by Earl
“The Space Rover!” breathed Jon. “He’s a notorious killer on Venus—he must have heard about Kresswood and come here to cash in! He’ll kill Kresswood even if the ransom is paid. It’s a long chance, but I’ve got to go to the wilds alone. Hold radio silence until you hear from me.”
Jon shot his ship far across Io to where steamy forests and jumbled rocks dominated the landscape. The wilds. He flew in wide circles till he saw the glint of metal below. That must be the right ship.
Jon landed out of sight and crept close, but suddenly a form dropped on him from the tree above. His gun was yanked away and two met in black grinned at him.
“Come on, the ship’s that way.” They motioned to the left.
Jon’s hands were tied, and they marched him back to the Space Rover ship. Inside, he was shoved into a cabin. Kresswood, haggard and frightened, sat on a tiny metal bench.
“Why didn’t you bring the jewels?” Kresswood moaned.
“You fool,” grated Jon. “The moment the jewels came, the Space Rover would have shot you. You were dead either way. My only hope was to take them by surprise, but it didn’t work.”
“Right,” growled the bandit leader. “Now you both get shot.”
“Wait!” screeched Kresswood. “This is all a mistake. I’m not Robert Kresswood at all! I don’t own Io!”
Jon said, “You mean you’re an imposter?”
“Yes, yes!” babbled the craven man. “I confess. The Kresswood family died out long ago. I’m just Jack Todd, a nobody. A wandering space hobo. I found the ancient document in a curio shop on Earth. It was real, so I saw my chance to pose as a descendant of the Kresswoods and take over Io.” He turned appealing eyes to the bandit. “So you see. I’m not rich at all. I’m poor, penniless. No use holding me for ransom. Let me free!”
The Space Rover swore in rage and aimed his gun at the exposed swindler. “For that,” he bellowed, “you die on the spot! I’m going to riddle you full of holes, and—”
But suddenly, he was laughing, as he put his gun away. Jon Jarl was laughing, too. So were all the other men.
Jack Todd, ex-owner of Io, gaped.
“Allow me,” choked Jon, “to introduce the crew of Space Patrol ship Z-48! Good work, boys. You played the bandit parts to the hilt—all for the benefit of our scheming friend.”
Jon turned to the man who had tried to swindle a world. “We suspected you were an imposter, but it would have taken weeks or months to look up the records and inform the Interplanetary Courts. By that time, you could have robbed Io blind and have vanished, which was your whole plot in the first place. So we decided on this quick method of getting you to confess. I knew that to save your worthless skin you’d confess it was all a hoax.” Jon grinned, taking out his handcuffs. “Instead of The Man Who Owned a World, you’ll go down in history as The Man Who Tried to Steal a World!”
VILLAIN OF TIME
Two ships rocketed through space. One was large—and carried a full load of valuable cargo, including a fortune in diamonds from Jupiter. The other ship was small with a white star emblem of the Space Patrol. And in it was Lieutenant Jon Jarl, assigned to escort the cargo ship to Earth.
Jon Jarl sat nervously at his controls. There were pirates of space who might be after the priceless diamonds. Jon used his space scanner and carefully examined every direction around them. No, there wasn’t a single ship within a million miles.
Jon heaved a sigh of relief and relaxed. Evidently no pirates dared attack with a Space Patrol ship on guard. All was well.
But suddenly, before Jon’s astounded eyes, another ship appeared magically, out of nowhere. It was impossible! His scanner showed no such ship sneaking up through space. But yet there it was. A long, wicked gun-snout poked from its side and aimed for the cargo ship. Pirates!
Jon opened fire. He blazed away at the enemy ship with all he had, which was plenty. But when a haze of smoke and sparks cleared, there was the strange ship unharmed! Mystery piled upon mystery. What kind of ship was it that could ignore guns?
Jon flipped open his radio to contact them. But words came first from the other ship. A drawling voice with a strange clipped accent said—“So you are one of the Space Patrolmen of 2261 A.D.? I’ve read about you. Your guns are a laugh. I’ll just ignore you and rob that cargo ship!”
“Who are you?” yelled back Jon, but there was no reply. Enraged, Jon blazed away again at the other ship, but it was the same as before. However, Jon was not through. Swiftly, he slipped into his spacesuit, opened his air locks, and leaped out, straight for the other ship. Maybe he could surprise the pirates as they emerged from their ship.
Jon took up a position directly above their air lock and waited, ray gun in hand. The lock opened. Only one man stepped out, in a spacesuit of strange design. Jon shot at him and gasped. Nothing happened. Like his ship, the man himself was impervious to gunfire!
The man looked up and saw Jon. He laughed. “Well, well! You Space Patrol of this time are brave, if helpless! I’ll give you a dose of my Paralysis Ray and capture you!”
Jon tried to duck, but a strange green ray hit him. All of Jon’s muscles went taut. He was paralyzed! Laughing, the man dragged him into his ship and flung him in a corner. “Now I’ll go and rob the cargo,” he chortled.
He was back in a few minutes, carrying a sack of diamonds worth a ransom. “It was easy,” he informed Jon. “I just paralyzed the whole crew and walked out with the loot. Why, robbery is a cinch in this age!”
It all clicked in Jon’s mind. He found that by straining, he could use his vocal chords, though all the rest of him was paralyzed. “You’re from the future!” Jon croaked in realization. “You didn’t pop out of space and surprise us. You popped out of time. That’s why my scanner didn’t show your presence till the moment you arrived!”
The future-man nodded. “Yes, I’m Togg, from the year 5000 A.D.! In other words, almost 3000 years in your future. A brilliant scientist of my time invented this Time Drive ship to visit past ages. I killed him and stole his ship!”
“You’re a criminal of your age!” Jon guessed.
Togg nodded. “Yes, but our police of 5000 A.D. are so vigilant that I couldn’t pull any jobs. But now, with this Time Ship, I can visit past ages and easily gather loot. Since this ship is built of indestructible plastics, I can laugh at all the piddling weapons of any time except my own!”
Jon stared. “You mean you’re going to visit age after age and loot one after the other? Is that your great scheme?”
Togg grinned triumphantly. “Sure! Before coming to this time, for instance, I stopped off twice before, and look what I got!”
He opened a chest filled with round coins of dull white metal. “Platinum money of 3880!”
Then he pointed to a pile of ingots that glowed softly. “Refined uranium, from an atomic plant of 2960!”
Jon’s mind whirled. A thief of time! A villain of the ages! This bandit of the far future could visit all past eras, rob them of their best treasures, and leave no trail! For his escape was always through time, where no police could pursue! Togg was the greatest and most elusive criminal of all history!
“Which age is next on your list?” Jon grated helplessly.
“1949,” returned Togg. “That was one of the peaks of prosperity of an ancient nation on Earth called . . . let me see, what was it? Oh yes. The United States. I’m going back there now to rob a place called Fort Knox, where they stored a vast fortune in gold.”
He turned to Jon, amused. “As for you, that paralysis will last for hours. I’ll take you along and let you see me rob them and laugh. It amuses me to have you along to taunt you. When I get tired of it, I’ll dump you off in space somewhere.”
Jon shuddered at the heartless voice. He strained, trying to move, but his muscles refused to respond. He could only lie and watch this villain of time carry on his nefarious plot!
Togg moved a lever, and set a dial for number 1949. There was a strange lurch, a hollow spinning se
nsation, and then Togg pointed calmly out the window. “There’s the Earth—of the year 1949! I’ll land and rob their Fort Knox.”
Togg landed his ship and grinned at Jon. “Fort Knox is over the hill,” he said. “Pardon me while I go and loot it, won’t you?”
Jon lay helpless. His muscles were still frozen. He could imagine how easy it would be for the criminal of 5000 A.D. to rob the place. He would paralyze all guards. Then he would use a Blast Ray to smash open concrete walls. He would penetrate to the inner vaults and seize the gold bars. No doubt he had some kind of anti-gravity ray to make the heavy metal weightless for the time being, and thus easily carry the ingots of gold away.
And how could the 20th century police stop such terrific scientific feats of 5000 AD?
It would be like a crook with a machine gun robbing ancient cave men.
Jon suddenly found he could move his little finger! Was the paralysis wearing off, slowly? Agonizingly, straining every muscle, Jon regained a partial use of his arm muscles, and dragged himself across the floor. Outside the window, he could see Togg approaching, dragging a huge pile of de-gravitized gold ingots. Jon had to reach the controls before Togg stepped in!
Just as the hatch opened, Jon yanked a lever, and nudged over the dial. Jon would never forget the look on Togg’s face, as his ship vanished before his eyes. For Jon had set the dial for 1999, in the future!
Panting, Jon rested and let the rest of paralysis take its time wearing off. There was no hurry. Togg was safely marooned and trapped back in 1949, without his Time Ship!
Hours later, with his strength fully back, Jon reset the dial for 1949. As he reappeared, he saw the strange sight of army troops advancing toward the lone figure of Togg, who had emptied his weapons and was about to be captured.
“Sorry, he’s mine,” grunted Jon. He leaped upon Togg and chopped him down with three jarring blows. Then he dumped the limp body into the ship, waved at the dumfounded soldiers below, and the ship vanished.
Left behind, of course, was the almost-stolen gold.
Jon sped the time ship to 2960 and dumped off the stolen uranium. Then to 3880, where he returned the platinum coins. Then he set the dial for 5000 A.D.!
Jon turned to grin at Togg, thoroughly roped and handcuffed.
“I’m dropping you off in 5000, which is your own time. I think the police there will be glad to get their hands on you again.”
Finally, Jon returned to his own time—2261 A.D. The time ship had run out of fuel—and no one knew what kind of fuel it used—so it would end up in a museum as a curiosity.
Jon reported to Headquarters and was asked—“Where have you been? Did you take a jaunt out to Pluto or something!”
“No,” murmured Jon. “I went much further than that—much further.”
ATOMIC EXPRESS MAIL
Young Dik Tomson, a boy of fourteen, hurried home from school and eagerly went to his room and to his stamp collection. He had just gotten a new batch of stamps, and he wanted to hinge them in his album. Stamp collecting was a fascinating hobby.
Dik opened his album and went through the pages. There were the old stamps from the United States, and Great Britain, and France, and all those other funny nations of the long-ago 20th century. They were so old that they had to be treated with a preservative to keep them from crumbling.
Now Dik turned to Section Two, after the interplanetary age began. There were the early stamps of Mars and Venus and all the other planets. There were many special commemorative stamps in Dik’s collection. For instance, the First Moon Stamp. It showed the first rocketship which reached the moon.
Also there was the stamp commemorating the First Expedition to Pluto. None of those brave men had returned. Then the prized Comet Stamp, the Centennial of Space Travel, the formation of the Federation of Worlds, This last stamp showed the representatives of all worlds meeting and proclaiming everlasting peace among them.
The whole history of civilization was there in Dik’s stamps.
But now he opened his new packet of stamps excitedly. What would he find? He gave a yelp of joy and danced around the room. For among the stamps was one showing a rocketship zooming through space at terrific speed. It was labeled—FIRST ATOMIC EXPRESS MAIL! It was the latest special commemorative stamp of 2261!
Dik thought how back in 1916, the first Air Mail had been introduced to civilization, speeding mail along by airplane. Then, after interplanetary travel had been developed, Earth had introduced its famous Rocket Mail.
But now, only a month ago, the first Atomic Express Mail had been devised. In ship powered by atomic energy, a daring pilot had carried the mail through space at the blinding speed of light itself—186,000 miles per second! Dik even remembered the pilot’s name—Lieutenant Jon Jarl of the Space Patrol.
Dik fingered the stamp almost in reverence. This stamp had been on a letter that whizzed through space faster than ever before in the history of mail. Did the pilot, Jon Jarl, meet any danger? What story would this stamp tell, if it could speak?
Lieutenant Jon Jarl saluted and took the bag of mail from his superior officer.
“Lieutenant Jarl,” the officer said, “this will be the first Atomic Express Mail, carried at the speed of light. When the Planetary Postal Department found it had no pilot capable of handling a ship that fast, they appealed to us of the Space Patrol. If you blaze the trail for them, they will give Atomic Express Mail to all worlds. The trip may be dangerous, though.”
“I know, sir,” interrupted Jon. “But I thank you for picking me for this first trial run. I can only say one thing, sir! The mail will go through!”
Jon turned and stepped into the long, sleek ship behind him. On its side was painted—ATOMIC EXPRESS MAIL. Jon took a deep breath and shot into the sky, away from Earth. His destination was remote Pluto, four billion miles off. Even at the speed of light, it would take him six hours to get there!
He had been sent to the most distant planet because, once he blazed that long trail, trips to the other planets would be simple. The Atomic Express Mail could reach the Moon, for instance, in less than two seconds! To arrive at Venus would only take about three minutes. Mars the same. A trip to Jupiter would take less than an hour. And so on. Only the long drive to Pluto, taking six hours, might lead to unknown hazards.
For one thing, would the motor, blasting away at top speed hold out? Jon listened intently as it throbbed back of him. All seemed well. In fact, all was well for the first five hours.
Jon flashed past Mars and its canals. Then past Jupiter, its Red Spot and many moons. Even Jupiter whisked by like a giant fire-fly of space. Saturn and its rings blazed out briefly in Jon’s side window, and then it, too, faded back to a bright point of light. Jon zipped past the orbits of Uranus and Neptune, not seeing them, since they were at present on the other side of the sun.
After Neptune was the long empty ocean of outer space, with only a single more world ahead—Pluto.
The second danger was if he missed Pluto. If he aimed wrong and went on into outer space, he might get hopelessly lost. Anxiously, Jon checked his instruments. They showed a world ahead, in a bee-line. He gave a sigh of relief. He was aimed right. Danger number two was over.
Jon took time out to glance at the sack of mail he was carrying to settlers on Pluto. Ordinarily, by even the Speedy Rocket Mail they had to wait days and sometimes weeks for their mail. But now, stamped with the new Atomic Express stamp, the Pluto people would get their mail fresh, only six hours old!
Jon turned his mind back to his job. Danger number three was . . .
And then it happened!
The outer hull of the ship was heating up. It began to glow a dull red. Quickly, the color brightened to cherry red and bright yellow. The heat began to pour in on Jon. If the hull got heated up white-hot, it would weaken and melt!
Perspiration pouring down his face, Jon looked out and saw that there was a faint haze around him in space. It meant that he had unexpectedly plowed directly into a mass of l
oose atoms drifting through space. Jon knew that actually the atoms were far apart, not densely packed at all. In fact, this cloud of atoms was thinner than the best artificial vacuum ever made by scientists in a laboratory!
But—and this was the big but—Jon’s ship was traveling at the enormous speed of light. Therefore, he was passing the atoms so fast that they drummed against his hull like a thick atmosphere. And their friction was heating up the hull!
And that was Danger Number Three!
The hull got hotter. It was glowing almost white now. Jon hugged the refrigeration unit, but it was no help. The interior thermometer read 118 degrees, and going up!
Jon ripped off his over clothing. He dumped gallons of his drinking water over his tortured skin. Nothing helped. His skin turned lobster red, and Jon knew that he was slowly being cooked alive.
Another minute of this and he’d be done for. His ship would ram on to Pluto and land with a frightful smash. They might find one torn stamp or two bearing the words—ATOMIC EXPRESS MAIL—but that would be all.
“Go back!” screamed a voice in Jon’s mind. “You can save yourself by stopping and turning back! Don’t be a fool! Forget the mail.”
Groaning in pain, Jon gave up. He turned to his controls. He could slow the ship down and turn back and still save his life. If he went on, he might be getting deeper and deeper into the atom cloud. It was senseless.
But with his hand on the control lever, Jon’s eyes suddenly saw the big letters in gold-leaf on the wall, the great slogan and inspiration of the mail service since ancient times.
“Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds!”
Jon’s hand slid away from the controls. His teeth clamped shut. He turned away and shook a fist out the window. “All right, do your worst. But the mail is going through!”
The ship landed at Pluto City. A red-eyed figure staggered out, only rags hanging to his fiery red skin. All his hair was singed and his feet and hands were swollen beyond recognition. But he was dragging a sack behind him. And when the Postal Chief hurried up, Jon Jarl gave a mighty effort and straightened up.
