Lords of the Stratosphere

by Arthur J. Burks

  Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from Astounding Stories March 1933. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  The Table of Contents is not part of the original magazine.

  Lords of the Stratosphere

  _A Complete Novelette_

  By Arthur J. Burks

  * * * * *

  Contents

  I The Take-off II The Ghostly Columns III Strange Levitation IV Frantic Scheming V Into the Void VI Stratosphere Currents VII Invisible Globe VIII Cataclysmic Hunger IX A Scheme Is Described X How It Came About XI To the Rescue

  * * * * *

  [Sidenote: High into air are the great New York buildings lifted by aray whose source no telescope can find.]

  CHAPTER I

  _The Take-off_

  It seemed only fitting and proper that the greatest of all leaps intospace should start from Roosevelt Field, where so many great flights hadbegun and ended. Fliers whose names had rung--for a space--around theworld, had landed here and been received by New York with all the pompof visiting kings. Fliers had departed here for the lands of kings, tobe received by them when their journeys were ended.

  Of course Lucian Jeter and Tema Eyer were disappointed that Franz Kresshad beaten them out in the race to be first into the stratosphere abovefifty-five thousand feet. There was a chance that Kress would fail, whenit would be the turn of Jeter and Eyer. They didn't wish for hisfailure, of course. They were sports-men as well as scientists; butthey were just human enough to anticipate the plaudits of the worldwhich would be showered without stint upon the fliers who succeeded.

  _The warship simply vanished into the night sky._]

  "At least, Tema," said Jeter quietly, "we can look his ship over and seeif there is anything about it that will suggest something to us. Ofcourse, whether he succeeds or fails, we shall make the attempt as soonas we are ready."

  "Indeed, yes," replied Eyer. "For no man will ever fly so high thatanother may not fly even higher. Once planes are constructed ofunlimited flying radius ... well, the universe is large and there shouldbe no end of space fights for a long time."

  Eyer, the elder of the two partner scientists, was given sometimes toquiet biting sarcasm that almost took the hide off. Jeter never mindedgreatly, for he knew Eyer thoroughly and liked him immensely. Besidesthey were complements to each other. The brain of each received from theother exactly that which he needed to supplement his own knowledge ofscience.

  They had one other thing in common. They had been "child prodigies," butcontrary to the usual rule, they had both fulfilled their early promise.Their early precocious wisdom had not vanished with the passing ofchildhood. Each possessed a name with which to conjure in the world ofscience. And each possessed that name by right of having made it famous.And yet--they were under forty.

  Jeter was a slender athletic chap with deep blue eyes and brown hair.His forehead was high and unnaturally white. There was always a stillsort of tenseness about him when his mind was working with some ideathat set him apart from the rest of the world. You felt then that youcouldn't have broken his preoccupation in any manner at all--but that ifby some miracle you did, he would wither you with his wrath.

  Tema Eyer was the good nature of the partnership, with a brain no lessagile and profound. He was a swart fellow, straight as an arrow, blackof eyes--the sort which caused both men and women to turn and look afterhim on the street. Children took to both men on sight.

  The crowd which had come out to watch the take-off of Franz Kress was ahuge one--huge and restless. There had been much publicity attendant onthis flight, none of it welcome to Kress. Oh, later, if he succeeded, hewould welcome publicity, but publicity in advance rather nettled him.

  Jeter and Eyer went across to him as he was saying his last words intothe microphone before stepping into his sealed cabin for the flight.Kress saw them coming and his face lighted up.

  "Lord," he said, "I'm glad to see you two. I've something I must askyou."

  "Anything you ask will be answered," said Jeter, "if Tema and I cananswer it. Or granted--if it's a favor you wish."

  Kress motioned people back in order to speak more or less privately withhis brother scientists. His face became unusually grave.

  "You've probably wondered--everybody has--why I insist on making thisflight alone," he said, speaking just loudly enough to be heard abovethe purring of the mighty, but almost silent motor behind him. "I'lltell you, partly. I've had a feeling for the last month that ... well,that things may not turn out exactly as everybody hopes. Of course I'llblaze the way to new discoveries; yes, and I'll climb to a height ofaround a hundred thousand feet ... and ... and...."

  Jeter and Eyer looked at each other. It wasn't like Kress to be gloomyjust before doing something that no man had ever done before. He shouldhave been smiling and happy--at least for the movietone cameras--but hewasn't even that. Certainly it must be something unusual to so concernhim.

  "Tell us, Kress," said Eyer.

  Kress looked at them both for several moments.

  "Just this," he said at last: "work on your own high altitude plane withall possible speed. If I don't come back ... take off and follow me intothe stratosphere at once."

  Had Kress, possessor of one of the keenest scientific minds in theworld, taken leave of his senses? "If I don't come back," he had said.What did he expect to do? Fly off the earth utterly? That was silly.

  But when the partners looked again at Kress they both had the samefeeling. It probably wasn't as silly as it sounded. Did Kress knowsomething he wasn't telling them? Did he really think he might ... well,might fly off the earth entirely, away beyond her atmosphere, and neverreturn? How utterly absurd! And yet....

  "Of course we'll do it," said Jeter. "We'd do it anyway, without wordfrom you. We haven't stopped our own work because of your swiftlyapproaching conquest of the greater heights. But why shouldn't you comeback?"

  * * * * *

  For a moment there was a look of positive dread upon Kress' face.

  Then he spoke again very quietly:

  "You know all the stuff that's been written about my flight," he said."Most of it has been nonsense. How could laymen newspaper reporters haveany conception of what I may encounter aloft? They've tried to makesomething of the recent passage of the Earth through an area ofso-called shooting stars. They've speculated until they're black in theface as to the true nature of the recent bombardment of meteorites.They've pictured me as a hero in advance, doomed to death by directattack from what they are pleased to call--after having inventedthem--denizens of the stratosphere."

  "Yes?" said Jeter, when Kress paused.

  Kress took a deep breath.

  "They've come nearer than they hoped for in some guesses," he said. "Ofcourse I don't know it, but I've had a feeling for some time. You knowwhat sometimes happens when a man gets a sudden revolutionary idea? Heconcentrates on it like all get-out. Then somebody else bursts into thenewspapers with the same identical idea, which in turn brings out hordesof claims to the same idea by countless other people. It's no new thingto writers and such-like gentry. They know that when they get such anidea they must act on it at once or somebody else will, because theirthoughts on the subject have gone forth and impinged upon the mentalreceiving sets of others. Well, that
's a rough idea, anyway. This ideaof denizens of the stratosphere has attacked the popular imagination.You'll remember it broke in the papers _simultaneously_, in thirtycountries of the world!"

  A cold chill ran down the spine of Tema Eyer. He saw, in a flash,whither Kress' thoughts were tending--and when he saw that, it thrilledhim, too, for it seemed to be proof of the very thing Kress was saying.

  "You mean," he said hoarsely, "that you too think there may be somethingup there, something ... well, sensate? Some great composite thoughtwhich inspires the general dread of stratosphere denizens?"

  Kress shrugged. He wouldn't commit himself, being too careful ascientist, but he hadn't hesitated to plant the idea. Jeter and Eyerboth understood the thoughts which were teeming in Kress' brain.

  "We'll do our part Kress," said Eyer. Lucian Jeter nodded agreement.Kress gripped their hands tightly--almost desperately, Jeter thought.Jeter was usually the leader where Eyer and himself were concerned andhe thought already that he foresaw cataclysmic events.

  * * * * *

  Kress climbed into his plane. The vast crowd murmured. They knew he wasadjusting everything inside for the days-long endurance test ahead ofhim. Kress had forgotten nothing. There was even a specially madecylinder, comparable to the globe which Picard had used in his historicballoon ascensions in Europe. This was attached to a parachute which, ifthe emergency arose, could be dropped. Kress, in the ball, could passthrough the sub-arctic cold of the stratosphere if necessity demanded.The ball, if it struck the ocean, would preserve him for a great lengthof time. It was even equipped with rockets.

  This plane was revolutionary. It was, to begin with, carrying a vastload. Kress was taking every conceivable kind of instrument he fanciedhe might need. There was food as for a long siege.

  Jeter shuddered. Why had he thought of the word "siege"?

  The great load would be carried without difficulty, however, for thisplane was little short of a miracle. Among other things, Kress would beable, in case of fatigue, to set his controls--as at sea a pilot maysometimes lash his wheel--and sleep while his plane mounted on up, andup, in great spirals.

  Up beyond fifty-five thousand he hoped to attain a thousand miles anhour velocity. That meant, say, breakfast in New York, lunch in London,tea in Novo-Sibirsk, dinner in Yokohama--as soon as the myriad planeswhich would follow this one in design and capabilities took off on thetrail Kress was blazing.

  Jeter sighed at the thought. For several years he had exploredlittle-known sections of the world. He had visited every country. He hadentered every port that could be reached from the ocean--and all thetime he had felt the Earth shrinking before the gods of speed. The timewould soon come when everything on Earth would be commonplace. Thenman's urge to go places he hadn't seen before would take him away fromthe Earth entirely--when he would begin the task of making even theuniverse shrink to appease the gods of speed. Somehow the thought was amelancholy one.

  Now the crowd gave back as Kress speeded up his motor, indicating thathe would soon take off. Jeter and Eyer studied the outward outline ofKress' craft. It looked exactly like a black beetle which has justalighted after flight, but has not yet quite hidden its wings. It wasblack, probably because it was believed a black object could be followedeasier from the Earth.

  There would be many anxious eyes watching that spiraling ship as it grewsmaller and smaller, climbing upward.

  With a rush, and a spinning of dust in the slipstream, the ship wasaway. It lifted as easily as a bird and mounted with great speed. It wascapable of climbing in wide spirals at a hundred and fifty miles anhour.

  A great sigh burst from the thousands who had come to watch historymade. For solid hours now they would watch the plane climb, growingsmaller, becoming a speck, vanishing. Many curious ones would stay righthere until Kress returned, fearful of being cheated of a great thrill.For Kress was to land right here when, and if, he had conquered thestratosphere.

  * * * * *

  Jeter and Eyer wormed their way through the crowd to the road and foundtheir car in a jam of other cars. Without a word they climbed in anddrove themselves to their dwelling--combined home and laboratory--inMineola. There they fell to on their own ship, which was being builtpiece by piece in their laboratory.

  Every half hour or so one or the other would go to the lawn and gazealoft, seeking Kress.

  "He's out of eyesight," said Eyer, the last to go. "Is the telescope setup?"

  "Yes, and arranged to cover all the area of sky through which Kress islikely to climb."

  At intervals through the night, long after they had ceased work, thepartners rose from bed and sought their fellow scientist among thestars. They alternated at this task.

  "According to my calculations," said Jeter, when the eastern sky wasjust paling into dawn, "Kress has now reached a point higher than manhas ever flown before, higher than any living--"

  Jeter stopped on the word. Both men remembered Kress' last words. Kress,upset or not, properly or improperly, had hinted of living things in thestratosphere--perhaps utterly malignant entities.

  It was just here, in the dawning of the first day after Kress'departure, that the dread began to grow on Jeter and Eyer. And duringthe day they labored like Trojans at their work, as though to forget it.

  The world had begun its grim wait for the return of Kress.

  They waited all that day ... and the next ... and the next!

  Then telegraph and radio, at the suggestion of Jeter, instructed theentire civilized world to turn its eyes skyward to watch for the returnof Kress.

  The world obeyed _that_ day ... and the next ... _and the next_!

  But Kress did not return; nor, so far as the world knew, did any or allof his great airplane.

  The world itself began to have a feeling of dread--that grew.