by Eando Binder
“Ouch!” mumbled the young man whose turn it was to carry on the game. “That’s really stiff! Well, let’s see, the hero would…uh…er…”
His voice died away, baffled. For a long minute there was silence. Another voice piped up. “Need some help? The hero could get in his spacesuit, jump from the ship and eh…”
“And float there for several years, without food or water, waiting for a ship to pass by?” said Jon mildly.
There was another long silence. Puzzled eyes turned to Jon. Finally Pete spoke up. “Holy smoke, Jon! We’re all stuck! Let’s see you get the hero out of your own trap!”
Jon spoke without hesitation. “Remember, nothing else in the ship was touched—just the fuel drained away. All spaceships are equipped with electric batteries needed to run the radio and radar equipment. Staunchheart hooked up all his batteries and sent the charge through his ship’s hull. This gave the ship a strong negative charge. When a huge meteor passed him, not long after, the small ship was attracted toward the meteor, like a bit of iron filing to a magnet. This jerked the ship out of its straight line course, and made it turn into a parabolic curve, which brought it eventually into the vicinity of a planet.”
“But wait,” protested a voice from the group. “Our hero still has no fuel for his rocket motor. The ship would only crash on the planet then!”
Jon went on. “But our hero saw his salvation as he came down for a crash. He spotted a small lake to the side. So he leaped from the ship and dove safely into the water as the ship crashed on land. He swam and crawled up on shore, pretty battered, but alive. And saved from the frightful fate of shooting through space in a runaway spaceship!”
A long sigh escaped from the assembled guests. One voice said, “It sounded so real! Almost as if you went through the whole thing yourself!”
“I did,” Jon said quietly, and they noticed now how serious his face was. “Only the villain’s name wasn’t Dr. Shnarl. It was Dr. Hal Brutus!”
“And the hero’s name,” said Pete’s voice in awe, “wasn’t Staunchheart. It was Lieutenant Jon Jarl of the Space Patrol!”
HOBO OF THE VOID
“Can you spare a sandwich and a cuppa coffee, lady?”
The woman stared from the door of her home at the ill-clad unshaven figure before her. “A tramp, eh?” she said distastefully.
“Yes, ma’am,” he admitted slowly. “Just a space tramp. I roam all around the worlds, picking up hand-outs wherever I can get em.”
“Why don’t you get a job?” she said sharply.
“Listen, lady, I once had a job. A big job. I…” He stopped and his eyes went bleak. “But why hand you a hard-luck story? I’m hungry right now, that’s all.”
Slam! The door closed abruptly in his face. The space hobo turned away slowly, then shrugged. There were many other homes in this crater of the Moon. He could try others and hope for a kinder reception…
He was in giant Tycho crater, 54 miles across, one of the largest on the Moon. There was breathable air here, for so-called “heavy” air had been pumped in.
There was also a low, quiet hum in the air. It came from the huge sprawling mass of machinery that almost crammed the crater from end to end. It was an Atomic Power Station. It had been set up on the Moon for safety’s sake, and beamed its power to Earth via ether waves. Since Tycho, and the Moon, always faced the Earth, such power waves could be radiated down to Earth continuously, 24 hours a day. Down on Earth, almost all lights and factories and industries received their power from the AP Station on Luna
It took a staff of 1,000 men to keep the gigantic power plant in operation. Their families lived in a village on the crater floor. And it was among these families that the space hobo hoped to get a meal or two before he moved on.
He was about to knock on the next door when a loud clanging sounded. An emergency alarm! Then he saw the men running from the power plant in frightened panic.
“The power plant went wild!” screeched one engineer. “It’s going to blow up!”
For the first time in a hundred years, the long-dreaded emergency had arisen. Atomic Power had been harnessed and used since the 20th century. But it had always been like a wild caged beast. It might at any moment break loose catastrophically.
The space hobo now heard the ominous rising drone from the power plant. It meant that untold millions of kilowatts of energy were building up to the breaking point—and nobody could stop it!
The community was prepared for the emergency. They had held drills once a week. The men rounded up their families and dashed for the hangars. There, ten spaceships were waiting, ready to take them away. One by one they wheeled out and people piled in.
The space hobo stopped one man. “Can’t the explosion be prevented?” he asked.
“No!” yelled back the engineer. “The control screens broke down. The whole plant is going hog wild. The whole place is going to blow up inside of an hour!”
“I’d better get a ride on one of those ships myself,” the space tramp said, as if suddenly realizing his own danger.
But at the first ship, a man shoved him back. “No room here. Try the next one!”
At the next one the answer was the same—and at the next. Finally, the space hobo saw the last of the ships thrum into the sky and vanish.
He was alone. Alone in the crater with a giant atomic power plant on the rampage!
* * * *
The alarming news spread all through space by radio. Not far beyond the Moon cruised the rocketship of Lieutenant Jon Jarl, of the Space Patrol. He stiffened as a call came from headquarters on Earth.
“Calling all Space Patrol Ships! Atomic Power Station at Tycho reported soon to explode! Veer off, if you are near!”
Jon snapped his hands to his controls, shooting away from the Moon. He was much too close if there were going to be an atomic explosion. But at the same time, in curiosity, he peered back at Tycho through his small telescope. The powerful glass showed the plant clearly, the houses, and…
Jon gasped. He also saw the lone figure of a man down there!
Jon turned and raced back toward the Moon. It was a Space Policeman’s duty to save lives when possible, as well as track down crime. Would there be time to pick up the stranded man and escape?
Jon landed in Tycho and leaped out of his ship. He found the space tramp staring at the power plant. He turned, surprised.
“You young fool!” the hobo snapped. “Why did you come?”
“To save you, naturally,” Jon explained.
“I’m not worth saving,” the space tramp returned. “Did you ever hear the name of Dr. Orel?”
“Dr. Orel? The scientist who had charge of the AP Station up on Asteroid Y, and let it blow up?” Jon gasped.
“That’s me,” nodded the hobo. “Or that was me, ten years ago. I was careless. I forgot to have the control screens repaired. The whole asteroid blew to bits, along with 500 men. I was on Mars at the time, on vacation. It was my fault. Like a coward, I fled when they came for me. Since then I’ve been just a space hobo.”
Jon grunted in pity. This derelict, once an honored scientist, was now just a tramp with 500 lives on his soul.
Jon suddenly had a horrifying thought. “What if the whole Moon blows up like the asteroid did?”
The hobo nodded grimly. “It could happen. Or, at least, the Moon might crack in half. And the two halves might then fall down on Earth.”
Jon groaned. It would be the worst catastrophe in human history.
He said, “Is there any way to stop the explosion—any way at all?”
The hobo’s eyes suddenly shone strangely. “I think there is!” he said swiftly. “If a man enters the Fission Chamber with a cadmium rod, he might be able to dampen the rays pouring out. Of course, he won’t come out alive…”
“Show me a cadmium rod,” shouted Jon. “Hurry!”
Together, they raced into the power plant. A four-wheeled runabout shot them toward the heart of the plant, where the raging fi
res of atomic power were building up, like a furnace getting hotter and hotter to the melting point. The air almost burned. Leaking rays prickled their skin.
They stopped outside a towering graphite chamber. Inside boiled the mighty atom energy, ready to burst forth and blow up the Moon. The hobo held up a long thick rod of dull metal.
“This is a cadmium rod,” he panted. “It absorbs neutrons and dampens atomic energy, like water on fire.”
“Let me have it,” yelled Jon, reaching for the rod.
But instead of the rod, Jon received a jolting blow on the chin that blotted out his senses.
* * * *
It was minutes later that Jon picked himself up, dazed. Then he remembered.
He glanced anxiously at the Fission Chamber. It was quiet. Only a low hum came from it, like an AP plant in normal operation.
The sliding door of the Fission Chamber slowly opened. The space hobo was framed in the doorway. Jon shuddered. His clothing had been burned away. His skin was purple and…glowing. Radioactive burn…no man could live after such exposure to the most killing radiations known. He must be in agony.
But the space hobo—or Dr. Orel—was smiling. “Sorry to clip you on the jaw,” he croaked. “But you see…I had to make up…for the other…time!” Then his voice faded, and he died.
Jon rubbed his jaw. Then, stiffening and squaring his shoulders, he saluted the lifeless form on the floor. There was one thing that would never go in the records—that Dr. Orel had ever been a space hobo…
THE ATOM DICTATOR
In his one-man rocketship, Lieutenant Jon Jarl of the Space Patrol slanted down for a landing on Phobos, the second moon of Mars. It was a small moon, hardly more than ten miles in diameter, and had a population of—one. One single man, a scientist by name of Dr. Elias Engle, had chosen to live on Phobos after setting up a scientific laboratory there.
But now this single inhabitant of Phobos was missing—or so the report had said. Jon Jarl had picked it up an hour before. The voice from headquarters had said—“Dr. Elias Engle, on Phobos, has not answered his visi-phone calls for the past three days. Nor did he report leaving. Investigate.”
Jon landed his ship before the stone laboratory and strode into its air-conditioned interior. The door was not locked. Was Dr. Engle sick perhaps? Or had he died a lonely death? Jon expected to come upon his dead body as he went through the living quarters. Living alone like this, he could easily have had a heart-atack or stroke with no one to care for him.
But a few minutes later, Jon stood in the laboratory, puzzled. He had searched everywhere. The place was empty. Dr. Engle was gone! Had someone kidnapped him?
Jon stared curiously at some apparatus in the center of the laboratory. A huge overhead device shed a soft, purling light down on a tile bench which seemed bare. What strange experiment had the scientist been engaged in before he vanished?
Jon shrugged and was about to turn away when a clicking noise arose. To the side, another strange machine hummed to life. A mechanical claw, holding a stylus, began to write a message on a moving paper tape! Jon read the words as they slowly unfolded: “Attention!” the message on the tape said. “This is Dr. Engle! I don’t know if anyone is watching at this moment in my laboratory, but if so, I will explain where I am. I am not missing. I am right in this laboratory!”
Jon looked around. In this laboratory? But where? There was not the smallest niche or place where a man could hide! Was this some kind of joke?
The moving tape went on, recording more words as the mechanical claw wrote. “Yes, I am right in this laboratory, even though you can’t see me. Look at the tile table, and the rays which are shed down on it. Notice the tiny speck of silvery dust on the center of the table.”
Jon peered and saw it—a small sliver of bright metal, hardly bigger than a pinhead. But what was the scientist driving at…?
The message went on. “I am in that speck of silver! You see, I have reduced my size and I am now down in the atom world of that bit of metal!”
Jon gasped aloud. Could it be true?
“The device overhead sheds down my new reducing ray, which contracts the space between molecules and causes any material object to shrink in size, smaller and smaller, till finally it reaches atomic proportions. I stepped under the ray three days ago. I’ve been living down in the atom universe for that time. I’ve discovered a whole new world down here! And intelligent people!”
Jon stared at the tiny fleck of silver. Did a man live down there, within its infinitesimal dimensions? Was there a miniature world there, and living people? It seemed impossible, incredible, fantastic!
But the words kept writing themselves out, on the moving tape. “By the way, I set up this tape-message machine to have contact with the outer world. I’m sitting and writing all this down in the atom world. Certain ray-impulses are sent out which motivate the big writing claw, duplicating what I write for anyone to read who happens to visit my laboratory. Now, let me tell some more about the people of the atom. I’m afraid they have a very evil civilization. They live under a dictatorship, and…”
Suddenly, the claw stopped writing.
Had something happened to Dr. Engle, down there in the remote atom world? Jon bit his lip, helplessly. What could he do? Only wait…
The words suddenly began again, in a hurried scrawl. “Help! I’m in trouble. Guards are going to seize me, and…”
Then the words stopped again. This time they did not resume for long minutes. Jon knew now that the scientist had been captured, down in the atom world. Captured by evil people of a dictatorship. Possibly to be tortured or executed.
But what could Jon Jarl do? How could he rescue a man who was invisibly small, beyond his reach? Suddenly Jon’s eyes narrowed. If the Reducing Ray had sent the scientist down to the atom world, it should do the same to him!
Jon hesitated, torn by indecision. It was his duty, as a space policeman, to help any human being in trouble, anywhere in the universe. But did that include going down to an atom-sized world?
Jon gritted his teeth and stepped under the Reducing Ray. His senses swam. Some strange force seemed to be squeezing his body, like a vise. He noticed everything getting larger. The laboratory around him became the castle of a giant. But it wasn’t other things getting larger—he was getting smaller!
He could feel himself shrinking—shrinking. Slowly at first, then faster and faster. He had the presence of mind to crawl on the tile table, before he was too small to reach it. Then, as he shrank to the size of a mouse, he ran toward the bit of silver. It became huge as he reached it, big as a house, then big as a moon. He stumbled toward it, and suddenly he was falling through emptiness.
The bit of silver was now a mass of atoms, and he was falling among them. One atom became larger and larger, and he landed on it with a thud. When he shook his head to clear it, he saw that the atom was now the size of a world.
The shrinking sensation stopped. Jon stood up. It was a weird world, with strange vegetation and what seemed to be three blazing suns overhead. No doubt they were protons, or some other part of this tiny subatomic universe. The atom world, with its protons, electrons and neutrons and such, was a solar system in miniature!
Was this the right atom world? What if there were dozens more, and Jon had hit the wrong one? But Jon had a feeling that he had followed the same procedure as the scientist, and had therefore reached the same precise microcosmic world.
He was sure of it a moment later when he heard footsteps. Crouching behind low growths. Jon saw a half-dozen uniformed creatures marching by. Among them walked a man who could only be Dr. Engle, of Earth! He looked bruised, as though he had been beaten. His captors had brutal faces, scaly bodies, and four legs. The people of the atom were obviously a cruel arrogant race.
One of the guards spoke to Dr. Engle. “So you have come from the universe of which our world is but an atom? Dictator Gragg will want to hear of this. We have conquered and wiped out all other people on our world. We n
eed new worlds to conquer. You will show us how to reach your world!”
Listening, Jon turned cold. A race of warlike creatures swarming up from the atom to conquer Earth! It must not happen.
Jon drew his two ray guns and leaped out. “Duck, Dr. Engle!” he yelled, and opened fire.
Or he tried to open fire. His ray guns only clicked harmlessly. There were new laws of physics here!
Jon now waded into them with his only other weapon—his two bare fists. The density of his compressed body seemed to give him terrific power. It took exactly six blows to flatten the six alien guards.
The scientist now grabbed Jon’s arm and began running.
“Where are we running to?” Jon asked. “No matter where we go, we’ll still be on the enemy world!” Then he gave out a startled gasp as realization set in. “We’re trapped on this atom world. I didn’t stop to think of it before, but we have no way back to our own world!”
“Yes, we have,” contradicted the scientist. He stopped at the spot where Jon had first landed. “You see, my machine is set to go into reverse on schedule. Instead of a Reducing Ray, it will shine down an Enlarging Ray. Any flesh that has been reduced will be restored. We won’t have to wait long!”
* * * *
The enlarging process was the exact reverse of the reducing ordeal. The atom world shrank under them. They floated among whirling bodies which became smaller and finally formed a huge mountain of silver. Then the mountain dwindled and became a speck—and the two men stared at it as it lay on the tile table.
Jon’s face was grave. “I wish you hadn’t gone down to the atom world, Dr. Engle. You gave those people the thought of coming up and conquering our world. If they ever discover the principle of the Enlarging Ray and send huge armies…”
“They won’t,” promised the scientist, as he raised a small hammer. He brought it down on the bit of silver, smashing it flat.
