many teeth lay between it and the end of the row. With this to guide him, he hurried on, hunger now added to the fatigue. Within five hundred yards of the tip, he paused and flung himself prostrate with a cry of despair. The tongue had been slow- ly contracting and arching upwards and now the tip was a good eight hundred yards from the opposite peak! As if in mockery, there dangled the ladder above the tooth, just within reach of a vertical jump! By the time the ladder passed over the tongue, it would be too high! Klington stood up with sudden firm re- solve. There was but one thing to do. Casting away his haversack he ran to the very tip and flung himself bodily through the air in a mighty attempt to span the gap. The feat was by no means impossible, but there was a large element of risk for a man in Klington’s weakened state, despite the slight gravity. Up, up he rose to the top of the parabola and then began to fall with a slow acceleration. His mind reeled at the thought of the terrible gulf of twelve miles which lay below him, but he deter- mined not to look downward. Presently his heart froze with horror as he realized that he could never attain the opposite side. His weary limbs had failed him at the last! He would fall short by about three yards! A small distance, true, but as good as infinity in his present con- dition. He had but two or three seconds in which to consider the position before he passed below the level of the opposing brink. His subconscious mind, or “subliminal ego”, unknown to himself, was working with light- ning rapidity. Suddenly there flashed into his conscious mind two facts which he had learned when a schoolboy. Projectiles have the maxi- mum range when they leave the mouth of the gun at an angle of forty-five degrees to the horizontal,” was the first, and the sec- ond was the principal of the Goddard rock- et— reaction. The heaviest object he had which could {Concluded on Page 1040)
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Outpost on the By Joslyn Maxwell (Concluding Installment) What Has Gone Before George Marland meets an old college instructor , Barton Wiley , and on resuming their friendship Marland dis- covers that Wiley has found the secret for nullifying gravity. They build an experimental ship and with the success of the material they obtain support for the building of a spa*e ship. They travel to the moon and discover on this dead world some queer phenomena which point to the presence of an illuminated lunar satellite. Travelling over the moon to investigate it they run across a cone shaped ship which flashes a ray against them and stuns them. They awaken to find themselves in the hands of a colony of human beings who are living on the moon. The colony is presided over by a Dr. Forscher who is a super scientist. The two explorers are given to understand that they are guests of the colony — whose purpose they cannot discover — until they meet - and talk with forscher. The colony lives beneath the moon’s surface but, by the genius of Forscher, they have all the advantages of food, sunlight, etc., as they could have on the earth’s surface. With their guide, a Doctor Langley, the two explorers are invited to travel on one of the cone ships, called tractors, on a tour of inspection of one of the airplants whose machinery has broken down. The tractors, they learn , are propelled by synthiuip, another of the products of Dr. Forscher’s genius. Meeting Forscher the two explorers learn that he has established the outpost in order to investigate a queer bombardment of sulphur particles that occurred on earth many years ago. From investigations he had deduced that the bombardment originated in the neigh- borhood of Ganymede , satellite of Jupiter, and he be- lieved that it was either a threat to the earth or the effort of sentient beings there to communicate with us. Marland returns to earth to enlist, for the outpost, the aid of a noted astryi.omer to vperate the giant telescope on the moon for observations on Ganymede. Marland induces (Juaile to return with him to the moon, where after a number of observations Quaile deduces that Ganymede is able to support human life. Under the command of Marland an expedition sets out to Ganymede in a specially built tractor to explore that world and establish communication with any life that may exist there. His crew consists of Dr. von Lighten, Dr. Ernst , M. Lafourchette and Mr. Dalton. After some exciting experiences in space with meteors they find themselves nearing the giant Jupiter and its puny satellites, s \ This story began in the December 1930 issue. Back copies are available at twenty-five cents each. 1010
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- *' ■ — i -v They rushed in hot pursuit, firing darts. Dalton whirled and emptied the magazine of his automatic. Now go on with the story 1 CONTINUED to watch through the peri- scope for the remainder of my turn, be- tween looks at the instrument board. The difficulties from the magnetic field were de- creasing rapidly, and we were now nearly half a million miles from Jupiter. There remained about three hundred thousand to cover, which would take the next eighteen hours. Dalton was as delighted as I with the view of the heavens and remarked on the appearance of this or that body from time to time. During his watch the fifth of Jupi- ter’s moons in order of discovery, a little globe which revolves close to the surface at an amazingly rapid rate, came into view, its tiny disc peeping around the crescent of the giant planet’s illuminated surface. When at length we turned over the engine- room to von Lichten and Ernst and climbed to the living quarters we found Lafourchette cleaning and loading a huge automatic. “What is that for?” demanded Dalton. “I am prepared,” said Lafourchette, wav- ing the gun dramatically. “I alone had the toresight to bring means of protection. If we are attacked by the Ganymedians it is I who will save you.” Dalton snorted. “A fine attitude for an interplanetary am- bassador!” he exclaimed. “What if they should attack us? They must be as big as elephants; they could carry cannons around with them.” “As big as elephants, indeed!” retorted Lafourchette. “Is not their world smaller than the earth? And will they not be smal- ler than ourselves in proportion?” “Not at all, not at all,” ejaculated Dal- ton. “I weighed one hundred and eighty 1011
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1012 WONDER STORIES pounds on earth; here I will weigh only thirty-six pounds. If they are to weigh one hundred and eighty they must be five times as large as I.” “And who says they are to weigh one hun- dred and eighty pounds?” exclaimed La- fourchette. “They do not fatten themselves like hogs!” “Certainly they are too intelligent to starve themselves down to your weight,” return- ed Dalton. I felt that the discussion was be- coming too personal, so I took a hand. “What is the use of idle speculation,” I asked, “when in a few hours we can see for ourselves what they are like? We must not be surprised if they re- semble nothing we have ever seen. I would advise, too, that we be as peaceable as possible with them ; for we are here to un- derstand them, not to conquer them.” “Nevertheless I shall have my pistol handy,” said Lafourchette. To prevent further bickering I suggested that we inspect the air- envelopes and have them ready when we wished to leave the machine. We charged the oxygen-producing apparatus of each, tested them for air- tightness, adjusted the microphones which were to bring us the sounds from outside, washed the glass of the helmets, and hung them on the well near the air-lock. This occupied most of the next eight hours, at the end of which it was time for Lafour- chette to take his post at the instruments. Dalton had stood the last watch with him, so it was now my turn; for with only five of us in the crew someone must stand an extra trick once in a while. We took fre- quent glances through the periscope at Gany- mede, now only a few thousand miles away. An unbroken stretch of clouds covered the surface, hiding , the configuration of the ground from view. There was no way of knowing what we would find below them; we could not pick a landing-point, so we headed for the 'center of the disc, hop- ing to learn something of the terrain after we had passed through the atmosphere. At the end of the watch our speed was reduced to about three miles per second; we were so close that I de- cided to remain on duty, for we would soon enter the atmos- phere and I preferred to guide the Cornel to its landing, place. I shut off the driver entirely and let the machine coast along under its own mo- mentum. The cloud bank drew nearer min- ute by minute; the hor- izon spread away to r right and left and in all directions. An hour passed, and we were less than a thousand miles away. I swung into position the di- minutive wings which would serve to steer us like a dirigible through the atmosphere. / rTyHE climax of this ex- \ citing story must come as a surprise to everyone. No one could have read the preceding installments and not be aroused to a high pitch of curiosity and intensity of interest. We know that in Jupiter’s satellite, little Ganymede, there exists a mystery whose solution may mean tragedy and destruction or possibly the reverse for the people of the earth. Our expedition to Gany- mede must face all those dangers of contact with a strange race, that any in- terplanetary expedition must chance. There is no knowledge in advance of how the race lives and thinks and feels. We can be sure that in order to establish mental communi- cation with them we will need the most intense ap- plication of our wisdom, shrewdness and tact. When two strange species meet there is needed only the minutest show of hostility or misunderstanding in or- der to erase forever the possibilities of peaceful in- tercourse. This story, as an example of the practical problems that will face an inter- planetary expedition, is al- K^most a classic.
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THE OUTPOST ON THE MOON 1013 As the seconds passed I watched the acceler- ation indicator for the first sign of any drag. Several times I felt sure that we were slowing down, but the indicator was un- moved. Then at last it crept up, curving into a more rapid rise. I turned the for- ward wings at a slight angle. The Comet swung horizontal with a sharp thrust as they caught the rush of wind, while in the peri- scope’s field the cloud bank wheeled dizzi- ly. I leveled off and headed downward slightly, letting the friction of the air re- tard us. Even at this height, which I estimated at a hundred miles, our barometer indicated six millimeters’ pressure of atmosphere. On this world, because of the slight pull of gravity, a given volume of air weighed only one-fifth as much as on earth; conse- quently the density would ■ncrease only one-fifth as fast, as we descended, and we might expect to find an atmosphere about half as dense as the earth’s at the surface. First Experiences E DRIFTED, ap- proaching the cloud bank beneath us and los- ing headway rapidly. The machine warmed up a little at first, but I kept it high enough so that the thin air would not heat it danger- ously. We drew near the clouds, then dip- ped into their upper limits and were en- gulfed in a sea of gray-white vapor. It grew darker as the layer above us cut off more and more, of the pale sunlight. I wondered whether the mist extended clear to the ground; if so we might suddenly crash into a mountain. I had about decided to head up again until we stopped, when we burst through the under side of the clouds and Ganymede’s surface lay in a vast panorama below us. On all sides, as far as I could see in the gathering darkness, lay a body of water; a dark forbidding sea. There was no guessing at its depth or extent, but at least it offered a perfect landing place. I nosed down more steeply, opening the grav- ity screen a crack to counteract the buoy- ancy of our weightless space-ship. We fell at a steep angle toward the wa- ter. It became increasingly difficult to see, and I wondered at the darkness. We were well below the clouds; the light should be as strong here as at their level. I recalled my view of the heavens several hours be- fore; the thin crescent of Jupiter, the sun close by him, Ganymede almost opposite — of course! An eclipse! The satellite passed into Jupiter’s great shadow for a few hours once in each revolution with the unvarying regularity of all celestial things, and this fact had helped navigators to de- termine the time and lo- cate their position for years. We had chosen the hour of eclipse to ar- rive; the face of the sun was being rapidly ob- scured by Jupiter, and unless we landed soon we would find ourselves in total darkness. I hastened our descent as much as possible. When we were within a few yards of the water, I leveled out, opened the gravity screens wider, and we settled like a seaplane on the waves, skipping over their crests as we lost speed, then coming to rest on the long smooth swell just as the satellite was shrouded in darkness. Despite the fact that fof a few hours there would be nothing to see, we donned our air-envelopes with one accord and hastened outside the ship, lighting our way with pocket flash-lamps. The Comet rested easily on the surface of the water, rising and falling with the long lazy swell. All about us was the intense blackness of a cloudy night, lighted by neither moon nor stars. The waves were unruffled by the slightest breeze. We walked from end to end of the slippery hull, glad for even this liberty. JOSLYN MAXWELL
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1014 WONDER STORIES Lafourchette, eager to begin gathering data on Ganymede’s weather conditions, “had brought a thermometer which he fasten- ed to a string and dropped into the for- bidding water. Dr. von Lichten took samples of it for analysis, to determine whether it was fit to drink. Of course, under no cir- cumstances would we touch it until it had been boiled, but we would be glad of the opportunity to recharge our tanks and in- sure an ample supply for the return journey. A shout of laughter from Dalton attracted our attention. Lafourchette was staring in dismay at the end of his string, from which the thermometer had been neatly bitten. “Our friend has taken to fishing!” roared Dalton. “The monster!” stormed Lafourchette. “The unspeakable pig, to swallow my best thermometer! I hope he gets indigestion!” Our merriment at his expense was tinged with other reflections, however. This posi- tive indication that the little world harbored living creatures was gratifying; but what sort of fearless denizens dwelt beneath the surface of this murky sea? And what un- tamed terrors might inhabit the land, be- side the people we had come to seek? The same vague doubts lingered in the minds of all of us, instinctively drawing us to- gether as though for protection. The inky darkness was not conducive to high spirits, and presently we retired below to await the termination of the eclipse. Before permit- thing us to enter, Dr. von Lichten insisted on spraying the air-envelopes with disin- fectant in order to kill any germs which might have settled on them. This was a tedious procedure, but wise, for we had no knowledge of the bacteria of Ganymede. WHEN the first streak of gray appeared overhead we got the Comet under way skimming above the water in search of the shore line. Since we had no idea which way to turn, we arbitrarily chose the north, and held our course for upwards of an hour before I spied a hazy line on the horizon which quickly resolved itself into a smaH island. We steered close to it, fly- ing low, but a few minutes’ scrutiny suf- ficed to show that it was a barren stump of rock, a volcanic peak upthrust from the ocean bed. As we continued our way we sighted another, larger, and still another; presently we were skimming over a maze of islets of increasing size, some covered with dark mossy vegetation. Excited comments burst from the scientists peering through the forward portholes. Suddenly Lafourchette uttered a shout, pointing ahead of us. “Another thermometer-eater?” asked Dal- ton. • “No!” cried Lafourchette. “A huge bird! A flying monster! It’s coming to- ward us! It’s going to attack us!” I turned my periscope and saw an im- mense, ungainly creature in the act of alighting on our prow. It suggested some- what a monoplane come to life and en- dowed with savage ferocity. There was a long gray-black body, torpedo-shaped and scaly, beginning in a prodigious mouth armed with double rows of dagger-like teeth and extending without any semblance of neck to a four-vaned tail, like that of an airplane. Underneath were four stubby legs with which the creature tried vainly to gain a foothold on the surface of our machine, thrashing its twenty-foot wings madly. Spying the periscope it made a rush for the projecting tube, jaws agape. I cringed from the spectacle of that huge maw seemingly bent on swallowing me alive; the Comet quivered at the impact of the gigantic body as it tried to wrench the periscope loose. Then, angered at its inability to dent the shining surface, it cir- cled about us, above and below, keeping pace with our swift flight. I put on more speed and the creature dropped behind, plunging into the blazing gas-discharge. We saw no more of it; without a doubt it had been incinerated alive by the tesrific heat. “Whew!” exclaimed Dalton. “I hope that wasn’t the reception committee of the Ganymedians!” For my part, however, his jest fell on unreceptive ears; the spectacle of that horrible mouth was too fresh in my memory. We flew on in silence for another fifteen minutes. The islands became larger and more frequent, while in the distance ahead
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THE OUTPOST ON THE MOON 1015 of us appeared a dim line of unbroken shore extending to the horizon. I slowed the ma- chine down, watching for signs of civilized life. Presently I sighted a break in the dark vegetation on one of the large islands near the shore, a patch of lighter color. Steering closer it resolved itself into rows of dwell- ings of some sort, nearly circular as seen from above and apparently built of stone. Without question it was a village, designed by intelligent, reasoning minds. I headed for it, shutting off the power and dropping into the water close to the nearest of the stone buildings. The tractor drifted toward land, grounding gently on a shelving muddy beach. No one made the first move to go outside. We remained at our vantage points, I look- ing through the periscope and the others out the windows. There was apparently no doorway to the building before us; it pre- sented a regular stone wall, roughly circular and pierced here and there by narrow open- ings suggesting the windows of medieval castles. The inhabitants, if there were any, were either unaware of our arrival or sus- picious of us. We waited some time for them to put in an appearance, but saw no- thing. “Shall we go outside?” asked Ernst at length. “It may be that the creatures take the Comet for some Sort of animal.” His suggestion appeared logical. We put on our envelopes and went out, looking warily around for signs of other flying creatures. I led the way, stepping gingerly onto the oozing beach, and we approached the stone building. We were within ten yards of it when we saw an unmistakable movement behind one of the window-like apertures. The next instant there was a hair-raising shriek, followed by a bedlam of indescribable sounds, suggesting the cries of a multitude of beasts in awful tor- ment. “Stand still,” directed Ernst. “We’ll on- ly alarm them by moving. Perhaps if we wait they’ll come out.” The noises died down gradually, giving place to low rumbles now and then, inter- spersed with another note — inarticulate, yet with a rising inflection, as if in question. ‘They’re talking it over,” said Ernst in a stage whisper. We continued to stand motionless, while the rumbling went on. Suddenly we saw the ground apparently rising up in front of one of the buildings. A trap door leading underground was being pushed open from beneath. It rose to a vertical position, and from behind it stepped a Ganymedian! CHAPTER XIV. A Reception Committee THERE could be no doubt that the crea- ture standing before us was a rational being despite its fantastic appearance. A walking carrot- — a fish on stilts — but no simile can describe the apparition which met our astonished gaze. On the large end of the body, which faced toward us, a broad, wicked mouth and two enormous eyes represented a face which nevertheless lacked any suggestion of a nose. The head joined directly to a tapering body, slanted downward toward the rear. Two pairs of legs as poorly matched as those of a giraffe raised the creature on skinny supports to a height of five feet at its forward end. Be- hind the head, where there should have been a neck and shoulders, projected some- thing like a pair of arms, jointed at the center and again near the ends. Here they divided into tentacle-like fingers several inches in length. The arms must have meas- ured fully four feet from body to tip. Save for a belt about its midsection the creature was unprotected by clothing or fur, expos- ing a shiny slate-gray skin to the weather. In its left “hand” it carried a weapon which I judged to be a sort of rifle. It consisted of a bright metal tube a couple of feet long fastened to a cylindrical chamber sev- eral inches in diameter. The creature grasped the weapon in its skinny tentacles, half raising it as though in doubt whether to turn it on us. Ernst slowly raised his hands over his head in a gesture of peace, but the Gany- median evidently did not understand, for it levelled the weapon. Lafourchette reached for his pistol, but he was too slow; the
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1016 WONDER STORIES barrel was trained on him in the twinkling of an eye, there was a slight “pop”, and a missile struck his envelope squarely at his chest. He was uninjured, though startled, and fired his automatic wildly into the air. At the noise the Ganymedian disappeared behind his trap door, slamming it shut, while a chorus of shrieks filled the air. “Now you’ve done it!” stormed Dalton. “They’ll never come out after that.” But we had not seen the last of the Gany- medians. On all sides of us trap doors opened, pouring forth creatures armed with weapons like that of the first. They formed a semicircle and at a signal from one they fired a volley of shots. Missiles struck our envelopes, our helmets and the ground about us in a perfect hail. They were unable to penetrate our thick covering, though not a few stuck in the fabric until we fairly bristled. Then abruptly the fusil- lade ceased and the Ganymedians fled to their stone dwellings. “What’s to be done?” I asked. “I suggest that we return to the Comet and talk the matter over,” said Ernst. Accordingly we left the hooting Gany- medians and returned to our ship. Dr. von Lichten picked the darts off our envelopes before permitting us to remove them, sav- ing a few for examination. “Poisoned, perhaps,” he said by way of explanation.* _ Gathered once more in our living quarters we considered how to make our peaceable intentions known. Dalton immediately took Lafourchette to task for firing his gun, and the two had little to offer in the way of constructive suggestions. It was Ernst who first saw through the attitude of the Gany- medians. “Let us reason from their point of view,” he said. “Suppose it was they who had come to earth. Knowing nothing of its ge- ography, where would they land? In the most conspicuous place — the largest body of water, or the greatest plain. Now sup- pose that, having landed there, they went to the nearest settlement. What would they *This later turned out to be the case. The guns were S’orified blow-guns, fired by compressed air stored in e cylinders attached to them. find? A fishing village, or a country town; certainly not the home of our scientists. That is exactly what we have done; we have met with a group of uneducated, suspici- ous beings to whom we are outlandish and frightful. What more natural than that they should fear us? It is not here that we shall find those who have tried to communicate with us; we must seek a larger settlement, a civilized settlement perhaps.” Without further ado we left the settle- ment by the water and turned inland. As before, I steered while the others stationed themselves at the windows armed with bin- oculars. We swept back and forth in a zig- zag course covering a strip of land a hun- dred miles wide. The vegetation gradually lost its dark color, acquiring the green shade of that on earth, and there were taller plants, sometimes reaching a height of a hundred feet. There were many small crea- tures in the air. They might have been birds, though they did not come close enough to be seen clearly. Presently Ernst, who was stationed on the left side, called out: “Here’s another of those flying animals.” “Steer away from it!” exclaimed Lafour- chette. “I -have seen enough of them to satisfy me.” “No, steer closer,” said Ernst. “This one is different. Perhaps — yes it is! It’s a fly- ing machine.” “A flying machine!” repeated Dalton and Lafourchette in chorus. They rushed to Ernst’s window and quickly verified his statement. “Yes, it is!” I picked up the machine in the periscope and swung after it, keeping pace. The pilot must have sighted us, for he increased his speed, but I was easily able to follow him. I remained several miles behind, not wishing to alarm him, but he seemed deter- mined to shake us off. He executed a num- ber of maneuvers, diving as though to land, then climbing to a height of several miles. I followed him with ease, however, and he presently gave up the attempt, heading off in a different direction and keeping steadily on this new course. As I swung in behind him the radio sets
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THE OUTPOST ON THE MOON 1017 of our air envelopes began to speak — high pitched jerky sounds, resembling somewhat the signals of our International code. I surmised that the plane ahead was report- ing our appearance by some kind of wire- less. Then the pilot slowed down to barely fifty miles per hour and traveled along at an altitude of a few thousand feet. Fifteen minutes or so" later, Dalton re- ported the appearance of a second machine on our right. It had crept up behind us and was now keeping pace a thousand feet or so away. Presently another appeared, and another. Looking back I saw a huge fleet overhauling us, spreading out around us, until we were surrounded on all sides, above and below, ahead and behind. Whichever way we looked, there was a vast throng of planes — hundreds of them, following us in a silent convoy. There was no sign from them; they kept their distance in perfect formation. We could not guess their inten- tions. There was not a hostile move from any of them. The members of our party fell to discussing them. “Perhaps it’s a reception committee,” suggested Dalton. “They’re escorting us to a landing place.” “But then why are there so many of them?” inquired Lafourchette. “An accomplishment as great as ours de- serves a big reception,” returned Dalton. However, our wondering was cut short. In the distance a pall of smoke appeared, Surrounded by circular buildings like those in the waterside village. We were approach- ing a Ganymedian city. Our convoy drew in closer, descending slowly. It was ob- viously their wish that we should land. As we drew closer to the city our speed was further reduced; the planes below us with- drew, those above came closer, and those on our flank formed a circle about us, wheeling about as though to cut off our escape in any direction. We were being forced toward a large field, about which were more planes, and large buildings re- sembling hangars. We descended, perforce. Half the ma- chines followed suit, surrounding us in a close circle, while the others remained aloft, forming a moving dome over our heads. From one of those on the ground appeared several four-legged Ganymedians who ap- proached the Comet boldly and peered into the windows, waving their tentacle-like arms. “They want us to come out,” said Ernst. We donned our envelopes and left the ma- chine through the air-lock, Lafourchette car- rying his gun despite Dalton’s admonitions. The Ganymedians stepped back, forming a semicircle about the air-lock, obviously in- viting us to descend to the ground. We closed the air lock and jumped down, not without some misgivings, but the creatures seemed friendly enough, waving their arms and giving voice to questioning hoots. One of their number advanced and extended his arms in a reassuring gesture. Ernst stopped forward to meet him, and endeavored by pantomimic gestures to show our peaceable intentions. I was intent on watching him, and did not notice for a moment that the passengers of the other planes had come out and were slowly advancing toward us. Then von Liehten uttered a shout: “Look out behind!” Trapped! BUT he was too late. A dozen of the skinny creatures had climbed over the Comet and as we turned they jumped up- on us, pinning us to the ground. Before we realized what had happened we were overwhelmed by the crowd; strong metal cords were fastened about our arms and legs, and we were bound, helpless prison- ers. Amid shrieks of anger we were picked up bodily and carried to the nearest plane, thrown roughly into a dark compartment and locked in. The plane took off with a rush, bound we knew not where. I strained at my bonds, but it was use- less. The darkness was pitchy; I could not tell where the rest were, or whether they were all in the same plane. I called softly: “Ernst!” “Here,” came the whispered response. “Are we all here?” I asked. Four whis- pers assented. At least we were not divided. “What does all this mean?” I asked.
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1018 WONDER STORIES “They seem to take us for enemies,” said Ernst. “What shall we do?” asked Dalton. “Nothing now,” said Ernst. “Wait until we can see.” As we spoke the plane landed with a slight jar, the c6mpartment was opened, and we were carried out one at a time onto a flat room. We appeared to be in the midst of the large city, on top of one of the builds ings; but I had time for only a fleeting glance before I was bundled with the others onto a platform which descended swiftly into the depths of the building. We must have been carried down a hundred feet or more when the platform came to a stop and we were carried into a small room with stone walls. It was devoid of furniture and had only one window, a tiny slit near the ceiling. Beyond a doubt we were in a prison cell. Our captors removed the metal cords from our hands and feet, and departed, clos- ing a massive stone door behind them. “Well,” said Dalton explosively, “what do you make of this?” “We are prisoners,” said Lafourchette dejectedly. “We have come four hundred million miles to make friends with them, and they treat us like invaders.” “That’s not the point,” said Ernst. “We have aroused their anger in some way. We must explain the situation to them and gain their confidence.” “What do you suggest?” I asked. “I believe they will presently return to feed us and examine us,” said Ernst. “I shall try to communicate with them, tell them who we are and where we are from. Perhaps we resemble some other race which inhabits this globe, with whom they are at war. But when they know that we come from the earth they cannot fail to realize their mistake, and welcome us ac- cordingly.” “And if they do not — ” said Lafourchette, producing his gun. “No!” exclaimed Ernst. “We must not antagonize them in any way. That will only confirm their suspicions of us.” “I should prefer to return to the Comet and leave this inhospitable race,” said La- fourchette. “Don’t be discouraged,” said Ernst. “We have come a long way for the opportunity to meet these creatures. Dr. Forscher would be disappointed in us if we failed to reach an understanding with them.” I admired the man’s level-headed cour- age. In spite of the alarming turn of af- fairs he had not lost sight of the purpose of the expedition. His attitude buoyed our spirits greatly, and we looked forward eag- erly to the return of our captors. To pass the time, we examined the walls of our cell. They were built of heavy blocks of a kind of granite and there was not a flaw anywhere. It was obvious that escape from the cell was out of the ques- tion. I hoisted Lafourchette to my shoul- ders and he examined the window. It was about two feet high and a little over a foot wide. The blocks were joined together by a tongue and groove in each, neatly polished to a perfect fit. Several heavy bars of metal ran crosswise, blocking the opening effect- ively. Lafourchette reported that he could see a large circular park outside, surround- ed by tall buildings of similar shape. Evi- dently this circular form was the predom- inant note of their architecture, just as man-made buildings are almost universally rectangular. WE heard footsteps beyond the door, and presently it swung open, admitting a number of Ganymedians. They were with- out clothing as usual, and each was armed with a mechanical blow-gun shooting poi- soned darts. One of them advanced and, singling out Ernst, took him to the oppo- site corner of the cell, where they began a close examination of him. They peered through his helmet and tried to remove it, but without success. Apparently they were puzzled, for they uttered hoots of amaze- ment and stopped from time to time to raise their arms and move their fingers rapidly. I perceived that this was their method of conversation; their language con- sisted of finger-signs, like those of deaf mutes. They searched Ernst closely for weapons, turned him about, plucked at the
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THE OUTPOST ON THE MOON 1019 heavy envelope, and subjected him to an intense scrutiny. When they had finished they led him back to the rest of us, and took Dalton next. Perceiving that each of us was to be similarly searched, I whispered to Lafourchette : “Hide your gun; they’ll seize it if they find it.” He withdrew behind the rest of us and concealed the gun in the corner of the room. The movement attracted the atten- tion of our examiners, and they stared at us searchingly for a moment, but seeing nothing wrong they finished their scrutiny of Dalton. Lafourchette came next, and to our relief they had not noticed that he carried the gun when we were captured. However, they realized that the heavy en- velope was not his skin, and motioned him to remove it. He refused, and one of them produced a sharp knife-like instrument. Dr. von Lichten cried out in protest and started forward, but he was immediately seized and held. We were forced to watch while the Ganymedians slashed open La- fourchette’s envelope and clothing. He winced as the knife-blade scratched his skin, and the Ganymedians emitted howls of amusement. “This has gone far enough,” growled Dalton, and with a swift movement - he picked up the gun, uttering a yell which at- tracted the attention of the Ganymedians. The wielder of the knife drew back his arm to throw, and Dalton pulled the trigger. The gun roared; the smoke cleared, and the knife-thrower lay dead on the floor. The others fled in terror, slamming the door be- hind them. We heard the bolt snap into place and we were alone once more. “Are you hurt?” demanded von Lichten of Lafourchette. “Not at all,” replied the latter. “A mere scratch; but the devils have ripped my en- velope.” Dr. von Lichten examined his cut, from which blood was trickling. “If only I had my medicine case,” he exclaimed. “An open wound, in this strange atmosphere — there is danger of infection.” “Do not worry,” said Lafourchette. “I shall be all right. I am only sorry that it was necessary to shoot. They will never for- give us.” “I fear you are right,” said Ernst. “How- ever, let us learn what we can from this dead creature.” We dragged the Ganymedian to the light beneath the window, and Dr. von Lichten set about examining the body. I possessed myself of the creature’s blow-gun and knife and stood back. Corpses, human or other- wise, have never had much attraction for me. The doctor brought to light several in- teresting features of the physical nature of the Ganymedians. Each hand had six fing- ers of nearly equal size, about eight inches long. There were five joints in each, which were capable of bending in both directions, enabling the hand to close either forward or backward. There were likewise six toes (if they may be called such) on each foot, but with only one joint in each, and entire- ly covered with a scaly substance, instead of the nail at the tip of the corresponding human members. The skin of the creatures was likewise scaly and glistened like that of a fish. Prying open the mouth, the doctor dis- covered that there was no tongue, explain- ing the lack of an articulate language among the creatures. Between the head and shoulders were tiny openings which evi- dently served as ears, though their form suggested that they might be remnants of what had been gills in prehistoric times. The striking resemblance of many physical characteristics to those of water creatures of the earth pointed to the possibility that they were akin to that family, having per- haps emerged from their abode in the ocean to evolve into intelligent creatures on land. CHAPTER XV. A Race With Death AFTER a time our attention was attract- ed by a commotion outside our window, as of the gathering of a throng of people. I hoisted Lafourchette to my shoulders again, and he reported that this was indeed the
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1020 WONDER STORIES “They are gathering from all sides,” he reported. “They shout; they gesticulate; they point toward this building, toward our cell. They seem exceedingly angry. Some are bringing tree-trunks, or logs; they pile them in the center of the great circle. ,Now they are setting fire to them. They are build- ing a bonfire. They dance about it, shout- ing with rage; still they point to our cell! Can it be that the bonfire is for us — that they intend to burn us alive?” “Let them try!” exclaimed Dalton. “As long as we have this gun they’ll have a fine time getting us out!” However, our defense was not to be as easy as that. Presently Lafourchette re- ported : “They are setting fire to something on the end of a stick. It burns with a blue flame. Now they are approaching our win- dow with the stick. There is a lump of something yellow on the end of the stick; it burns dully, with heavy fumes. It is sulphur! They are going to asphyxiate us with burning sulphur! Then they will carry us to the bonfire!” “Give me the gun!” exclaimed Dalton. “Let me up there! I’ll stop them!” He climbed to the window and leveled the au- tomatic at the approaching throng. The gun barked, and there was a shout of dis- may from outside. “They’re running away,” said Dalton. “That’ll teach them not to monkey with us!” But they were not through yet. The crowd withdrew to a respectful distance, taking with them the sulphur torch. Presently some of them carried it out of our view, and we wondered apprehensively what they were up to. We heard, faintly, the tramp of feet above us, and shortly there was a choking whiff of sulphur dioxide from the window. Dalton pressed his face against the bars, and reported: “They are hanging the torch from a rope, just above the window. The fumes are hea- vier than air, and some of them drift into the cell. It’ll take longer that way, but they’ll get us eventually!” He climbed down, and we faced one an- other in despair. “I’m afraid this is the end,” said Ernst. “If only—” The door grated open, its lock twisted and cherry red with heat. Beyond it stood a Ganymedian — a strange Ganymedian. His attitude bespoke friendliness, not ferocity. As we surveyed him we noted that the best- iality which stamped the features of our captors was lacking; his massive head and kindly eyes indicated a superior order of intelligence. Somehow, we felt this crea- ture was our ally. He carried a peculiar looking instrument, whose lingering glow indicated that it had been used to melt the bolt of our cell door. At its tip was a tiny glowing point which was raised to a white heat, in some manner, electrically or chemically. Back of this was a parabolic mirror which caught the emitted energy and focussed it at a point a few feet beyond the instrument. The fo- cus could be shifted forward or back by sliding the mirror along the handle. It served the purpose of a blow torch, and from the neatness with which it had severed the steel lock, an efficient one.* THE Ganymedian motioned us to come out of the cell. The sulphurous fumes left us no choice but to obey, so we followed him into the corridor. We were led through a series of passages to the far side of the building, where a barred window blocked our path. Our guide neatly clipped off the bars with his torch and we dropped to the ground outside. A row of circular build- ings confronted us, beyond which was an- other open park. We quickly made our way there and saw before us a machine as unlike those we had encountered as our guide was unlike the hostile crowd which had imprisoned us. It gave every evidence of being tremendously speedy, yet withal it was large and roomy. We ran for it at a signal from the Gany- median. We had covered half the distance when a shout announced the discovery of our escape. The crowd rushed in hot pur- suit, firing darts. Dalton whirled and emp- *We later learned that the Ganymediaus made uae of this instrument because their bodies would not stand exposure to the temperatures necessary to cat steel -at close range.
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THE OUTPOST ON THE MOON 1021 lied the magazine of the automatic, account- ing for four, while I stretched another on the ground with the dead Ganymedian’s air- gun. Then we reached the machine and climbed aboard through a lowered door, which clanged shut behind us. The plane shot into the air with a silent rush, while the enraged crowd below us fired futile mis- siles and waved their arms in the air. From external appearances the machine bore little resemblance to man-made ma- chines. To be sure there were similarities here and there; the ship had wings and was shaped in general like the familiar type of monoplane. But inside, things were be- wilderingly different. There were no seats; the four-legged Ganymedians squatted on their hind legs in the fashion of earthly quadrupeds. The controls were likewise un- familiar— a dial here, a lever there, and nothing commensurate with the size and power of the machine. I judged it to be controlled by compressed air or electricity. Strangest of all was the motor. It aroused my interest, and lacking the ability to ques- tion the crew I determined to discover as much of its mechanism as I could. To begin with, there were no cylinders, and this set me to wondering about its source of power. I quickly discovered an odor identified it as some member of the hydrocarbon group, from which gasoline springs. Yet instead of being fed into a cyl- inder, compressed by the upstroke of a pis- ton and fired by an electric spark, it appar- ently burned continuously in a small cham- ber, where the gas was maintained under pressure and fed into a set of rotating vanes. It was a gasoline turbine — the dream of internal combustion engineers! The plane was heading away from the ocean, toward that side of the side of the satellite which is never lighted by Jupiter. The clouds thinned rapidly, and below them we could see the ground, bare for the most part — with clumps of desert vegeta- tion here and there. These grew more and more sparse, finally disappearing altogeth- er, and we flew over a vast waste of sand. Overhead the stars shone weakly, pushing •their faint rays through the pale sunlight. Jupiter’s great body, its darkened side turned toward us, sank lower and lower, finally disappearing below the horizon. The sun followed him a few moments later as we crossed to the back side of the satellite. In the darkened heavens Callisto and the four tiny outer satellites threw a ghostly moonlight on the swift panorama of the desert. We were flying low now, yet the brilliance of the starlit sky showed that the air about us was thin and dry. The great pull of Jupiter — four thousand times stronger than that of the moon,' even at this distance — had raised a permanent tide in both the air and water, leaving the outer side of the satellite with little atmospheric covering and no moisture to speak of. Dr. Forscher had predicted a cloudless region on Ganymede; we saw now the reason for its existence. The plane suddenly slackened its pace and began to descend. Looking ahead we saw the lights of a tremendous city, extend- ing for miles in all directions. Tall cylin- drical buildings marked a magnificent sky- line above which many small planes scur- ried in a bustle of busy traffic. As we ap- proached, the air was cleared to make a pathway for us, and we settled gracefully to the top of one of the nearby buildings. An elevator waited to carry us to one of the lower floors, where we were escorted to a large circular room. It contained little furniture — a strange looking table, a carpet, and a few bizarre cushions in lieu of chairs. The windows were without glass, for the temperature on this world varied but little and there was no need for protection against the weather. A number of large globes filled the room with a soft heatless glow resembling intens- ified moonlight, in which the blue shades of the room were brought out distinctly. The Story of a Destiny OUR guides left, save one, who turned to us and pointed to his mouth with a questioning hoot. I surmised he was ask- ing whether we were hungry, and respond- ed to his gesture vigorously. He disap- peared, and Dr. von Lichten observed:
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1022 WONDER STORIES “There’s no telling what sort of food he’ll bring us. We’d best be careful.” “I’m so hungry I could eat a tree,” said Dalton. “In order to do so you’ll have to take off your helmet, my friend,” said the Doc- tor. “It’s risky; remember that.” “Going without food and water is more than risky, it’s certain death!” retorted Dalton. “Our oxygen won’t hold out much longer, and we can’t recharge the appara- tus. I’m for taking the envelopes off!” Suiting his action to the word, he removed his helmet and stripped off the flexible cov- ering. The rest of us followed suit with some hesitation. Dr. von Lichten last of all. However, there was no use trying to refute the logic of Dalton’s statements, and we felt rather secure, since Lafourchette’s ripped envelope had apparently caused him no discomfort. Presently our rescuer reappeared with several metal platters bearing food. It was entirely unfamiliar, but appeared to con- sist for the most part of raw vegetables and fruits of some kind. If any food on this world would be safe for us, that should, so we decided to take a chance. After a cautious nibble or two we consumed the whole meal with great relish. A container of water accompanied it, and was emptied in short order. It had a queer fishy taste but we did not mind it. Then we stretched out on the rug for a nap. The Ganymedian climate was quite cold, and we found it necessary to wrap the carpet around our- selves, but otherwise we slept comfortably for several hours. We were awakened by the reappearance of the friendly Ganymedian, who seemed much taken aback at the spectacle of the five of us unconscious on the floor. He seemed quite relieved, however, when we sat up and waved to him, but he was ob- viously puzzled. It occurred to me that perhaps sleep was unknown to him. Some terrestrial creatures are known to spend their entire lives awake. He brought with him several sheets of greenish, parchment-like paper, and a pen- cil which deserved the name of “lead-pen- cil” more literally than ours, for it con- sisted of a stick of lead sharpened to a point. With these writing materials he seat- ed himself at the table and motioned us to do likewise. We gathered around, sitting on the cushions, and watched. He handed the pencil and paper to Ernst, pointed to him, and hooted in evident interrogation. Ernst wrote, “Man”, and pointed to each of us in turn. Then the Ganymedian pointed to Ernst again, and hooted once more. Ernst wrote his name, then that of each of us; indicating to whom the names belonged. From names he progressed to parts of the body, objects in the room, and other things on Ganymede, sketching them at times to make himself clear. The Ganymedian ex- hibited a remarkable aptitude for under- standing the sketches and the words, and it took but a short time for him to learn to write brief sentences in English. For the sake of simplicity Ernst spelled words pho- netically and gave all the verbs regular endings, writing “hed” for head, “fut” for foot, “runed” for ran, and so forth. The language thus evolved was clumsy, but it served the purpose of a means of communi- cation, which was all that was required. Then they took up some simple arith- metic, writing out the Arabic numerals. A curious yet nevertheless natural circum- stance arose in connection with this. Our number 10 represented 12 to the Ganyme- dian. The explanation of this was easily seen when we remembered that there were twelve fingers on their hands. When man- kind first learned to count, he used his fing- ers as the base of his system of numbers. When he had counted up to ten he start- ed over again, counting “ten and one, ten and two,” and so on, indicating the ten by a digit in the second column. When a hun- dred was reached, being ten times ten, he added a third column. The Ganymedians counted right up to twelve in the first col- umn, and the figure 10 represented twelve; 11, twelve and one. 100 means twelve times twelve, or one hundred and forty-four in our system. 4- ANOTHER difference between our phy- sical make-up and that of the Gany- medians appeared when we tried to name
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THE OUTPOST ON THE MOON 1023 the colors of the spectrum. The four-legged scientist wanted to assign the adjective “black” to things which appeared red or orange to us, while he could distinguish differences above violet which were invis- ible to our eyes. This meant simply that the range of wavelengths which affect the human retina was slightly lower than the corresponding limits of visibility to the Ganymedian eye.* We spent several weeks in building up a vocabulary which the Ganymedian could understand. We made no attempt to devel- op a spoken language, since the Ganymed- ians could not speak, and we could not learn their finger-language readily; but with the use of the table of words we had recorded we were able to write intelligible messages at the end of this time. At length we were in a position to ex- change ideas with considerable facility. Then the Ganymedian began to ask us ques- tions about ourselves, where we had come from, how we had happened to land in the city near the ocean, and the details of our capture. When we had satisfied his curios- ity, he explained the situation on his planet to us in some detail. For the sake of clear- ness I will summarize his statements in plain English. What he told us was essen- tially as follows: * * * * On Ganymede, as on earth, ^life began in the sea. The land at that time was barren and the air unbreatheable for lack of oxy- gen. Certain forms of fish developed the knack of gliding above the surface on their enlarged lateral fins, much as the flying fish of the earth; and when plant life ap- peared on the land to provide food and oxygen in the air, they became amphibious, living both on the land and in the water. Certain of these flying amphibians eventu- ally came to live on the ground entirely, and gradually lost the ability to fly; while others soared in the air and preyed on weak- er creatures. You met one of these amphi- bians shortly after you arrived here; there *A later experiment showed the Ganymedian limits of visibility to lie roughly between 6500 and 3500 Ang- strom unite, as compared with 7500 and 4000 for the human eye. (1 Angstrom equals 1/100,000,000 centi- meter.) are many like them, some still wild, some however we managed to tame to the use of our race. My own people are the descendants of that species which lived on the ground, sur- viving by its superior cunning rather than relying on brute strength. They became civilized, learned to cooperate with one an- other, and established a democratic gov- ernment. As our knowledge advanced, we developed industries; a class of laborers appeared to work for wages under the con- trol of the capitalists. Unfortunately com- plications developed from this situation. The laborers were dissatisfied with their lot. There was unemployment now and then, and the industries were run with a view to producing cheaply and selling at high prices, with no regard to the quality of products. This finally led to the seizure of the gov- ernment by the workers, but in their poor- ly educated state they were unable to man- age it, and chaos resulted. Finally a bril- liant student of economics gathered around him a following of intelligent people, oust- ed the laborers from their control, and set up a dictatorship. Under his regime and those which followed our civilization ad- vanced by leaps and bounds. Institutions of learning were established, and the study of science assumed an important place in our order of things. More and more of the laws of nature were discovered; the scien- tists published their discoveries for the bene- fit of the world, and the race grew prosper- ous. However, it seems that the nature of our people is to scoff at that which they do not understand. Scientists were well paid for their work in those days, and the working class and middle class could not see" the practical value of theorizing about chemis- try, physics, astronomy, and the like. They became dissatisfied, and threatened to con- fiscate the pay of the scientific class and force them into exile if they did not turn their efforts to tasks which would result in the immediate enriching of the world. The scientists gave little heed to the mutterings of the multitudes, until one day they rose in open revolt. The rebellion was quelled, but it became apparent that the rule of the
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1024 WONDER STORIES intelligent students of science, economics and politics was threatened. The final crisis was brought about by an experiment with which you are doubtless familiar. I refer to the firing of projectiles at the planets of the solar system, in an effort to elicit a response and so determine whether or not they were inhabited. This experiment was misunderstood by the lay public, and a rumor circulated that the rul- ers were trying to bring people from other planets to keep the masses in subjugation. A bloody war resulted, in which the ruling class was driven from the land into this desert which covers almost the entire half of Ganymede which turns away from Jup- iter. Many of them died of thirst and starva- tion, but a number escaped to the spot on which this city now stands, and succeeded in recovering from the air enough hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen to irrigate a patch of the desert, fertilize it, and raise food. With the aid of their scientific knowledge they built this city, supplied it with water and plant-food, and now a race of a million peo- ple flourishes, advancing their civilization and adding to their knowledge. MEANWHILE the remaining classes of the population around the ocean have carried on their former form of democratic government, and have reverted to their old form of cut-throat competition. The gov- ernment is run by the workers and manu- facturers, aiming as always at selfish prof- iteering. They lay waste the forests, mine coal and burn it without regard to the avail- able supply; release mineral oils and gases with reckless abandon^ In a few generations there will be no more natural fuel on the planet unless they are stopped. They make use of the inventions our scientists had de- veloped before they drove us out, but there is no progress among them at present; ev- ery student, research worker and inventor has been exiled. Realizing that they will destroy the plan- et in their greed if we do not intervene, we have tried several times to conquer them and reestablish ourselves as their rulers, but without success. They have defeated us, in spite of our scientific knowledge, through sheer force of numbers. For this reason we are now seeking means of rais- ing a large army equipped with the most deadly instruments of warfare we can de- vise. Fully a third of our number is trained to military service, only the aged, the very young, and the scientific geniuses being ex- cepted.* Now that you are acquainted with the state of affairs on Ganymede, you will re- alize our need for help. When the news of your arrival and capture was reported by one of our spies, the machine in which you were brought here was immediately dis- patched and we rescued you, hoping that you might consent to send men from the earth to assist us in capturing the land about the ocean and regaining our rightful place as its owners. * # * * THE five of us read the message of the Ganymedian in silence. When we had finished, we looked at one another in amaze- ment. “The proposal is ridiculous!” exclaimed Lafourchette. “The outrageous presump- tion of the creature, to suppose that we will supply him with men and arms from the earth, to interfere in a war which does not concern us or the people of the earth in the least!” “Softly,” cautioned Ernst. “I would sug- gest that we consider the proposal, without committing ourselves definitely. Remem- ber, we must have the help of these people in the desert to get the Comet back.” He took the pencil and a sheet of paper and wrote:** “We appreciate your situation and sym- pathize deeply with you. We ourselves will be willing to help you to the utmost, but we must of course return to earth, ob- *The Ganymedian did not mention females in this list, for a reason that we later discovered; there is no difference of sex among them. Periodically each ma ture creature on the planet lays eggs, which are fer- tilized by ultra-violet rays. In the case of the lower animals the sunlight performs this function, and the eggs are hatched by being buried in the soil, where the heat of decaying vegetation keeps them warm. The intelligent race makes use of ultra-violet lamps ana incubators. They are enabled in this way to select only the most perfect of their young for maturity, and keep the population within the limits demanded by the city’s resources. **This and later quotations are not literal translations of tho dialect actually used.
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THE OUTPOST ON THE MOON 1025 tain permission of its governments, and en- list the necessary men, to say nothing of building the machines to transport them. The first thing to be done, therefore, is to recapture our space-flyer, the Comet; which still rests in the city where we were cap- tured.” “I understand that,” replied the Gany- median. “Your acceptance of my proposal is most gratifying. Let us now consider means of recapturing your flyer.” He explained to us that there were many difficulties involved. To begin with, no airplane was permitted to land on any fly- ing field on Ganymede unless it bore a li- cense number issued by the government. Furthermore, each field had a particular pass-word which was changed from day to day. These measures, he told us, had been adopted to prevent the landing of enemy planes. In short, a landing could only be effected by force, and in view of our es- cape, the Comet would doubtless be heavily guarded. A surprise attack would be neces- sary. “I noticed,” he said further, “that one of your number made effective use of a weap- on which is strange to us. I mean that blunt instrument carried in the hand which exploded with violence and dropped our pursuers in their tracks. If we had a num- ber of those, it would be comparatively easy to drive off the guards and reach the Comet.” “You mean the gun,” wrote Ernst. “They are not hard to make if you have the necessary tools and materials.” “We have excellent machinists,” replied the Ganymedian. “Yop need only give us the principle by which it kills. We will at- tend to the rest.” CHAPTER XVI. A Mutual Discovery WITH Dalton’s help, Ernst explained the construction of the gun. The for- mula for black powder presented difficul- ties, for it was necessary to first explain something of our system of chemical nota- tion. The first two ingredients, sulphur and carbon, were easily named, but the third and most important, nitre (potassium nit- rate), was not easy to describe. However, by naming its characteristics Dalton learned that the substance was well known and used by the Ganymedians,* who had found de- posits of it in the desert.. The scientist wished to take Lafourchette’s automatic as a model, but we demurred, as we felt safer with it in our possession. “It will take until the next rising of the sun to make the guns,” the Ganymedian wrote. “At that time we will be prepared to attempt the capture of the Comet.” It now lacked some thirty hours of sun- rise, during which we had nothing tc do. We obtained the permission of the Gany- median to explore the city, and he gave us a map so that we might find our way around. We took with us the list of words we had compiled, so that we might ask questions from time to time, and we were given letters of introduction explaining who we were. Armed with these documents we set out. The city presented many interesting sights and not a few surprises. The first thing which struck our attention was the fact that there was no vehicular traffic on the streets. Ov- erhead the air was full of flying machines of all sizes and types which served the purposes of transportation. These landed on and departed from the roofs of the buildings, never descending to the level of the streets. Pedestrians hurried about, in- tent on their own business, scarcely giving us a glance. I thought ruefully of the mad stampede for souvenirs which would have followed the appearance of a party of these creatures in the streets of an American city, and could not help admiring their dignified self-control. We entered what appeared to be the shop- ping district and gazed into the stores. The lack of gaudy display and high-pressure advertising aroused our wonder, and we in- quired of one of the shopkeepers why this was so. He explained, using our improvised *It is a queer anomaly that although the Qanymedians were able to shoot projectiles hundreds of millions of miles into space, they had missed altogether the ap plication of explosives to firearms. The reason we never discovered.
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1026 WONDER STORIES dictionary, that each store enjoyed a mono- poly in its line, the prices being fixed by governmental regulation. This did away with the waste of time and money spent in trying to influence the buyer to decide among a number of essentially similar ar- ticles. Later we found our way to the Univer- sity at Which this nation of scholars received its education. We inquired our way to the department of astronomy, and found it lo- cated on the roof of one of the immense circular buildings. There were a number of telescopes there, the largest of which was a reflector somewhat similar to those on the earth. Its mirror was about fifteen feet in diameter, not quite as large as the earth’s 200-inch — but it was remarkably well built, especially in view of the fact that op- tical glass was unknown to the Ganymed- ians. Throughout the instrument metal mir- rors took the places of lenses. I asked for a chance to look through it, and the astronomer in charge agreed will- ingly. I would have chosen to take a look at the earth from this distance, but that was impossible at present. The sun had set, and here the earth, like Venus, was a morn- ing and evening star, close to the sun. I chose Pluto, whose great distance has pre- vented the earth from learning much of its physical nature. “Pluto?” repeated the astronomer, “which of the planets do you call by that name?” “I beg your pardon,” I wrote. “Pluto is the name we give to the outermost planet of the solar system.” The telescope was trained on the heavens and I peered into the eye-piece. A tiny disc of pale yellow, so faint as to border on in- visibility, occupied the center of the field of view. I was puzzled; the power of this in- strument should have shown Pluto much brighter and larger. “This is the outermost planet?” I asked. The astronomer nodded confirmation. “The ninth?” I inquired. “To be sure,” he replied. “But surely this magnificent instrument should show it better,” I persisted. The astronomer was displeased. “Perhaps you expect too much,” he said. “At fifteen times our distance from the sun it receives very little light.” I saw that something was amiss. Pluto is less than nine times as far from the s«n as Jupiter. Could it be that this was the trans-Plutonian planet that the younger as- tronomers on earth were talking about?"* Yet the Ganymedian astronomer called it the ninth planet. I MADE a rapid sketch of the solar system as I knew it, showing the orbits of the nine planets with their distances from the sun, and presented it to the Ganymedian astronomer. Comprehension dawned on his features, and he seized the pencil in excitement. “We revolve around the fifth planet from the sun?” he demanded. I agreed. “Then there are ten planets in all! We have never seen the innermost — it is too close to the sun. You have never seen the last. What I would not give for your van- tage point and the knowledge you must have of the inner planets!” “I would be equally glad of your oppor- tunity to study the outer ones,” I returned. “Are you sure here are none beyond this tenth?” “We cannot tell,” he replied. “If an- other exists, it is much too faint to be found by accident. Some of us think there are irregularities in the behavior of the tenth which may indicate another, but it has been known too short a time to say definitely. Our calculations show that it takes hundreds of years to circle the sun once. Until we have determined its path accurately and eliminated the effects of all the others upon it, it is useless to consider the question of still another world.” I spent some time conversing with the astronomer, telling him what I knew of Mercury. In return I learned that my the- ory of the manner in which Jupiter’s satel- lites received their heat was correct; elec- tric currents induced by his magnetic field were responsible. The scientist also satis- fied my curiosity regarding the shooting of sulphur meteors to the earth. He explained *The sighting of this planet was announced by the Lowell Observatory after Mr. Marland’s departure from the earth.
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THE OUTPOST ON THE MOON 1027 that they had built an enormous cannon, three feet in diameter and over two thous- and feet long, buried in the earth in the manner of the Columbiad, around which Jules Verne wrote his entertaining story “From the Earth to the Moon.” This can- non, he told us, had been located very near the building which housed the observatory, for the desert city was located at the point farthest from Jupiter, where the sun and the inner planets passed directly overhead once every seven earth-days. He also ex- plained how the projectiles had been con- structed so that their brilliant blue light would attract our attention* This trip of exploration served to pass the time while the guns were being made. Finally the hour of departure arrived with the rising of the sun, and we set out to re- capture the Comet. A crew of twenty Ganymedians in addition to ourselves climbed aboard, each armed with an auto- matic pistol and a hundred rounds of am- munition. We took off"with a rush amid shouts and hoots from the onlookers, and headed for the cloudy land surrounding the ocean. We five had worn our air-envelopes, for they gave protection from the poisoned darts of the hostile Ganymedians and pro- vided an easy means of conversation at a distance, through the radio equipment. As the miles flew away below us a tension grew on the entire crew. We realized more keen- ly now than at any time before our desper- ate situation. At all costs we must regain the Comet; yet we would have a battle on our hands, with the ever present possibil- ity of capture and death. *The construction and functioning of the projectiles were as follows : There were three concentric shells, the outermost of heavy aluminum, the second of brit- tle clay, and the third of copper. Between the first and second was a layer of hydrogen chloride, frozen at — 110 degrees Centigrade. Between the second and third was supercooled ice. The shock of discharge broke the second shell, mixing the ice and hydrogen chloride, which were melted by the heat of the pro- jectile’s passage through Ganymede's atmosphere, and at the same time kept the copper shell cool. The solu- tion of hydrogen chloride in water formed hydro- chloric acid, which destroyed the aluminum shell. This acid does not attack copper as it does aluminum, so the inner shell reached the earth intact. Inside it was a mixture of sulphur, manganese dioxide and potassium chlorate. The last contains oxygen in com- bination, which it gives up when heated to about 200 degrees Centigrade in the presence of manganese di- oxide. The heating was accomplished by friction with the earth’s atmosphere. Sulphur burns in pure oxygen with a brilliant blue flame, the resulting gas (sulphur dioxide) serving in this case to burst the copper case and make the conflagration visible. The Decoy THE plane began to descend, and with tightening about the heart I realized the moment was at hand. Below us lay the landing field, and with a tingle of joy I recognized the slender body of the Comet, apparently unharmed. But as we drew clos- er I saw a swarm of Ganymedians sur- rounding it, armed with blow-guns and knives. Planes patrolled the air above the field, cruising slowly about. I realized that, poorly armed as were the guards, our five men would stand no show against them in a direct attack; we must resort to strat- egy- The commander of the plane evidently thought likewise, for he headed up toward the clouds. A council of war was hastily called, and I made a suggestion. “I think it best,” I offered, “that you land on the outskirts of the tjiy, and let the five of us go to the field on foot. Mean- while you can return in the plane and draw the attention of the guards. While you en- gage them in battle and lead them away from the Comet we will dash out and take possession of it.” “Your plan is good,” replied the Gany- medians. “However, we will send a few of our number with you to guide you and as- sist you in case you are attacked.” Accordingly, the plane turned about and soared across the city, landing in an open field near the outlying buildings. The five of us, together with an equal number of Ganymedians, disembarked and stole into the city. The streets were shrouded in semi- darkness, for while the sun had recently set on this side of the world, Jupiter was always above the horizon and his huge cres- cent sent a diffused light from the over- cast sky. We wound our way through the narrow streets, keeping in the shadows wherever possible. The Ganymedians formed a circle around us so that our un- familiar forms would be less likely to at- tract the attention of a casual observer. At length we saw the lights of the land- ing field ahead of us. The plane of our rescuers was nowhere in sight as we ap- proached, but it shortly made its appear-
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1028 WONDER STORIES ance, diving through the clouds and head- ing straight for the field as if to land. The planes of the guarding party rose to meet it. Swinging into formation, they soared in a body above the attacker, while from one plane and then another appeared fiery torches, which they had hurled downward in an attempt to set fire to it. The scien- tists’ machine dodged cleverly and turned away from the field, leading the defenders away as we had planned. A large share of the ground force followed at a run, to meet and destroy the scientists should they suc- ceed in effecting a landing, but we noted with dismay that half a hundred remained at their posts in a circle about the Comet. My plan of decoying the guards away had worked once, however, and I decided to try it again. I turned to the group. “Ernst,” I said, “we must get those guards away from the machine somehow. You and Dalton take three of the Ganymedians with you; make your way around to the other side of the field and stir up some excite- ment. Shoot — yell — anything to attract at- tention ; make them think there’s a large par- ty attacking. Then retreat and hide. Mean- while we’ll sneak up from behind and board the Comet and then pick you up.” Ernst nodded his agreement, and picking out three of the Ganymedians set off through the streets to circle the field, Dalton with him. Dr. von Lichten, Lafourchette and I, to- gether with the two remaining Ganymedians, kept our posts. For perhaps fifteen min- utes the silence was broken only by the faint sounds of the distant commotion, in- dicating that the bulk of the Ganymedians were still pursuing the decoy plane. Then from my radio receiver came the sound of Ernst’s voice, yelling like a Comanche, while the microphone brought the rapid reports of five pistols. The fifty Ganymedians about the Comet turned to face the noise, some advancing at a run, a few lingering. I signalled to my companions and we dash- ed for the center of the field. Ernst had done his work well; we were within ten paces before we were discovered. Our guns spoke in unison; four Ganymedians tum- bled to the ground, while the others rushed about in confusion. We vaulted to the top of the Comet and snatched open the door to the air-lock. One of our Ganymedians caught a poisoned dart in his shoulder, a flying knife cracked against my helmet, and then we were out of danger, the door closed behind us. In my radio receivers I heard faintly the shouting voices of Ernst and Dalton, re- treating. I sprang to the control-room closed the gravity-screens and set the Comet in motion. Ernst’s voice came again : “Mar- land! Have you got it?” “Yes!” I shouted. “Come quick!” I heard. “We’re sur- rounded! They’ve got us!” “Where are you?” I yelled. “North side of the field, first street!” was the answer. “Hurry!” I SWUNG northward, flying low. A roar from the sky announced the return of the enemy planes as I reached the first street beyond the limits of the field. Looking down I saw a tremendous crowd milling ex- citedly into the street, but I could not make out Ernst and Dalton in the semi-darkness. I dropped the Comet down between the buildings in the hope of scaring off the Ganymedians, but they stood their ground. I did not dare try to crush them with the machine for fear of killing my comrades at at the same time. I peered vainly about, trying to locate them. “Marland!” Dalton’s voice. “Where are you?” I shouted again. “On the field! They’ve '-knocked Ernst out and tied me up, and they’re putting us aboard a plane!” “Coming!” I yelled, and turned the Comet’s nose up, noting with satisfaction that the gas discharge enveloped a number of Ganymedians. The flying field was covered with planes, some in the act of landing, others just tak- ing off. “Marland!” came Dalton’s voice again. “We’re going up!” “Which plane?” I asked. “I don’t know how to describe it! I can’t see out — it’s dark in here! Try to
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THE OUTPOST ON THE MOON 1029 Fully a dozen planes were leaving the ground at that moment. I rushed for the nearest, shouting Dalton’s name. His an- swer came, fainter. Not that one! I tried another, but with no better luck. The planes were scattering in all directions. The Gan- ymedians saw what I was up to and knew how slim were my chances of finding the right plane before Dalton’s radio would be out of range. Desperately I tried to circle the field and round up the planes, but five of them escaped, with Dalton aboard one. His cries grew fainter, and finally faded out; I could not keep track of the speeding planes in the dim twilight. Von Lichten and Lafourchette were at my side in the control room. I turned to therm “We must do something quick!” I said. “We must find them and rescue them!” “What can we do?” asked Lafourchette hopelessly. “They are lost; we cannot hope to find them. They are miles away by now, and there’s no telling how far they will be carried.” “But we cannot leave them to the mercy of the Ganymedians!” I protested. “They will probably be taken to some city; let us fly over every one on the planet and tty to bring our radios within hearing range.” “It would be useless,” said' Lafourchette. “The radios are good for half a mile — three quarters at the outside. It would take days, perhaps weeks. They will be killed before we can reach them.” “True,” put in von Lichten. “And further, the Ganymedians may foresee that we will search their cities, and hide them in some forsaken spot. If we passed within half a mile of every point in the inhabited strip between the ocean and the desert, it would mean traveling a path thirty million miles long!” He shook his head. “If only the ra- dios were more powerful — ” “Can we not make them so?” demanded Lafourchette suddenly. “The desert peo- ple are excellent workmen; perhaps they could make us a powerful set.” “No,” I said. “It would take them sever- al days at the least.” Then I recalled the code-messages of the Ganymedians which had spoken from our receivers on our first encounter with their planes. “We can do better!” I exclaimed. “They have radios already made! We can borrow one of their planes and fly along, calling to Dalton and Ernst!” I swung the Comet about and rose above the clouds, seeking the plane of the scientists. After a moment I spotted it some miles away and made for it with a rush. The commander recognized us and flew to meet us; then as we drew close, he headed for the desert to return to his city. This did not suit my plans at all; it was a six hours’ trip in his machine, and I must talk to him at once. I headed in front of him, trying to indicate that I wished him to land, but he evidently did not un- derstand, for he only put on more speed. At length, in desperation, I decided to climb out on the Comet and attract his at- tention. I turned over the controls to von Lichten and entered the air-lock. CHAPTER XVII. We Search Through Ganymede I was still clad in my envelope, and the magnetic shoes served to give me some extra foot-hold in spite of the slight grav- ity. We were traveling at a good five hun- dred miles an hour; it was a desperate chance, but the lives of two men hung in the balance. Fastening a rope to the air- lock door, I tied it about my waist and climbed out. We were traveling at an altitude of many miles, and the rush of air, though terrific, was not as great as it would have been near- er the ground, for which I was thankful. I lay flat on the top of the Comet, clinging to my rope and waving an arm above my head. The Ganymedians finally saw me and drew near. A daring plan entered my head; the circular door opened, and the face of a Ganymedian appeared. I mo- tioned him to come nearer. The plane set- tled slowly until it was a bare ten feet above, then dropped back slightly. Ten feet! On earth it would be impossible, but with the weak gravity — could I make it? I crouched, and jumped with every ounce
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1030 WONDER STORIES of strength, arms outstretched. Somehow my hands encountered the rim of the door, I drew myself up against the drag of the whistling wind, and was safe aboard the Ganymedian plane. In the reaction from the awful chance I had taken, I was speechless for a moment, as were the Ganymedians. The commander was waving madly. In his excitement at my jump he was trying to question me in his language! I motioned for pencil and pa- per, and quickly related the capture of Ernst and Dalton, the necessity of their im- mediate rescue, and our plan to use their radio. The scientist shook his head, and wrote : “The instrument you call a radio passed out of favor with us some years ago. As you know, we are unable to converse di- rectly through sounds alone, so we have devised an apparatus for projecting moving images by means of electromagnetic waves. That is the only equipment for communi- cation aboard this plane.” A television machine! Interesting, but useless to us. I thought for a moment, “Are not the planes of your enemies equipped with radios?” I asked. “Yes,” he replied. “They send messages by means of intermittent signals, using their code. Their instruments will not reproduce actual sounds, however.” “Nevertheless,” I decided, “we may be able to use them. We must capture one of their planes at once.” “We will help as well as we can,” replied the commander. “Then let me return at once to the Comet,” I wrote. “Give me a rope and I will drop onto it.” A metal cord was procured, and after a few breath-taking moments I was back aboard the Comet. I explained the situa- tion to the others as I turned it about and headed back for the flying field. Most of the planes had landed, but there were a few still in the air. They saw us coming and rushed out to meet us. I sing- led out one and cut it off from the others, threatening it with the blazing gas dis- charge as I circled quickly around it. The pilot recognized his helplessness, and al- lowed himself to be shepherded away to the edge of the city. Here I forced him to land, and armed with our automatics we ap- proached it cautiously. The scientists land- ed their plane on the other side, and seeing that resistance was hopeless the enemy avi- ator surrendered. We tied him securely and boarded his plane. The radio apparatus was mounted back of the controls. At first glance it appeared hopelessly unfamiliar, but on examining the details of its construction we saw that the essential principles were all there. To be sure, the various parts were strange and bewildering, but we recognized the vital functions of each piece of apparatus. In its present form it would not serve to trans- mit our voices, but with the attachment of our microphones and receivers, and per- haps a variation here and there, it could be made to serve. We decided to trans- plant the apparatus intact to the Comet, and set to work at once. The Ganymedians, being familiar with the construction, did the work, while I showed them how to connect it to our gen- erators. With what tools we possessed we set it up in the Comet control room and tested it out. Finding that it was in working order, we took off once more and headed up above the city. Dr. von Lichten took his place at the microphone while I steered a course around the city, then off to the west. He kept up a continuous fire of talk: “Dalton! Ernst! Can you hear me? Von Lichten speaking, aboard the Comet. An- swer if you can hear me.” A few seconds wait. “Dalton! Can you hear me? — ” I sent the flyer hurtling along at a terrific pace above the inhabited strip, zig-zagging so as to come within a hundred miles or so of every part. AT the end of half an hour we had heard no response. We had covered nearly four hundred miles; in the direction I thought the planes might have taken. They had two hours’ start on us, but could not have covered more than that distance, judg- ing from their speed. Evidently they had not gone this way. I circled about and headed back, passing to the north of the
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THE OUTPOST ON THE MOON 1031 city, toward the desert. Now and again we flashed over a small settlement, or crossed a river or lake, but the country was for the most part bare. Lafourchette replaced Dr. von Lichten at the microphone and took up the endless monologue. Still we rushed on, heading east now, zig-zagging again. We seemed to be entering a range of low moun- tains; here and there signs of long-past vol- canic activity appeared. Lafourchette was waxing eloquent: “Dalton Ernst! Where are you? Answer — it is I, Lafourchette! Fear not, mes amis, we will rescue you! Speak only a word and we shall come on swift wings! Ah, mes enfants, can you not hear?” Half an hour more. If we did not reach them quickly the Ganymedians would have time to land. With their cold-blooded contempt for life and their devilish ingen- uity— l shuddered' to think of the fate of my comrades. Lafourchette stopped short in the midst of his impassioned entreaties, then' uttered a joyous shout. “I hear him! Dalton has answered!” “Ask him where he is?” I exclaimed. “He doesn’t know!” replied Lafour- chette after a moment. “They have been taken out of the plane and are imprisoned in a stone building on the side of a moun- tain. He says a cloud of smoke is visible through the window to the southwest of him; he thinks they may be on the north-east slope of a volcano!” “North-east slope of a volcano,” I re- peated. “That should be visible for quite a distance. Keep in touch with him, La- fourchette, and tell me whether his voice grows louder or fainter. Dr. von Lichten, look out for the smoke cloud.” Lafourchette kept up his conversation with Dalton. “Ernst has recovered consciousness,” he reported, “but is too weak to talk yet. He is not seriously injured, however. Dalton’s voice is louder,” he added. I looked out through the periscope, but could see no smoke. We were definitely over a mountain range now, the peaks of some extending a mile or two above the ground. I noted a mighty snow-capped patriarch to the north of us, reaching almost to the clouds. I pulled the Comet’s nose Up a bit in order to get a better view of the landscape. Still no smoke was visible. “Wait!” cried Lafourchette. “Dalton’s voice is growing fainter!” “We must have passed to one side of him,” I said, swinging about. We dashed back over our course, coming abreast of the high peak I had noted. “It is loudest here,” said Lafourchette. “He is north or south of here then,” I said. “We shall see which. Listen close- ly.” I swung south, toward the ocean, but Lafourchette quickly called. “Not this way!” I swung about once more, and head- ed for the snow-capped mountain. It could not be long, now. I put on an extra burst of speed; and Lafourchette reported, “Louder.” Still no smoke was visible. I wondered what range our radio outfit had. We could see easily fifty miles ahead; At the Volcano’s Edge! THE Comet sped over the big mountain’s snowy tip, a few hundred feet below the lowest clouds. A vast panorama lay ahead of us, wild, rugged, and uninhabited. We were nearing the northermost point on the globe, yet there was no evidence of ice and snow such as we might expect. The in- ternal heat of the satellite kept its surface at a nearly even temperature throughout, and the polar region was much like the rest of it. Far ahead, on the dim horizon, lay a murky patch of haze, wavering, rising, fall- ing. Even as I realized what it was, von Lichten shouted: “The volcano! Dead ahead!” The Comet quivered a6 I speeded up an- other notch. The terrific wind-pressure made it heard to handle, and we skipped about through little air-pockets. A tiny flying creature tried to cross our path and was impaled on the ship’s pointed nose. The volcano drew closer, its murky umbrel- la of smoke stretching out toward us. I slackened speed now. “North-east slope,” I muttered, dropping down. “Hurry!” exclaimed Lafourchette sud-
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1032 WONDER STORIES denly. “The Ganymedians are coming for Dalton and Ernst!” The Comet was close to the ground now. I spied the planes of the Ganymedians near a small stone building, half-way up the slope, and drew up to it, letting the landing skids plow the ground without bothering to reverse and stop. Automatics in hand, we jumped out as a crowd of Ganymedians left the building, starting up the slope, with our comrades in their midst. Seeing that they were pursued they broke into a run, dragging Ernst and Dalton with them. I tried to take aim for a shot, but they were a good hundred yards ahead, and at that distance there was grave danger of hitting one of our party. I sprinted madly, Lafour- chette and von Lichten at my heels, bound- ing in long steps up the slope. I saw only too clearly their diabolical intent — to push the earth-men into the smoking crater! We were gaining slowly, due to their- dif- ficulty in dragging our captive fellows. As the distance lessened I decided to risk a shot, when suddenly two dozen or more de- tached themselves from the rest and turned to meet us. I pulled up and fired into their midst as did the Doctor and Lafourchette. They divided, flanking us, and closed in. I fired carefully, dropping a Ganymedian with each shot, but there were too many. We were suddenly surrounded, pinned to the ground, deprived of our guns, tied, and carried to the others. It all happened so quickly we had not had time to think. We had stepped from the frying pan into the fire! This promised to be literally true— too true. The five of us were dragged up the slope of the volcano despite our frantic struggles. I watched with fascination the heavy pall which hung over the mountain top like a vast death-shroud, shifting, swirl- ing, as though beckoning us to our doom. The earth trembled beneath our feet; a streak of fire shot up from the crater’s rim. A fine hail of volcanic stone rained about us, covering the ground, blackening the surroundings. A shout of terror came from the fore- most Ganymedians. I looked to see what had alarmed them, and beheld a tiny, trick- ling stream of lava spilling over the edge of the crater, snaking down toward us. With one accord the Ganymedians fell to their knees, extending their arms in suppli- cation toward the mountain-top. As if -in answer, a great crack appeared in the rocky rim above us and a torrent of red hot mol- ten lava gushed out. The Ganymedians turned and fled in utter rout, leaving us, bound, on the slope. I strained at the metal cords which fettered my arms, trying to free myself, but to no avail. The blazing stream came closer, writhing and twisting like a living tongue of fire. Desperately I struggled to rise. “Come over here,” called Ernst’s voice weakly. “They didn’t tie my hands; I can get you free!” I rolled over to where he lay, too weak to rise. He pulled at the knots of my bonds, and after an eternity I felt my hands come free, I loosened the cord about my feet, then I dragged Ernst to the others, and between us we managed to free them before the smoking lava reached us. I picked up Ernst like a sack of flour, light as he was, and fled down the hill, bounding like a mountain goat. I have no doubt that we five broke all existing records for rapid travel afoot in the quarter-mile between us and the Comet. We scrambled aboard as the stream of lava licked against the stone house, and shot into the air a few seconds later. Up above the clouds we rose, blessing Mother Nature for our second escape from death by fire. We climbed into the high, thin air where no Ganymedian plane could penetrate, and set off northward toward the city in the desert. I say north, yet that is incorrect ; there was no north from that spot. Looking behind us we could see Jup- iter’s half-illuminated face, bisected by the horizon. Ahead, directly opposite him, the sun’s pale rays divided on the sky-line. The plane of the ecliptic, dotted here and there with the tiny lights of the outer planets, lay about us, its whole circle visible on the horizon. We were over Ganymede’s north pole, marked almost exactly by the erupt- ing volcano.
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THE OUTPOST ON THE MOON 1033 DR. von Lichten assumed a professional attitude as soon as we were above the ground. He examined the lump on the back of Ernst’s neck, where the butt of a Ganymedian gun had struck him just be- low his helmet. His envelope had lessened the stroke somewhat, and beyond some slight dizziness, he felt no ill effects. A dose of stimulant put him on his feet in short or- der and he quickly regained his usual cheery disposition. Lafourchette’s - knife scratch showed signs of infection, causing the Doctor some concern. The diminutive Frenchman grudgingly submitted to treat- ment, calling von Lichten’s liberal applica- tion of antiseptic “war paint” and making light of the whole affair. We made good time to the city in the desert and found the scientists’ plane wait- ing for us. They congratulated us on our success in recapturing the Comet and planned a banquet for the morrow in honor of our safe return. Meanwhile we grate- fully retired to rooms prepared for us and reveled in the blissful relaxation of sleep. On arising we were visited by a delega- tion who wished to hear the details of our raid. They listened with interest to the story of Dalton and Ernst’s capture and our efforts to locate them. When we men- tioned the evident awe of our captors for the erupting volcano, they showed consider- able amusement. “That is but one of the superstitions of those people,” they explained. “Our race has long known that the heat of our planet came from within. The ignorant ones be- lieve that the interior of Ganymede is the home of a fiery demon, Pyros,* who rules their destinies. They make sacrifices to him from time to time, a custom which we condemned during our rule. The peri- odic eruption of the several volcanoes on this planet they interpret as manifestations of Pyros’ displeasure. Of late the north polar volcano has been unusually active, and their two attempts to incinerate you alive indicate that they took your arrival to be the cause of its eruption.” The hour of the banquet drew near, and ♦The Ganymedian name is synonymous with the finger character for “fire.” our visitors excused themselves, saying they would return shortly to escort us to the cel- ebration. On our departure from the moon we had made no preparations for formal entertainment, and had to be satisfied with a hasty shave and change of clothes. La- fourchette exhibited a flare for gaudy rai- ment and blossomed out in a well-saved suit of pre-war cut, a two-inch standup collar and a brilliant necktie of many colors. A sickly green boutonniere, picked from a Ganymedian garden, added the finishing touch to a makeup which would have taken first prize at any masquerade ball. We were escorted to the banquet hall where the leading scientists of the city were gathered. Someone with courteous fore- sight had prepared stools for us, while the Ganymedians, as usual, seated themselves dog-fashion in a great circle on cushions. Food was served on little individual stands placed before the diners by servants of the uneducated race, captured during battles. On our left sat the Ganymedians with whom we had conversed frequently, and next to him a venerable old fellow who presided over the affair. He had recently celebrated his thousandth* sunset, and held in his domed cranium the wisdom of the ages. During the progress of the dinner he made a long speech in which, according to the interpretation of our friend, he discoursed at length of our daring accomplishments in traversing four hundred million miles of interplanetary space and defeating unaided a host of their enemies. At each pause in his finger gymnastics the listeners threw their arms in the air in silent applause and turned admiring glances in our direction. When at length some sort of reply was evi- dently expected of us, I requested our in- terpreter to announce that the possibility of the trip and the credit for it belonged to the men who had remained behind — Dr. Forscher, Wiley, Langley and Quaile. In reply the orator declared that credit would be given them for their theories, but to those who had taken the risks belonged the glory. ♦“Thousandth” is in Ganymedian notation. This fig ure is 12x12x12, or 1728 Ganymedian days, each 7 1/6 Terrestrial days long. His age, therefore, was about 34 years.
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1034 WONDER STORIES CHAPTER XVIII. The Return! AFTER the meal we were informed that for our special benefit there would be a moving picture of life and happenings on Ganymede. At one end of the hall a cur- tain was withdrawn, exposing a translucent screen. It seemed that the apparatus for projecting pictures was an elaboration of their television machines. There was the usual receiving apparatus, except that in- stead of being connected to an antenna which picked electromagnetic waves out of the ether, the impulses were recorded on a fine tape and reproduced by a needle which followed its markings. The scenes which flashed on the screen dealt for the most part with industrial oper- ations in and around the great city. There were views of the great plants where nitro- gen was removed from the air and “fixed” for use in fertilizing the sterile desert. Others showed' the water works, where hy- drogen was recovered from decaying plants, from the air, and every other conceivable source, burned in oxygen, and the resulting steam condensed' and doled out through pipes to the houses of' the city, the farms, and other places where it was required. It was one of the most expensive substances in the economics of this city of scientists, which accounted in large measure fbr their desire to return to the ocean-front. In another view we saw the government’s great nurs- ery, where the eggs were hatched and the young reared, given their elementary train- ing, and fitted for life on reaching maturity. Their period of growth was about ten years, at which age they were considered adults and expected to take part in the maintenance of their civilization. Consider- ing the short span of their life' we were amazed to realize how thorough was their education and how rapid their progress. The facts and principles which require eight years of elementary schooling in America were absorbed by these youngsters in two or three. From that point each individual specialized in some line for which he was considered suitable, and his intensive train- ing enabled him to reach the mental caliber of our average technical school graduate before his three hundred and fiftieth* sun- set. Finally the banquet adjourned, and in company with our interpreter and a few others we returned to our quarters. The scientists were anxious to discuss the sub- ject which had been broached when they rescued us and brought us there, namely, the enlistment of aid from mankind in their war to regain possession of the lands held by their enemies. As usual, the interview was carried on in the simplified English we had taught them. The interpreter came to the point without formalities. “You have seen pictures of the way in which we struggle for existence,” he wrote. “Our supply of water is expensive and in- adequate, and the food is not much better. Our race is badly nourished, and in the few generations we have existed in the desert there are signs of physical deterior- ation. We ask help — armies and equip- ment. You five earth-men are strong, intel- ligent and resourceful. You have given us the secret of one powerful weapon, and you tell us there are others. With a few thou- sand beings like you, armed as you are, it would be a simple matter to put the enemy to rout. Give us this aid — enlist a force of men and arm them; teach us to build ships like that in which you came, and we will be forever indebted to you. In return we can show you the construction of our television apparatus, our high-powered air- planes, and many other devices of which we know. Our two races can exchange ambas- sadors and maintain communication. We can pool our scientific knowledge, and to- gether rule the universe!” Acting as spokesman for the party, I re- plied: “We realize your situation fully, and so far as it is within our power we will help you. However, you must understand that we came to Ganymede, not as the accredited representatives of a planet, but as five scientists exploring the solar system. We are backed, at best, by a colony of research- ers numbering but a few hundred members, under the direction of the man who has the *Ganymedian; somewhat less than 7 years. >
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THE OUTPOST ON THE MOON 1035 sole right to say who shall copy our machine. The implements of war known to us we will describe to you willingly, and we will promise to inform the people of earth of your request for assistance; but we must confer with Dr. Forscher, our superior, before giving you the secret of the Comet.” After a short discussion of my message by our interviewers, the interpreter wrote: “We receive your promise with pleasure, and will respect your wishes. We ask, fur- ther, only that you make haste to send us what aid you can. Meanwhile, during the remainder of your stay, this city is yours to inspect, and our people at your com- mand.” With which announcement the scientists arose and took their leave. MY first thought was to inspect the Comet. I went over it from stem to stern, testing the apparatus and checking up on our supplies. I found to my chagrin that we had unwittingly left the machinery for renewing the air running during our stay on the satellite, with the result that it now held barely enough chemicals for our return trip. On making inquiries I discov- ered that the mineral salts necessary for the manufacture of potassium chlorate, from which our oxygen was derived, lay close to the ocean, and we were unable to obtain them. It was therefore imperative that we start back as soon as possible. We had spent altogether about eight ter- restrial weeks among this strange race. The satellite was past its nearest approach to the earth, and would not reach that point again for another five days, but the addi- tional distance would mean only a few hours’ more travel. Furthermore, the earth and moon had reached their least distance from Jupiter before our start, and each day’s delay increased the intervening space. Ac- cordingly we bade the Ganymedian scien- tists a hasty farewell, climbed aboard, and turned our nose skyward. I picked up the earth in the periscope and turned on the full force of acceleration. This time our course angled away from Jupiter, and we did not experience the annoying disturbance of his magnetic field. Soon the giant planet with his system of attendants was dropping away behind us as we flashed along through the ether in our little shell, cut off from the entire universe. Five days ticked by on our clocks. The monotony of the trip held its sway over the group, causing us to cast about for di- version. Dalton suggested that we draw up a map of Ganymede from the data we had procured, indicating our route on it. The idea was adopted at once. I was elected to do the drafting, the others contributing sug- gestions as the work went along. The final result was sketchy, due to our meager knowl- edge of the country around the ocean, but it would serve to give Dr. Forscher and his staff an idea of the physical characteristics of the little world. We discussed plans for equipping an expedition to take part in the wars of Ganymede, and day-dreamed over the future relations of the two worlds, some of us imagining ourselves as diplomatic re- presentatives to their government in future years. On the twelfth day a shadow crept over our high spirits. Lafourchette, coming off duty in the pilot hours, complained that he felt poorly. Dr. von Lichten’s examination disclosed the fact that his knife scratch was badly infected. The doctor ordered him to bed at once and treated the reddened sore. At the next meal he felt no better, refus- ing food. Dr. von Lichten seemed worried, and at his suggestion we withdrew to the engine room, leaving Lafourchette to sleep quietly. The doctor made no response to our questions, busying himself with his medicine case and presently joining La- fourchette. His elaborate precautions against unknown bacteria in the atmosphere of Ganymede came to my mind. Could it be that the little Frenchman had contracted a strange malady, peculiar to that world? The idea was not comforting. We had faced death at the hands of our captors, incinera- tion in the crater of the volcano, or even the risk of annihilation by a wandering meteoric rock, without a qualm. These were tangi- ble things, to be foreseen and understood. But the torturing anguish of an unknown disease was enough to sicken the strongest heart.
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1036 WONDER STORIES Presently von Lichten appeared in the doorway, his face grave. “What is it?” was asked in chorus. “I do not know,” replied the doctor with a gesture of helplessness. ‘The infection has spread through his whole system, in- flaming the muscles, which cramp his whole body. In spite of my efforts he grows rap- idly worse. So far his heart has not been touched. If it should be — ” “Can’t- we do something?” I demanded. ‘The disease must be known to the Gany- medians; why not head about and take him back?” “It would be useless,” returned the doc- tor. “We have been on our way nearly two weeks. His malady is progressing very rapidly. If he is to be saved through medi- cal aid, it must be at once. In forty-eight hours it will be too late.” “Is it as serious as that?” asked Dalton in a whisper. “I fear so. He is very weak; his breath- ing is shallow and rapid. With a strong man it might be different. We can only hope for the best. Meanwhile,” significant- ly, “no one save myself must go near him. You jvill be safer in the control room.” “But what of your own risk?” demanded Ernst. “That is the physician’s lot,” said the doc- tor shortly. “I shall take every precau- tion.” He reentered the living quarters, leaving us to face one another in despair. From his conservative habits of speech I knew he had not exaggerated the seriousness of Lafour- chette’s condition. A Tragedy in Space THE door reopened. Dr. von Lichten was a haggard ghost of his usual self. His face was drawn and gray; his bloodshot eyes stared from hollowed pits surmounting blotchy circles which bespoke the ordeal he had passed through. He spread his hands in a gesture of finality. “Gone?” whispered Ernst. The doctor nodded. “Fifteen minutes ago. It was hopeless.” “May we see him?” asked Dalton. “I think not. He is — unrecognisable.” There was a moment of ghastly silence, while the clock ticks jarred on our ears like pistol shots. Von Lichten pulled himself together with a visible effort. “We must get the body out,” he said. “Overboard?” protested Dalton. “Surely he deserves a decent burial on earth!” “The risk of contagion is too great,” said von Lichten. “He understood.” We stood in the air lock, with its outer door opened to the emptiness beyond, our envelopes hiding the emotions which filled the four of us. As we watched a shapeless bundle drift slowly out of sight, the mar- velous courage of the dead man commanded our utmost respect. Lying there in the darkness of the Comet's close quarters, he had known that the life he loved and en- joyed had but a few minutes to run; that he stood on the brink of a precipice which was crumbling, even as he spoke, to plunge him into the silent, blank, timeless eternity of non-existence. Yet he had faced the thought of his body being tumbled into nothingness, to wander through the solar system, drifting on, and on — Back in the engine room Dr. von Lichten examined each of us for the slightest sign of infection but found none. To keep busy, we set about a general overhauling of the Comet. We checked over the apparatus carefully and cleaned and polished the ma- chine throughout. Working like beavers, we asked only to be busy. At the end of thirty-four days we were within three million miles of the earth and its satellite. As the' hour approached when we would turn on the power for our final stop, I fancied the colony on the moon pre- paring for our return. In all probability Quaile would be sweeping the skies in the direction of Jupiter with the hundred foot telescope, seeking the tiny blue-yellow streak in his eye-piece which would herald our return. The four of us awaited our arrival no less anxiously than the members of the col- ony. Our supplies were nearly gone, and the oxygen would not last over forty-eight hours. We should reach the moon in twen- ty-two, and be safe in the colony in two
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THE OUTPOST ON THE MOON 1037 more; twenty -four hours at the outside be- fore we were to see the faces of our col- leagues. We stood alternate watches in pairs as we neared our destination. The moon was not yet full, but it was past a line from our vessel to the earth, since the latter was twp months advanced beyond conjunction with Jupiter. The direction of our flight carried us toward the center of the moon’s disc, a tiny circle of blackness among the stars. Half a million miles out, somewhat less than ten hours before our scheduled land- ing, Ernst and I sat before the instrument board. I noted with a start that one of the generators was running hot, and hurried to investigate. The insulation of the armature was giving way under the strain of many hours’ running at full load. 1 recalled the 'sight of the tractor which had burnt out its generators and flashed away into the sky, a mass of white hot steel. I must cool off the driver at once; but to do so the electrical apparatus must carry an extra load for a moment. Would they stand it? Obviously better now than later. I stepped up the rheostat a notch. Their whine rose half a tone, then fell in slow diminuendo. I pushed the con- troller another notch. The roaring gas grew quieter, like the baffled voice of a dying tempest. In another second it would be un- der control. One more notch. The over- heated generator resigned its task in a blinding flash. Automatically the others took up its load, groaning under the in- creased flow of current. But they carried it; the driver cooled, easing the strain on the electrical apparatus. I drew a breath of relief. THE burned-out generator had filled the Comet with smoke, bringing the others of the party at a run. In answer to their excited questions, I explained our situation. We had three generators left to do the work of four; our deceleration must be cut to three-fourths of normal. After covering the remaining half-million miles to the moon we would still be speeding along at a pace sufficient to outstrip the fastest bullet. It was out of the question to land here; we must steer past and continue slowly down until we could return. But was there time? The vital supplies of oxygen were perilously low; our margin of safety was too small. I peered out of the periscope toward our fast approaching satel- lite, noticeably larger now. A quarter of a million miles further on, gleaming cheer- fully in the sunlight, lay the only way out of our difficulties — the earth. We could dive into the welcoming blanket of its at- mosphere, let it check our fall, and coast to the ground where we chose, safe and among friends. At the City College our burned out generator could be repaired and our oxygen tanks recharged. Then we could return to the moon at our leisure. The Comet’s flaming tail would announce our safety tb Dr. Forscher’s colony, and from our velocity and direction, an astronomer of Quaile’s caliber could easily compute our destination. They would know that we had sufficient reason for not landing on the moon, and would expect our return in good time. Meanwhile, a question remains. What of our promise to interest the earth in sending aid to the Ganymedian scientists? I cannot visualize the governments of Europe and America lending ear to such a proposal, nor would I advocate detailing their armies. The majority of mankind is opposed to in- terfering in affairs which do not concern us; and to send troops against their will hundreds of millions of miles from their homes would be a colossal injustice. Nevertheless, I am giving this message to the world in the hope that it will be read by some in whom the spirit of the pioneers many linger. I have spared no details of our trip and the discoveries which made it possible, so that my readers may understand the situation fully. If they wish to see the scientists of Ganymede restored to control of their planet, they may lend a hand in putting them there. The prospect is at once alluring and ter- rifying. They will find new and exhilarat- ing sensations in striding as though in Seven League Boots, across hills and valleys cov- ered with plants and animals which might have materialized from the smoke of an
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1038 WONDER STORIES opium pipe. They will behold wonders of the starry heavens such as are never seen from the earth. But they will meet with the hatred of four-legged foes possessed of human intelligence and inhuman fiendish- ness, and they must beware of the attacks of microscopic enemies. But I do not wish to act as a recruiting officer. Let those whose love of adventure surpasses their fear of the unknown decide the matter, each for himself. They may find me among them — I cannot tell as yet. Perhaps Dr. Forscher has other plans for me. , As I write these concluding lines, the Comet hovers above the City College. When you read them, Dalton, Ernst, Dr. von Lich- ten and I will be on our way back to the outpost on the moon. THE END. The Sleeping War 0 Continued from Page 999) Unclej let me introduce Mr. Wand Foo, the owner of the Resica Falls property. The place is for sale, and the price is low, and I have half a notion you could buy it.” The East Stroudsburg philanthropist looked at the Oriental in a very interested manner. “You have him all tied up, Abe?” “Sure. He has a habit of arguing, and I want to be sure that I always come out on top — of the argument.” « * « The President of the United States was closeted with two of the greatest physicians in America. They had come at his request to tell him the latest developments in the Philadelphia epidemic. To their chagrjn, they were forced to admit that so far both the cause and the cure of the disease were unknown to them. The sleepers were still asleep and the weaker of them had wasted away; even the stoutest of them would soon die of malnutrition. In came the private secretary. There were whispered conferences. At last the President yielded, and the secretary left the room, to return instantly followed by the Chief of the Secret Service, a weary looking detective and, between them, a Chinaman in soiled clothes securely tied in every possible direction. “Mr. President,” began the Chief. “This is Mr. Abe Summers, one of our men, and he has a story to tell you about this China- man. I though you would be interested.” Summers told the tale from start to fin- ish. Parts he glossed over and he never did explain why the Chinaman could not walk. He ended by placing a bottle of the sleep producing drug on the table, and alongside he placed the bottle of little tablets and several ten cubic centimeter syringes filled with the sodium bicarbonate solution. When he finished, a physician sighed: “I wish we had thought of that. It sounds plausible. The story explains why certain portions of the Philadelphia community were not affected like other parts. Some of the reservoirs are filled from the Schuylkill instead of from the Delaware. With the drugs in our hands, we should have no trouble in identifying them, and then it is only a question of time before we can inject the sleepers. Those who are not too far gone can still be saved. The country owes you a vote of thanks, Mr. Summers.” “You can pay me best by keeping out of it. I just did what I was ordered by the Chief to do. But there are two things I want to do. I like the Resica Falls proper- ty, and if I can be made owner of it in some way, it will please me immensely; and then I have been carting Mr. Wand Foo around a long time, and I wish some one would take him off my hands. He needs hospital care and after that he should be kept safe. He is really not a pleasant man to have loose.” THE END
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WONDER STORIES 1039 A Flight Into Time (Continued from Page 957) “If you’ll time us please, sir, by your watch, to get it exact — ” The assistant was almost apologetic. Ted pulled out his timepiece — just two minutes before noon. Through the wires and metal tubing, Anne stretched her hand. He squeezed it hard. One minute left. The plates on the outside began to glow, not from heat, but electrically, with a strange coldness that gripped him paralyzingly. He looked down at his watch, following the second hand around just as he had done before his other time jump. It seemed end- lessly slow. Thirty — forty-five — fifty-five — fifty-six — seven— eight — “There.” He said it quite calmly. In his ears was a whirring that changed to the toot of a ferry-boat whistle as he went sprawling to the pavement. He rose and found himself grasping an arm, a prosaic 20th century arm. He had returned! “Pardon me,” he automatically impor- tuned the man who had collided with him*— an Italian in rough clothes, apparently some sort of dock worker. But the man only hur- ried around the corner. It was not until Storrs got back to his room, having decided to excuse himself later for failing our appointment, and found two of us waiting for him in consid- erable agitation, that he discovered that this was Tuesday, and he had, most likely, ap- peared to the Italian out of thin air — that there is an absolute time which will not be cheated out of so much as three days. His watch, which he had held in his hand, was apparently uninjured by the fall, but never- theless had stopped dead at twelve exact. A jeweller took the thing apart without finding anything wrong, and when he put it back together just as it was before it ran again. Ever since, however, it has kept exe- crable time, and stops on the least provoca- tion. The double disturbance in its native element of time must somehow have para- lyzed it. Such is the story of the vision of Ted Storrs. If it had been anyone else, I should have been inclined to doubt the nar- rative, in spite of its realistic semblance and detail. But give Ted a thousand years, and he could never invent half the tale, espec- ially the way he has given it to us, bit by bit, in answer to our questions. Besides, how else explain what happened to his watch. As I said at first, I suppose the thing could have happened only to Storrs, or another like him. If someone with scienti- fic knowledge had made the trip, someone who could observe and learn, could under- stand and remember the things Ted never noticed, either the apparatus for sending him back would not have worked, or it would have been a motor truck he collided with on his return to our world. Otherwise, if he came back and reproduced things a hundred years before they were invented, they could not be invented because they would be al-‘ ready known, and he would have learned in the future of his miraculous discovery of them, which he did not. And yet, for all such theory, the thing is maddening. Surely he could have brought back something, some secret which would disappear when he died, like the lost ancient arts of tempering metal, or the premature knowledge of Roger Bacon. There are so many little things he might have got. The secret of cold light, or of that fog-piercing ray, or, to ask only a little of Fate, the for- mula for the cosmetic that must have been used to stop the tanning at any stage. But Storrs would not— or perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, could not — learn these or dozens of other things. He never thought of what he might bring back, even after he had learned that return was pos- sible. He does not seem to realize the chances he missed. Instead, all he talks about when we bring up the subject, which is not often now, is “the cleanness and fine- ness, the beauty as well as the utility, of twenty-second century civilization.” I wonder, sometimes, if that really might not be the heart of his vision. THE END.
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1040 WONDER STORIES The Murders on the Moonship (Continued from Page 983) yard, musky, reptilian? We all noticed the same odor in the fossil chamber. No won- der you lost your nerve, Major, that night! It might easily have dispatched you as well as McFee for it must have been very near you. Anyway, while you were fortifying yourself with brandy, the reptile had stolen from its hiding place, wrapped its strong body about McFee’s stalwart Scottish neck, and crushed the life out of him. “The next night everybody was safe. We suspended guard because we had caught the negro, but everybody took special care of their doors and ventilators. No doubt that precaution saved some of us. Finding no sport in the usual hunting grounds, the crea- ture descended to the hold, where it encoun- tered Cornelius. The negro drew his knife, and attempted to defend himself, but this further enraged the reptile and it attacked him again and again with its beak. “Fortunately, the thing was so angry that it must have forgotten to use its tail, and so Cornelius has a remote chance of living'.” “Well, that’s all right, but there are two little points. How did Dr. Fouchard’s ring, and Jackie Hilliard’s handkerchief go miss- ing?” Galloway laughed. “Simple accidents: if this was fiction, they would prove excellent red herrings!” “But there’s one thing puzzles me yet. Professor,” I could not help saying, “What killed Johnson’s parrot?” At this Merrivale started. “What, you mean to tell me,” he said in anger, to our explanations, “ that you have suppressed this most important piece of evidence from me? Had I known about this, I could have cleared the matter up in no time, and prob- ably saved much of this expenditure of life. Obviously the parrot was killed by the brute. It settled on the cage, and when it couldn’t reach the bird with its long beak, it inserted the tail between the bars of the cage and poisoned the parrot.” “I am sorry to destroy your last remain- ing piece of deduction, Marshal Merrivale,” put in the professor dryly. “But I made an autopsy of the parrot, before we threw the body overboard, and it was perfectly clear the blessed thing died of old age, aggravated by the atmosphere of the moonship!” * # * * Oh, Cornelius, did he recover? Rather, he’s my staunch bodyguard now, and he and I have been on many a hazardous explora- tion trip since, but; — you can take it from me, if old Galloway wants to hunt missing links again, he hunts ’em alone, as far as I am concerned. THE END. The World Without (Continued from Page 1009) be detached in a moment was the single re- maining’ oxygen cylinder — heavy because it was nearly full of liquid oxygen. Hastily he unfastened it and flung it with all his strength at forty-five degrees downwards, away from the crest of the tooth. The im- petus was not great, for his mass was much more than that of the cylinder, but owing again to the slight gravity, it was enough. Klington’s straining fingers were brought just within reach of the edge, and he swung himself on to the flat surface. Staggering to his feet, he looked round for the ladder, and jumped. The lack of oxygen was already telling. He swayed. The body cannot remain alive for more than three minutes without oxygen, and his lungs were clamouring for the fluid. He gather- ed himself together and leaped again, with a growing oppression upon his chest. His hand just grasped the lowest rung! He was saved! With slow, weary steps, gasping for breath, Klington painfully dragged his body up the ladder, and ascended into the kindly world of men. THE END
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Science Questions and Answers •T* HIS department (8 conducted for the benefit of readers who have pertinent queries on modern scientific 1 facts. As space is limited we cannot undertake to answer more than three questions for each letter. The flood of correspondence received makes it impractical, also, to print answers as soon as we reoeive questions. However, questions of general interest will receive careful attention. ASSOCIATE SCIENCE EDITORS ASTRONOMY Professor Samuel 6. Barton Flower Observatory, University Of Pennsylvania. Dr. Clyde Fisher, Ph.D., LL.D. Curator, The American Museum of Natural History. Professor Willem J. Luyten, Ph.D. Harvard College Observatory. ASTROPHYSICS Donald H. Menzel, Ph.D. Lick University, University of California. AVIATION Major William A. Bevan, B.S., M.S., M.E. Air Corps Reserve, Professor Aer- onautical Engineering, Iowa State College. Professor Earl D. Hay. B.S., M.S., M.E, Head Department Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and Pro- fessor of Aeronautics, Univer- sity of Kansas. Professor George V. Higgins, B.S. Aero. Eng. Associate Professor Aeronautical Engineering, University of De- troit. Professor Felix W. Pawlowski, M. & E.E., M.S. Department of Aeronautical En- gineering, University of Michi gan. Professor John E. Younger, B.S., M.S., Ph.D. Dept. Mechanical Engineering, University of California. BOTANY Professor Elmer G. Campbell Transylvania College. Professor Margaret Clay Ferguson, Ph.D. Wellesley College Professor C. E. Owens Oregon Agricultural College CHEMISTRY Professor Gerald Wendt Dean, School of Chemistry and Physics, Pennsylvania State College. ELECTRICITY Professor F. E. Austin Formerly of Dartmouth College. ENTOMOLOGY William M. Wheeler Dean, Bussey Institution for Re- search in Applied Biology. Har- vard University. MATHEMATICS Professor C. Irwin Palmer Dean of Students, Armour Institute of Technology. Professor James Byrnie Shaw University of Illinois. Professor Waldo A. Titsworth, S.M. Alfred University. MEDICINE Dr. David H. Keller Western State Hospital. PHYSICS AND RADIO Dr. Lee deForest, Ph.D., D.Sc. ' PHYSICS Professor A. L. Fitch University of Maine. PSYCHOLOGY Dr. Marjorie E. Babcock Acting Director, Psychological Clinic, University of Hawaii. ZOOLOGY Dr. Joseph G. Yoshioka >r. Joseph <*. Yosn Yale University. These nationally-known educators pass upon the scientific principles of all stories. The Sun and Its Energy Editor Science Questions and Answers : If, as scientists claim, space is a vacuum, or ab- sence of air, how then does the sun burn? Has it an atmosphere ? And if so, how is it that it has not been exhausted in these millions and millions of years that it has been burning? In how many years will the sun be exhausted, and how much mass does it lose each year? Gordon Christensen, 2454 Farwell Ave., Chicago, 111. (Heat does not come simply from “burning” in the sense of uniting with oxygen. The heating of an electric wire to incandescence, for example, as found in electric lamps has nothing to do with that kind of burning; in fact, the globe must be carefully exhausted of air before it is sealed. Heat Is created in many ways, all by the transformation of one kind of en- ergy into heat energy. A meteor striking our at- mosphere is burned up, yet no oxygen or air is used in the process. The burning up is caused by friction, the friction of the rapid passage of the meteor through the atmosphere. Scientists assume that the primary heat of the sun was obtained by the condensation of its mass, the terrific pressure accompanying this contraction caus- ing the gases to flame into incandescence, and the continued condensation keeping the mass at incan- descence. According to one authority a contraction of only 330 feet in the solar diameter each year would be sufficient to account for its radiation of But recent authorities have stated that such contrac- tion continued over millions and millions of years 1041 would inevitably have shrunk our sun much more thgn it has. The present explanation is that within the solar interior, matter is being broken down and re- built, and in the process atomic energy is being re- leased in the form of radiant energy, heat, light, ultra-violet light, cosmic rays, etc. Naturally the enormous stores of energy released by even small quantities of disintegrated and rebuilt matter would explain how the sun kept burning as it has for tril- lions of years. According to Eddington the sun Is losing 120 billion tons of its mass each year which is the source of this transformed energy. Of this energy the earth receives one two-billionth. The sun can keep on as it has for some fifteen billion years without serious danger. — Editor.) Escaping Gravitation Editor Science Questions and Answers : 1. Of what use are the Cosmic rays and how are they produced? 2. Do light and gravity travel at the same s£eed! If so, would an article traveling at a speed slightly faster than light escape the influence of gravity? Clyde Norton, Engadine, Mich. (1. Cosmic rays are believed to be produced in distant nebulae, where matter is subject to such gi- gantic pressures and temperatures in the birth throes of great worlds (the temperatures reaching two tril- lion degrees centigrade) that the very electrons and protons themselves are both destroyed and rebuilt. In these cosmic upheavals one element is changed into another and energy is frequently given out In the process. This energy is in the form of highly ( Continued on Page 1042)
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1042 WONDER STORIES penetrating radiation which we call cosmic rays. The only possible use found for them so far is the elec- troscope of Millikan. He uses a device which can test the intensity of cosmic rays on the earth’s sur- face at any moment. And since this intensity varies with the amount of atmosphere above the instrument (the atmosphere allows more or less of them to pene- trate through at varying times) he can get an index of the shifting of the atmosphere and so of possible weather conditions. It is suggested that cosmic rays might also be harnessed as power, or used to trans- mute elements for us, but as yet these ideas are still in a very speculative stage. 2. We have never been able to determine the speed of gravitation. If it is a form of electromag- netic energy as Einstein postulated, then it should travel at approximately the speed of light. It is be- lieved also that its speed is infinite, that it acts in- stantaneously. In any case an object having mass and traveling at the speed of light, would find by the Einstein principle its mass had become infinite, and therefore its kinetic energy would be infinite. It would be, by that virtue, beyond the power of any ordinary heavenly body to attract it. Velocities greater than that of light are by the Einsteinian principles impossible, for the length of the body in the direction of motion would become less than zero — it woul have a negative length. — Editor.) »r», in order to t*k« advantage of the shifting of the wind. The same principle has been used on airplanes to support them without wings (as shown in the illus- tration). Propellers carry the craft forward through the air. The air rushes toward the two rotating cyl- inders. If the cylinders are rotated clockwise, as seen from our view, there will be a diminution of air pressure above them and an increase below. These two forces will act to support the plane. The scien- tific principle outlined here is called the “Magnus effect.” — Editor. Our Moving Sun Editov Science Questions and Answers: For a number of days a group of my friends and myself have been discussing an astronomical question which has progressed into quite a debate. I am writ- ing to you in the hope that you may find time to answer the following question. If you find it of sufficient general interest you may publish it in your splendid magazine WONDER STORIES. I would consider it a great compliment. I would be indebted to you for a prompt answer as I fear our group discussion will soon progress to Illustration of an airplane which is sustained in the air by the “Magnus effect”. The rotor cylinders revolve in a clockwise direction, which causes a current of air to circle with the rotors in that direction. Due to the motion of the plane, there is a current of air {tom front to rear. By these two ef- fects, the pressuA of air above the rotors is reduced and that below is increased. The net effect is to get’ a sustaining force to hold up the rotors and, therefore, the plane. Used horizontally, instead of verti- cally, this “Magnus effect” propels the Flettner rotor ship. Courtesy A viation Mechanics. The Flettner Rotor-Ship Editor Science Questions and Answers: I recently engaged in a fruitless argument con- cerning the method of propulsion used by Dr. Flett- ner in his rotor ship, the Baden-Baden, It was my contention that the vacuum caused by the rotating towers was the only force used but my opponents claimed that the power from the wind was used to turn an ordinary propeller. Who is right? F. J. MacCauley, Riverhead, N. Y. (Neither of you is exactly right. The ship operated in the following manner. The two towers, which were only upright cylinders of metal, were rotated by auxiliary power in the ship. The ship was turned so that it was broadside to the wind. The rotation of the towers caused the air about it to rotate with it. Now on one side of the towers the rotating air moved in the same direction as the wind and there was a diminution of pressure, which caused a partial vacuum. On the other side the rotation of the air opposed the direction of the wind and the pressure increased. Now the cylinders were rotated sa that the vacuum was caused at the front of the cylinders, and the augmented pressure in back. With these two forces the ship was pushed forward. Naturally the wind was necessary for the propulsion, and the ship had occasionally to be turned as the sails of a boat the point of blows unless the question is satisfactorily settled. We know that the earth is hurtling through space ’in its orbit, at about 18 miles per second. What we wish to know is if the sun is a stationary body or if it moves, and if so does it follow a certain orbit or is it a freely moving body in space? H. D. Shafer, S. B. University of Chicago, 1924 1310 Hyde Park Blvd. Chicago, III (So far as we know there is no body in space that is absolutely stationary, assuming that an absolute point of reference can be found to determine whether it is in motion or not. Certainly a stationary body would presuppose one that was at the exact center of gravity of the entire universe, or was under such a balance of forces from all other bodies in the universe that it did not move. A stationary body is under general principles an anomaly. Our earth, as part of the solar system, revolves about the sun to keep itself out of the sun’s gravitational grasp. Our sun is one of the millions of suns in the galac- tic system known as the “Milky Way.” Now just as the solar planets are attracted to each other and to the sun, so the galactic suns are attracted to each other. Evidence seems to indicate that the whole galaxy of stars which is the Milky Way Is rotating about its center of gravity. And since the sun lies ( Continued on Page 1068)
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IN this department we shall publish every month your opinions. After all, this is your magazine and it is edited for you. If we fall down on the choice of our stories, or if the editorial board slips up occasionally, it is up to you to voice your opin- ion. It makes no difference whether your letter is complimentary, critical, or whether it contains a good old-fashioned brick bat. All are equally welcome. All of your letters, as much as space will allow, will be published here for tne benefit of all. Due to the large influx of mail, no communications to this de- partment are answered individually unless 25c in stamps to cover time and postage is remitted. To Be the First to the Moon Editor WONDER STORIES : The reading of an article of yours in a current magazine, on space flying, stirred up an argument between me and a fnena of mine. He declares no rocket has ever attained an appreciable height, where- as I am under the impression that Prof. Goddard has designed a rocket which rose 600 miles. Can you settle this for me? Also, sir, I would be very much obliged to you if you could inform me where I could get the designs and mathematics on rockets, such as Goddard’s and Yon Opel’s. My own calculations convince me that a rocket can be built, using liquid hydrogen and oxy- gen as fuel, which will fly to the moon and return, with a passenger, provided it can be designed to have at lease 25% efficiency. There are several minor de- sign problems which stop me, so far, and perhaps the consideration of other men’s work will help me a lot. You see, I nourish an ambition to be the first man to fly to the moon. Any information you can give me will he much appreciated. L. J. Myers, M. S., Oh. E. 307 No. Vidal St., Sarnia, Ontario. (The rocket shot of Professor Robert H. Goddard on July 19, 1929 ascended, to our best information, a few hundred feet. The rocket on which Dr. Goddard is spending his time now, under a grant of $100,000 by the late Daniel Guggenheim, is expected to rise some three hundred miles for meteorological and other exploration. V There is no record to our knowledge of any rocket rising to a higher altitude than Goddard’s. The ex- periments that have been conducted thus far have not been aimed at the attaining of altitude, but, first to demonstrate the effectiveness of the rocket principle of propulsion, and second to the finding of a means of utilizing the various types of fuel. A letter from the German Interplanetary Society appearing in these columns in the January issue indi- cates the line of approach they are taking. We venture to predict that as soon as the fundamental problems of design and engineering are accomplished, altitude records will be made and broken every month. The only published technical work of Goddard is tho resalt of his early Clark University experiments and appears in the Smithsonian Institution Miscellaneous Collections. In this article entitled, “A Method of Reaching High Altitudes” he gives some very interest- ing figures on his accomplishments up to 1619. The other major works are those of Hermann Oberth, the leading German experimenter, and Robert Esnault- Pelterie, the French engineer. Both of these men have outlined in great detail the science of space traveling, basing their conclusions on extensive mathematical calculations. The German book is entitled “Methods for Traveling through Interplanetary Space” and the French work is called “ Astronmitics. Neither of these has been translated. The American Interplanetary Society, 302 West 22nd Street, New York, has been acting as a clear- ing house in North America for all interplanetary questions, and we suggest that Mr. Myers communi- cate with them. Both Goddard and Pelterie are members of this Society. The Society has as its aim the stimulation of men such as Mr. Myers who wish to make contributions to space travel, and it is now undertaking a campaign of research on the rock- et that should be of great interest to those interested in the question. We are happy to note the increasing interest in interplanetary travel by men such as Mr. Myers. Wo believe that great progress will be made and astound- ing discoveries result when a great number of ma- ture, seriously-minded, trained technicians and ex- perimenters set to work to solve the many vexing problems. Under the leadership of an organization such as the American Interplanetary Society many of these new discoveries may emanate. — Editor ) A Million Million Years Editor WONDER STORIES : In the May issue of WONDER STORIES you puD- lished an article by Mr. Dilworth Lupton, of tbe First Unitarian Church of Cleveland. I take pleasure in enclosing another interesting little tribute to science which this scientist-minister has written. It should be of interest to you, especially as it deals with the word “wonder” which is the foundation of science and the basis of WONDER STORIES. It expresses the ideas of a man who reconciles science and religion. Allan P. Stern, 2995 Lincoln Blvd., Cleveland Heights, Ohio. [The word “wonder” has two variant meanings. It may signify either curiosity or awe. In the first sense “wonder” is the source of much of man’s scientific research and achievement; in the second sense — at awe — “wonder” is one of the vital elements of reli- gious faith and life. Science was born in man’s prehistoric past. It was born when his curiosity first impelled him to un- derstand himself and the world in which he lived. Often curiosity took him up blind alleys of supersti- tion and myth, but eventually it led him to the high- ways of knowledge and reality. Aristotle was the fa- ther of modern science. His spirit was lost to the world for nineteen centuries, but it reappeared with the coming of Copernicus only four hundred years ago. Science — child of man’s wonder — has empowered him not only to penetrate many of the mysteries of stars and atoms. Man is finally turning the light of science on himself. He has discovered his antiquity— not 6,000 years as the schoolmen taught — but at least a half million years. He has discovered the higher cortex of his brain, one-half ounce of gray matter containing nine billion separate but interacting cells. Man through science is now delving into the mysteries of his own mind and behavior, both personal and so- cial. Where will man’s curiosity lead him? An attempt to answer that question would require the imagina- tion of a Wells or a Jules Verne. Only four centuries of modern science lie behind us. Ahead of us? — Well, Sir James Jeans calculates man’s future life on eartn to be at least a million million years. A million million years . . . that figure is impossible to grasp. But Sir James helps us with an analogy. “Consider,” he says, “the length of Cleopatra’s Needle as representing the age of the earth (roughly a bil- lion years). Place on top of the Needle a penny — that denotes the time humanity existed prior to the era of civilization. On top of the penny put a postage stamp — the thickness of the stamp represents five thousand years of civilization. Then continue piling up stamps until you reach a height equivalent to the summit of Mont Blanc. There I Now you have a glimpse of the meaning of a million million years 1” What will such an unimaginable' period of time mean in terms of scientific investigation and achieve- ment? What will be discovered in the fields of physic*, ( Continued on Page 1045) 1044
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FONDER STORIES 1045 THE READER SPEAKS chemistry, psychology, the social sciences, medicine and agriculture? What new and astounding inven- tions will be born out of the brains of future Edisona and Pupins? Perhaps man will find through radio communication men like himself in other worlds. Per- haps he will release the gigantic power of the atom for good or ill. For good or ill . . . in these words lies the destiny of. mankind, a destiny not only in the keeping of science but even more in the keeping of religion, that Other child of man’s “wonder/’ — Dilworth Lupton.] (We think that Mr. Lupton’s article needs no com meat. The Editors are firmly in accord with his views. A future beyond all imagination is before the human race. May it be worthy and able to take ad- vantage of it— "Editor.) It Remained for American Authors Editor WONDER STORIES ; As a regular reader of science fiction magazines from the time I discovered them on the bookstalls, I write congratulating you on the high level consist- ently attained in your stories. H. G. Wells and Jules [Verne blazed the trail and have consequently been awarded the measure of praise and admiration they deserve. But it remained for American authors (most- ly, I may venture to say, previously unknown to the reading public) to earn equally well-merited encomiums by their ingenuity, skill and imagination in exploring the vast hinterland of well-nigh unlimited possibilities beyond. It is a difficult task where so many are deserving fof praiseworthy commendation to select any one or jnore for special mention. But please present bouquets from not only myself but friends of kindred tastes in fiction, to the following gifted authors (the term in- cluding members of the fair sex as well) ; Lilith Lorraine, Edmond Hamilton, Drs. Keller and Breuer, J. Williamson. Ed Earl Repp, E. Chap- pelow, R. F. Starzl, S. Coblentz, H. Vincent. I particularly like Miss Lorraine’s “Into the 28th Century” and **The Brain of the Planet” Assuring you of the continued support of my friends And myself and with best wishes for the future pros- perity of your science fiction publications, I am, A. Cole, 73 Fontbill Road, London, N. England. '(This tribute to American authors, coming especially from a countryman of H. G. Wells is all the more Appreciated. Science fiction is largely a matter of having some new viewpoint on the relationship be- tween future science and mankind; and because there is no monopoly of ideas in the brains of any grpup Of men we continually encourage men of imagination and literary ability to write science fiction. By this means we have been able to develop a number of first-rate authors, to the benefit of the authors and readers jointly. We are sure' that Mr. Cole’s words coming from across the seas are well appreciated in America . — E ditor . ) Sexual Education Needed Editor, WONDER STORIES; Many readers kick about the size of the magazine, flckness of paper, size of the print, etc. but personally believe this is a matter of the publishers and not bfi the public. The content of the magazine is what we should be interested in and we should confine our viewpoints and criticism to that and not to the form in which it is published. , If the publishers decide to better the form, well and good. This I note, you have been doing and it shows good judgment on your part. When the readers noted {your open-minded policy of improving the magazine wherever possible they immediately took a personal in- terest and tried to better the form along with the con- tent. but I was alwavs under the impression that a readers’ column was for the viewpoint of the readers On the contents of the magazine. Was I right? i Another point that I want to make is that many of •the stories by your authors seem to be incomplete. That is they are devoid of the sexual problem which 'no doubt future races will have to contend with, as we do today. _ {Continued on Page 1046) . . Here’s the RADIO TRAINING you’ve been waiting for BPpp. Why envy the man who knows radio . . ..who is able to assemble and repair fine sets . . . who knows the “why” and the “how,” the theory and the practice of radio? You, too, can learn about radio servicing, operating, radio telephony and telegraphy, broadcasting . . . radio in all its branches. Learn at Home , in Your Spare Time In order to make it easy for every man to study radio, RCA Institutes is now training men in every branch of radio ... So that men can get this training at home in their spare time, or at any of the resident schools throughout the country. The RCA Institutes complete Home Laboratory Training Course gives you thorough and reliable radio training. You progress easily, step by step, and you receive with your training the complete RCA Institutes’ Laboratory equipment— a modern outlay of apparatus furnished to every student, enabling you to solve radio problems. This is the logical way for you to ac- quire in your spare time the commercial know ledge and ability required by the radio industry. Home Training Course by America’s Oldest and Foremost Radio Training Organization This home training course and laboratory equipment are backed by more than twenty years' expedience. Send for this FREE BOOK Today J Learn the facts about the radio industry ... all about the op- portunities in radio . . . about RCA Institutes and the staff of RCA Institutes instructors who train you. This book should bo read by every ambitious man who wishes to train for the future. Forty pages of pictures and text. Describes in detail the train- ing that has placed thousands of men in responsible positions in radio. RCA INSTITUTES, Inc. RCA INSTITUTES, Inc. 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1046 WONDER STORIES Over the Mountains from Los Angeles 159m on mm Think of it! FIVE HUNDRED FIFTY-NINE MILES ore* ■ouph mountainous country burning only ELEVEN GALLONS OF GASOLINE. Imagine more than FIFTY MILES TO THE GALLON. That is what the WHIRLWIND CARBURETING DEVICE does for D. R. Gilbert, enough of a saving on Just •ne trip to more than pay the cost of the Whirlwind. Ike Wrduwind Saves Homs Hiutcik Of Dolars Yearly Whirlwind users, reporting the results of their tests, are amazed at the results they are getting. Letters keep streaming into the office telling of mileages all the way from 22 to 59 miles on a gallon, re- sulting In a saving of from 25% to 50% in gas bills alone. Mark A. Estes writes, *T was making 17 miles to the gallon on my Pontiac Coupe. Today, with the Whirlwind, I am making 35 5-10 miles to the gallon.” P. P. Goerzen writes: “34-6-10 miles with the Whirlwind, or a gain of 21 miles to the gallon.” R- J. Tulp: “The Whirlwind Increased the mileage on cur Ford truck from 12 to 26 miles to gallon and 25% in speed.” Car owners all over the world are saving money every day with the Whirlwind, besides having better operating motors. Think what this means on your own car. Figure up your savings — enough for a radio — a bank account — added pleasures. Why let the Oil Com- panies profit by your waster Find out about this amazing little device that will pay for itself every few weeks. FITS ALL CARS In Just a few minutes the Whirlwind can be Installed on any make cf car, truck or tractor. It's actually less work than changing your ©il, or putting water in your battery. No drilling, tapping ot changes of any kind necessary. It is guaranteed to work perfectly cd any make of car, truck or tractor, large or small, new model or •Id model. The more you drive the mure you will save. SALESMEN AND DISTRIBUTORS WANTED TO MAKE UP TO *100.00 a Week and More Whirlwind men are making big profits supplying this fast selling device that car owners cannot afford to be without. Good territory is still open. Free sample offer to workers. Full particulars sent on request. Just check the coupon. fUIAR ANTFF No matter what kind of a car VJU/AI\rtli you have — no matter how big * gas eater it is — The Whirlwind will save you money. We absolutely guarantee that the Whirlwind will more than save Its cost In gasoline alone within thirty days, or the trial will cost you nothing. We invite you to test It at our risk and expense. You are to be the sole judge. — — — FREE OFFER COUPON — — — WHIRLWIND MFG. CO. 999-448-A Third St., Milwaukee, Wis. Gentlemen: You may send me full particulars of your Whirlwind Carbureting device and tell me how I can get one free. This does not obligate me in any way whatever. "Name Address . City — County State Check here if you are interested in full or part time salesmen position. non will be paid to anyone }0,UUVWH0 PROVES THAT THIS Is not the actual photo of myself showing my superb physique and how the Ross Sys- tem has increased my own height to 0 ft. 3 3-4 inches. Hundreds of Testimonials. Clients up te 45 years old gain I to 6 in. in few weeks. . No Appliances. No drugs. No dieting. First in 1907 Ross System Never Fails. Free Ten Dol- First Today lars Complete. Convincing Testimony and Particulars 5 cent stamp. ‘Allow time for return mails across the Atlantic.” G. MALCOLM ROSS, Height Specialist. Scarborough, England (P. 0. Box 15). I Banish the craving for tobacco as I thousands have. Make yourself free I and happy with Tobacco Redeemer. I Not a substitute, not habit forming. I Write for free booklet telling ©f in- I jurious effect of tobacco and depend* I able, easy way to relieve- I the craving many men have. FREE Newell Pharmacal Co. I nnflK I I Dept. ,m Clayton. Mo.Lr ■ I THE READER SPEAKS ( Continued from Page 1045) Can’t your authors give us some scientific solution to this problem when thev write about races of peo- ple a million years hence f Never once has it been mentioned in all your stor- ies; and every time I finish such a story I stop with disappointment because I feel that something was missing. Sexual education without a sensual influ- ence is what is needed. One thing about our human mind is that after we learn about a thing and understand it we try to apply the knowledge. So it is with a scientific sexual edu- cation and this will in time elevate man from the ani- mal level to a higher sphere of life where he would be now if it were not for the primitive instinct born in him — namely to reproduce and carry on his race. Science in the future will play an important part on this subject and I often wondered when reading stor- ies of future and superior races if the authors ever thought about this at all. Donald Hendrixson, 4127 Watterson St., Cinccinnatti, Ohio (Mr. Hendrixson opens up a question that is not only important to us but probably of interest to every one who lives. It is true that not many authors have touched on it deeply. In the Utopias that have been written, the relation between the sexes is deemed of such importance that the State tries to regulate It by arranging eugenic unions. This of course is artificial for it takes no account of those intangible things* such as natural affinity, sympathy, love and emotional com- patibility. In these pictures of Utopias, the individual happiness is subordinated to the benefit to the State that is supposed to come from eugenic children. Russia is now trying an immense experiment in the relations between the sexes by permitting the easiest possible form of divorce — only the desire of the par- ties to be divorced is necessary. The point of view of one of the Russian psychologists in charge of this work is that we western nations spend too much time think- ing about sex, because we are repressed and inhibit- ed. If marriage and divorce are made easy, and peo- fle can experiment with finding a suitable mate, the ussians say, then people will not hesitate to marry early, get their sexual problems solved for the time be- ing and then devote their energies to more important matters. The experiment is too young to indicate whether it is . . £ i n . : j. Z*. ... a U in Vairtn, successful. Perhaps it is too radical a step, it is being done too suddenly. A recent play about the new Rus- sia called, “Red Rust” showed the upheaval that this new philosophy of sex is having on young Russians. Certainly the Russians are tampering with very explo- sive forces. The only thing we can do is to watch their experiment and see what it leads to. There is no doubt that we western nations are sex- ridden and -that the problems brought up by 8ex are always with us. Experimental marriages, free love, separate homes for the man and wife are all being tried, with no definite results. We would* be foolish to expect that such a vital and age-old problem could be solved for the masses by a few young experimenters. However it is quite difficult to put much emphasis on the deeper relations between the sexes in a science fiction story. The story then becomes too psychologi- cal. If any of our readers have any ideas as to what future races will do about it, we will be glad to hear them Our policy of open discussion columns means that our readers are invited to tell us just what they think of all phases of their magazine, and as far as space permits, we will print all letters from readers who have anything real to say. — Editor) An All-Star Lineup Editor , WONDER STORIES : Just a word of congratulations on your entire new policy ; the new size of the magazine, the policy of en- couraging new authors to write for WON DER STOR- IES, the all-star lineup of authors that you have been giving us in the last few issues and last hut not least your policy of using of stories written by authors from across the big pond. Specifically I mean Ulf Herman- son, the author of "The House In The Clouds and Roger Wulfres who wrote "The Air-Plant Men . Mere words cannot expresa my admiration for theao two
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WONDER STORIES 1047 stories. I class them with “The Ark of the Covenant and “Hornets of Space”. My main reason for writing this letter is to inform you that there has been a change in the officer per- sonnel of the Scienceers, the club for science fiction fans of which I have the honor to be the new secre- tary. We intend to continue the policy df the Scienceers which is to spread a knowledge of science and science fiction among laymen. All those wishing to join the Scienceers, or to form a branch in their home town, kindly write to your scribe whose address is given. Herbert Smith, Sec. Scienceers. 2791 Grand Concourse, Bronx, N. Y. (We print without comment, except best wishes, this letters from the Scienceers. We suggest that all young men interested in the discussion, via a club, of scienti- fic subjects, communicate with Mr. Smith. — Editor ) A Science- Fictioni*t’s Religion Editor, WONDER STORIES-. It is a far cry from Singapore to New York and on down to Havana, but I have, since the advent of WONDER STORIES, traversed that long and glorious road, in each city and hamlet finding a copy of the magazine. Today I picked a copy of the book up on a news stand on El Prado in Havana and saw the sug- gestion of the editor that I say something more regard- ing this religious belief that I have built up around the atudy of scienoe and the reading of science fiction. I cannot cut this short and really do justice to it, but perhaps a short explanation will suffice. Yet how am I to accomplish this when I have gone just a little woozy with the fifth gla6S of beer during the course of the afternoon! Then, not being temperate, I aup- rse you think I am not sincere in this religious belief! positively ami I have lived in the darkness of des- pair when everything turned literally black and my senses reeled, as If some gigantic monster had stood before me. ..... But after having trained the imagination to give credit to the things that are probable but not in direct evidence, I have felt that just beyond the thin veil that hangs between us and the vastness of the eternal there stands something more powerful than all the armies of the earth. In the darkness, when I almost cringed like a weakling and hoped for the peace of death, some- thing reached out and took hold of my- soul and told me that I had nothing to fear. I have gone the pace of the wastrel fool and have made fairly good in business, only to lose out again and have to start all over. And never onoe in my life, in any port in this world, even when I saw my last five-cent piece go across the bar for a glass of beer did I have to worry because I realized that this In- finite intelligence that stands just beyond the veil and looks across is at our service. This thing cannot be truly understood without the training that science and science faction gives us. It takes imagination to perceive a real God, I think. The unimaginative accepts what others hand down to him, the orthodox, the second-handed ravings of fan- aticism. But one who sees for himself cannot be mis- taken, at least after a few trials. And I’ll try my deity out before accepting it just as I would prove anything else before accepting it. When I am trying to get over should have several pages at least, but per- haps this will do: After sounding out everything, with the aid of scienoe fiction and science, after looking at what is, and what is probable, (and looking for what is not) I realize the gigantic mystery that life is I Also, I arrive at the conclusion that it is so deep a mystery that we cannot hope to solve it. It is too gigantic for words. We are not capable of knowing more than our highest intelligence tells us. So we forget the problem of mystery and realize that we are not supposed to know what it is all about. !We stop believing in Santa Claus and accept the whole as a mystery beyond us. And yet, w# cannot be mis- taken that the Hand of the Infinite — or Something > — reaches across the veil to still the turmoil of the aoul and give us the peace that passeth understanding. We are not big enough to conceive infinite time and space. We are likely cogs in the wheel, though. Af- ter training — it takes a let of training — we come to (Continued on Page 1048) Radio Bargains! All articles shown here are brand new mer- chandise in original cartons, sold at prices never attempted heretofore. As supply is limited, we reserve right to return deposits if items have been sold out. Every article is fully guaranteed. Radio Corporation of America’s Loud Speaker 100 B A modern design loud speaker which will fit the modern trend in any home, yet har- monizes well with any set. 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1048 WONDER STORIES The Greatest Sin of all is total IGNORANCE cf the most important subject in the life of every man and woman — SEX. AWAY WITH FALSE MODESTY Let us face the facts of sex fearlessly and frankly, sincerely and scientifically. Let us tear the veil of shame and mystery from sex and build the future of the race on a new ~ knowledge of all the facts of sex as they are laid bare in plain, daring but wholesome words, and frank pictures in the huge new library of Sex Knowledge. “MODERN EUGENICS” 544 p*le* SECRETS Everything a Married Woman Should Know — How to hold a husband How to hate perfect children How to preserve youth Warding off other women Keeping yourself attractive Why hus&ands tire of wives Dreadful diseases duo to Ignorance Diseases of women Babies and birth control Twilight sleep — easy childbirth How babies are conceived Diseases of children Family health guide Change of life — hygiene Why children die young Inherited traits and diseases What will you tell your grow- ing girl? The mystery of twins Hundreds of valuable remedies Accidents and emergencies Hygiene in the home Limitation of offspring The sexual embrace Warning to young men Secrets of greater delight Dangerous diseases Secrets of sex attraction Hygienic precautions Anatomy and physiology The reproductive organs What every woman wants Education of the family Sex health and prevention Girls— Don’t Marry before you know all this — The dangers of Petting How to be a vamp How to manage the honey- moon What liberties to allow a lover Secrets of the wedding night Beauty diets and baths Do you know that — Bow to attract desirable men How to manage men How to know if he loves you How to acquire bodily grace and beauty How to beautify face, hands. hair, teeth and feet How to acquire charm How to dress attractively intimate personal hygiene How to pick a husband IMPORTANT! " *| Thin work will not be sold to minors. I When ordering your book* state your age! J Secrets for Men — Mistakes of early marriages Secret of fascination Joys of perfect mating How to make women love you Bringing up healthy children Fevers and contagious diseases Grenp&rk Company 245 Greenwich St. Dept WS-231 New York, If. Y# Please send me "Mod- ern Eugenics" SEALED My age Is Plain wrapper. I am sending you 32.98 In Name accordance with your Address w>odal ***» «**• City and State THE READER SPEAKS ( Continued from Page 1047) realize this, and more. 1 had not intended to go so far, hut I trust this will have given you an idea of what I have discovered. Next month I will relate some circumstances that have proved to me that while I amount to nothing I was not put on earth to suffer. Until then, Edsel Newton, Havana, Cuba. (Mr. Newton’s experiences, fighting between doubt and faith are very interesting because they are simi- lar to what thousands of people pass through. Natur- ally we are not competent to pass upon his conclusions. No one is. Religion is such a personal matter, that one can sum up the thing by saying, "If you know the truth of existence, if you have an understanding of the world, and are freed from superstition and ignor- ance, then any religious faith that you embrace, no matter what its nature (or even the lack of a faith) is the best thing for you.” The belief that science can learn the most intimate secrets of the universe is now being demolished — and by scientists. Men like Eddington, Jeans and Ein- stein are telling us that there are certain things we will never know, that materialism does not satisfy man, and that he must have a certain amount of faith to make his life complete. The cycle of agnosticism athe- ism and doubt that started with Darwin and Huxley is now passing on to another cycle. Einstein stated recently in the New York Times that the great religion is a cosmic sense of harmony with the greater uni- verse. Perhaps that will be a future religion. Quien salet — Editor) Find Out About Her Editor WONDER STORIES : As Phil Cook would say, "Hold on to your seatSk folks, ’cause it’s coming at youl" I have already given you my opinion ol "The Outpost off the Moon" "iC r " “ I folks. liven ■ so I won’t go over it again. "The End of Time" wasn’t very bad, hut I must almit I wasn’t engrossed by it. However, Mr. Kirkham committed that atro- cious error of time-traveling stories which should not be seen in these pages. Granting that travel into the future may he possible, a man could never come hack again. You know the old grandfather business. He could travel into the future, see a man, travell into the future, see a man, travel back in time, and kill the man’s grandfather while the grandfather was a little boy. I thought you once said you wouldn’t let such an error occur again. There wasn’t much new about the whole story. I will pass by "The Silent Scourge" without com- ment. "The Synthetic Men" was an interesting story as are all of Mr. Repp’s works. You oould u6e more of his stories. I wish, though, that all the stories didn’t describe the heroine as the most beautiful girl the hero had ever looked upon They have him fall in love with her before he has a chance to find out anything about her. Chorus girls are quite beautiful as a rule, but it would be a mistake to fall in love with, one before you have a chance to find out any- thing about her nature. But keep Mr. Repp, he’s worth it. The "Struggle for Venus” was a very good story. It was a little different from the majority of such stories. There are only two things that I can criti- cize. In the first place, I hate to think of that poor man sailing through space all alone for two whole months. It would have been so easy to give him a companion. Then there’s the matter of blowing up the enemy ship. Army bombers using vaned, stream- lined bombs, special releasing equipment, delicate range finders, drift indicators, etc., and with years of practice, find it difficult to hit so big and station- ary an object as a bridge. In this story, with none of these assets, the hero hits an enemy ship and thinks it no great feat. Oh, well, I guess it comes natural to some people. Anyway, it was a great story. "The Air-Plant Men” was a poor story, 'Hiere was not a single point worthy of interest in the whole thing. It was altogether too brief, and most of all it was not Science Fiction. If you are going to call your material Science Fiction you ought to keep the magazine pure, especially when you have a story like this one.
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WONDER STORIES 1049 THE READER SPEAKS Excuse my paragraphing; when I get started 1 don|t pay much attention to such details. By the way, if you don’t like the way I’m trying to run your magazine, just say so. You won’t hurt my feelings. Philip Waite, 3400 Wavne Ave., New York. (Mr. Waite gives us his usual well-informed and well-balanced comments. Perhaps, as he says, men, especially scientists, should exercise a scientific judg- ment ox beautiful young women before proceeding to fall in love. In some future age, they might an- alyze scientifically the qualities and personality of their prospective mates to determine with scientific thoroughness just what lies beneath the beautiful skin. Graphs might be constructed showing temper, as well as temperament; experiments might be tried to determine whether “she”' would buy a fifteen oc fifty dollar dress were the opportunity offered. The psychic curves of both the man and woman might be plotted and compared to see how well they agree. But unfortunately, for the present we are just weak, emotional mortals; and faced with a pair of dancing blue eyes, science and analysis disappear in the mist. We must disagree with Mr. Waite with regard to “The Air-Plant Men..”. Most of the readers who wrote in, liked the story very much, although some would have preferred it longer. If the picture presented of great bags of gas, sentient beings, who are able to spread not only themselves but also their feeding grounds over the entire earth, is not science fiction, then we ask respectfully, what is? However, that question we leave to our readers. We would like some definition from them, just what is science fiction and what is not? We will print the best letters. — Editor.) | Cities on the Cloud Editor, WONDER STORIES: Where in the world did L. Taylor Hansen get his theory to write ‘‘The City on the Cloud?” Is there any truth in the original story, or is it just pure fic- tion? I have seen things on the same order as pub- lished in that story. I am a young man and a miner and prospect in my spare time, in Death Valley and its vicinity. At one fime, as stated in the story, saw a city similar to that described by Hansen, but not in Death Valley but close to it in the Cotton Wood range of hills. So please let me know if there is any truth in this, and print it in your magazine, for I am going back into Death Valley. I am not sending my name, for I don’t want people to think me crazy. But it is true, my saying that I saw a city in the clouds; and as for mirages you can see plenty of them around on the dry lakes of Death Valley. I once saw a big body of water and a boat landing and boats sailing on the water and a city close hv. The city looked an awful lot like Elsinore, City, Cal. Lake Elsinore is about 250 miles from lake close to Silver Lake about 8 miles from Baker City, Cal. Lake Elsinore is about 250 miles from Silver Lake. A Reader of WONDER STORIES. Richmond, Cal. (Although it is not the cust m to print unsigned let- ters, the Editors were impressed with the sincerity and truthfulness of this letter. We hope that our corres- pondent reads this comment to know that Mr. Hansen did base his story on actual fact. According to him, the story is based on actual occurrences and the pro- fessor in the story is a real person. Certainly we would be foolish to sneer at such things as Mr. Hansen and our unsigned correspondent wrote about. We know that mirages occur, and that they are projections against the horizon of scenes many miles away. The air in this case acts as a gi- gantic reflector, to throw images from far distant places to the eyes of our Death Valley habitues. We would not go so far as to say, with Mr. Hansen, that pictures of other worlds can be seen by way of at- mospheric refraction, but we do believe that the range of such phenomena may well be thousands of miles. We invite Mr. Hansen to give us more facts upon which he based his story ‘‘The City on the Clouds”, for he has introduced a subject not only fascinating but extremely stimulating to the imagination. — Editor ) ( Continued on Page 1050) Be Manly— Vigorous STRONGFORT TELLS HOW Don't go grouching through life a miserable weakling, with flabby muscles, weak heart, troublesome stomach, bad breath — ashamed of Jrourself — because of neg- ect of your body, or ex. cess or disease — when you can speedily acquire a physique that will win ad- miration from both men and women. You can be a commanding figure — self reliant, courage- ous— filled with dynamic en- ergy, compelling magnetism, glowing health and vigorous manhood, if you become a pupil of Lionel Strongfort, for years the world’s fore- most physical and health di- rector and adopt his famous Course in Strongfortism Strongfort Thousands testify to the Builder of Men efficacy of this easy way of developing the muscles of the body to per. form their natural functions. Don't bo foolod by pretenders. Como t» the teacher whose lifetime background groves him to bo the out- standing exponent of physical culture and health hulldln,. There’s Hope In My Free Book Sand for my latest revised and illustrated edition ef “PROMOTION AND CONSERVATION OF HEALTH, STRENGTH AND MENTAL ENERGY", tolling how I built up my own body — how t tan build up your body. This book is prieeltts — and it ia yours FREE for tha asking. Fill in the coupon and mail It ri,ht away. — — — — Send This Coupon — — — — Lionel Strongfort Institute, Dept. 95, Newark, N. J. Please send me absolutely free my copy ef your book, “Promotion and Conservation of Health, Strength and Mental Enerpy.” My ailment is Name Ape Occupation Street City _ State ook X&venf Ex-Libris'/Joofi Plates Latest series of old masters nook- plates, reproducing antique woodcuts and engraving,. Unique creations tor book -lovers who appreciate the unusual. Write for llluatrated catalogue and specimen, enclose 10 eenla for mailing charge. iskor press. INC.. 19 Park Place, Dept A-231, New York, N. Y. V A TYH7C? f positively guarantee my great J 111 rjs^l Successful "Relief" Compound. Safely relieves some of the longest, moat obstinate, abnormal cases in 3 to 6 days. No harm, pain or interference with work. Mail $2.00 ; Double Strength, $3.00. Booklet Free. Write today. DR. B. X. SOUTHINGTON REMEDY €0. Kansas City, Ho. "D A ' ■ ' L.’ ATTIC? 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105Qj WONDER STORIES 50c The Copy Free Course In AVIATION Study in a few easy Lessons! So well have the first lessons in flying and motor repair been liked by our readers that in the cur- rent issue of AVIATION MECHANICS appears the second installments of these, articles written by Jack Stinson of flying fame and Morton Schwam, motor expert. So thorough and com- plete are these courses that you will be well in- structed in the most important points of flying and motor repair, also airplane construction. The country looks to junior aviation enthusiasts as the heroes of the future. Get an early start — your training should begin NOW. r Over 200 Illustrations FEATURES IN THIS ISSUE My Most Thrilling Experience in the Air, Lt. Wal- ter Hinton ; Speed is the Thing, Capt. Frank Hawks; How to Make and Fill a Jumping Bal- loon, Wart T. Van Orman ; How to Build a Model Glider, Lt. H. A. Reynolds; Building the Honolulu R. 0. G. Model Winner; How do Planes Fall?; and other interesting articles. Replete with over 200 drawings and illustrations. Instructors as well as thousands of junior aviation enthu- siasts read AVIATION MECHANICS — it is an excellent guide in their work, a simple, easy reference. Each issue contains complete descriptions and photographs of all the latest types of planes. SPECIAL OFFER TION MECHANICS is $3.00 per year. If you act quickly and send in $2.00 in cash, check or money order, you will receive this magazine for one full year; also the very first, second, and third issues gratis. Or to acquaint yourself with this maga- zine SEND 25c FOR A SAMPLE COPT Published on the 1 5th of every other month AVIATION MECHANICS 97B Park Place New York, N. Y. THE READER SPEAKS (Continued on Page 1049) Supposed to be Human Editor , WONDER STORIES: Your “mag” is getting better every issue. The new size is a great improvement. Anyone gets his money’s worth out of less space. I mean that the stories are just as good if not better; and they are in an easier handled book. Any science fiction reader who doesn't like some romance in his stories ought to wake up to the faot that he is supposed to be a human being capable of loving someone else. On my part, I enjoy a story with some romance better than one without, although 1 like all science fiction. If I remember correctly, there were some comie scientification about a scientist who invented a seltzer- mobile and several other comic ones. Can you get some more like them? When are you going to put six more of those Sci- ence Fiction Library on the market? And the Science Novel as well? I'm waiting for them. This mag. i* certainly an improvement over the old mag. you once edited. Keep up the good workl Can you get a sequel to the interplanetary story in which a Jupiter princess came to earth in a apace ship which became a near meteor ? If I knew the author, I would tell his name, but I loaned that mag. The stories are well regulated. How about an inter- planetary trip to some very distant star in some story! Also a few more about the future as shown by the “into the 28 th Century ” atory. These mags are a great help to anyone taking up a Science course in College. I can get points from them when they are too deep in class. Mr. Juve and Mr. Repp are good. I like their stories. They make even the most profound statement* clear. Their style is good and they include romance in their stories. Readers who don t like them don't like themselves. Add Chemistry stories to the others if you can. William Pye, Box 121, Conn. Agricultural College, Storrs, Conn. (We do not know which Jupiter story Mr. Pyle refers to; but we can offer him as a fair exchange for it a sequel to “The Rescue from Jupiter” by Gawain Edwards. Beginning in the next issue, Mr. Edwards’ “The Return from Jupiter” will delight our readers. There were many problems left unsolved and hanging fire when the “Rescue” was finished. In the opinion of the Editors the sequel is even bet- ter than the original. Mr. Edwards is also the au- thor of that science fiction book called “The Earth Tube” reviewed in this issue, which excited so much comment. We also have an interstellar story on hand from the pens of that unbeatable combination, Schachner and Zagat, which will be published in the near fu- ture, as well as a long interplanetary story by D. H. Lemon, the amazing incidents of which take place on an unnamed planet. - The “Flight into Time” in the present issue should please our correspondent, and satisfy his desires for a story of the future. However we have some corking stories of all kinds ready to give to our readers every month — Editor.) The Humorous Aspects of Time Traveling Editor WONDER STORIES: Some time ago you asked us (the readers) what our opinions on time-traveling were. Although a bit late I am now going to voice four opinions on Henry F. Kirkham's favorable pastime (Time Traveling). (1) Now, in the first place if time traveling wero a possibility there would be no need of some scientist getting a headache trying to invent an instrument or “Time-Machine” to “go back and kill grandpa” (in answer to the age-old argument of preventing your birth by killing your grandparents I would say: “now who the heok would want to kill his grandpa or grand- ma?”) I figure it out thusly: A man takes a time-machine and travels into the future from where he sends it (under automatic con- trol) to the past so that he may find it and travel into the future and send it back to himself again. Hence the time machine was never invented, but! — from whence did the time machine come f
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WONDER STORIES 1051 THE READER SPEAKS Ten 1 fool Is I n 0 (2) Another impossibility that might result Would be: A man travels a few years into the future and sees himself killed in -some unpleasant manner, y-^so— -after returning to bis correct time he commits suicide in or- der to avert death in the more terrible way which be was destined to. Therefore bow could he have seen himself killed in an entirely different manner than really was the easel (3) Another thing that might corrupt the laws •f nature would be to: Travel into the future ; find out bow some in- genious invention of the time worked; return to your right time; build a machine, or what ever it may be, similar to the one you had recently learned the work- ings of ; and use it until the time that you saw it ar- rive, then if your past self saw it, as you did, be would take it and claim it to be an invention of bis (your) own, as you also did. Then — who really did invent the consarn thing? A GREAT ISSUE you will say after you have read the WINTER 1931 WONDER STORIES QUARTERLY A 8 usual we offer a full length interplanetary novel “THE SCARLET PLANET”' By Don H. Lemon of mystery, thrills, strange women and a civiliza- tion beyond man’s imagining on a strange world. “THE MARK OF THE METEOR” By Ray Cummings that peerless ace of science fiction, deals with the strange happenings in interplanetary space when lust, greed, heroism and danger are mixed. “THE MAN OF BRONZE” By A. L. Fierst shows the scientist on his two sides, the creator and the destroyer. This is a mystery story par excel- lence. “THE HOUR THE CONQUEROR CAME” By Edsel Newton details a new horror that can come to mankind when terrible forces are released. “THE MARTIAN NEMESIS” By George B. Beattie that rising star on the horizon of science fiction, shows ^with unvarnished brutality the struggle of mere earth man against the gigantic powers of nature on an alien world, and the revenge of that nature. AND OTHERS IN THE WINTER 1931 WONDER STORIES QUARTERLY ON ALL NEWS STANDS JANUARY 1, 1931 (4) Here’s the last knock on time-traveling: What if a man were to travel back a few years and marry his mother, thereby resulting in his being his own “father” ? Now I ask you, do you think traveling in time, in the manner most of your authors put it, is possible? (Now please don’t get the idea that I think it can’t be done, to some extent, because it might be done through Suspended Animation). Well I guess I have put enough cotton into the ink- wells of H. F. Kirkham, F. Flagg, M. J. Breuer, and H. G Wells .(now what ever prompted me to say that?) Jim H. Nicholson • [(Member Boys’ Science Fiction Club) 40 Lunado Way, San Francisco, Cal. (Young Mr. Nicholson does present some of the more humorous aspects of time traveling. Logically, we are compelled to admit that he is right — that if people could go back into the past or into the future and partake of the life in those periods, they could ( Continued on Page 1052) Send For Yours Today! Only $1.00 A SMALL but handy article -which serves for every possible need of the all-around mechanic. Invaluable in any emer- gency. An excellent combination of utilities for the house- hold— every necessity fea- tured : hammer, knife- sharpener, screw-driver, nail-puller, bottle-opener, can-opener, cork-screw, and weigh-scale. Just glance at the illus- tration and you will see how really useful this ar- ticle is. Only 10 in. high. Indispensable to autoists, campers, Boy Scouts, canoeists, picnickers, etc. Price $1.00 Postage Paid. Be the first in your town to own the “Ten Tools in One.” Send cou- pon with your name, ad- dress, city and state with one dollar. GRENPARK COMPANY WS-231 245 Greenwich Street, New York, N. Y. Enclosed find fl.OO for which please send me prepaid your “Ten Tools in One.” Address City State RADIO ENCYCLOPEDIA A Gold Mine" of Facts t ISTDISPENSABLE RADIO BEFe EBENCB BOOK — Contain! oxer 1,930 definitions — 549 photograph!, drawings, diagrams. All radio cir- cuits described and illustrated. THE ONLY BOOK OF ITS KIND! Beau- tiful Keratol binding— stamped In' gold— finely printed — size 9x12 Inches —168 pages — oxer 25,000 sold. Spe- cial price, $2.00. Sent C.O.D. in U. 8.; Foreign and Canada, $2.35 cash with order. Money back If not eatlafastory. I8KOR PRESS, INC., 19 Park Place, Dept. A-231. Now York. Outdoor Jobs Get Forest Ranger, Park Banger or Came Protector Job; (140- (200 montb; racatlon; steady jobs patrol forests and parka: protect game. Qualifj now. Writ* for full details. DELMAR INSTITUTE, Deist. B-40, DENVER, COLO.
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WONDER STORIES 1052 CLASSIFIED ADVERTISEMENTS Advertisements in this section are inserted at the cost of ten cents per word for each insertion — name, ■ initial and address each count as one word. Cash should ac- company all classified advertisements unless placed by a recognized advertising agency. No Jess than ten words are accepted. Ad- vertising for the March 1931 issue should be received not later than January 7th. DETECTIVES DETECTIVES Earn Big Money. Excellent oppor- tunity. Experience unnecessary. Particulars Free. Write, George Wagner, 2190-B Broadway, N. Y. FORMULAS MAKE AND SELL your own products. We will furnish you any formulas. Write for our litera- ture. Chemical Institute, I9S Park Place, New York, N. Y. HELP WANTED STEAMSHIP POSITIONS — Experience unneces- sary. See the World. List free. D. Arculus, Mount Vernon, N. Y. PERSONAL LONESOME FOLKS! Dandy little ladies, de- sirable gentlemen, everywhere, will marry. Con- fidential, reliable. Particulars FREE. Mrs. Budd, Box 753-S, San Francisco, Calif. WOULD YOU- MARRY??? Your plan— You win— We win — Thousands Happy Clients, Well-to-do- members everywhere. Information plain sealed envelope. The Circle, Middletown, Indiana. PHOTOGRAPHY F&OTO-ENLARGEMENTS AT HALF-PRICE — 5 x 7 — 25c; 8 x 10 — 10c; 16 x 20 — $1.50 Glossy or dull finish. Other sizes proportionate prices. Send negative. Stamps accepted. Send for circular. Charles, 210 Chestnut St., Camden, N. J. PRINTING OUTFITS & SUPPLIES PRINT YOUR OWN cards, stationery, circulars, advertising, etc. Junior Press $5.90, Job presses $11 up, Power $149. Print for others, big profit. Easy rules furnished. Write for free catalog and full information. Kelsey Co., R-65, Meriden, Conn. RADIO NEW DEVICE gets distant stations; reduces in- terference; $1.00 postpaid. Noel, 1502 Pittstoh, Scranton, Penna. STAMPS ALL for 12c. Scarce, triangles, Azerbaijans, mon- ster stamps, midget stamps, etc., approvals. Mazaferi, 1123— 57th Street, Brooklyn, N. Y. LONELY HEARTS $nm iaa wonu a lureuiust 'higfh*cl888 social correspondence club, a club for re- I fined lonelypeople. Members every* [y CONFIDENTIAL, efficient and dignified I service. We have made thousands of lonely people happy, why not you? Write for FREE Parti cul ars. I EVA MOORE. BOX 90 B. JACKSONVILLE, FLA . I HAVE A SWEETHEART FOR YOU M ATjpVI BIG illustrated Book with ITI/ilVil 1. * descriptions sent in plain wrapper for ten cents. BONAFIDE CO., Dept, 58, Kansas City, Mo. THE READER SPEAK§ ( Continued from Page 1051) disturb the normal course of events, as Mr. NioholflO* has pictured it. However our publishing of such time traveling stories, as a change from our former policy, is baaed on two thoughts: The first is that although logically the time traveling episode will lead to the sort of absurdity Mr. Nicholson pointed out, logic may not be the whole truth of the matter. Time traveling neccessarily means a projec- tion into the fourth dimension and an entering into a new order of life. Before the Einstein theory was propounded, people would have received its edicts with derision as being contrary to logic. The idea of the constancy of the velocity of light for example is absurd until it is explained by the reduction in length of the body and the reduction of time. Even this idea of the change of time between two bodies one of which is moving at or near the speed of light, (as Dr. Breuer pointed out so well in “The Time Valve”) is logically absurd, yet true. So we must realize that the laws of nature we per- ceive and the things we call logic are not the whole truth of nature and we must be prepared to see some of our logical notions rudely shattered. This* leads to the second reason for permitting tim^ traveling stories. Once we admit that time traveling is theoretically possible, the allowing of the time travel- er to take part in that world of the past or future (we are not inclined very much to permit such past time traveling stories for the past is fixed) gives him the opportunity to develop a much better story. After alt the reason for a time traveling story is nob so much to travel in time but to show what our future civilization is to be like. If the story shows in a vivid, interesting and imaginative manner what our race of the future is to be like, then it has served its purpose. Of course Mr. Nicholson is right in saying that the only safe way of preserving logic in time traveling is by suspended animation. But who of our readers would want every story to open, “And as ho opened his eyes, they met a strange sight.” We hope this explains our point of view on timo traveling. Of course if we are wrong we want to b$ told about it. — Editor) Regarding A Pain in the Neck Editor WONDER STORIES: Regarding a pain in the neck, if anyone was en- dowed with the ability to provide this sensation, one Harry Pancoast of Wilmington, is certainly a master of art. It is rarely that my fur is rubbed the wrong way violently enough for me to write a reply to an- other individual’s criticism, but the above mentioned individual took only about three minutes to etand my hair on end. He claims you do not publish condemnatory let- ters— Holy Smoke, was Booth Cody’s epistle a love letter? Right there was one of the most insolent, out- spokenly insulting, outrageous pieces of blackguardism I have ever had the ill fortune to read, but you pub- lished it, put it up to the readers — and we know what their verdict wasl Mr. Cody’s ears should have re- sembled a miniature sunrise when he found out what your loyal readers thought of him. Harry Panooast is very little better, although he is brave enough t» sign his own name. The quality of your stories maintains a high level, and I particularly approve of “The Outpost on the Moon”. “The Soulless Entity,” besides intro- ducing an idea which I believe is new, was well writ- ten and is that kind of a story that is not soon for- gotten. However, “The Satellite of Doom” takes the prize in the last issue, largely because of the realistic way in which his characters talk and act. It was not the perfect English-and-clothes-model kind of story. Glad to see an announcement that some of our older authors will return in the next issue. We need more I of them. Floyd P. Swiggett, Jr. Las Vegas, New Mexico. (Mr. Swiggett’s loyal letter was appreciated, i Through the dull dark days that, comes to everyone’s ! life, they cheer one in the thought that his efforts are ' understood. This goes too, for the many other letters I that expressed the same sentiments as Mr. Swig- j gett’s. — Editor)
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WONDER STORIES 1053 THE READER SPEAKS Love Necessary to Life £ditor, WONDER STORIES: So many readers proceed to tell us where the auth- ors tail in their science, or where some one does not know his science, and so on. Others berate certain authors for using female characters and embodying romance in their stories. Judging by the language and expression used in the various letters, those who “rave and berate” the most seem to show the greater lack of understanding of the things they criticize. Just what is science? Is it not knowledge of the of that ge for the convenience of the pi seeking to extend that knowledge farther into the un- i know- phenomena of nature, and the employing ledge for the convenience of the possessors, and the seeking to extend that knowledge farther into the un- known, by ordered reasoning and experimentation? If one placed his hand on a red hot stove and would not know that he burned bis hand, that would not be science. But if he knew the red hot stove burned his hand, that would be science. If he did not know he burned his hand he might discover by reasoning and experimenting that his hand was burnt and by further reasoning and experimenting find that he did not burn his band but as a result of the fire in the stove that made it red hot, the red hot stove caused the burn of his hand. One of the first things found out in life, known, or perhaps felt millions of years before reasoning intelli- fence began to evolve, was the wedding of the two sexes efore life could be reproduced. Reasoning beings dis- covered that one sex was not a complete entity ; that one sex alone was not complete, but required the other sex to round out the full scheme nature intended. The sexes are endowed with desire, attraction and emotions for one another. That is the scheme of all life and any one who denies this can not lay claim to being scientific, for he has denied one of the first principles of all lfe. Reasoning creatures have termed these things romance, love, and the twain lead to marriage and the perpetuating the species. In general, I am firmly of the opinion that any story that has not a reasonable amount of romance, love if you please; a hero and heroine, in it will be un- satisfactory to all normal readers. Henry S. Hatton. Greentown, Tnd. (Hr. Hatton injects a new element into the perennial “cold blooded” versus “a little romance” controversy. Mr. Hatton attempts to turn the arguments of the die- hards against themselves — with what result? It is true, aB be says, that the mating of the sexes is one of ihe most fundamental facts in all science. We will be fair and give the other side a chance to rebut this thesis. We suggest however that the shortness and con- ciseness of Mr. Hatton-.’s letter be taken as a model. Think out what you wish to say, and then say it as •hortly and convincingly as you can. — Editor ) sc,encea»£ns and ( Continued from Page 942) quite a distance from this center of gravity it must also be rotating about it. Continued observation over many years shows that our sun is moving through space toward the star iVeg a and at a speed of some 13 miles per second, carrying the solar system with it. We are not cer- tain that this is an absolute motion, for it has' been determined only by isolating the velocities of a num- ber of stars with reference to the sun. Now since the sun lies about 47,000 light years from Ihe center of the Milky Way, it is quite possible that the sun is pursuing an orbit about this center, its orbit being some 300,000 light years in extent. Even ossuming that the sun has a velocity of 1,000 miles a second with relation to this center then it would lake it some 36,000,000 years to complete one revo- lution. If we compare this with the 2,000 odd years that we have had astronomical observations of any value, we can see that in that period the sun will bave completed only an infinitesimal portion of its •rbit, and any attempt to plot or determine that or- bit is quite useless. There is no doubt, however, that the sun is not a freely moving body in space; it is subject completely to the control of the motion of the galactic system. — Editor.) A new radio thrill for youl Listen in DIRECT to London, Paris, Berlin, Bueno9 Aires and other broadcasting stations throughout the world via short waves. Enjoy unique foreign programs from strange lands. Tour ordinary receiver cannot tune in these low wave stations. WORLD-WIDE RECEIVER gets 14 to 550 meter stations with surprising clarity. SEND NO MONEY! Just write your name and address on a postcard and ask us to send you this wonderful guaranteed short wave set. Pay postman $6.45 plus a small delivery charge. 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1054 WONDER STORIES #VN*V .ini*1"'' (jplBlM'**' ypoOD AMO »' Increase your EARNING Power Whatever your job, you will find in EVERYDAY MECHANICS labor-saving kinks which will help you to get more work done in less time and will bring you recognition from your employers. If you do machine shop work, auto repairing, electrical work, farming, carpentering, painting, plumbing, masonry, glass work, welding, or general repair- ing. a yearly subscription to EVERYDAY MECHAN- ICS will pay for itself a thousand times over. Copy The Make Money in Your Spare Time Thousands of amateur mechanics and spare-time workers make $10 to $100 a week EXTRA MONEY by servicing vacuum cleaners and washing ma- chines ; manufacturing book-ends, lamp-shades, tool chests, chairs, photo frames, flower boxes, and in- numerable other products. EVERYDAY ME- CHANICS teaches you HOW to turn your spare time into MONEY. Contents SPACE DOES NOT PERMIT D8 TO PRINT ALL THE FEATURES IN THE CURRENT ISSUE OF EVERYDAY MECHANICS. But the following titles will give you some in- dication of the interesting and valuable contents: Automobiles. Aviation, Chemistry, Construction Work, Elec- tricity, Magic, Metal Work, Radio, Photography. Shop Work, Woodworking and new devices. SPECIAL ONE for f OFFER YEAR Vl*W MAIL COUPON TODAY EVERYDAY MECHANICS PUB., Ine., WS-231 96-98 Park Place, New York, N. Y. Please rush my first copy of EVERYDAY MECHANICS. I enclose !) 61. 09 for one year’s subscription ) 1.90 for two years' subscription ) 2.70 for three years’ subscription (Check one of the above) NAME ADDRESS CITY STATE- NOTE: This special subscription offer may be withdrawn at any time. THE EARTH TUBE by Gawain Edwards, 300 pages, stiff cloth covers; size 5x8. Published by D. Appleton and Company, New York. Price $2.00. The author of “The Rescue from Jupiter” has re- ally outdone himself in the present volume. It is truly what the publishers describe as a “powerful and Yivid romance — of Pan-Hemispheric War.” Mr. Edwards has made the most of this opportunity to use his personal knowledge of the world gained as a newspaper editor to portray in the most realistic fashion not only the progress of a war of science but also the ineptness of public officials faced with a national crisis. His Dr. Angell, Secretary of War of the Americas, who blunders his way through the conduct of the war against the invaders, yet makes it up by his brilliantly oratorical speeches, is a character that cannot be forgotten. The Asians, a race of emotionless scientists (reminiscent of the Soviets of to-day) after conquering China and Japan, bore a tube of some indestructible material through the earth, and begin their invasion of the Americas. All defense is useless against their tremendous tanks made of the impregnable material undulal. South America falls and the victorious Asians advance toward the Isthmus of Panama. King Henderson, a young scientist, enters the earth tube and makes bis way into one of the Asian’s cities searching for the secret of undulal. He is captured and condemned to death. He escapes and returns to the surface in time to build shells capable of destroying undulal . At the verge of dissolution, the forces of North Amer- ica win a brilliant victory against the Asians and throw them back to South America where the inva- sion collapses. Despite the wealth of scientific instruments of the future that he pictures, never does Mr. Edwards lose his powerful grip on reality. The world he shows us is one of people: weak, vain' hesitating even when faced with the ruin of their race. Mocking our social system, Mr. Edwards has the Asians send down a rain of gold upon New York in order that the people may Decome feverish searchers for the metal, and our financial system be destroyed. There is but one way to counteract this national panic. Hen- derson induces the president to declare martial law and to promise to distribute free gold and free pa- per money as long as the supply .lasts. He hopes by that means to destroy forever the illusion of value in “that which glitters..” It is a difficult book to read at a single sitting;, yet it is equally difficult to lav it down before it i9 finished. It is a serious book, for it aims an accusing finger at many of our social and national evils; yet to maintain the balance of justice, it points an equally accusing finger at the system which creates a State as God, and crushes the miserable humans who dare defy it JUST IMAGINE, a musical, talking film. Produced by the Fox Film Corporation, and exhibited at the Roxy Theatre, New York, beginning November 20, 1930. For those who do not take their science fiction too seriously. Just Imagine, a film portraying the New York of 1980 is cordially recommended; for with it* tongue in it* cheek, the picture shows us many of the wonders that our science fiction authors have been writing about. A man of 1930 who has been killed revived in 1930 and finds himself in a changed world. The laboratory scene, by the way, depicting the apparatus used to revive our genial comedian El Brendel, is one of the best of the picture, for humor has vanished there and the gleaming apparatus, the retorts, the great coils, the sense of power and mystery, will delight the heart of every science fiction fan. A thin story runs through the picture. Our hero has been denied the right to marry the girl of his choice, because his rival is a man of superior accomplishment. The young man thereupon agrees to pilot the first space ship to Mars in order to distinguish himself. The scenes on Mars are among the funniest of the picture. The Martians, human beings all, seem to come in pairs.
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WONDER STORIES 1055 Each one has a twin, veritable Jekylls and Hydes, one of the two representing the good and one portraying the bad qualities of the pair. Falling from the hands of the “good’ into the clutches of the “bad” half of the population, our pilot with his friends finally escapes and returns to earth in time for the pilot to claim his beloved. The New York of 1980, scenes of which accompany the story “A Flight into Time ” in this issue, is a metropolis of gigantic towering buildings, between which flit the heliocopter planes used by everyone. Food and even drink comes in capsules, while babies of desired sex are obtained by merely putting a com in a slot. . __ . The trip to Mars maintains a semblance of veri- similitude, although the rocket ship “with gravity neutralizer” appeared to be rather small and insub- stantial. It was a pity that more scenes of theheavens from the space ship were not afforded. The time taken for the singing of several silly, inconsequential songs could very well have been used to portray more vividly the dangers of the interplanetary voyage. As an experimental effort, the picture was very well done. It is cordially recommended. It is hoped how- ever that with this humorous story as a start, pro- gressive enterprises such as the Fox Company can be induced to try a more serious story, in which the more serious and tragic aspects of future existence can be shown. ULTIMO — An Imaginative Narration of life under the earth — with projections by John Vassos and the text by Ruth Vassos. 96 pages, stiff cloth covers. Size 8 x 11. Published by E. P. Dutton and Company, New YoTk. Price $5.00. This book is what might be called an aristocrat of science fiction. In a large sized book of beautiful binding, the finest printing and paper and with futur- istic drawing with a tremendous imaginative appeal, there is told tho story of the death of the earth’s civilization. . The story is told from the point of view of a man who has received permission to leave on a space ship as member of a crew to explore the habitability of a planet in “the third star system.” Our sun has long been dying and the civilization of the earth has been carried on with dignity but monotony within the earth’s bowels. But the lack of newness in the standardized subterranean existence, the lack of ad- venture, the monotony of color, shade and sound have all provoked a desire on the part of the more adven- turous to risk the perils of an interstellar journey to found a new race on a hew world. The story accompanies the pictures, and both have a deep and profound appeal by their sense of the gloom, the compression and the endlessness of the lives of the subterraneans. As the sun gradually died, life was carried on precariously on the surface, but even that failed and by burrowing into the earth like field mice, the race founded a new home. Everything for comfort was provided, work was not hard, there were no dangers to this existence. But the lack of danger and uncertainty led some to venture to the surface for the pleasure of hunting bears and wolves. A 8 the cold became intensified even this pleasure was denied and people sought an extra-legal pleasure in hunting down the great bats that abounded in sub- terranean caverns and matching two of them in battle. The children of the race were produced only by a decree of the government by eugenically mated couples. Sexual cohabitation for all other purposes was allowed without restriction. The only goal for these people living almost endless lives lay in service to the State and promotion from one rank to another. But man is, as Mrs. Vassos so eloquently points out, not an animal destined for a static existence. The very breath of his being demands change, conflict, uncertainty and danger. He lives only by escaping, as Carlyle said, the death of attainment. • t For those who wish a handsome addition to their library, of a story told beautifully and powerfully in word and picture, this book is enthusiastically recom- mended. Regular TUBE SALE PAR Vacuum Tubes — 100% replacement within three months provided they still light. X250 _ X210 UX199 UV199 UX120 WD11 WD12 . X201A X226 _ Y227 _ Y224 .. X245 _ X280 _ X171A X112A $0.35 . .40 .50 .75 .50 .75 .50 .50 1.25 1.25 .60 M .65 .75 .75 NO LESS THAN SIX TUBES SOLD AT ONE TIME 20% deposit required on all C. O. D. shipments. Tubes are positively sent within 2U hours. GRENPARK TOOL COMPANY Dept. W.S.-231 245 Greenwich St., New York City Double the life of your coat and vest with correctly matched pants, 100,000 patterns* Every pair hand tailored to your measure; no "readymades." Our match sent FREE for your O. K. before pants are made. Fit guar- anteed. Send piece if eloth or vest today. SUPERIOR MATCH PANTS COMPANY M5 So. 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w You fol must think I can’t play/ / frW, they laughed at my offer IT was the monthly get-together of our little .group and the fun was at its height. Mabel had just finished singing a touching version of “Frankie and Johnnie" when I offered to play. “Boy I This is going to be good! Did you folks hear that? Jim said he’d play for us!” cried Tom. I pretended to be highly insulted. Drawing myself up with mock dig- nity, I said, “You folks must think I can’t play! Why, the ‘very ideal” This caused a fresh explosion of laughter. “Can’t play 1” called someone. "Say, if I could play as well as you, I’d be digging ditches right now 1” Seating myself at the piano I held up my hand to command silence. Then, with a good many flourishes I opened "Swanee River,", turned it upside down, and began to play. And how ! I traveled up and down that keyboard, with my one good finger, as Tom called it, until the crowd howled for mercy. Finally I turned around and de- manded, “Now who says I can’t play?" “You ■win!" came from all sides. “Only please don’t demon- strate any more, for the love of heaven!" But instead of get- ting up from the piano, I suddenly swung into the haunting strains of 1 ‘The Pagan Love Song". But .with, what a difference! This was not” clowning, but real music. I played as I had always longed to — beautifully, effort- lessly, with real skill and feeling. No wonder the crowd could hardly believe their ears! The moment the piece was finished they overwhelmed me with questions. Where had I learned to play! When had I stud- ied! Who was my teacher ! Why had I kept it a secret ! How I Taught Myself to Play I told them the whole story. Ever since I was a child, I had been crazy about music. But, like most children, I hated to practice. That’s why, af- ter a few desultory attempts, my music lessons were given up, and I had to content myself with hearing others play.- But, every time I pepped up a party with my one-finger clowning the longing to really play returned. However, I had no time now to take lessons and spend hours prac- ticing, to say nothing of the ex- pense of a private teacher. Then one day I happened to come across an ud of the U. S. School of Music. “Why, that’s a corre- spondence school, isn’t it?” interrupted Tom. “Yes.” I told him. “The ad offered a Free Demon- stration Lesson to . prove how easy it is to learn to play at home, without a teacher, in one’s spare time. I sent for it. “It was great. I decided to take the course. I learned in my sparo time, after work, and thoroughly enjoyed each lesson. For there arc no long hours of practice — no tiresome scales — the U. S. School of Music way. “Almost before I knew it. I was able to play all the pieces I had always longed to learn '—-jazz. classical, anything. But I didn t want to tell you folks until I was sure of myself — you know, no downing. . . .“ They- were dumbfounded. But in a mo- ment they eagerly demanded piece after niece — dance music, ballads, snappy songs. Now I'm never Invited anywhere that I’m not practically forced to entertain with my mtaiC, A s Tom says, learning to really play has certainly made me popular I No Talent Needed This story is typical. People who once didn't know one note from another are good players today — thanks to the U. 8. School of Music. For the U. S. School course presents ev- erything in such a concise, graphic way — so clear and simple — that a child could un- derstand It. First you arc told what to do — then a picture shows you how to do It — then you do it yourself and hear it. No private teacher could make it any clearer. Send NOW for Free Book We will be glad to send you our Illus- trated Free Book and Free Demonstration Lesson which explains all about tills remark- able method whereby over (500,000 men and women have learned to play their favorite instruments by note. If you really want to learn to play, take this opportunity to make your dreams conic true. Sign the coupon belmv and send it Now* Instruments supplied when needed, cash or credit. I\ 8. SCHOOL OF MUSIC. 502 Brunswick Bldg., New York City. U. S. SCHOOL OF MUSIC. 502 Brunswick Bldg., New York City riease send me your free book. "Music Lessons in Your Own Home” with Intro- duction by Dr. Frank Crane, Free Demon- stration Lesson and particulars of your easy • payment plan. I am interested In the fol- lowing course: nave you instrument ? Name Address City State - PICK YOUR COURSE Plano Violin Organ Clarinet Ukelele Flute Cornet Saxopohone Trombone Harp Piccolo Mandolin Guitar 'Cello Hawaiian Steel Guitar Sight Singing Piano Accordion Italian and German Accordion Voice and Speech Culture Harmony and Composition Drums and Traps Automatic Finger Control Banjo (Plectrum, 5- String or Tenor) Juniors’ Piano Course
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Opmtori on ships sec the wotld and get good pay plus expenses. ntups BIG PAV in RADIO 1 will Train You at Home to Fill a Fascinating Job in Radio You like action, romance, thrills l You’ll get them in Radio— plenty of them! Big pay, too. That is why I urge you to mall the coupon below for my free book of startling facts on the variety of fascinat- expenses. You’ll also find thrills and real pay in Aviation Radio work. Broadcast- ng is another field that offers big pay and fascinating opportunities to men who know Radio. And think of the great. GUI ... expert-a Certified RA DIO-TRICI AN — through my amazingly simple 50-50 mctliod of home-study training. Thousands of men who knew absolutely nothing about Radio before taking my course are today making real money in this growing in- dustry. Thrilling Job* That Pay $S« to $iOO a Week ^Thcre are plenty of good jobs in Radio that pay $50, $75 and up to $100 a week, instance. you_ can see the world in you can see ;rand style a Radio . operator on ship- yard. There are many splendid .-open- Tlue with good pay plus your IS iugs in this thrilling future for men with Radio Train- ing in Television and Talking Movies. A Radio sales and service business of your own is another money-making opportunity 1 train you for. Earn While Yau Learn You stay right at home, hold your job, and learn in your spare time. (Lack of high school education or Radio experi- ence are no drawbacks.) I teach you to begin making money shortly after you en- roll. My new practical method makes this possible. I give you eight big laboratory outfits that teach you to build and service practically every type of receiving set made. Many of my students earn $1d, $20, $30 weekly while learning. ;Earle Cum- mings, 18 Webster St., Haverhill, Mass., writes: “I made $375 in one month in my spare time, installing, servicing, selling Radio sets.” Get My Free Book Rend the coupon below for my 64-page book of opportunities in Radio and infor- mation on my home-study training. It has put lnyidreds of fellows on the road to bigger pay an success. I back my training wfth a .sjfiraed agreement to re- fund every penny 'of your money if, after completion, you are not satisfied with the Lesson and Instruction Service 1 give you. 1’ ill in and mail the coupon NOW ! J. e. smith. Pres., Dept. 1BZ National Radio institute, Washington, D. C. Mail Travelled 75,000 Miles “Dear Mr. Smith: 1 have worked as Junior Operator on board S. S. Dor- chester and Chief Oaeratfir of the Ches- ter Rim. 1 have travelled from 75.000 to 100,000 miles, visited ports in various countries, fished ami motored with mil- lionaires. been on airplane flights^ etc. I am now with Broadcasting Station WREN.” (Signed) Robih J). Qompton, 1213 Vermont SL, Lawrence, Kansas. $400 a Month “The Radio field is getting bigger and better every year. I have made more than $400 each month and it really was yoUr course than brought me to this.” J. G. Dahlstead, 1484 So. 15th St., Salt Lake City, Utah. J. E. SMITH, President National Radio Institute, Dept. 1BZ3 Washington, D. C. Dear Mr. Smith: Send me your book, “Rich Rewards in Radio.” I under- stand this places me unler no obligation and that no salesman will call. I I I I I I ADDRESS.. NAME.. Employment Service to all Graduates CITY STATE. Mi
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1056 WONDER STORIES 700 YEARS HENCE! A CLASSIC IN SCIENCE-FICTION MR. HUGO GERNSBACK, Editor of WONDER STORIES, herewith presents in book form his famous story — RALPH 124C 414- — a romance of the year 2660. This story originally ran in MODERN ELECTRICS, one of Mr. Gernsback’s magazines; there are only a limited number of copies of this book available at present. This book is the fore- runner of all modern science it „//„ hu -- sa fiction stories and contains tuuy illustrated ay more novel ideas> more future the famous Paul inventions (some of which have already come true) than 300 Paces t any bo°k of *ts kind t^iat ^as e i ever been published. It is science fiction plus. A pion- eer in the electrical and radio field, Hugo Gerns- back has a profound knowledge of the subjects, coupled with a finely trained and highly imag- inative mind. This un- usual combination has enabled him to fore- shadow with almost unbelievable accuracy some of the more re- cent developments. His earlier predic- tions, which have appeared from time to time during the past decade in many newspapers and magazines, are now realities. Ever/ prophecy is based on accurate scienti- fic knowledge. His ideas are no more fantastic than the realities and com- monplaces of our everyday life would have been to our great grandfathers. So many WON- DER STORIES readers have asked us if this story can still be secured in book form, that we had a lim- ited number re- printed, as the book was out of print. IF YOU ORDER AT ONCE MR. HUGO GERNSBACK WILL AUTOGRAPH THE BOOK FOR YOU The book is illustrated throughout by Paul, the well-known artist. There are quite a number of these famous illustrations. The book is large size 7% in. x 5*4 in., beautiful cover, bound in regulation linen, with a 4-color jacket. There are 3(N0 pages. We urge you to order this book at onoe as it prob- ably will not be reprinted again for many years. AVIATION PUBLICATIONS 245 Greenwich St., New York, N. Y. coupon AVIATION PUBLICATIONS, 245 Greenwich Street, New York. N. Y. W3-281 Gentlemen : Enclosed find for which please send me prepaid one copy of RALPH 124C 41 -|-, this book to be autographed by Hugo Gernsback. Name Street City and State .