Amazing Vignettes

by Jerry

  Flaherty had the tools three weeks and then somebody stole them, although he hadn’t told a soul about their existence. They just disappeared and Flaherty often tells about them now, swearing that he’ll kill the man who took them. . . .

  But the tools aren’t gone. In a manifold of n-dimensional space utterly beyond Flaherty’s ken, but remote in distance only in inches, the machine shop of the Kinner works steadily away, repairing grens and constructing whahmes, and the apprentice mechanic Guelf still smarts from the stinging punishment he received for once misplacing a set of tools and not finding them for an hour, an expensive and important set of tools. . . .

  Build Your House of Dust!

  Ralph Cox

  AS THE rocket settled on its tail fires slowly toward Lunaport, Mark could not refrain from studying, with a mixed blend of awe and pride, the smooth hemispherical bubble of glassite that enveloped the city, retaining its air and permitting the little city to look like a jewel set in the course matrix of Lunar pumice. Lunaport was Man’s master engineering feat. Mark felt the rocket shudder gently as it touched the burnt pumice of the landing field. In minutes the shuttle cars would plant him within the dome through the airlock—it was good to be back . . .”

  Unfortunately “the hemispherical bubble of glassite” appears to be considerably remote in terms of practical engineering, and when cities are planted on the Moon, their construction materials will undoubtedly be of considerably simpler and humbler origin and design. Consider the problem confronting the first colonizers of the Moon; we say “colonisers” as distinct from “explorers,” for the initial landing on the Moon will require no permanent structures; the rocket itself will suffice as a habitation. Hut after the first flights, permanent settlements will he built—and the question is—of what will they be built?

  With rocketry as rudimentary as it will be at first, every pound of material from Earth will be worth its weight in gold. Steel girders and loads of cement can’t be “trucked” up the two hundred and forty thousand mile gravitational potential that separates Tellus from Luna. Even light metals and aluminum will have to go Lunaward as machines and equipment rather than structural material.

  That means, then, that the buildings on the Moon will have to be made of materials found on the Moon! The problem is: what building materials are available? Fortunately, the right answer seems to come up. It is believed to be almost a certainty that the surface is covered with a layer of pumice dust, a dry powdery substance, to a depth we don’t know, perhaps six inches, perhaps six feet. This pumice dust might be used as a structural material in this way.

  Either the rocket itself or a simple pressurized cabin or hut will serve to start with. In here using the pumice dust and a liquid cement of some sort, perfectly good bricks or building blocks could be assembled on a quantity basis. These could then be used to construct a building. The joints and cracks. could easily be plugged with various cements and prefabricated airlocks could be attached to the buildings. In this way, a sizable settlement of permanent structures could be assembled.

  The over-all picture of such a camp or city wouldn’t be pretty. No “shining, glistening domes”, no “hemispheres of glassite”; just dirty old pumice structures, chinks plugged to pressurize them, would form the basis of “Lunaport.” This realistic view has a very good chance of being the one that someday we’ll actually see. The time will come when the price gravity exacts from people who defy it won’t mean anything—the age of atomic rockets—but until that time, precious rocket fuel will require that use be made of every offered advantage. When the colonizers go out to Mars and Venus, similarly will they take advantage of the native resources—that’s only good sense!

  No Monument So Proud!

  Salem Lane

  Going to the Moon (in spite of what the ads say) isn’t exactly like taking a trip to Capri. I boarded the Stellar I—it’s a converted chemical rocket using atomic drive—at White Sands and they put me in a cubicle with two other people and before we hit Luna that place was a wreck. They say spacemen eventually acquire immunity to nausea—we didn’t! But one glance through the quartzite port at the big ball of Earth made it all worth it! Incidentally, they treat you as though they’re doing you a favor by taking your money—and the truth of the matter is, they are. I didn’t eat the two days it took—I couldn’t have kept anything down if I’d tried. I guess my mind was occupied between thoughts of my knotty stomach and thoughts of that thirty thousand credits!

  Luna City, under the surface of the Moon, is practically nothing but endless miles of rock-walled tubes and tunnels and, barring the observatory domes, you don’t see much of the Lunar surface except when they take out the daily tourist boats, which are glassite-topped space boats. But that’s when you feel the grandeur v of the whole thing.

  They put suits on us, jammed us like sardines in these boats, treated us like recruits—and we loved every minute of it. The boats, driven by simple rockets, skimmed low over the surface and we saw an endless parade of incredible things. The barker (he was exactly that) droned on and on, yet every word was fascinating. We saw where the first guided missiles landed and scattered their plaster-of-Paris and carbon black. We saw the uranium mining concessions—not too closely, of course—but closely enough to see that the men who ran them were prouder than atomic scientists!

  We saw the seas and craters. We saw the television and radio relay stations with their gigantic parabolic reflectors. Above all, we realized that we were humans beings, part and parcel of the race which has conquered space. The steps are slow—we’ve only just reached Mars—but things are accelerating.

  To me, the most impressive sight, the single outstanding thing, was the wreck of the first manned rocket, the Luna. As you know, they haven’t touched it. It lies, a crumpled heap of sheet metal, in the middle of the Sea of Dreams, unchanged and untouched—where it will lie forever. Inside are the bodies of three men, still encased in their space suits, still preserved by the vacuum, by nothingness. The antenna they rigged still points into the airless Lunar sky.

  Ail aluminum plaque has been set-up before the ruined vessel and it says: “John Winston, Ellery Lain, and Joseph Hoffstein—here are the mortal remains of the first human beings to reach the Moon. They died gallantly and usefully and this remains as their perpetual monument. May they rest in peace. . . .”

  You get chills when you realize what nerve it took to do what they did. When their air gave out they went out with sleeping pills, broadcasting technical info to the very end.

  Take my advice, please. You’ll never regret it. It’ll be a long while before the atomic rockets make space travel like driving the family helicopter. You won’t live forever. Take your thirty thousand credits—even if it is a small fortune—and make the Lunar hop. You can’t do anything with the money that’s worth one-tenth of what the trip is. You’ll realize you’re a human being and you’ll be proud of it. . . .

  1952

  When Callisto Took Over

  E. Bruce Yaches

  I’M NOT so young that I can pass the rocket pilots’ physical, nor am I so old that I can’t appreciate a pretty pair of legs or enjoy the savor of a good wine, but more and more I find myself reflecting on the way we Terrans, as a whole, are accepting our new role in the scheme of things. The young and the very young will grow up to it, I suppose, but there’ll be a shell of old-timers who can’t, won’t, understand. Even the dreadful memory of the Punitive Wars (“wars?”—I laugh when I use the word) hasn’t fully impressed them. But, as stubborn as I was—and I fought in those affairs—I’ve come to realize that Terrans are a bad second in the Solar System and that’s the way it is, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

  I wasn’t on the first Callistan Expedition that uncovered the fact, but I’ve spoken with men who were. Try to picture them, cocky, arrogant and filled with the devil’s own confidence. Hadn’t they conquered the Inner Planets, hadn’t they put the civilization of Man on Mars, hadn’t they even sent ships to Plu
to? The Atomic-Drive gave us limitless power and that made us the king-pins of the universe. That was all before the Callistans. . . . The Callistan Expedition was supposed to be strictly routine. It was to have been a case of conventional exploration of the satellite, the establishment of a planetographic station and a pulse-beacon for astrogation, a classification of the usual “inferior” life-forms, and that’s all. Who was to suspect that the Callistans existed! After all, nowhere in the Solar System had life of any degree higher than class three been found—and humans were class one!

  The Expedition ship—I think it was called the “Magellan”—put down on Callisto—right smack down on an endless plane of metal! The crew was taken from the ship by what we now know as planes and beams and cones of forces whose very nature we can’t fathom, examined by the humanoid Callistans, and returned to the ship—three were killed in the process—and the vessel was hurled with fantastic effortlessness back into space. We know the mental reaction of the Callistans; after all, we had had the same attitude ourselves—“What are these inferior creatures doing? Why do they annoy us?”

  Unfortunately Commander Purcell must have been a very stupid man. When he hurled three atomics against what looked like a Callistan city, he took the first step, really, in destroying a quarter of the Earth—the Punitive Wars. The Callistans vaporized his vessel from the void, and pulsed an incredibly powerful warning right across the enormous traverses of space to Terran receptor facilities. “Do not ever again interfere with Callisto” was the gist of the message.

  Proud Terrans of course couldn’t permit that and so we were sent to punish the Callistans. What irony, what absurdity! I was with the fleet. I saw its destruction by forces and means entirely beyond my ken—and I am a first-rate physicist, as you know. All that saved our vessel was distance and prompt and abrupt speed in departing the vicinity.

  Many of us remember the horror of the Callistans’ answer to this invasion of their Solar privacy. They destroyed a dozen of the major cities on Earth with some device akin to a hydrogen bomb, but of infinitely greater potency.

  And that’s where we stand now. Fortunately the idiotic “war party” has died out and men are accepting their lesser role in the Solar System—actually unchanged, since no further contact at all has been made with the Callistans—and our ships still ply the interplanetary ways. But no man can ever get out of his mind the unquestioned knowledge that he is second rate in the scheme of things. Our System is inhabited by the Callistans, who shun intercourse of any kind with us and who would probably prefer to traffic with pieces of rock just as soon as with thinking human beings! I know Man will rise above his bitterness and continue to progress. The psychologists report no significant changes in human drive or ability, but the blow to pride has been severe. And what a challenge it is to think of what goes on behind the metal-walled planet, the Jovian satellite housing the masters of the universe, the isolating Callistans! Will men ever be able to penetrate it?

  They Stayed Up All Night

  Roy Small

  An “Amazing” Vignette

  IT IS cold, airless and dark at eighty thousand feet. But I didn’t feel anything but a sort of purring contentment in the comfort of the tight little cockpit of the R-73. I was among the first of our squadron to get the new interceptors with the rocket engines. They made jets look like plug horses. I was on patrol over Northern Canada and I was happy. The life of a pursuit pilot generally is a happy one—and a short one.

  “I want you and three others, Keeler, Stein and Helmer, to sit up there for a few hours tonight,” Colonel Blake had said. “We’re going to try a steady patrol routine, but if radar spots any incoming Red bombers first, of course you’ll take your fixes from it. But there’s always a chance that the screen won’t get them.”

  “Yeah,” I remembered answering, “look what they did to Seattle last week.”

  Blake said a short dirty word. He looked grim. “Cramer, we’ve got to stop more of ’em.”

  I watched the scanner screen. Nothing—yet. The boys were paralleling me, I knew, but we had orders to avoid breaking radio silence no matter what. Red monitors on the raiders would be sure to pick us up if we did. Then what did surprise matter? And surprise was the whole core of knocking fast Red rocket bombers and jets from the. Northern skies. Sure, home and city chasers would get ’em—but not until after they’d dumped their load of atomic warheads. And too many were getting through.

  Suddenly I noticed greenish pips on the screen. For a minute I thought it might be Reds, but then came the tell-tale pulsing of our own identification radars, so it must be a flight of our operational craft.

  I settled back, watching the range click off.

  Suddenly I sat erect! Hey, wait a minute. There’d been no notification that we were sending craft out. What if those were Red bombers with captured identification? Their radars were as good as ours. We’d have to go down and have a look-see. They were flying very close and low.

  Even as I signaled with wing lights I could imagine Colonel Blake chewing me out for abandoning patrol position. I couldn’t take a chance on dropping our altitude, yet I had to. I shoved the wheel-stick forward. I saw a few dots of light follow. Then I glued my eyes to the radar. You fly a rocket on instruments, not on sight—things move too fast.

  In a minute or two we were within rocket range and the craft beneath us were sitting ducks. For a millisecond I debated whether or not I should break radio silence, fire, or what. I didn’t have to decide. I saw orange flashes. They were Red bombers all right—trying a new touch—sneaking in low under outer defenses and under radar umbrellas with fake identification.

  It was slaughter!

  I touched the automatic fire stud and the first bomber vanished in a fantastic flare of light. Then all hell broke loose as my buddies cut out with their fire. In seven minutes we knocked the eleven-plane flight right out of the sky—or into it—while the Geiger counters chattered madly. Those bombers would never see American cities.

  Blake broke silence. “Good work, boys,” he said, “Good work. . . .”

  When the World Went Mad

  Charles Recour

  An “Amazing” Vignette

  THERE WAS nothing left in the East.

  The cities were crushed shells of concrete and steel and people were scarcer than hen’s teeth. I was working my way West—always keeping my eye on the Geiger. That’s why I abandoned the car I’d started with and stuck to the bike. I didn’t have to worry about gas—there wasn’t much around—and I didn’t absent-mindedly find myself going into hot areas. The war had been over a year but radioactivity hadn’t left much. It was a barren, sterile, dangerous world, and I figured the best bet would be to work toward South America through Mexico. There’d been the least devastation there, I thought.

  With winter coming on I didn’t want to be caught up north, stopped by the snows. Food supply—from cans—was O.K., but the terrible isolation was impossible to stand. And that was the trouble. You did not make friends with strangers. I tried it twice and almost got my head blown off. The war had made the few remaining people band into little gangs out solely for their own preservation. Any stranger might be an enemy paratrooper, or just a looter. Nobody trusted anyone else. I didn’t worry about enemies because I’d heard the dying radio reports in the Last Days and Europe and Asia were even more devastated than we.

  I hitched my burp gun tighter against my shoulder and peddled on.

  The Geiger was silent, so the region was safe. With darkness coming I decided to hole up in the next little town I came to—Sayville, Missouri, according to the beat-up remnant of a road map I was carrying. I was there in less than ten minutes. In the gathering dusk, quickly coming into full darkness, the “town” showed up as a collection of beaten hovels; already neglect, the absence of humans, had turned its vagueness into nothingness.

  Then, just as I stopped beside a shed that had once been a garage, the soft night wind brought me the sound of voices—low and muted, but
voices! I dropped to the ground, setting the bike on its side, unlimbered my burp gun, flipped off the safety and waited. I hoped nobody had seen me.

  The voices came from a ramshackle building next to the erstwhile garage. Cautiously I crept toward a window and peered in.

  A young girl—about eighteen—sat in a chair. Her face was a study in contempt.

  But there was a touch of fear there, too.

  Standing over her was a huge, grinning hulk of a man. He reached out a ham-like hand and grabbed the girl by the hair.

  “For the last time,” he said, “I’m asking you to come along peaceable-like. Me and Jake wants a gal.” He slapped her lightly across the face with his other hand and there were red marks on her cheek. He was quite calm about the whole thing. He said levelly: “I’m gonna beat you to a bloody pulp and take you anyhow—so why not . . .”

  “Both of you raise your hands,” I said, and poked the nose of the burp gun over the window ledge. Big Guy’s hands fell to his sides and his mouth opened. His companion, standing to one side, dropped his jaw. There wasn’t a sound.

  The girl jumped up and toward the door. “Come around to the side,” I called. That slight interruption was too much, though. I barely caught the sense of Jake’s motion, a blurred effect and the sound of a pistol. The bullet chipped splinters from the window frame. I loosed a burst and Jake crumpled.

  The other remained standing with his hands half-lowered. The girl came around to me. “Go back in,” I said, “and get their guns.”