Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  "Well, doesn't that jargon mean anything at all?" I was beginning to be puzzled in earnest.

  "To me, it does not. But it seems to mean a great deal to the public in general. It's making people do things, is it not?"

  I stood a while in stupefied silence. That an entire great nation should become fired up over a meaningless piece of nonsense! Yet, the astonishing thing was that I had to admit that there was plenty of precedent for it in the history of my own z-dimensional world. A nation exterminating itself in civil wars to decide which of two profligate royal families should be privileged to waste the people's substance from the throne; a hundred thousand crusaders marching to death for an idea that to me means nothing; a meaningless, untrue advertising slogan that sells millions of dollars' worth of cigarettes to a nation to the latter's own detriment—haven't we seen it over and over again?"

  "There's a public lecture on this stuff tonight at the First Church of The Salvation," Professor Vibens suggested.

  "I'll be there," I said. "I want to look into the thing."

  That afternoon there was another flurry of "extras" over the street; people gathered in knots and gesticulated with open newspapers.

  "War! Let 'em have it!" I heard men shout.

  "Is our national honor a rag to be muddied and trampled on?" the editorial asked.

  As far as I could gather from reading the papers, there was a group of nations across an ocean that was not taking the gostak seriously. A ship whose pennant bore the slogan had been refused entrance to an Engtalian harbor because it flew no national ensign. The Executive had dispatched a diplomatic note. An evangelist who had attempted to preach the gospel of the distimmed doshes at a public gathering in Itland had been ridden on a rail and otherwise abused. The Executive was dispatching a diplomatic note.

  Public indignation waxed high. Derogatory remarks about "wops" were flung about. Shouts of "Holy war!" were heard. I could feel the tension in the atmosphere as I took my seat in the crowded church in the evening. I had been assured that the message of the gostak and the doshes would be thoroughly expounded so that even the most simple-minded and uneducated people could understand it fully. Although I had my hands full at the University, I was so puzzled and amazed at the course that events were taking that I determined to give the evening to finding out what the "slogan" meant.

  There was a good deal of singing before the lecture began. Mimeographed copies of the words were passed about, but I neglected to preserve them, and do not remember them. I know there was one solemn hymn that reverberated harmoniously through the great church, a chanting repetition of "The Gostak Distims the Doshes." There was another stirring martial air, that began: "Oh the Gostak! Oh the Gostak!"—and ended with a swift cadence on the Gostak Distims the Doshes!" The speaker had a rich, eloquent voice and a commanding figure. He stepped out and bowed solemnly.

  "The gostak distims the doshes," he pronounced impressively. Is it not comforting to know that there is a gostak; do we not glow with pride because the doshes are distimmed? In the entire universe there is no more profoundly significant fact: the gostak distims the doshes. Could anything more complete, yet more tersely emphatic. The gostak distims the doshes!" Applause. "This thrilling truth affects our innermost lives. What would we do if the gostak did not distim the doshes? Without the gostak, without doshes, what would we do? What would we think? How would we feel?—" Applause again.

  At first I thought this was some kind of an introduction. I was inexperienced in listening to popular speeches, lectures, and sermons. I had spent most of my life in the study of physics and its accessory sciences. I could not help trying to figure out the meaning of whatever I heard. When I found none I began to get impatient. I waited some more, thinking that soon he would begin on the real explanation. After thirty minutes of the same sort of stuff as I have just quoted, I gave up trying to listen. I just sat and hoped he would soon be through. The people applauded and grew more excited. After an hour, I stirred restlessly; I slouched down in my seat and sat up by turns. After two hours I grew desperate; I got up and walked out. Most of the people were too excited to notice me. Only a few of them cast hostile glances at my retreat.

  The next day the mad nightmare began for me. First there was a storm of "extras" over the city, announcing the sinking of a merchantman by an Engtalian cruiser. A dispute had arisen between the officers of the merchantman and the port officials, because the latter had jeered disrespectfully at the gostak. The merchantman picked up and started out without having fulfilled all the Customs requirements. A cruiser followed it and ordered it to return. The captain of the merchantman told them that the gostak distims the doshes, whereupon the cruiser fired twice and sank the merchantman. In the afternoon came the "extras" announcing the Executive's declaration of war.

  Recruitment offices opened; the University was depleted of its young men; uniformed troops marched through the city, and railway trains full of them went in and out. Campaigns for raising war loans; homeguards, women's auxiliaries, ladies' aid societies making bandages, young women enlisting as ambulance drivers—it was indeed war; all of it to the constantly repeated slogan: "The gostak distims the doshes."

  I could hardly believe that it was really true. There seemed to be no adequate cause for a war. The huge and powerful nation had dreamed a silly slogan and flung it in the world's face. A group of nations across the water had united into an alliance, claiming they had to defend themselves against having forced upon them a principle they did not desire. The whole thing at the bottom had no meaning. It did not seem possible that there would actually be a war; it seemed more like going through a lot of elaborate play-acting.

  Only when the news came of a vast naval battle of doubtful issue, in which ships had been sunk and thousands of lives lost, did it come to me that they meant business. Black bands of mourning appeared on sleeves and in windows. One of the allied countries was invaded and a front-line set up. Reports of a division wiped out by an airplane attack; of forty thousand dead in a five-day battle; of more men and more money needed, began to make things look real. Haggard men with bandaged heads and arms in slings appeared on the streets; a church and an auditorium were converted into hospitals; and trainloads of wounded were brought in. To convince myself that this thing was so, I visited these wards, and saw with my own eyes the rows of cots, the surgeons working on ghastly wounds, the men with a leg missing or with a hideously disfigured face.

  Food became restricted; there was no white bread, and sugar was rationed. Clothing was of poor quality; coal and oil were obtainable only on government permit. Businesses were shut down. John was gone; his parents received news that he was missing in action.

  Real it was; there could be no more doubt of it. The thing that made it seem most real was the picture of a mangled, hopeless wreck of humanity sent back from the guns, a living protest against the horror of war. Suddenly someone would say: "The gostak distims the doshes!" and the poor wounded fragment would straighten up and put out his chest with pride, and an unquenchable fire would blaze in his eyes. He did not regret having given his all for that. How could I understand it?

  And real it was when the draft was announced. More men were needed; volunteers were insufficient. Along with the rest, I complied with the order to register, doing so in a mechanical fashion, thinking little of it. Suddenly the coldest realization of the reality of it was flung at me, when I was informed that my name had been drawn and that I would have to go!

  All this time I had looked upon this mess as something outside of me; something belonging to a different world, of which I was not a part. Now here was a card summoning me to training camp. With all this death and mangled humanity in the background, I wasn't even interested in this world. I didn't belong here. To be called upon to undergo all the horrors of military life, the risk of a horrible death, for no reason at all! For a silly jumble of meaningless sounds.

  I spent a sleepless night in maddened shock from the thing. In the morning a wild and haggard
caricature of myself looked back at me from the mirror. But I had revolted. I intended to refuse service. If the words conscientious objector ever meant anything, I certainly was one. Even if they shot me for treason at once, that would be a fate less hard to bear than going out and giving my strength and my life for—for nothing at all.

  My apprehensions were quite correct. With my usual success at self-control over a seething interior, I coolly walked to the draft office and informed them that I did not believe in their cause and could not see my way to fight for it. Evidently they had suspected something of that sort already, for they had the irons on my wrists before I had hardly done with my speech.

  "Period of emergency," said a beefy tyrant at the desk; "no time for stringing out a civil trial. Courtmartial!"

  He said it at me vindictively, and the guards jostled me roughly down the corridor; even they resented my attitude. The court-martial was already waiting for me. From the time I walked out of the lecture at the church I had been under secret surveillance; and they knew my attitude thoroughly. That is the first thing the president of the court informed me.

  My trial was short. I was informed that I had no valid reason for objecting. Objectors because of religion, because of nationality, and similar reasons, were readily understood; a jail sentence to the end of the war was their usual fate. But I admitted that I had no intrinsic objection to fighting; I merely jeered at their holy cause. That was treason unpardonable.

  "Sentenced to be shot at sunrise!" the president of the court announced.

  The world spun around with me. But only for a second. My self-control came to my aid. With the curious detachment that comes to us in such emergencies, I noted that the court-martial was being held in Professor Vibens' office; that dingy little Victorian room, where I had first told my story of traveling by relativity and had first realized that I had come to the t-dimensional world. Apparently it was also to be the last room I was to see in this same world. I had no false hopes that the execution would help me back to my own world, as such things sometimes do in stories. When life is gone, it is gone, whether in one dimension or another. I would be just as dead in the z dimension as in the t dimension.

  "Now, Einstein, or never?" I thought. "Come to my aid, O Riemann! O Lobatchewsky! If anything will save me it will have to be a tensor or a geodesic."

  I said it to myself rather ironically. Relativity had brought me here. Could it get me out of this?

  Well! Why not?

  If the form of a natural law, yea, if a natural object varies with the observer who expresses it, might not the truth and the meaning of the gostak slogan also be a matter of relativity? It was like making the moon ride the tree tops again. If I could be a better relativist, and put myself in these people's place, perhaps I could understand the gostak. Perhaps I would even be willing to fight for him or it.

  The idea struck me suddenly. I must have straightened up and some bright change must have passed over my features, for the guards who led me looked at me curiously and took a firmer grip on me. We had just descended the steps of the building and had started down the walk.

  Making the moon ride the tree tops! That was what I needed now. And that sounded as silly to me as the gostak. And the gostak did not seem so silly. I drew a deep breath and felt very much encouraged. The viewpoint of relativity was somehow coming back to me. Necessity manages much. I could understand how one might fight for the idea of a gostak distimming the doshes. I felt almost like telling these men. Relativity is a wonderful thing. They led me up the slope, between the rows of poplars.

  Then it all suddenly popped into my head; how I had gotten here by changing my coordinates, insisting to myself that I was gong upwards. Just like making the moon stop and making the trees ride, when you are out riding at night. Now I was going upwards. In my own world, in the z dimension, this same poplar was down the slope.

  "It's downwards!" I insisted to myself. I shut my eyes, and imagined the building behind and above me. With my eyes shut, it did seem downwards. I walked for a long time before opening them. Then I opened them and looked around.

  I was at the end of the avenue of poplars. I was surprised. The avenue seemed short. Somehow it had become shortened; I had not expected to reach the end so soon. And where were the guards in olive uniform? There were none.

  I turned around and looked back. The slope extended on backwards above me. Indeed I had walked downwards. There we no guards, and the fresh, new building was on the hill behind me.

  Woleshensky stood on the steps.

  "Now what do you think of a t dimension," he called out to me.

  Woleshensky!

  And a new building, modern! Vibens' office was in an old, Victorian building. What was there in common between Vibens and Woleshensky? I drew a deep breath. The comforting realization spread gratefully over me that I was back in my native dimension. The gostak and the war were somewhere else. Here were peace and Woleshensky.

  I hastened to pour out the story to him.

  "What does it all mean?" I asked when I was through. "Somehow—vaguely—it seems that it ought to mean something."

  "Perhaps," he said in his kind, sage way, "we really exist in four dimensions. A part of us and our world that we cannot see and are not conscious of, projects on into another dimension; just like the front edges of the books in the bookcase, turned away from us. You know that the section of a conic cut by the y plane looks different than the section of the same conic by the z plane? Perhaps what you saw was our own world and our own selves, intersected by a different set of co-ordinates. Relativity, as I told you in the beginning."

  * * *

  Contents

  THE RAID FROM MARS

  by Miles John Breuer

  The Radium Thefts

  In a corner office of the ground floor of the Department of Justice Building in Washington, D. C., a man sat bent over his desk with his forehead in his hands. He was a keen and powerful looking person, but at the present he looked utterly puzzled and helpless. He was Herbert Hawes, Chief of the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, and a famous man. Beside him on the desk, and on the floor around his chair, were arranged stack after stack of telegrams, yellow with black headings, and white with blue headings.

  "Mercy Hospital reports mysterious disappearance of radium salts during night"

  "Entire stock of radium disappeared last night. Two attendants found unconscious!"

  "One hundred thousand dollars worth of radium disappeared from Mt. Sinai Hospital. Nurse and doctor unconscious!"

  "Total radium supply stolen. Locks demolished. No clues!"

  Thus ran the telegrams, all of them. They came from all of the large hospitals in the principal cities in the United States, and from numerous large University laboratories. From Bangor, Maine, to Jacksonville, Florida, from Portland, Oregon, to Los Angeles, and crisscrosswise over the country, the story was the same.

  "A raid on the country's supply of radium!" the chief gasped, and sank down in his chair.

  The realization of the enormity of the affair grew on him by leaps and bounds.

  "What a holdup!"

  Now he sat at his desk with his head on his hands. There wasn't a clue. There was nothing to go on. He could think of no way to start. He sat there and worried.

  He did not know how long be had been brooding there, when he slowly became aware of an insistent irritation forcing itself into his detached brain. It dawned on him that it was the telephone. He rubbed his eyes, shook himself and grabbed the instrument.

  "Hello!" he said, as quickly as he could.

  "Lincoln, Nebraska, calling," came through the telephone. "Is this Chief Hawes? Chief of Police Henderson, of Lincoln, wishes to speak to you."

  There was a momentary silence while the connection was made, then a gruff voice spoke.

  The two chiefs identified themselves to each other.

  "I suppose you are investigating the disappearance of the radium," said the Police Chief from Lincoln.

&nbs
p; Chief Hawes grunted in a dubious sort of fashion. Chief Henderson from Lincoln continued:

  Chief Hawes just now thought to look up at the clock. Three o'clock. Four hours his head had lain sunk on his desk, thinking and dozing alternately after this terrific shock had struck him.

  "—the accounts in the newspapers have been most unsatisfactory, but I gather there is a serious problem on, I have what may be a clue. Do you want it?"

  "Do I? Do I? Come on quick!" roared Chief Hawes, banging his desk with the other fist.

  Chief Henderson continued:

  "There was a young chap, just a boy, in my office yesterday, with a most fantastic tale, which now strikes me as having a possible hook-up with this thing. It was so wild, that I told him it was bosh and sent him about his business. Now that this thing has turned up, I feel that there may be something in the boy's story. We ought to look into it."

  "What did he have to say?" demanded Chief Hawes.

  "He had a curious tale about some inventor with heart disease communicating with Mars—; shall I send him over to you?"

  "Nuts! I thought you had a clue. What d'ya want to bother me with..."

  "Well," the Western Police Chief explained, "his story said just that: stealing radium by some guys from Mars."

  "Nuts!"

  "Shall I send him over?" queried Chief Henderson.

  "Yes! No!" roared Hawes, "I'm coming over there."

  IN one of the homes on a modest residence street in Lincoln, Nebraska, a sixteen-year old boy walked into the living-room, where his father was reading a newspaper, and turned off the radio. By the door, at the foot of the hat-rack, a physician's emergency bag and two canvas paper-carriers' bags showed plainly that both father and son were busy men.