by Don Wilcox
If a certain warning had not come to Lester Allison from his wife, he might have walked out on this mysterious situation.
He had no official business connection with Professor Haycox and he felt out of place here, trying to lend advice to a problem he knew nothing about.
“I really have nothing to offer,” he assured the Professor as they breakfasted together. “I repeat that I have never seen a specimen in any of my travels that remotely resembles this creature with the brain.”
“Maybe you will,” the professor suggested, “in your future travels.”
Kirk felt a glow of enthusiasm. He had been lucky to follow Allison into this event. Nothing could suit him better than to be taken along on a few excursions to other planets in search of massive monsters with five-ton brains.
“It would not be easy for me to drop all of my present connections,” said Allison, “to go skylarking around in search of the unknown. If that was your thought in calling me here—”
Professor Haycox tapped him on the arm. “Please don’t jump at any hasty conclusions. I will compensate you for your time and trouble in coming here. If this ends your connection with the case, don’t you see that you have already lent a valuable assistance?”
“How so?”
“By scrutinizing this specimen and stating that you have never seen anything like it. I will use your name when I am ready to announce my discovery to the world. Have you any objection?”
“Certainly not,” said Allison.
Then he fell silent, frowning. The mystery was taking root in his mind, Kirk guessed.
Then a telegram was handed to Allison, and he excused himself to read it. It was from his wife.
EXCITEMENT HERE OVER STRANGE CONDITIONS IN ATMOSPHERE STOP ALL OBSERVATORIES PUZZLED BY YELLOW CLOUDS IN SKIES STOP RADIO RECEPTION FROM SMITT IN MERCURY VERY BAD STOP WHAT CAN MATTER BE STOP JUNE
Allison passed the telegram around. The three men abruptly rose and left their breakfast unfinished. They walked out to the gardens on the south slope.
“There is a strange light,” Allison observed. “I had not noticed it before. Was it there yesterday?”
“I noticed it yesterday,” said Kirk, “when I was on the mountainside. But I have never been in Canada before. I figured maybe the air was just naturally a little more yellow up here.”
“Don’t be absurd,” said the professor. “We have the clearest, finest air in the world. And now, if you gentlemen are through gazing at the clouds, would you care to resume our conferences?”
Allison was still gazing. “It reminds me of a covering that surrounded the Earth during those terrible raids from the warriors of Venus, when Sasho was the emperor. I will never forget the view of the Earth I had from a space ship, one of our old reliable Battering Rams. Sasho had sprayed the continents with explosive gas, and the rocket fire from his ships had ignited it. I never saw such a mass of red and yellow flame in my life.” Professor Haycox began to take interest in the sullen, amber-colored skies. “Do you mean that might be a blanket of explosive gas?”
“If I thought so,” said Allison, “I wouldn’t be standing here. I was simply reminiscing, but I didn’t mean to borrow trouble. However, think I’ll spin out to the Rocky Mountain observatories and stop in at my resort home. Mrs. Allison must be a little upset or she wouldn’t have wired me. I’ll go at once.”
“I will call my chauffeur,” said Professor Haycox, “and accompany you to your plane.”
There was a waste of time for Allison in this arrangement, but it was a well-meant courtesy. The professor was groping for help, and his anxiety to talk with someone about his discovery made him seem rather too insistent.
“Won’t you come back next week, Mr. Allison? I will guarantee your expenses, of course. By that time I may have some data on the nature of the planet from which this monster must have come. By piecing together the evidences you understand, such as the strength of muscles, response to air pressure and adjustments to temperature, we should be able to guess what sort of climatic and gravitational habitations the creature lived in.”
“I wish you all success,” said Allison. “But I must remind you again that this is out of my line. I strongly advise that you call in other experts in biology for consultation.”
“They arrived at the private airport. While Kirk checked the plane, he kept one ear turned to their conversation.
“Then perhaps after we settle upon a probable planet,” the professor was saying, “you will be so good as to make an expedition and take me along.”
Lester Allison laughed. “You should visit my office and see the pile of work that is waiting for me. I am afraid my time is pretty well filled for a year to come. But there are many apprentice pilots, and if you get ready for an expedition, I will be glad to recommend one. Our friend Kirk here might be the very man.”
Kirk had a happy vision of returning from a heroic adventure, of stepping down from his space ship to receive a wreath of honor from a group of beautiful girls. Then he thought of Professor Haycox, who would be standing beside him, and in his vision the wreath slipped from his shoulders to those of the professor. And then there was cheering, and the professor unwound a long speech in words Kirk could not understand.
“What are you dreaming about, Kirk?” Allison asked.
Kirk came to himself with a jerk. He shook his head dubiously.
“I wouldn’t be the pilot for Professor Haycox. I’m afraid,” he confessed, “unless the perfessor and I could get together on the King’s English.”
The leave-taking was delayed for a moment when someone from the laboratory came speeding out to the port.
“Pardon me, Mr. Allison. This is my assistant. Let me see what he wants,” the professor said.
The assistant was in a state of high excitement. He wanted to tell everything at once. He and the Institute’s lawyer had tried to talk with the culprit who had caused yesterday’s trouble.
“We have still got him locked in the back room. He is raving something awful. He says he will have our place blown up if we don’t let him out. He claims he has got a bunch of friends on the way already.”
“From Ubruffs?”
“That’s our guess. Once he talked about Bill Kite—”
“I know Bill Kite is from Ubruffs,” said Kirk.
“But now he is trying to claim he never heard of them, and he dares us to try to arrest him. He tried to make out that he was some sort of a Government agent.”
“Did he tell you his name?”
“He said we could call him Champ Gaskell, and if we would give him a chance to use his fists he would prove he was a champ.”
Professor Haycox was highly disturbed. He was not a man to take trouble in his stride, and so far his attempt to get a monopoly on this unique physiological specimen had brought him nothing but trouble.
“Call the police,” Professor Haycox said. “We will tell the story to them even if it does get to the papers. We have got to have protection.”
At this point the chauffeur broke into the parley. He had a morning paper in his pocket.
“Take a look at this, Professor Haycox. If you think you are going to keep this big news out of the papers, I am afraid you are behind the times.”
The professor adjusted his glasses, and Kirk Allison gathered round for a glimpse of the front page.
The photograph filled a quarter of the page. It was a cloud scene. Hanging low in the sky was a dark amorphous object—a sort of flying star-fish.
The caption read, “Is it a cloud or a flying fish?”
Allison read the brief paragraph aloud.
“Name it and you can have it. The amateur photographer who got this unusual picture swears that it is no fake. He thought he was seeing a huge bird or a new type of flying ship. He seized his camera, got the object as it was sailing over him, and here it is. But what is it? No one knows, least of all the amateur photographer. The creature floated out of sight, however, hidden among the low-hanging clouds.”
For a few moments no one spoke, and for no reason at all everyone seemed to be gazing off toward the yellow skies.
Allison asked, “Did your truckmen get in with the rest of that specimen last night?”
Professor Haycox turned the question to his assistant, and he nodded.
“We have the whole staff of Room Three busy on it, trying to piece it together. But they are going to need more room. It is turning into a big forty-ton star-fish with six points. Just like the one in the picture.”
Allison caught Kirk’s curious eyes. “All right, fellow, we will go back and take a look.”
CHAPTER V
Sky-Hooked
It was late that afternoon when Allison and Kirk set their plane down in the little clearing in front of the Allison mountain resort. They mounted the steps of the cottage, rang the bell, waited. No one answered. Allison turned a key and they went in.
“June! June! Are you here?” Then they discovered the note on the table. It was in June’s handwriting.
“Dear Lester: I was not sure how soon you would come, so I have taken the space flivver for a little errand. Everyone at the Rocky Mountain Observatory is so bewildered by what happened in the sky that I offered to take them up. Leaving at 2:00 p.m. Will soar straight to the zenith from the observatory. Be back tonight. Love. June.”
Allison turned the note over and wrote on the back, “This is in case I miss connections. It is now 4:00 p.m. Kirk Riley and I will probably join you above the stratosphere if the Battering Ram at the Denver port has been put in condition. We are off to a late start, so if I miss you on our space jaunt will see you here tomorrow. We will spend the night overhead. Love. Lester.”
Thirty minutes later they reached the Denver port and climbed into the recently serviced Battering Ram. It was a large ship for only two passengers, but Lester preferred it to any other. He had invented this model himself. It had once been his escape from Mercury.
Kirk was proud to take over the controls. “It’s my first time to sail one of these ships. From what I’ve heard, they’re the toughest model in the world.”
“They are the best flying ship I know anything about,” said Allison. “You have probably heard of the part they played when the emperor Sasho tried to take over this Earth of ours.”
“How could I miss it?” said Kirk. “Every one on earth has seen the famous painting of a Battering Ram crashing through the S-37.”
“You see,” said Allison, “those red and black metals from Mercury have a strength and flexibility that are unequaled. It was sheer luck that I was able to take over those mines and shops in Kilhide’s Underworld. But it came to good use. This very ship is the one Smitt used in the final combat with Sasho.”
“And here I am at the controls,” Kirk grinned.
“Are you accelerating too fast for your blood? You’re acting a little giddy.”
“Sheer pride,” said Kirk. But he settled down to an even speed.
Allison spent several minutes at the telescope, but failed to sight the space flivver. June and her party must have swerved from their intended course.
Taking advantage of the remaining daylight, Allison and Kirk cruised back and forth, trying to guess the elevation that June and her party would probably seek. But two hours of searching proved fruitless, and Allison concluded that the other party must have already descended.
“We will follow the daylight and see what we can make of this business,” said Allison.
The Battering Ram was now high above the stratosphere. Allison could look back and see the yellow gas toward the Earth. It was in the atmosphere. It was like a dust storm hovering high above the land.
“I don’t understand it,” Allison muttered over and over. “That blanket of yellow seems to be a complete sphere. Do you see any limit to it?”
Kirk shook his head. “What puzzles me, I didn’t see when we passed through it.”
“That’s because it is nothing solid. It’s all steamy—a yellow fog. But who ever heard of a fog rising above the stratosphere?”
“Above? Are you sure?”
Kirk could not quite conceive of there being anything above the stratosphere.
“Air can be very thin,” said Allison. “They say it extends outward from the earth three or four hundred miles. But this little gauge is sensitive enough”—he pointed to a dial in the control panel—“that I have detected thin atmosphere as much as 1100 miles out. How far are we now?”
Kirk pointed to the altimeter. It indicated 1800 miles from the Earth’s surface—a quarter of a diameter away.
“Shoot us back down again,” Allison advised. “Let’s course through that band of yellow a few times. If it is not atmosphere, we are going to find out what it is.”
“I suppose you will ride out with a test tube and dip yourself a sample.”
“Not such a screwy idea at that. I might open the air locks and fill up with it, and see what happens.”
“I told my girl in Brooklyn I would be back by the end of the week,” said Kirk, “but I didn’t warn her that I would want flowers and a casket.”
“Get into an oxygen suit, Kirk. We are going to do it. Even if it’s poison gas, it is worth a try.”
“Gee! You don’t want to get this boat full of poison, do you?”
“We can air it out again.”
“Maybe it’ll be explosive gas. Hell, Allison, you will have us blown up higher than the stars.”
“Get into your suit and clamp the parachute locks on good and tight. Here we go.”
By the time they were dressed for any emergency, the Battering Ram had skimmed down toward the 1500-mile level.
Allison took the controls. The altimeter went down—12—10—8—7—750—
“We’re retarding.”
“What happened?” Kirk barked.
Allison shook his head gravely. He touched the accelerator.
“We are still retarding.”
“We are running into something,” said Kirk.
“It is air pressure that’s cushioning us.”
“We are stopping!!”
“Don’t scream,” said Allison. “We still have plenty of power.” He bore down on the accelerator.
“But look at the speed. We are stopped. We are caught in space.”
CHAPTER VI
The Mysteries of Pink Dust
In a land of mighty creatures a teacher had been instructing a class in the mysteries of atoms.
In his graceful seven-fingered hands he had held a chunk of pink colored radioactive substance which he simply termed a piece of “fuel.”
“What is it? Where does it get its energy? What would we find if we could analyze it—break it down into its smallest components?”
Some of the pupils volunteered answers, for they were acquainted with the journals of science of that far-away land. Others sat in dumb bewilderment, drubbing their seven-fingered hands on their desks, waiting to be taught, unwilling to probe the matter for themselves.
“You are familiar with the fact that all matter can be broken down into molecules, and these molecules into atoms. But what lies beyond? Is there any limit to our pursuit of these infinitely smaller divisions of matter?”
Some student volunteered a partial answer. Atoms, he said, had been found to be made of particles of energy in motion—electrons spinning around a nucleus.
The teacher was pleased.
“There is no limit to how deep our investigations may go. If you have been following the journals, you know that we have recently hit upon certain remarkable methods of investigation. Our telescopes are wonderful. We could not do without them. But we have found ways of surpassing them. We have learned to borrow the faculties of tiny creatures whose sense of perception are much more delicate than ours.”
The bright students nodded to each other. They had heard of this before.
“This bit of fuel which I hold in my hand,” the teacher continued, “is a very small part of our own universe. But if you
can imagine ourselves to be tiny creatures only one-billionth our present size, then perhaps one grain of dust which might be scraped from this chunk of fuel would seem large enough to be worthy of our respect.”
Now the idle drubbing upon the desks had ceased. The imaginations were alert to follow this intricate explanation.
“The remarkable fact is that this particular bit of pink substance did chance to furnish the grains of dust upon which certain investigators are working. And what is the method that they have used to gain new insights upon its composition?”
One of the students replied that “intelligent microbes” had been used.
“Correct,” said the teacher. “In recent generations certain investigators have given their lives to the most difficult task of establishing and improving communication with the intelligent microbes. At first it was believed that these tiny creatures, invisible to our naked eyes, were incapable of a mental life. But now that we have a system of common symbols, we have interchanged ideas with them, and they have given us a first-hand verification of our theories of the composition of matter.”
The teacher held the pink substance up to the light and looked at it admiringly.
“Grains of dust from this fuel are still under observation by a colony of so-called ‘graduate’ microbes. Our knowledge of what they have learned is only fragmentary. But would it not be exciting if we could reduce ourselves to their size, to know what they are seeing?”
CHAPTER VII
The Graduate Microbes
The entire room had been given over to the graduate microbes.
Here they had been installed from the moment the superior creatures of this land had made the revolutionary discovery that microbes could be utilized for their own intelligence. It was dangerous for the great creatures to enter this room, not for themselves but for the damage they might do. The graduate microbes were invisible. One could never be sure whether they suffered from being stepped on. Or, more important, whether they might have installed scientific equipment of their own which could be endangered.
