Astounding Science Fiction Stories: An Anthology of 350 Scifi Stories Volume 2 (Halcyon Classics)

by Various

  "On the other hand, I'm supposed to be a model of fairness. That's why I got the job in the first place. Remember, Ronar? Come on, let's go in and try tasting them again. Eat a mouthful of each cake, much as you hate the stuff. Choose the best on its merits."

  * * * * *

  They were babbling when he walked in, but the babbling stopped quickly. The chairman said, "Are we ready, Mr. Ronar?"

  "All ready."

  The three cakes were placed before him. Slowly he took a mouthful of Number 17. Slowly he chewed it and swallowed it. Number 43 followed, then Number 64.

  After the third mouthful, he stood lost in thought. One was practically as good as another. He could still choose which he pleased.

  The assemblage had quieted down. Only the people most concerned whispered nervously.

  Mrs. Cabanis, to her psychologist husband: "If I don't win, it'll be your fault. I'll pay you back for this."

  The good doctor's fault? Yes, you could figure it that way if you wanted to. If not for Dr. Cabanis, Ronar wouldn't be the judge. If Ronar weren't the judge, Mrs. C. would win, she thought. Hence it was all her husband's fault. Q.E.D.

  The male baker to his wife: "If he gives the prize to me, I'll brain him. I should never have entered this."

  "It's too late to worry now."

  "I could yell 'Fire'," he whispered hopefully. "I could create a panic that would empty the hall. And then I'd destroy my cake."

  "Don't be foolish. And stop whispering."

  The young post-honeymooning husband: "You're going to win, dear; I can feel it in my bones."

  "Oh, Greg, please don't try to fool me. I've resigned myself to losing."

  "You won't lose."

  "I'm afraid. Put your arm around me, Greg. Hold me tight. Will you still love me if I lose?"

  "Mmmm." He kissed her shoulder. "You know, I didn't fall in love with you for your cooking, sweetheart. You don't have to bake any cakes for me. You're good enough to eat yourself."

  "He's right," thought Ronar, as he stared at her. "The man's right. Not in the way he means, but he's right." And suddenly, for one second of decision, Ronar's entire past seemed to flash through his mind.

  The young bride never knew why she won first prize.

  * * *

  Contents

  ISLANDS IN THE AIR

  By Lowell Howard Morrow

  "Somehow the momentum of the islands could not be checked. Edge to edge they met. The detonation was deafening... Blue, green and yellow fire enmeshed them for a moment before the great mass rushed down."

  HERE is one of the most extraordinary air stories that we have read in a long while. It is sure to arouse your wonder and excitement.

  One of the important and most revolutionary inventions, which is sure to come about sooner or later, is the control of gravitation. When we have conquered gravitation, man will be set free in earnest.

  The slavery of weight, which chains us to this planet and to the ground, is far more serious than we appreciate, simply because we have always been "earthbound". But, sooner or later, it will be possible to bring about such conditions as our author describes so vividly in this excellent short story. When it does, aviation will be helped tremendously, and indeed the conditions of our entire world will be revolutionized literally.

  CHAPTER I

  An Astounding Plan

  "WE CAN control the laws of gravitation and perform new miracles."

  My good friend, Professor Gustave Steiner, was speaking, and for that reason I pondered his remarkable words.

  "Such an attainment would overshadow all else in the realms of science," I observed casually.

  "Already the problem has been mastered," asserted the professor solemnly.

  I gave him a startled look. He gazed back with calm assurance, stroking his pointed beard as was his way when discussing a serious subject. Had his astounding declaration come from any other source I would have treated it as the idle mutterings of a diseased mind.

  "Has been mastered?" I repeated incredulously.

  The professor nonchalantly lit a cigar, puffed silently a moment and eyed me speculatively.

  "Absolutely mastered," he answered finally. I stared. "But it will take capital to perfect the system," he added timidly.

  I understood the professor. He reversed the time-honored maxim by having more brains than money. Still I could not help reasoning that this time his mighty intellect had slipped a cog. How could one upset the basic law of the universe? It was impossible, absurd. However, the savants of two continents did obeisance to Professor Steiner. The furore caused by his lecture on cosmic energy, delivered at Heidelberg, was still fresh in mind.

  "I see, my boy, that you doubt my claim," he went on presently.

  "It is so astonishing."

  The professor smiled tolerantly. "It is not astonishing when you know how to harness the forces of nature, my boy." He rubbed his hands together gleefully. "A few known principles well chosen, an opportunity--and there you have it."

  "And you have overcome the gravitational pull of mother earth?"

  "Nothing of the kind my dear boy; I have but neutralized it."

  "Why, man alive," I cried, "such a thing would send this old globe wobbling through space like a drunken man--leaderless and beyond control."

  "Precisely. But I propose to control gravitation locally."

  Again I stared. Was the professor going crazy? Was he breaking under the strain of overwork? I recalled his sister Greta's remark to me that she feared some day he would lose his mind, inasmuch as both his father and his grandfather had ended their days in a mad house. But as I gazed steadily into his calm blue eyes I read no sign of insanity there. Nothing but steadfast confidence.

  "Locally," I echoed at last, staring at him blankly. "And for what purpose?"

  "To build islands in the sky."

  "Islands!" I gasped.

  "To be sure, my boy. Do you not realize the need of such things? Airplanes are creatures of the air--are they not? Therefore they should fuel in the air, and the beacons set to guide their course should shine in the element through which they pass."

  "That is true," I assented, catching a faint glimmering of his stupendous scheme. "But what is to hold your islands in place and keep them from blowing away? And will they not become a serious menace to air travel rather than an aid?"

  "By no means," he replied confidently. "I will not only control gravitation, I will also use its force as a repellent."

  "A repellent?"

  "Exactly." The professor drew his chair nearer and leaned toward me with shining eyes, his hands spread out comprehensively. "Instead of attracting objects to its center the earth must be made to repel them," he continued in a low voice, glancing furtively about the brilliantly lighted room, then at the open windows where the breeze stirred the curtains lazily. "I have invented what I call a gravity repeller, which causes the gravitation lines of force to bend through 180deg. and lift an object away from the earth with the same force that it would ordinarily be attracted."

  "I understand," I said doubtfully.

  "Well, then we have only to perfect my device and operate it on a large scale."

  "But that would throw the world out of balance and destroy all life."

  "Don't be alarmed, my boy," went on the professor, smiling complacently, "as I have intimated I do not propose a blanket control. I shall tap this energy only in spots for the benefit of my--that is--our islands."

  The Professor's Fear

  THE professor's face glowed with enthusiasm as he looked at me. I saw that he was looking to me for funds to further his experiment. As the goddess of fortune had blessed me with more than my share of riches and I loved the eccentric professor I listened sympathetically. I may say that my interest was somewhat heightened by my friendship for Greta, who was a skillful air pilot and who had given me many pleasurable rides in her plane which embodied many of the professor's radical ideas of airplane construction.

  "What do
you want me to do?" I encouraged.

  "Well, Walnut Ridge is a good place to start."

  "Walnut Ridge--why that is away out in the wilderness."

  "Of course, but that is where we want to start--away from everybody. You see I have not been idle since coming to America. While you were away on business I was out looking the ridge over. I would buy and fence a section of the west end of the ridge perhaps a half mile in length by a quarter of a mile in width. There would be machinery to install, you understand, and an island to manufacture--perhaps many of them."

  Again I stared at my friend, and he smiled back in his inscrutable, confident way.

  "And the islands--what will you do with them?"

  "I shall place them in the sky and anchor them."

  This was too much for my sense of humor and I laughed in spite of myself. Manufacturing islands and anchoring them in the sky was such a ridiculous proposition that I treated it as a big joke. But now the professor was frowning and a cold light flamed in his eyes.

  "You think me joking," he said with quiet dignity, "but I am not. Already I have proved my theory."

  "Forgive me," I said contritely. "But my God, man," I added, "your proposition fairly stuns me. It will revolutionize aviation, astronomy--everything pertaining to the heaven above us. Have you worked it out alone and does no one know your secret?"

  A shadow came over Professor Stiener's fair face. For a long minute he looked down at the floor, then raised his head with a jerk.

  "I believe that no one has stumbled onto this thing but me. However, there is Van Beck. You know something about that confounded Dutchman, how that while I have worked with him and discovered much for the benefit of our fellowmen, he also has pestered me, often garnering the fruits of my toil. You know how he has disputed my claims on several occasions while posing as my friend. The devil take him. I wish I was sure."

  Professor Van Beck, a small, wiry man with a bristling black beard, was Professor Stiener's closest rival in the realms of science. The men, differing widely, still had much in common and had been closely associated in Europe before Van Beck took up his residence in the United States. But always Van Beck had managed to gather most of the rewards to himself. And now that I had invited Professor Stiener and his sister to make me a long visit, the irony of fate had guided him to the faculty of the university where the great Dutchman labored.

  "You haven't said anything about this to Van Beck?"

  "Not a word. But he is always trying to worm something out of me. You know what a persistent way he has--his strange personality--you like him and yet you hate him. And last week while I was conducting my experiments out on the ridge I spied a fellow far across the valley looking in my direction through a field glass."

  I certainly sympathized with Professor Stiener's efforts to stop his rival. The little Dutch scientist seemed to exercise some sort of an influence over Greta. She was often seen in his company and always took his part whenever he was held up to scorn by her celebrated brother.

  "Your words imply that there is much still to be done; that you have proved only that the theory is feasible."

  "That is just it, my boy--perfectly feasible."

  And then drawing his chair still nearer the professor told in low tones many of the details of his marvelous plans, but as he talked on his voice rose on a wave of enthusiasm and more than once I had to caution him for fear some servant might overhear.

  The night was far advanced when at last he finished and rose to retire. His face shone with ardent hope as he bade me good night and ascended the stairs. I stared after him until he passed from view, and then too much upset by his astounding revelations to sleep I went out to take a turn or two about the lawn in an effort to get the thing thoroughly analyzed before committing myself to sponsor a scheme that seemed to be the most impossible thing ever conceived by the mind of man.

  As I went down the porch steps I fancied I heard a slight scraping noise from the direction of my study window. I looked that way and for a moment thought I saw a vague shadowy form emerge from the deeper shadows and disappear over the porch railing. But as the sky was overcast and the gloom deep in that particular quarter I dismissed the notion.

  For more than an hour I paced up and down the drives and across the lawn thinking over the professor's words. The result of it all was that I finally concluded to back him financially.

  CHAPTER II

  The Secret of Walnut Ridge

  WE HAD no difficulty purchasing the desired tract on Walnut Ridge. We enclosed it with a high, woven wire fence topped by five strands of barbed wire. Our workmen were selected carefully, housed to keep their mouths shut. As secretly as possible the material of diverse sorts was collected on the ridge and the actual work of construction began. The few reporters and other curious humans that found their way out through the wilderness to the plant were sent on the wrong trail by the report that we were about to test out special iron mining machinery and make borings for other minerals.

  While our electricians under the able direction of a little red-headed Scotchman named McCann were familiar with all the workings of the intricate machinery, motors, transformers and so on, no one understood the complete working principle save the professor himself, although McCann, being canny and deep, I credited with understanding more than he let on. Certain it is that the professor was in love with him and trusted him implicitly. The professor was everywhere, tireless, secretive, and often provoking. Sometimes he worked far into the night when all others had sought their beds.

  As for myself I wandered about from one section to another in a maze of doubt and wonder. The whole thing was too deep for me, and I thought so much on the subject that it began to rob me of my sleep. Besides, the Professor's taciturnity finally began to irritate me. Although I was furnishing all the money he did not offer to divulge the inner secrets of his scheme. My wonder was intensified as the sky islands, two in number and located one near each end of the enclosure, began to take form. These islands were fashioned out of structural steel, were square in form and about one hundred yards from rim to rim. Although their superstructure was built of light-weight materials, each must have weighed many thousands of tons burdened as they were with machinery of many kinds--oscillators, condensers, motors and diverse other machines whose names and offices were known only to the Professor.

  Besides the machines on the islands, others were sheltered by small buildings on the ground. At three corners of each island were short mastheads with powerful lights and at the fourth rose a taller masthead bearing a revolving airplane beacon. I knew that the Professor proposed to raise this great mass into the air by wireless control, to suspend it there and raise and lower it at will. Having had the theory dinned into my ears for many days I naturally absorbed some of the faith of its inventor, but as the work progressed I began to have misgivings and to fear that, after all, his mind was unbalanced.

  Of course the public was not admitted to the grounds. I began to suspect that many doubted the iron machinery story, for several reporters and photographers finally came to visit us and were turned away with a sharp rebuke.

  One of our first tasks consisted of clearing a landing field, after which Greta always brought the Professor and me over in her plane--a remarkable machine in its way. Although she did not understand these air islands any more than I, she criticized the Professor for evolving them and was sceptical of their success.

  We heard and saw little of Van Beck, but Greta saw him often--as I afterward learned. Then one day she swooped down suddenly out of the sky, climbed from the cabin of the plane and was followed by Van Beck.

  Professor Stiener glared, but Van Beck grinned amiably through his black, bushy beard.

  "Sir, you must know that you are not wanted here," fumed the Professor. He turned savagely to Greta. "What is the meaning of this, Greta?"

  "Why Professor Van Beck is an old friend," she said innocently. "I just landed here without thinking. I beg your pardon, Gustave. We will be g
oing."

  Greta made for the plane. Just then McCann ran up with a blue print and asked the Professor a question.

  "Certainly, certainly," chimed in Van Beck. "We do not wish to trespass."

  The professor had been poring over a large blue print spread open in the sun when he rose to rebuke his Dutch friend. Now he walked away with McCann and I followed. We were absent but a few minutes, and when we turned back instead of seeing Van Beck getting into the plane I observed him turning away from the blue print and I thought I saw him hastily thrust a black object into the capacious pocket of his long black duster. There were no workmen near at the time and as I had no witnesses and could not be sure I resolved to say nothing about it. Smiling graciously Van Beck ambled to the plane, took his seat by Greta's side and they were off with a wave of the hand.

  The Professor was furious over the unexpected visit.

  "What is Greta thinking about?" he stormed. "Has she no respect for her brother and his work? Please God he didn't learn anything--but maybe he did," he added fearfully. "He has a devilish way of learning things. What do you think?"

  I assured him I did not think it likely any of our secrets had leaked out in so short a space of time. And I was in no amiable mood. Van Beck seemed to be exercising an hypnotic influence over Greta and I resented it bitterly. However, shortly afterward I had reason to be thankful for the episode and the resultant lecture which the Professor gave Greta. She was seen less often in Van Beck's company and devoted herself closer to me and the work of her eccentric brother. Nor did we see any more of Van Beck nosing around. He was seen but little about town and seemed to keep pretty close to the class room. Near mid--summer we heard he had obtained a vacation and had gone abroad for a time.

  The Professor breathed a sigh of relief. "We are rid of him for a time," he said gratefully. "Before he returns the danger will be past."

  A Disappearance

  WEEK after week rolled away, the mellow days of September were at hand and the islands were nearing completion. Then one morning as the Professor and I stepped from the plane we were met by McCann with the startling intelligence that the office had been entered during the night, but a cursory examination had revealed nothing disturbed.