A Large Anthology of Science Fiction

by Jerry

  “Do not beg him, madam!” said the discoverer of the Mongolians’ ray, in his deep, sad voice. “If ten thousand dollars means more to him than this priceless apparatus which will be ruined if the vacuum-globe is not recharged with radium within twenty-four hours—if these instruments upon which the very existence of the white race hangs by a thread—”

  “Aw, dry up,” exclaimed Samuel Jones, in a surly tone. “I guess I blew up your old junk-pile. I’ll give you a check for ten thousand dollars—right now.” There was a tense silence.

  The fraud-excavator for the Mazerka Magazine pulled out a fountain pen and a check book. Stepping over to a surprisingly convenient table made of a couple of rough boards, he wrote out the check. Then he put it into the chain-mailed hand of the armored mystery, who still stood, silently, with his helmet bowed.

  Close behind Samuel Jones there sounded a shrill police whistle. Whirling around, he saw Audrey Valois taking the whistle from her lips. There was a thundering of feet overhead; and down came tumbling the crew of hard-looking customers, as Samuel Jones subsequently described them, whom he had seen following the roadster in a big motor truck.

  THEY started to close in on the discoverer of the Mongolians’ ray; but Audrey Valois checked them, raising her hand, and addressed the motionless mystery in the shining armor:

  “Arman Stressmann, alias Count Vrennisky, alias Doctor Von der Vogel, alias Radium Harry, you are under arrest, in the name of the United States of America!” She put forward her right foot; and, murky as the light was, Samuel Jones had no trouble at all in seeing under her silk stocking, quite a ways up from her ankle, a U. S. Secret Service badge.

  The discoverer of the Mongolians’ ray lifted his right arm and hurled a large glass tube in his chain-mailed fist down on the stone floor. There followed another deafening bang, and the place was instantly full of a purplish-yellow gas, which struck Samuel Jones’ throat like a bucket of red-hot nails. The last thing he saw, at that time, was a black automatic pistol spitting a red tongue of fire, and the armored mystery toppling over sideways on the floor, like a falling chimney, with a hole in his breast-plate. It all happened in a minute.

  When Samuel Jones came to, he found himself propped with pillows on a big musty leather sofa, up in the reception room of the old mansion. Audrey Valois was sitting beside him, gripping him around the neck, and pressing an aromatic-smelling sponge to his face.

  “Ahum!” he spluttered, feebly sitting up. “I thought th’ Mongolians’ ray had struck us. Where’s that armored bird?”

  “He has been taken to a hospital, badly injured,” replied Audrey Valois. “My men all had gas-sponges, foreseeing something of this sort, while Stressmann had one also, in his helmet. The gas is only a quickacting anaesthetic. To-day is the third time, Stressmann manipulated his radium hoax, in my presence. The effects were produced with Tesla currents, Geissler tubes, and cheap gases, together with a scoopful of flashlight magnesium mixed with guncotton. His entire switchboard is balanced on invisible knife-edge bearings; so that when anybody barely touches any part of the board, the “radium explosion’ instantly occurs. The amount of radium he pretended to have lost depended on the pocketbook of the come-on and his temperament. The man before you, a multimillionaire Florida real estate shark, wrote a check for $35,000.

  “Doctor Von der Vogel is a myth. During the last two years, that story of his violent death has been printed, time after time, always in a different paper, and always in a small, inconspicuous paragraph. It has appeared successively in New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, and then back in New York, and so on. In each case, a half-drunken pine-scrub reporter got a hundred dollars to turn in the story, without knowing what it was all about; and it was so brief it never got much attention from the busy city editors.

  “Stressmann himself, in disguise, would get the paper into the coat pocket of his victim, after having first inked it with such threats as he judged would best work upon the temper of his come-on. This Von der Vogel killing threw color over his story; while his suit of armor was spectacular.

  “Radium Harry is an extraordinary criminal. He is an insane radio-engineer; and in his crooked, maniacal brain, he more than half believes in his bulbs and rays. This only intensified his stupendous cunning. He actually did come to Washington, to interview the Attorney-General. After a preliminary investigation by the Department of Justice, I was put on his case; and a previous woman accomplice of his was kidnapped, by my instructions, and held in jail, enabling me to work myself into her place.”

  About this time, both Samuel Jones and Audrey Valois became aware that there was still an arm around his neck. Its blonde owner drew it away.

  “Ahum!” said Samuel Jones, feeling more and more revived. “Has everybody left with the prisoner?”

  “Yes. He and all his apparatus have been carried away on the motor truck that followed us out. My roadster is still outside—and on the way back to town there is a big jazz-tavern, where folks can eat and dance. I’m getting hungry.”

  “Well, I think I could take a cup of coffee now myself—an’ that ain’t no bunk!” said Samuel Jones.

  THE END

  THE THREAT OF THE ROBOT

  David H. Keller, M.D.

  THIS is the age of the “robot.” On every hand we meet a different mechanical wonder that directs some activity, which heretofore was accomplished by human labor. Some of these machines are veritable marvels of cunning and ingenuity.

  Indeed, some of them perform the task better and quicker than human beings ever could. Whether it is a tide-predicting machine, whether it is a machine that controls traffic in our big cities, whether it is a billing machine, or an automatic block signal, or whether it is a robot which closes all windows of your house as soon as it starts to rain, makes little difference.

  Robots are all around vs and it will not take many years until such a machine, so vividly described by our own Dr. Keller, will come about. We will probably nod and wonder why the thing hadn’t been done a long time ago.

  CHAPTER I

  The Return of a Wanderer

  “WOW!” exclaimed the middle aged giant. “What luck to arrive just in time for the big game of the year!”

  Ed Ball had not realized how timely was his return to New York till he began reading the sporting page of the paper while waiting for his breakfast. Gazing at the advertisement, oblivious of his surroundings, he recalled the last game of football that he had played in such a brilliant fashion twenty years ago. For three seasons he had played a remarkable game, and then had graduated and left New York for the far places of the earth. He thought about that last game, how he had personally made most of the score, and finally ran off the field amid the plaudits of the eighty thousand spectators.

  For twenty years he had explored places where the white man was almost unknown, hunting for reptile eggs in Asiafa, King Solomon’s lost cities in South Africa, and rare fossils in Australia. He had deliberately left civilization and he knew more of the world of twenty five thousand years ago than he did of the world of today.

  Finally he awoke to the fact that he was past forty and that it might be a good idea to return to New York and see how his various investments were progressing. Without planning to do so, he had arrived in the Metropolis the night before the great game between New York and Pennsylvania. He had not realized this until he read about the game in the morning paper. No wonder he was excited!

  The newspaper account of the game looked peculiar, but he simply thought that it was some modern slang with which he knew he was rather unfamiliar. He propped the paper against the coffee pot and read:

  “Pennsylvania Places Powerful Team on Field Against New York.

  “University of Pennsylvania promises to place powerful team of football robots on field this afternoon against the crack team of the University of New York. The Pennsylvania experts claim a degree of mechanical ability for their players never surpassed in the history of football. Twenty million persons expected to
witness the game. Stop work and tune in on W2RX. Permits cost only one dollar. Why work when you can be entertained? Sit at home and see the sport of Kings, the contest of a century. This game decides the Inter-University Robot Championship of the country and will certainly be worth seeing. The mechanical experts of the greatest colleges in the East will stage a battle of skill, wit and brawn. Be sure to tune in on W2RX. One dollar is all it will cost to entertain the entire family.”

  Ball called his waiter to the table. Pointing to the paper, he asked what W2RX meant.

  “That is the television broadcasting station code number, sir,” was the polite reply. “But you need not worry about that so long as you are a guest at this hotel. The management is glad to furnish this service free to its guests. At three o’clock this afternoon just go to your room, sir, and tune in, and if you are not an expert, just call for one of the bellboys, and he will be glad to get W2RX for you.

  “And what will happen when he does get W2RX for me?”

  “Then you will see the game. I understand that it is a very good game, though I do not care much for sports myself.”

  Ed Ball gazed at the waiter in astonishment. “You don’t mean that I can see the game from the hotel?” he asked.

  “Certainly. That is the way almost everyone does nowadays. I understand that the spectators used to go out to the field, sir, but that was before my time.”

  There was a lot about this that the former football star did not understand, but as he did not want to betray his ignorance to the waiter, he dismissed him and finished his breakfast. Business matters occupied part of the day, but by two-fifty Ed Ball was at the main gate of the stadium of the University of New York, which certainly looked very much as it had looked twenty years ago when he was at the height of his fame. That is, it looked very much as it used to, as far as stone and cement and location were concerned. It was very much unlike it in every other way. In the first place, there was no crowd. A few men were lounging at the gate, but the eighty thousand spectators that had thronged to see the game in years gone by were strangely absent. It was as quiet and peaceful as a country village. Walking up to the ticket office, Ball was surprised to find that there was no one there to wait on him; and, as the gate was open, he walked in without a ticket.

  It was a wonderful day of the Indian Summer. The grass of the football field was green, the sky, blue. Nature was at her sunniest. Ball saw a small group of men in the boxes on one side at the center and a similar group on the opposite side. There were some large, peculiar boxes placed at regular intervals around the field. So far, there were no players and practically no audience. Ball thought that he must be a day off in his chronology. He felt thoroughly uneasy; there was something uncanny in the stillness which was so different from the hungry roar that came from the assembled thousands when he was a player.

  Walking up to one of the groups of men sitting in the stands, he asked casually, “When will the game begin?”

  “In about ten minutes,” one of the young men answered him rather pleasantly. “You see, we have to wait till W2RX has the air, but that will be soon. Our men will be out in a few minutes; the mechanicians are going over them for the last time now. Won’t you sit down and watch it, sir? It is so seldom that we have actual spectators that we will be honored by your presence.”

  “Why—Yes, I guess I will,” Ball replied slowly. “Which is the New York side?”

  “Right here. You see, we are the real team, sir. Eleven of us and the substitutes,” and he waved his hand so that about twenty-small studious looking men were included in his gesture.

  “That’s good,” said Ball, rather astonished. “I am for New York. In fact, I used to play center on the team some twenty years ago. My name is Ball, Ed Ball, perhaps some of you boys have heard of me?”

  The young men thronged around him.

  “Sure, we have. Good old Ball! One of the old timers, when men were men. Why, you are one of our heroes, sir. Come up and sit with the team and watch us defend the honor of the good old Varsity. Things are changed now, but we are glad to have you with us. Your being here will put a lot of pep in the game.”

  The Great Battle

  THEY stood around the giant veteran and made him feel thoroughly at home. Taking him into the stand, they gave him a seat of honor. “Right with the team, where you belong,” they said. Then suddenly the silence was broken by a shrill whistle, and each one of the team became strangely alert and silent as he bent over a peculiar machine which stood on a table in front of him. For a few minutes Ball thought that the men had been kidding him. He felt sure that they were really newspaper reporters and that these machines were some new kind of telegraphic apparatus. Then the players appeared at each end of the field, lined up in the old position, the ball was kicked and the game was on. Ball was so much interested that he forgot the men sitting near him and their peculiar instruments.

  The game was rather similar to the one that he remembered playing twenty years ago. The odd things that he saw he attributed to the change in the rules. Occasionally a player would be knocked out and the doctors would go out on the field to treat him. Each side seemed to play well but to Ball the silence was depressing. There were even missing the shouts of encouragement from one player to another. Even the collegians in the stands whispered to each other.

  Finally, the quarter came to an end. Neither side had scored. The eleven New Yorkers stopped pecking at their machines and looked up. They were evidently pleased with the results.

  “Well, Ball, Old Top!” one of the men exclaimed. “We held them that time. We thought they had some new inventions in their robots, but our men were just as good. The directing machinery worked perfectly, and our team worked in beautiful harmony. There will be a fifteen minute interval and then we will go at it again. It is too hard a strain on us to play more than twenty minutes at a time. We often find that the full four quarters of twenty minutes is very exhausting. You have no idea the amount of concentration it requires. Often I have seen a man faint.”

  “But those men seemed to be strong fellows,” replied Ball.

  “Oh! I was not talking about them. I mean the real team, the boys that are struggling here at the directing machines for the honor of our dear old college.”

  “Well, I’ll be the goat!” exclaimed Ball, suddenly. “Tell me all about it. I have been in Asia and Africa and Australia for twenty years. I just arrived in New York last night. I have not tried to read a paper for years and years. Everything is changed, and I am either insane or you are. So, tell me all about it, and I will see what is the trouble with me.”

  But before they could begin to tell him about the changes in the football game, the whistle blew and each man rushed back to his seat. This time Ball was asked to sit near the center of the group, and, one of the men whispered to him rather hastily, to watch the robot who was playing center, as that was the player who was controlled by the little collegian who was the captain of the team.

  For a few minutes the game was even and then Pennsylvania scored. The ball was again put into play and again it took only a few minutes for the visiting team to score. The New York players were being repeatedly knocked out; they began to run around the field in an aimless fashion, while the Pennsylvania eleven continued to play with smooth precision. Ball looked around at the eleven men who were manipulating the type-writer-like machines; their faces were haggard; there was no doubt as to their worry. Finally, the quarter ended, with the score thirty-six to nothing in favor of Pennsylvania.

  The New York players trotted off the field, but several had to be assisted by the mechanicians. At once the eleven men in the grandstand went into conference with the chief electrician.

  “Something is wrong with the power!” that official announced. “In some way, the directing currents are being blocked and misinterpreted. Perhaps it is some new wave that the other team is using against us.”

  Just then several of the mechanicians rushed up and announced that three of the robots w
ere completely out of order and that the old style machines would have to be used as substitutes. Consternation reigned.

  It would be useless to tell the story of the rest of that game. Though the eleven little fellows in the grandstand on the New York side did their best, even working to the point of exhaustion, it was impossible to do anything with the conquering visitors, who finally ended the game to the tune of one hundred and thirty to nothing.

  Ed Ball was too much of a gentleman to make any comments on the score, but he could not help recalling the old days when such a defeat would have been impossible, even for a small college. Though depressed, he was filled with a deep curiosity, and he decided to satisfy it by asking the team to take supper with him that evening. He had an idea that they would become talkative after the meal that he would provide for them at the hotel.

  The season being over, and their period of training broken, the eleven men were free to accept the invitation. They suggested that the coach and the chief electrician come along, and Ball was delighted with the idea. So, it was quite a gathering that filled one of the private rooms at the Lostmore Hotel, the latest one hundred story hotel in the great city.

  CHAPTER II

  An Explanation

  BALL found, to his delight, that the coach had actually played football in the old style; so, he suggested, after the coffee and cigars had been served, that the older man tell his story first. Sigmund Haggard was only thirty-nine years old, but in that time he had seen the entire system of athletics revolutionized in every way. He had been one of the last players and one of the first coaches for the new system and was eminently qualified to explain the change.

  “The thing that started the trouble, Mr. Ball,” he began, “was the popularity of the game. It did not make any difference how large the stadiums were built, they could not accommodate the crowds that wanted to see the big games. Finally, the authorities realized that the saturation point had been reached, as far as the size of the audience was concerned. The stadiums could be built larger, but, even as they were, a large percentage of the audience was so far away from the players that they had to use field glasses to get even a small idea of what was going on. Another thing that made an increase in the size of the audience impossible was the difficulty in getting them to their seats. Most of them thought it was necessary for them to come in their cars. And when one hundred thousand people arrive at an athletic field in automobiles, in an hour’s time the congestion is frightful. There was no place to park the cars. It took hours to get to the game and hours to get away, and at every big game there were five times as many people refused seats as were accommodated. Even the graduates could not be accommodated, and that caused a lot of hard feelings and cost the colleges a lot of money because, naturally, the rich men did not like to give large endowments to schools when they could not get enough tickets for their friends to see the big games.