by Eando Binder
“If only,” murmured Jon Jarl, “all other dictators and evil races could be so easily destroyed!”
THE INVISIBLE MAN OF MARS
INVISIBLE MAN CRIMES SWEEP MARSOPOLIS
This was the headline that brought Lieutenant Jon Jarl of the Space Patrol to Mars. Marsopolis was the capital of modern Mars, a city built by Earthmen to handle all the trade between the two worlds. Precious metals and valuable gems, dug from the red sands of Mars, were shipped to Earth in a steady flow. But now some master thief was at work.
Jon also noticed a smaller item tucked away in a corner. “Professor V. Thode, and his assistant, A. Garson, have been missing from their laboratory for three days. No clue to their disappearance has been found.”
Another mystery to solve. But Jon decided to concentrate first on the strange case of the “Invisible Man.” The local police chief informed him that in three days the thief had pulled three spectacular robberies—and nobody had been seen!
“It’s uncanny!” he said, shivering. “He’ll probably strike again today. There’s a shipment of Martian Twinklers, worth ten million, due to go out.”
“I’ll be on guard, too,” Jon said grimly.
* * * *
An hour later, Jon stood before a red-stone building from which a bag of Martian jewels was being carried out. The chief had twenty men on guard, including Jon. It seemed not even a mouse could get through.
Suddenly, it happened. Jon felt a wind, as if an invisible presence had come up. He half drew his ray gun, but a violent shove sent him flying. At the same time all the police—all nineteen of them—also went sprawling. Then the guard who carried the gems was tripped. The bag magically whisked out of his hand.
All this had happened in furious seconds. Jon raised his head only in time to see one last miracle. A note appeared out of nowhere and was pinned to his sleeve.
Then there was silence. The bag of Martian Twinklers, worth a fortune, was gone!
The police and Jon got to their feet, seething with helpless rage. Not one shot had been fired. There had been no time—and nothing to shoot at.
“Isn’t it awful?” groaned the police chief.
Jon read the note pinned to his sleeve.
Well! So even a Space Cop was on guard this time. But you can’t stop me, anymore than the local fools. I strike like the wind, and steal away like a ghost.
THE INVISIBLE THIEF
After the police left, Jon stayed, looking for footprints or tire tracks—anything that might be a trail. He went over to the bank of the nearby canal. Maybe the thief came and left by boat. But there was no clue, not the slightest sign.
Jon leaned on the railing and stared down into the sluggish water of the canal far below. How could you trap an invisible man?
Jon stiffened. Way below, a hundred feet down, he saw a man staggering along the muddy slope. Quickly he uncoiled the thin strong cord he always carried and lowered it, then pulled the man up, and then over the canal wall.
It was an elderly man. His clothes were caked with mud, his face haggard, and he had dried blood on his forehead. The man gasped his thanks and then said, “I’m Professor Thode, officer.”
The missing scientist! Jon asked how it happened.
Choking at times, the scientist told his story in jerky sentences. “I made—great discovery. My assistant, Garson—went mad—took it. Knocked me down—threw me in canal—left me for dead. But I didn’t die. Tried to get out of canal for three days—nobody saw me or heard me yell.”
A thought struck Jon. “Could your discovery have anything to do with the Invisible Man Crimes?” and Jon went on to describe the robberies.
The scientist stared, horror-struck.
“Good lord,” he breathed. “Garson went in for crime! He used my discovery.”
“You mean you perfected some sort of serum or chemical which can make a man invisible?”
“No—” The scientist fumbled in his inside pocket and drew forth a small gelatin capsule. “I had this capsule—Garson took the rest. It makes a person—makes a person—”
Suddenly the scientist choked, and hastily thrust the capsule at Jon. “Take it”, he gasped. “Get Garson—” And then he fell back limply.
* * * *
Jon took the scientist to a hospital. But the next day, he was still in a coma, unable to explain to Jon what the capsule would do. And Garson would probably strike today again—at the Red Planet Gem Works, where valuable jewels were ready to be taken from their vaults!
The police chief was on guard again, with more men than ever. The sack of jewels was being carried out. Jon took a deep breath, and swallowed the capsule. What would happen?
Jon felt the universe whirl. Fireworks seemed to explode in his brain. His heart seemed to speed up until it was ready to burst.
Then suddenly, all was clear again. Jon looked around, his eyes widening in amazement. What had happened to everybody? Why was everybody standing so stiffly, like frozen statues? They stood in unusual positions. The police chief with his mouth open, as if speaking. The guard carrying the sack of jewels had one leg uplifted, to take his next step, but he too was frozen in that position.
Jon looked up. A plane was winging over the city—but it stood stock still in the air, defying the laws of gravity. Also a bird, flying over, remained suspended in the air. And some insect, about to light on Jon’s face, stood still a foot away, its tiny wings motionless.
“What’s the matter with everybody?” Jon yelled. But nobody heard. Nobody moved.
Abruptly, the truth flashed into Jon’s mind. It wasn’t that they had all frozen, or turned into statues. It was simply that Jon himself had speeded up! The capsule had somehow given Jon the ability to move at a rate thousands of times faster than normal! So while they were doing one simple thing like taking a step, Jon could move around at flashing speed and do a hundred other things.
And of course, because Jon was moving at such terrific speed, he was invisible to the eye! Just like an airplane propeller!
So that was the secret of Garson’s “invisibility”!
Jon stiffened. Garson was coming now. He was a lean, dark-faced man, with a grin on his face. He sauntered up slowly, nonchalantly. But actually, he was moving at a rate a thousand times faster than normal!
Jon stood still, pretending to be immobile like the rest. Garson leisurely went up to the guard holding the sack of gems, and took it out of his hands. The guard remained with one foot upraised, still taking that one step he had begun, before Jon took the capsule.
How easy it was for Garson! During the time it took the guard to make one step—or the police chief to turn his head—Garson could take the gems and leisurely stroll away. Because all this would only take a short second or two, in normal time!
Garson paused to take out paper and pencil. He even had time to write another mocking note and pin it on someone’s sleeve, before walking off with the loot.
Jon moved now, sliding his hand to his ray gun holster, and at the same time saying—“Hands up, Garson!”
Garson spun around as if shot. “What?” he gasped. “Another man who can move as fast as I can?”
“Yes,” snapped Jon, bringing up his gun. But Garson moved with surprising speed and flung the sack of gems, knocking Jon’s gun away. And Garson lunged for it before Jon could recover.
Jon faced the muzzle of his own gun.
“Well, the Space Copper,” Garson sneered. “I don’t know how you got the capsule. But this is your finish.”
Slowly he brought the gun up. But his hand moved slower and slower. Garson suddenly turned white. “I’m slowing down!” he mumbled. “Got to take another capsule quick. The effects only last a few minutes. Got to take another capsule…” His other hand reached inside his pocket—but remained there. He froze in that position. And the gun in his other hand froze without firing its shot.
Jon wiped his brow. If Garson hadn’t delayed so long, and had taken another capsule, he would have been able to fi
re. As it was his finger was now tightening on the trigger. But it would take him an hour to finish the motion—as far as Jon was concerned!
Jon took the pistol away, tied up Garson, and put the sack of jewels safely into the armored car. Then he wrote out a note and pinned it on Garson, before leaving.
As Jon left, the guard was just finishing putting down his foot, taking that one step he had begun before Jon’s whole adventure with Garson had taken place in two seconds of normal time!
The note pinned to Garson said—“If the police ask you who captured and tied you, you can tell them it was another Invisible Man! Yours Truly, Lieutenant Jon Jarl of the Space Patrol!”
THE FREEDOM ROCKET
Lt. Jon Jarl of the Space Patrol felt proud as he sat in his small rocketship, the official escort of the much larger rocketship behind him! This space vessel was pure white in color with red and blue lines running lengthwise along its sleek sides. Also on its side was emblazoned in gold letters—THE FREEDOM ROCKET.
Jon Jarl mused about how this had all begun. Way back in 1947 and 1948, the country known as the United States of America had first run what it called The Freedom Train. This train had held all the famed and priceless documents of liberty from that remote day, and had visited the forty-eight states to exhibit them to the people. The project had been such a huge success that again a hundred years later, in 2048, they had run The Freedom Plane, which visited not only all of America, but all of the world.
And every century after that, it had then become the established custom to send such a Freedom Ship on its rounds. After space travel began, the Freedom Ship extended its journey to all the planets.
And so the Freedom Rocket of Jon Jarl’s time was now making a grand swing through all the worlds of the Solar System. Now it was leaving Mars to visit Jupiter and its nine moons.
Aboard The Freedom Rocket were carried all the ancient documents of original American liberty on Earth, such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Atlantic Charter. But since then, many new documents had been added. There was the World Federation Articles, which first set up the true world government on Earth. Then there came the Brotherhood of Races Act which once and for all placed all peoples, of all worlds, on an equal footing. Finally, after a long list of such milestones of civilization, there came the greatest of them all—The Peace Proclamation, which outlawed war everywhere in the known universe!
The Freedom Rocket carried all these precious documents, and Jon Jarl was proud indeed to be the official escort between Mars and Jupiter. But as the two ships, large and small, cruised past the asteroids, Jon was startled to see the rocket-blasts of the Freedom Rocket suddenly sputter and then die out.
Jon hastily contacted the big ship by radio.
The captain’s voice came back hollowly. “Our rocket fuel is contaminated with water. Our motors are completely dead.”
“That’s bad,” gritted Jon. “We’re just passing the asteroids. Without power, your ship will be drawn down among them, probably for a fatal collision. I’ll radio for a rescue ship to bring fresh fuel as soon as possible.”
Jon quickly raised the Mars Radio Center, and a supply ship was promptly rushed out, but it would take twenty-four hours to reach them.
Then Jon contacted the captain again. “How could water get into your fuel?”
“There’s only one way it could happen. Someone deliberately put it in!”
“I thought so,” breathed Jon. “Sabotage.”
There existed an underground group, called the Subversives, who kept hoping and laboring to overthrow the existing government and take over. Evidently they thought that by sabotaging the Freedom Rocket and all its great documents, they could score an important victory for their evil cause.
“It seems impossible,” groaned the captain. “Every member of the crew was checked and double-checked to make sure he was not a member of the Subversives.”
“But still they managed to sneak one in,” said Jon. “And my job is to expose him before he does more dirty work. I’m coming aboard, captain.”
Leaving his controls locked, Jon donned his spacesuit and leaped across to the larger ship.
* * * *
“First,” Jon said to the captain as he faced him, “call all ship’s personnel to the main room. If the saboteur is sneaking around, he’ll show up missing.”
The crew of the Freedom Rocket consisted of twenty men who handled the engines and otherwise ran the ship, plus a guard group of twenty-four Space Marines. Including the captain, that made forty-five men. When they had all assembled. Jon counted noses.
“Forty-five!” he said puzzled. “Could it be that the saboteur was a stowaway all the time? Not known to be aboard?”
The captain shook his head. “Not even a mouse could have gotten aboard this ship without credentials.”
“Then that means.” mused Jon, “that the saboteur is clever. He’s among those men before us. Which one is he?”
Jon dismissed the men and went over all their papers, one by one. All seemed to have perfect credentials.
“I knew this wouldn’t do any good.” Jon sighed. “The Subversives have their undercover men spotted all over, with papers that are in perfect order. I’ll have to ferret him out some other way. By the way, Captain, how is your drift toward the asteroids?”
“Not too bad,” replied the captain thankfully. “We won’t be in any danger of collision for about 30 hours.”
“Good,” said Jon. “The rescue ship will reach here before that, and you’ll once again have rocket power to get back on course. But I’ve got to trap and stop that saboteur—before he tries something else to wreck or destroy the Freedom Rocket!” Jon snapped his fingers. “This should work. In order to put water in the fuel tank, the saboteur must have first unscrewed the intake pipe. Since rocket fuel is radioactive, that would leave a radioactive trace on his hands. Even if he wore gloves, the radioactive rays would work through. Send your men in to me, one at a time, in a darkened room.”
But it was not as simple as it had seemed. When it was done, there were three men with a radioactive glow on their hands. Jon left them locked in the room and spoke to the captain in the next room.
“I’ve narrowed it down to three men, anyway,” Jon said. “Two of them are innocent. They got the radioactive glow during the course of duty, taking care of the engine. The third man is the culprit, and I know the way to trap him.”
Jon took his ray gun from its holster. “I’m going to put a clip of blanks in my gun,” he told the captain. “And I’m going to make the saboteur show his hand, through that.”
Jon went back in the room. “Men,” he said, “this ray gun is loaded. I’ll shoot it and prove it.” Jon shot toward the metal wall and a violet ray sprang forth, looking like the real thing although it was only a blank. Jon laid the gun down on a table and then stood back. The three men, as well as Jon, were all the same distance from the gun.
“One of you is a saboteur,” Jon said. “I’m giving you a fighting chance to escape. With that gun, you can shoot me, grab a spacesuit, reach my Space Patrol rocket, and get away scot free. Otherwise I’ll keep you three men locked in this room till we reach Jupiter, where the police will grill you till Doomsday unless the guilty man breaks down.”
Jon pointed at the gun. “There’s your chance for escape—if you beat me to the gun. You’ll have the advantage because I don’t know when you’ll jump for it.” Slowly the seconds ticked by. The three men sat motionless. Would one of them fall for the trap, not knowing the gun was loaded with blanks?
Suddenly one man leaped. He was registered as Josh McNabb, motor technician. He was the sinister Subversive planted aboard the Freedom Rocket to wreck it!
Jon didn’t even bother to try for the gun. He leaned back and laughed as McNabb pointed it at him. “Fell for it, didn’t you?” Jon grinned. “I always thought you Subversives were smart. That ray gun is loaded with blan
ks.”
“What?” snarled McNabb. “You tricked me. I—I—”
Jon advanced toward him, his face dark and ominous.
McNabb threw the gun at Jon, but he dodged. Jon swung his fist, but McNabb wasn’t there. He was cringing in a corner, begging for mercy.
“A coward on top of it,” Jon spat out in contempt. “You Subversives are only brave when you knife someone in the back.”
Jon called the captain, turning over McNabb as his prisoner.
“The trick worked,” Jon grinned.
But the captain was not smiling. He held a clip of ray-charges in his palm. “Lieutenant, I aged ten years after you went in that room. I didn’t notice till later that accidentally you slipped the wrong clip in your gun. I had the clip of blanks all the time. That gun McNabb had was loaded!”
“What?” Jon felt as if a mule had kicked him in the pit of the stomach. “If McNabb had fired one shot, he would have won! I guess the joke’s on him. Now the Freedom Rocket can continue its epic cruise.”
THE GREAT RHEAN WAR
The headlines of Earth’s newspapers carried the amazing news—WAR ON RHEA!
It was amazing because it was the first war known to occur in the Solar System in two long centuries. War had been outlawed by interplanetary agreement way back in 2073 A.D. And with a powerful interplanetary police force patrolling the spaceways, no race or planet had dared carry on a war.
But now Rhea was defying the law, indulging in war! Rhea was a satellite of Saturn, some 1,000 miles in diameter. A small world, therefore a small war, but definitely a breach of the anti-war laws.
Of the many interplanetary police who roamed the void, keeping law and order, Lieutenant Jon Jarl was closest to Rhea at the time war was declared there. An urgent message came to him from Headquarters.
“Astronomers reported seeing explosions on Rhea. High magnification revealed two armies battling. The two races of Rhea are at war. Land there and arrest the two leaders for breaking the peace.”
