by Earl
I do not know if these words will ever be read. Bat if some ship manages to land safely on Mars, perhaps a living hand will pick this message from among my bones and know the doom that nearly drove me mad.
The radio which is supposed to relay important information to earth is a worthless contraption, another part of their diabolical hoax. I write to on empty future, for regardless of who reads this, nothing can be done about it. Ship alter ship will land here on Mars and on the other planets, ostensibly seeking a new home for humanity—actually flying to crashing death, for the Sci-tri well know that no space-ship can successfully land on other worlds by rocket power.
We are nearing Mars; its reel face is looming larger as the hours pass. We will land—we will crash—in a week. Lately the men have suffered a change of heart, for the fuel is running far short, and they have forgotten the pride that sent them into space. They believe me now—but fools! It is too late! Had we turned back early enough . . .
But no use thinking of that. I have finished my tale, and will soon seal this message in the cylinder so that it will withstand the landing. Can I hope that by the reading of this, the menace of the supermen is gone?—that some unforeseen Providence will yet strike a blow against the corrupt Sci-tri? (signed) Buk 6M-432.
TOM and Lon were pictures of white-faced despair when Tom finally finished reading the long message. But it was Dik who seemed to take it most to heart. He sank to the floor mumbling, only to spring erect suddenly with wild cries.
“Thank God for this message!” he cried. “It relieves me of my last doubt.”
The others could see that there was more to it than what his words implied and stared at him expectantly.
“Fellows,” said Dik, “I’ve been carrying an immense load on my shoulders, and I dared not even confide in you two, my closest friends. You remember that our space-ship passed over the city as we left the ground, and therefore over that glass-covered superman center? And you, Tom, remember that I was absent from the engine room for the first ten seconds?
“Can you guess where I was? I was at the auxiliary lock, which I had opened, with a hundred-pound can of fuel. I dropped it almost blindly as we soared over the city and had the satisfaction of seeing it plunge directly for that glass bubble.”
He went on as both Tom and Lon were speechless: “I watched the effect—bits of glass actually pelted into the lock! That superman city is destroyed!”
Tom opened his mouth, but Dik went on: “I know what you’re going to ask: How did I have the nerve to do such a thing when I didn’t know what is in Buk’s message? The answer is that I saw a Dark Moon in it from the first, and my analytical mind told me I was right!” And for the first time, Tom had nothing to say against his companion’s claims of a sharp mind.
THE END
[1] “Sci-tri” was the official abbreviation for “Tribunal of Science,” the ruling power of Earth.
[2] “bankits” were the medium of exchange, being paper notes whose value never fluctuated.
[3] Every person on earth had a pliant chain of light metal around his neck which bore a small round plate inscribed with the wearer’s name and number. It could not be removed (violence was the only way) without severe penalty.
TRAPPED BY TELEPATHY
Blacky Doone was a killer, and he was going scot free. Then from Dale Randall’s apparatus came an unearthly voice that unnerved the defense.
CHAPTER I
A Killer Confesses
GUILTY! Guilty as hell, Danny Hogan ground out to himself as he sat at the third day of the trial. The lecher under prosecution had committed murder and was getting away with it! Hogan felt like climbing to his hind legs and yelling that aloud.
It was the same old story. Witnesses intimidated and non-committal on the stand. A hole-proof though trumped up alibi. The forces of gangdom and the underworld triumphing. Everyone in the courtroom was convinced that the defendant was guilty, even the jury. But they had to go strictly by evidence. And the evidence to convict the murderer was lacking.
Danny Hogan sighed. The jury was almost ready to go to the docket. Soon Hogan would be calling up the city editor and saying: “Doone acquitted—what did you expect? He’s as innocent as a baby lamb, his shyster proved. Someone fired that fatal shot into Lacky, the tailor, for not paying his ‘dues,’ but it wasn’t Blacky Doone—oh no! Innocent as a baby lamb, he is. And listen, Chief, if you ask me to interview Lacky’s widow, with her five kids, I’ll tell you to go to hell, so don’t ask. I’m sick of this whole affair—”
And then probably the chief would tell Hogan to go and interview Lacky’s widow for a sob-story and Hogan would do it anyway, as it had happened time and again before in his trade. Yeah, it was a sordid racket and you saw so much of the rottenest in human life, and worst of all you couldn’t do anything about it.
Danny Hogan sighed again, miserably. He had hardly noticed that something was going on up front. A tall young man was lugging some sort of apparatus out of a suitcase and setting it up beside the witness chair. Hogan leaned forward suddenly in keen interest. He knew that thoughtful, lean face. It was that of Dale Randall, young scientist over at the university, whom Hogan had once heard speak at an alumni banquet. He was a biologist or something. What the devil was he doing here with that gadget?
A hush came over the crowded courtroom as the prosecutor, nervous and yet eager, addressed the judge. “With your permission, Your Honor, I’d like to have Dr. Dale Randall submit the defendant to a test.”
“The evidence of a lie-detector is not accepted in this state,” reminded the judge, after a short appraisal of the apparatus.
“It’s not a lie-detector,” replied the prosecutor. “It’s a—a—” But now Dale Randall pulled him aside and whispered in his ear. The lawyer looked up sheepishly. “Well, it is a sort of lie-detector, Your Honor, but there is no ruling against its use, I believe.”
“Only with the permission of the defendant,” stated the judge.
The prosecutor turned to the man in the witness chair. Blacky Doone leered back at him confidently, fully aware that he was as good as acquitted already. An hour’s desperate grilling by the prosecutor had failed to shake his alibi.
“Will you submit to this test, Doone?” demanded the lawyer.
“No. Why should I?”
The prosecutor narrowed his eyes. “Afraid, are you—” The judge promptly cut him off, but the prosecutor continued to glare at the man, with an unvoiced challenge. Doone suddenly accepted.
DANNY HOGAN knew why. He had nothing to lose. The lie-machine’s evidence could not turn the tide, for it was disbarred. And Doone would be a bigger hero among his underworld compatriots for it. It would feed his ego.
Hogan strained forward but could not make out much of the apparatus. It looked like a lot of radio parts. Among them was a large jar of greenish liquid with two electrodes submerged in it. Two insulated wires led from it to a simple headband of leather that Dale Randall fitted around the defendant’s head. Two small round plates of copper pressed lightly against his temples.
Dale Randall stepped away from the man and nodded to the prosecutor. The latter stood himself squarely in front of the grinning prisoner, hands on hips in typical lawyer pose.
A dead silence came over the courtroom as everyone leaned forward wonderingly. Danny Hogan leaned forward too, watching Randall’s face, wondering why it looked so expectant—Suddenly the prosecutor’s voice barked out at the defendant. “Did you or did you not murder Lacky the tailor in cold blood? Yes or no!”
Danny Hogan’s quick eyes noticed that Dale Randall flipped a little switch the instant the last word was out. A soft, scratching sound arose, exactly like that of a blank phonograph record.
The man in the witness chair looked at the prosecutor in mock injury. His shifty eyes were laughing at this clumsy attempt to catch him off guard. His mouth opened to protest his innocence—
But another voice interrupted him—a weird, garbled voice that rose from t
he scratching of Randall’s strange machine.
“—of course I bumped off Lacky you dope but you’ll never prove it boy is this a laugh now I’ll say no I did not and it’ll be over and—”
These words rolled over the hushed room with the dry, mechanical hiss of microphonic apparatus. Blacky Doone tore the headband from him with a shriek and flung it away as though it were a venomous spider. His face had gone ashen. He leaped to his feet, eyes rolling wildly.
“What’s the matter, Doone?” asked the prosecutor sharply in the breathless suspense. “Sit down, Doone. I want to question you some more!”
The prisoner sat down, swallowing painfully, obviously unnerved by what had just occurred.
“That machine gave your thoughts, Doone!” hissed the prosecutor. “It formed into spoken words what went on in your mind. It was the true answer to my question, was it not? Tell the court whether it was or not!”
“It’s a frame-up!” croaked Doone, shifting his eyes around like a cornered rat. “It’s a frame-up, I tell you—” He was the picture of a man rapidly going hysterical.
“Everybody heard the words in your mind, Doone! You can’t deny it or escape it. The words have been permanently recorded. We can run them again and again. You killed Lacky! You fired the shot! Yes or no, answer the court—” The prosecutor drilled in relentlessly, hurling his accusations with the pitiless efficiency of a machine-gun.
DANNY HOGAN watched a man who had heard his own thoughts spoken aloud go to pieces. But he also watched Dale Randall’s face radiate a triumphant glow as he stood quietly by.
Ten minutes later, after the prosecutor had rerun the weird electrical voice from the recording machine, Doone broke down completely and shrieked his confession from the stand. The case was broken! The death sentence would be mandatory now!
Danny Hogan sat stunned, barely able to believe that he had seen what he had seen. Justice meted out at the flick of a switch! A criminal’s most hidden thoughts ferreted out!
But just how did that machine of Randall’s do it? By what scientific magic? He must find out. But first his duty to his paper. Danny Hogan joined the rush of reporters to the phone booths. He gave out the story in clipped, meaty phrases, fairly singing it into the mouthpiece. He had to deny three times that he was roaring drunk before the city editor at the other end of the line acknowledged the report and promised an extra on the streets in 57 minutes flat.
Then Danny Hogan was back in a rush, with the rest of the reporters, to waylay Dale Randall as he left the courtroom, lugging his suitcase with the packed apparatus.
“What you got there, Doc?” was the question hurled at him in a dozen different forms. “How did you do it?”
“I’m sorry, gentlemen. I’m not at liberty—” the young scientist began, with the shy manner of one not used to the public eye. He was cut off by a deluge of entreaties. Shaking his head, he tried to force his way through, but the reporters blocked him, clamoring.
“Boys, boys, let him alone!” It was the prosecutor’s voice. He bustled his way forward. “Dr. Randall is not prepared to reveal his method.”
“But we’ve got to have something for our papers! We can’t just say he made Blacky Doone talk with a coffee-grinder!”
“All right, it’s a phonograph record, that’s all!” growled the lawyer. “Didn’t you hear it scratching? Now let us through, boys—” He guided the bewildered young scientist away.
“Phonograph record—nuts!” said Danny Hogan to himself.
CHAPTER II
Hogan Gets a Story
DAN HOGAN was still saying “nuts” to himself two hours later when his battered old car wheezed down the shady lanes of the university grounds. He had decided to come here and try to interview Dale Randall. He sensed that there was a bigger story in his gadget, whatever it was, than the whole trial had been.
When Hogan stepped from his car, the familiar voice of one of his rival reporters came from a car about to drive away. “No use, Danny me lad! I thought of it, too. No interviews. The girl said a dozen others of our ilk had been here and been flatly told to go chase a butterfly—in polite language, of course. But I know you’ll try, like I did, so here’s wishing you luck—all bad!” The rival reporter grinned and drove away.
“Hm, no interviews!” mused Hogan. He thought rapidly. Finally he straightened his tie, brushed back his hair, and made his way down the hall to the door marked “Biochemical Laboratory—Dr. Dale Randall.” He knocked, whistling softly to himself.
The door opened no more than a foot. A girl’s face peered out. She might be attractive behind those hornrimmed goggles, Danny Hogan reflected fleetingly before he asked, “Daniel Hogan calling to see Dr. Dale Randall, please?”
“No reporters allowed, sorry,” said the girl, trying to close the door. Hogan had his foot in it.
“Reporter?” said Hogan with an injured air. He drew himself up. “I’m from Northwestern University’s Criminology Department!”
“Oh, come in!” gasped the girl apologetically.
Danny Hogan reflected that some people were so gullible, but it was their own fault. He stepped in briskly.
The laboratory was large and crammed with the tools and materials of a biologist. Hogan felt as though he were suddenly in another world, one where the things that mattered to him meant nothing. Well, he had come here for a story and he was going to get it. He would have to use his wits, though.
Dale Randall, after the girl had spoken to him, came forward, blinking as though he had been awakened from some dream. “You’ll have to excuse my assistant, Miss Cole, for asking if you were a reporter,” he said. “They’re such pests. And I hate notoriety.”
“They are pests,” agreed Hogan. “Dr. Randall, you did a remarkable thing at the trial today. Our laboratory is interested in all scientific crime-detection methods. Does your machine give the genuine thoughts of the person tested?”
“Yes,” said the young scientist simply.
Danny Hogan started slightly. He had been secretly trying to convince himself it wasn’t that, because the thing was so incredible.
“H-how does it work?” he asked a little hoarsely. He sensed already that he was in the presence of genius, and it almost frightened him, though he would have interviewed the Emperor of Japan without a qualm. Somehow this was different, like asking questions whose answers would upset the whole normal universe.
“By conversion of thought-impulses into currents of ions,” stated the biochemist briefly.
“Tell me the whole story,” begged Hogan. “That is,” he added hastily, “Dr. Rohr, back at our laboratory, would like to know something about an apparatus that could be so useful in the fight against crime.” Hogan had visions of a tremendous scoop for his newspaper.
DALE RANDALL was obviously the untalkative type, more concerned with practicing science than talking about it. Danny Hogan put his best look of avid interest in his face. It was irresistible to most people. Randall proved to be no exception. He turned to his apparatus and pointed to the glass jar with its greenish fluid.
“The solution is the heart of it,” he explained. “It contains a new and very complex amino-acid that I synthesized, one that ionizes almost as strongly as sulphuric acid. When I first experimented with it, a few months ago, I made it give off electrical current like a storage battery. Then I knew that it was undoubtedly the stuff that exists in our bodies, in minute quantities, and supplies current to our nervous systems. Amino-acids, as you know, are related to the proteins that make up living matter.”
Dale Randall suddenly changed from the casual manner of a class-room lecturer to one of suppressed excitement. His eyes started to glow.
“Can you imagine how I felt? I had a substance of major importance in the mechanism of the living body’s nervous system and—brain! It must have some tie-up with mentality, I reasoned. Then one day, only about a month ago, I got the biggest thrill of all—when my solution responded to mental vibrations! I think I felt like Madame Cur
ie then, discovering radium! Or like Roentgen, finding the X-rays! It was glorious—”
He stopped suddenly, smiling with embarrassment. Danny Hogan thought of the thrill of his first scoop. If he multiplied that about a million times he’d get close to what had shone from Dale Randall’s face for an instant.
“But credit where credit is due!” continued Randall, warming up to the subject. “It was really Miss Cole here who gave me the clue!”
The girl who had stood quietly by all this time, blushed prettily. Danny Hogan made a subconscious mental note to see how she looked without those goggles in the near future.
The scientists went on. “Miss Cole suggested that the human nervous-system might complete a circuit with the new electrolyte. We tried it and it worked. A galvanometer showed every throb of the nerves, modulating the current. That made it something of a lie-detector in principle. Then I theorized the next step ahead and it made my head swim. I thought of it a week before I had the courage to try it!”
Dale Randall paused for a moment, a gleam in his eyes.
“Finally I tried it—refined the apparatus and put the mental field, so to speak, of my brain into the circuit. Every thought-impulse registered on our meters!”
Both of them had that look now, Danny saw. They glowed! It was as though they had opened a buried treasure and saw sparkling diamonds and shining gold. Hogan sighed. It must be a wonderful thing to be a scientist and discover something like that!
Dale Randall went on, his voice breathless as though he could hardly believe himself what had followed.
“It was a simple step then to hook up a speaker and listen to the thought-impulses! Just as radio-waves carry and reproduce sound, the ions in this new solution carry and reproduce thought-impulses. The thought-impulses themselves are so fine and delicate that no other material can intercept them. But these supersensitive ions migrate instantly to the electrodes when the brain-waves vibrate through them. It was something like detecting the elusive cosmic-rays with a supersensitive electroscope. Before that they had been unsuspected.”
