Classic Audiobook Collection - The Deadly Dust by Murray Leinster ~ Full Audiobook [scifi]

Episode Date: March 7, 2023

The Deadly Dust by Murray Leinster audiobook. Genre: scifi Geiger counters across the United States begin to spike, and a fine, drifting fall of dust turns out to be something far worse than dirt on the wind: invisible, spreading radioactivity. Dr. David Murfree, a quiet government scientist who recognizes the pattern too quickly for anyone's comfort, tries to sound the alarm - only to find that procedure, permissions, and office politics move slower than a contaminated weather front. Desperate, Murfree sets out to find the one person rumored to think faster than the system: Bug Gregory, a backwoods, self-taught genius with an uncanny knack for practical atomic know-how. As the lethal dust advances, the two follow clues that lead from official laboratories and skeptical superiors to unsettling reports from the open ocean, where a seemingly ordinary fishing boat tows a lead-sheathed mystery and leaves a trail of dead fish behind it. With time running out and proof hard to pin down, Murfree and Gregory must unravel what is creating the deadly fallout - and figure out how to stop it before a continent pays the price. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:35:48) Chapter 02 (01:06:39) Chapter 03 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Deadly Dust by Murray Lister. Chapter 1. Where is Bud Gregory? A sturdy fishing boat wallowed and rolled and rolled and heaved and pitched in the huge slow swells of mid-Pacific. It looked very much like any other fishing boat, and remarkably like those tuna boats that put out from the west coast of the United States and pursue their prey for as many thousands of miles as may be necessary. It was just over a hundred feet long and was powered obviously by a diesel engine. There was just one thing odd about the boat, and one oddity about its crew, and one about the object it towed, and one about its wake. The odd thing about the boat was that something remarkably like a radar antenna was fitted atop its pilot house. The oddity about its crew was that every man wore heavy protective clothing of a sort usually found only.

among workers about atomic piles. The oddity about the object towed was that, aside from the supporting pontoons that kept it afloat, it was made of lead. It was a torpedo-shaped object about forty feet long, and no more than eight or ten feet in diameter, kept from sinking by sheet metal floats on either side. The oddity of the wake was that it was quite clear for a few miles, and then, miles and miles and miles behind, dead fish lay on the water. It was possible to backtrack the tuna boat for a long, long way by dead fish lying on the surface.

Of course, perhaps fifty miles astern, the dead fish had been scattered by the waves, and the trail had been thinned out and was not so clear. But the fishy corpses made a trail for a hundred miles beyond that, if you look for them. Curiously, the trail was equally dense along its whole length, as if it was a very long as if a certain poisonousness only had been towed through the water and did not spread afterward. There was an oddity in the behavior, too, of the small craft, after a while. The radar antenna turned and flickered here and there, restlessly. It searched the horizon exhaustively.

Then, suddenly, an oily liquid came out of the torpedo-shaped leaden object. It bubbled to the surface and spread out. It evaporated very quickly, though. The vapor was blown to the eastward by the wind. The seeming tuna boat forged ahead sturdily, towing that odd object, which now gushed out a volatile liquid which evaporated quickly, and whose fumes were blown away. It went on for miles and miles and miles, its radar antenna flickering nervously about the horizon, while the transient film of oily stuff trailed behind it.

And there was another peculiarity. The trail of dead fish grew much thicker after the liquid spread out to dry up and blow away to eastward. Instead of forty or fifty fish per mile, there were hundreds. In one place where a school of some finny sort had swum beneath the temporary layer of oil, the ocean was almost carpeted with scaly belly-up corpses. On August 8th, the background count of all the standard Geiger-Miller tube on the Pacific coast from Oregon to Southern California went up from one to three to three to five per

minute per square centimeter of tube surface. On the same day, Bud Gregory found a new home for his family, and Bud Gregory was, though the fact made him extremely unhappy, the most important man in the United States, perhaps the the most important man in the world. He was in hiding because of it. He was so much more than a mere genius that there is no possible way to describe him, and therefore he drove furtively by back roads up through northern California and across Oregon, and finally found a home for his family fronting on one of the minor inlets opening on Puget Sound.

The house was an abandoned shack built of shakes, slabs cut off logs. to square them for a sawmill, and it was in the last stages of dilapidation. But Bud Gregory viewed it with vast satisfaction. So did his family. His tow-headed children regarded the brush that went back to the hills with lively anticipation. It was cut overland with only a sea-tree standing here and there. The old boys inspected the water in view with enthusiasm.

Bud Gregory's wife noted that the stove left behind. when the shack was abandoned, could be patched with flattened tin cans or sheet-iron to serve admirably, and that there was a spring only a hundred yards from the house. She learned that there was a very small town only four or five miles away. She was content. So but Gregory's family unloaded pots, pans, bedding, two-hound dogs, certain folding cots, and assorted gunny-sacks of provisions and canned goods from the car. They moved in.

There were berries and wood greens for the girls to pick nearby. There were rabbits to snare and fish to catch for the boys, and nobody was likely to try to make anybody go to school. Bud Gregory's family was happy. As the sun went down, with the ancient and decrepit jalopy standing forlornly beside the really quite unspeakable shack, Bud Gregory sat comfortably on the sagging doorstep and leaned back against the rotting sidewall. He reflected complacently that nobody was likely to bother him here for a long time to come.

He could sit in the sun and not be bothered. In a very real sense he was the greatest physicist yet known on Earth. He had the greatest command over subatomic particles of any human being so far born. His profession was the repair of hopelessly disarranged automobiles, but his occupation, his avocation, and his only desire was simply to sit and do nothing. Sometimes, though, he liked to drink a little beer. On August 9th, the background count of standard Geiger-Miller tubes was up to three to five per minute per square centimeter, so far east as St. Louis.

On the coast, it was up to five to seven. On August 10th, the count was three to five in the Atlantic States. five to seven in the center of the country, and seven to nine on the Pacific coast. There was another small fishing boat plowing its way through the long, slow, mid-Pacific swells, towing an odd object which was supported by floats. There had been another one before it, and another before that. Like its fellows which had made these strange patrols, towing lead-sheathed torpedo-shaped objects. This fishing boat also never seemed to fish. Not even when there were very plain

evidences of tuna in profitable quantities all about. The boat forged ahead, its radar flickering about the horizon. Suddenly the movement of the radar antenna ceased. It remained fixed in one position and one position only. Then, as suddenly, men ran about the boat's deck. They hastily assembled machine guns at the stern. There were sharp tearing noises above the droning hum of the diesel engine. Tiny puffs of smoke were torn away from the muzzles of the machine guns by the wind which blew to the east. Bullets ripped and tore the sheet steel floats.

Great gashes appeared in the plating. Water poured into the supporting pontoons. A protective suit-clad sailor swung an axe and the tow rope parted. The lead objects settled and sank swiftly. Seconds after it was out of sight the only crew members who appeared on deck wore commonplace working clothes. When a four-motored trans-Pacific flying clipper droned out of the mistiness of the horizon, there was nothing out of the ordinary in view.

The radar antenna was invisible, it had been unshipped, and of course the thing that had been towed was far, far below the surface. The Geiger-Miller tube, background count, did not rise on August 11th or 12th, but on the 13th, when it was seven to nine in the eastern and central states, it made another jump. It went up to eight to ten on the coast. The matter began to look serious. Bud Gregory and his family, however, paid no heed. The older boys had explored their immediate surroundings very happily.

The family dined on Woodcock, out of season, rabbits, fish, and the old-beats. and cornbread. The oldest boy of all, aged 14, trudged all the way to the nearby small town and reported that there was a movie theater there which showed films twice a week. Beer was to be had. There were two stores and a post office, and a consolidated school, a small bowling alley, a sawmill, and a hospital all out of proportion to the town itself. He was not impressed. He went fishing. On August 14th, the background count on the West Coast was 9 to 11. On the 15th, it was 10 to 12, and on the 16th it was 12 to 15.

In the rest of the country, the count climbed steadily. In Washington, D.C., standard counters clicked at the 10 to 12 rate, and Dr. David Murphy became convinced that something was very, very wrong. The background count for standardized Geiger-Miller tubes is a measure of the normal everyday radioactivity of the earth as a whole. When a tube of given dimensions with given pressure and given voltage applied indicates that stray subatomic particles have passed through it at the rate of from one to three per minute for each square centimeter of its surface, the cosmos is normal.

But when the rate goes up over the entire United States, so that one has to assume that the radioactivity of the whole nation's surface has multiplied itself at least four times, it is upsetting. Dr. David Murphy's title was a science doctorate. Because of the raised background count, he went to his superiors in Washington and asked for leave. He had a hunch that he had better find Bud Gregory and asked some questions about the matter. It was not a pleasant interview. For a civil service employee to ask some special concession from his superiors is always

unpleasant, and Murphrey was not in the good graces of his bosses. By his rating he drew a salary of forty-seven hundred dollars a year, and by his seniority he could not be fired without formal charges and a hearing. But his superiors disapproved of him. When an atomic pile started up of itself in the Great Smokies, Murphrey to be be sure, had managed to get it stopped on his own initiative, and had presented to the United States the greatest known store of artificial radioactive material on Earth. But Bud Gregory, who was responsible for that gigantic pile, had got away into the anonymity

of Tramp Motordom. And again, when there was good prospect of an atomic war, with the United States on the receiving end of a well-organized attack, Murphrey had managed to find Bud Gregory, and, according to his own report, had prevented that attack too. But again, Bud Gregory had slipped away, and Murphrey could bring back nothing but a smashed and inoperative device he declared was responsible for the safety of the United States. True, three dead men were found where Murphrey had said they would be, and they had been killed by bullets from guns they held in their hands, and the bullets had gone in backward,

which made Murfrey's otherwise improbable story rather plausible. But his immediate superior did not approve of him because he had brought back neither Bud Gregory nor a painstaking report with math and diagrams, which could be issued as essentially the product of the organizing genius of the administrative officers of the Bureau. So on August 17th, while Bud Gregory set peacefully in the sunshine and his children picked berries, Dr. David Murphrey sat in the office of his section's administrative officer and argued, "'But there's nothing else to do. I have to take some leave.' The administrative officer was displeased.

"'I don't think Gregory's responsible,' explained Murphrey patiently. "'He knows better now. All he wants is to be left alone to loaf and drink beer. He won't do anything to draw attention to himself. More is the shame and pity. and anything that would increase basic radioactivity would decidedly be on the show-off side but he's the only man who could possibly solve the problem the administrative officer scowled darkly it isn't the whole earth remember said murphyry as patiently as before only the united states that means something quite preposterous it's not dangerous yet but it isn't right i've got to take some leave to see if i can Find Gregory and get an explanation. The administrative officer was no scientist. He pointed out that Murphy was asking for leave when everybody else in the bureau wanted

his vacation. If Murphy left his duty, it would be considered that he had resigned. Murphy clamped his jaw. Oh, the deuce, he said angrily. In that case, I resigned. I'm going. I've got to. The small fleet of seeming tuna-be.

boats had developed a regular routine. One or more lay at a dock where a shed jutted out over the water, and could easily hide two or three led sheathed objects to be towed. At least one plowed sturdily across the ocean, its radar flickering incessantly in every direction to detect and warn of any other ship or any aircraft which might presently come into sight. If the radar reported another ship, however far away, the tuna boat and its tow changed course to avoid a meeting. If a meeting could not be avoided, the toe could be sunk, and of course on the tuna boat there wasn't anything peculiar which couldn't be thrown overboard if it became necessary

to prove its utter innocence. The island which was the small fleet's base was small itself and very seldom visited. If anybody did come its entire population of perhaps seventy souls was united. Personnel had been chosen and trained to distract the attention. of any possible visitor from the things that were the real background of the ship's activities. It should not be difficult. After all, atomic piles are not so large, and can be built and hidden underground, and the necessary shielding can be made to look like perfectly natural parts of an island

landscape. The fishing boats went about their routine. They were very busy, but they didn't catch any fish. They didn't try. On August 22nd, the acceptance of Murfrey's unwritten resignation came through. He scowled at the slip and then cleaned out his desk and went home. On that day, the background count in the east was 25 to 28. On the Pacific coast, it was 32 to 35.

This meant that in two weeks, the radioactivity of the surface soil of the United States had multiplied itself ten times. If it doubled itself just six times more, there wouldn't be any United States. There might not be any world. But out in the state of Washington, looking out over Puget sound from his happily sumulent seat before the shack of moldering shakes, Bud Gregory decided that he would like to have some beer. He counted up his money and sent his oldest son to the town four miles away to bring back

half a dozen bottles. For speed he let the fourteen-year-old boy used the antique automobile in which the family had wandered across the continent. The boy cranked up the jalopy and drove away. It was very fortunate that he did so. Murphrey heard about it and therefore was able to locate Bud Gregory. End of Chapter 1. Chapter 2.

What's in it for me? Murphrey had a very bad conscience. Now, when his wife had set her heart upon a vacation at the seashore with her little daughter, Washington is an oven in the summer. He had joined the ranks of the unemployed, but Murphrey knew that he had to hunt for Bud Gregory. He had to. Somebody's got to do it, he told his wife defensively. And after all, I'm the only person he'll work with.

His wife waited. It's a lunatic, said Murphrey. But what can I do? The whole country is getting more radioactive. The normal count has gone up ten times. It goes up in waves which start on the Pacific coast and move east. There's no rise in Europe, Asia, South America, or anywhere else. It isn't dangerous yet, but it's heading that way.

Somebody's got to find out about it." Why must it be you? asked his wife. Because nobody else will. told her vexedly. There's a certain amount of radiation which is normal. There's a certain amount which is safe. The amount all over the United States is a way above normal.

It's still safe, but it's heading for the point where it won't be." Well, his wife said. A certain amount more, said Murphrey, and there will be a terrific increase in the number of abnormal babies, freaks, mutations, monsters. A little beyond that, there'll be no babies. The rest of the living world would follow. A little more, and plants will begin to throw sports. More yet, and plants will become sterile.

Seeds will cease to grow. A little more radiation than that, and we'll all tend to develop cancer. And still more, and we'll begin to run fevers and die radiation burns. And you're the only person who sees it, said his wife bitterly. So you have to spend your money trying to find this Gregory and bribe him to do something? But, said Murphrey again, nobody else will. Which was true. Twice before he'd spent his own savings for the safety of his family,

while all other families got their safety free. His conscience bothered him, but there wasn't anything else to do. Rather guiltily he called a friend who made microchemical analyses for the FBI. He asked if he could be notified if any events took place of the sort, he described it specifically, which would mean Bud Gregory was involved. Then he doggedly made ready to take his family to the seashore. Employed or not, his daughter needed fresh air and sunshine, and the sea after a year in Washington. Two days later he had them settled at the beach. He'd packed up the one personally owned souvenir of his encounters with Bud Gregory.

He went to the largest privately owned power-generating station in the United States. He demonstrated the gadget. He left it installed. Then he called back to Washington on long distance. He had a certain amount of money by this time, a fee for the experimental use of Bud Gregory's gadget, and within limits he could travel. There was news. His friend in the FBI told him of a happening which sounded as if Bud Gregory was

involved. So Murphy headed for the Pacific coast by air. A very decrepit vessel cast anchor off the small island of the tuna boats. It made cryptic signals and the population of the island came rejoicing to the dock to greet its crew. Of course the people of the island did not use radios for communication. Radio messages can be intercepted, and, if sent in code, aroused curiosity. The decrepit vessel, therefore, brought news.

It was good. The news consisted of background count measurements made in different cities of the United States over some weeks past. The men who had made the measurements were passengers on the ship which brought them. They were highly elated. They were taken to see the atomic piles which had produced the measurements. They bowed profoundly before the atomic engines, which silently produced death for a nation. And that night there was celebration on the island.

But the tuna boat, due to leave, went out on schedule despite the festivities. It towed a torpedo-shaped lead object behind it. On the 29th of August the background count of standard Geiger-Miller tubes on the west coast was 56 to 58, and still going up. The radioactivity constant of the United States had risen to something like 25 times normal. It showed no tendency to stop. Bud Gregory's boy was in trouble. The event itself was not important, but it enabled Murphrey to find Bud Gregory.

The happening occurred within half an hour after Bud sent his son to town for some beer. The fourteen-year-old boy chuffed away from the shack into which his family had moved. The car in which Bud Gregory had taken his tribe across the continent was an ancient and dilapidated. rattletrap. By any normal standard, it should have weezed its last mile years before. It had a cloth top, a cracked windshield, and when it was running exclusively on its motor, it made noises like a broken-down coffee grinder working on a protesting cat. It should have grown at any grade and balked at any really perceptible incline. Its absolute maximum of speed should have been twenty miles an hour downhill.

But Bud Gregory was something very much more than a genius. He had made a gadget for his car. It was a radio tube and a coil or two, the windings being made in a fashion nobody else could understand and Bud Gregory could not explain. When the gadget was turned on and attached to any bit of metal, things happened. Normally the molecules of, say, the metal of any automobile engine block move in all directions in a strictly random fashion. When Bud Gregory's gadget operated,

the molecules of the same automobile block moved in the same direction ahead. If the motor wasn't running, the metal cooled down as the heat energy it contained was turned into kinetic energy. If it was kept running, the burning fueled in its cylinders, kept it from going so far below zero

that it would condense liquid air upon itself. The gadget was still attached to the motor of the ancient car, It had helped pull the car across the continent and was solely responsible for the fact that it had pulled the Rockies. Now it was turned off. The boy turned it on. The car began to ride smoothly and easily with seemingly infinite power.

It came out of the narrow woods road upon a main highway. The fourteen-year-old boy turned up the gadget. The ancient jalopy breezed up to sixty miles an hour, seventy. A.T. A horn blared its astonishment as a motorcycle cop flashed past, going in the opposite direction. But Gregory's son heard the cop's brakes squeal. He was going to turn around and come in pursuit. The flopping, squeaking, preposterous fliver hit 120 miles an hour as the scared boy lit out.

He rounded a curve. The small town lay before him. In panicky haste, he turned the knob to reverse the molecular drive of the four-wheeled wreck he drove. In fifty yards, it dropped from a hundred and twenty miles to ten. He snapped off the drive and limped into town on three cylinders. He parked the car in an inconspicuous place and went in and got the beer. He lingered uneasily, afraid to go back until the motor-cop should have vanished.

The motor-cop came into town, swearing. The boy saw him ask questions. He moved out of sight. The boy got into the car and stowed the beer. Then he saw the cop heading for his car where it was parked. The cop looked purposeful. The small boy cringed. He shared his father's terror of the law.

When the motor cop was ten yards away, Bud Gregory's son reacted in panic. He flipped over the molecular drive switch and the car plunged forward. It dented the fender of the car ahead of it, sideswiped a farm truck, upset a keep-right sign, and flashed for the open road with no sound of any running engine. The motorcop lunged for his motorcycle and roared in pursuit. A fourteen-year-old boy is not a startlingly conservative driver at any time. But Gregory's son was filled with stark terror.

on the two-mile stretch of straight road just around the first curve. He gave the car all the speed that molecular heat energy would yield. It wasn't the same as atomic power, but it was plenty. The motor-cop reached the curve, just in time to see the jalopy stop, almost as abruptly as if it had run into a brick wall, but unharmed, and go careening into the woods road. The cop roared in pursuit. He didn't catch up. But in the winding woods road, he ran into patches of below zero frigidity that almost scared

him into giving up the chase. The boy had forgotten to start the engine, and when you extract from a motorblock the heat energy required to drive a fliver four miles at top speed, with acceleration and deceleration thrown in. It gets cold. It left a trail of almost condensed air behind it. The wreck happened just fifty yards from the shack in which by graze. Gregory's family had settled down. The car slid off the road to the last curve, plowed through

fifty yards of underbrush and spindling saplings, came at last to an immovable stump, and had reached the end of its journeying. The boy was completely unhurt. But his toes were frostbitten on the twenty-ninth of August, on a bright, sunshiny day, with all the woods rioting and lush green growth. The motor-cop got no adequate explanation. Bud Gregory was shaken, but firm in his resolution to play dumb. He couldn't explain anything, but the boy's toes were frostbitten. In the end, the cop took the boy back to the hospital to have his toes treated, resolving to return to examine the wreck.

But, of course, when he got back, there was no gadget to discover, and absolutely nothing to explain the car speed, the boy's frost-bitten toes, or a patch of frost-killed vegetation in August, where the wreck still lay crumpled. It was this obstinately inexplicable situation that had been reported to Murphy by his friend of the FBI. So he reached that small town as fast as planes would take him, and found Bud Gregory sitting miserably on the steps of the small town's hospital. The most important man in the United States was acutely unhappy. his son was going to have to pay a fine for reckless driving the hospital would charge something his car was wrecked beyond even his ability to repair it the motor block had burst of course when the water in the circulating system froze and he might have to go to work

Murphrey walked up to Bud Gregory and nodded. "'Hello,' said Murphrey. "'I hear you're in trouble.' Bud Gregory looked up. "'Mah gosh,' he said helplessly. "'It's Mr. Murphy, the government man.' "'Not a government man any more,' said Murphy. "'I've got some money for you.'

"'You don't owe me no money, Mr. Murphy,' said Bud Gregory unhappily. He peered around Murphrey with gloomy's suspicion and asked, You got some detectives with you? Not a soul, said Murphrey. But I have got some money for you. You sold me a gadget once you'd used it to fix my car. But Gregory spread out his hands.

You paid me for that, Mr. Murphy. You paid me six hundred dollars. I lived on that for a long time. I had hog meat and drunk beer, and me and my family came clear across the United States on that month. money, Mr. Murphy, but you don't owe me no more." We'll go ingest some beer," said Murphrey. It may take some explaining.

Bud Gregory cheered. He looked uneasily about, but Murphrey had always played fair with him. Their meeting had been in a tiny village in the smokies when Murphrey's car overheated and froze, and Bud Gregory produced a gadget which was made of stray radio parts. He plugged it in a light socket and attached it to Murphrey's car. Immediately the car wasn't stuck fast. It ran. When fresh oil was spread about, it was as good as new.

But Gregory explained casually that the gadget made some sort of stuff, perhaps electronic, which made pieces of metals slide easily on each other. Later, in an emergency, he sold the gadget to Murfrey for $600, and Murphrey could make it work, but he had never been able to understand it. Neither had the most eminent scientists of the United States, nor could any of them duplicate it so the duplicate would work. It demonstrably eliminated all friction, all from any device to which it was attached, but it remained an enigma.

With beer before them, Murphy passed five ten-dollar bills across the table. He did not dare offer more, knowing Gregory. You sold me the Ninkus which stops all friction, said. Murphy casually. I can't understand it, nor can anybody else. But it still works. So, since it belonged to me, when I got out of government service, I took it to a big power-generating station.

I explained what it would do. We hooked it on the big turbine, and it not only stopped off friction in the bearings, but it ended steam friction against the rotor blades and baffles. The efficiency of the whole setup rose by something over eight percent. Bud Gregory looked longingly at the fifty dollars. "'But you don't owe me no money,' he said unhappily. "'You've got ten dollars a day coming to you as long as that dinkus keeps on working,' said Murphrey casually.

"'If you ever want more money, just make another one or show me how to do it and I'll take care of the situation.' Bud Gregory blinked. Then he grew expansive as realization came. "'Mr. Murphy, you would change. gentleman," he said expansively. "'Soon's my boy's toes get well and I got me a new car. I won't have to worry about nothing.

You come on out to the house with me. My old woman, when she hears this news, is going to cook you a dinner that'll sure say thank you. And I'll get some beer and some ten-cent cigars.' Murphrey nodded. He had a telegram in his pocket. The background count of Geiger-Miller tubes was up to sixty on the coast here. The soil of the United States was just thirty times as radioactive as it should be.

When it reached a certain point, now not so far away. Back and forth, back and forth. Day after day the little tuna boats worked busily. They were equipped with bait tanks and refrigeration units for such tuna as they might catch, but they made no attempt to catch them. Their only purposeful activity seemed to be towing torpedo-shaped content. of lead to points some hundreds of miles from their base island, and then allowing the volatile liquid in the containers to flow out on the surface of the ocean, and be carried away eastward

as vapor. They took great pains not to be sighted by any other vessel as they went out, tow loaded with its enigmatic liquid, or returned with it empty. They had been fortunate. Only one such tow had had to be scuttled when a Trans-Pacific clipper soared over the air. overhead early in their traffic. Whatever they were trying to do, they seemed to meet with no obstacles as they carried out their purpose.

Murphy still hadn't the faintest idea what could be the cause of the excess radioactivity of American soil alone. The newspapers hadn't found out about it. They probably wouldn't realize the potential danger if they did. But the lives of a hundred and forty million people were at the mercy of a completely unexplained phenomenon, unless Bud Gregory somehow solved the problem. Murphrey's problem was to get him to work on it. I want you, said Murphrey, to work out a gadget to save some lives.

End of Chapter 2. Chapter 3 and 4 of The Deadly Dust by Murray Lindster. This Libre-Vox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 3. Bud Gregory puffed expanses. They were seated before that unspeakable shanty, Bud Gregory had preempted, and which was now his home. They had dined on bracken, greens and grouse, out of season, and sea trout with cornbread,

and bacon drippins, and wild fennel and a monstrous brew which Bud Gregory fondly considered to be coffee. Now they looked out over an inlet of Puget Sound, the sunset colorings marking the sky to westward a glory of rose and gold. Shucks, Mr. Murphy, said Bud and Gregory happily. I ain't no doctor. I just fix cars. And now, I got me ten dollars a day coming in rain or shine, and I don't have to bother doing that.

Murphy smoked. It'll pay you a lot more than ten dollars a day. What do I want with more than that? asked Bud Gregory. He beamed. My old woman don't need more than five. $6 a week for cornmeal and hog meat and I got a shotgun. I'll get the boy some 22s so they can knock over squirrels and take out for some beer now and then, and the rest will buy me a new car in no time.

I don't need no fancy car. I can make most anything run if it's got four wheels. Murphy blew a smoke ring. I'm asking you to save some human lives, he repeated. If they got money to pay me, said Bud. Gregory comfortably. They got money to pay doctors that know all about that kind of stuff. You tell them to go to a fellow that makes a business a doctoring.

Only, said Murphrey, you have to be the doctor. They'll die of radioactivity burns. Know what I mean? Bud Gregory shook his head. You know the hunks of stuff that metal is made of? Murphrey said, carefully, fumbling for words that would describe atoms to Bud Gregory, who understood them better than any other man alive. The atoms that are different for iron and copper and so on?

Yeah, said Bud Gregory. He looked absorbedly at the water before his door. They differ in the middle, and they got different skins around them. Say, there's a schooling fish down there. See him jump? Murphy felt an impulse to jump himself. Bud Gregory had spoken of atoms as a little. being different in the middle and having different kinds of skins around them.

He obviously spoke with precision of atomic nuclei and electron shells. But how did he know? Murphy ached with envy of Bud Gregory, who knew so much that Murphy would give anything to know, and knew only wanted to sit in the sun. Some kinds of metal, said Murphy as carefully as before. down and change into other kinds. Some when stray hunk of stuff hit them, he referred to free neutrons,

and some all by themselves. The last was radioactivity, but Gregory spoke regretfully. If that boy of mine wasn't in the hospital with frost-by-toes, he sure would admire to go after some of them fish. Yeah, I know what you mean. There's some stuff busting down everywhere,

all the time. Lots more lately. Murphy stiffened. Increased background radioactivity. How did Bud Gregory know? To say that he perceived the facts of atomic structure and behavior as casually and as effortlessly as a mathematical freak perceives the cube root of 89,724,387 would be accurate, but it wouldn't mean anything.

Murphy wanted desperately to try to find out how Bud Gregory knew, but he for foreknow the uselessness of the attempt. He wet his lips. Yes, said Murphrey. A lot more is breaking down lately. Thirty times as much as usual, nobody knows the cause. Bud Gregory said offhandedly, dust. Then he waved his hand exuberantly. You know, sir, he said, it sure does feel good to know that I got ten dollars a day coming in without no bother. I don't have to work myself to death no more. I can just set if I want to.

You sure are a friend of mine, Mr. Murphy. What do you mean by dust? demanded Murphy sharply. Just dust, said Bud Gregory. Settling. It's all busting down all the time as it drops, sending out hunk's stuff. It ain't thick, but it kind of accumulates. He paused. Then,

Yes, sir. I've done a lot of worrying in my time, but now I aim to stop. You say I'll get that money as long as that dinkus works?' Murphrey stared at him. Dust settling down and breaking down as it settled was radioactive dust. Accumulating. Taking three days to travel from coast to coast. That steady overhead wind from west to east on which the Japs has sent bomb-laden balloons

drifting across the Pacific to the United States. Wait a minute, said Murphy sharply. You say there's radioactive dust settling down? That's not natural. And only the United States? That's men's doing. It's a sneak attack. And such dust, sentence scattered thin, would only be noticed by freaks like me.

It's an attack with radioactive dust. Something close to horror. came suddenly to him. Radioactive dust had been imagined as a weapon, of course, but it has always been imagined as a super-deadly poison gas, a whirlwind weapon killing overnight. There had never been any imagining of its use as an insidious slow poison, killing undetected,

murdering a nation by slow inexorable stages, without warning or provocation, or even the alternative of submission or death. but if bud gregory were right that was the case now the rise in radioactivity could only be the work of men who would set out to murder a nation in a cold hatred surpassing even the hatred of the nazis for jewelry it would be the work of men who knew that the united states could never be subdued by any possible weapon and since it stood in their way must be destroyed Other scientists had observed the rise in radioactivity and had extrapolated its curve. They inferred that if the rise continued much longer, there would be danger. If it continued far enough, the danger would become fatality.

But the danger had seemed only a possibility. If Bud Gregory was right, it was a certainty. The United States was not the scene of an anomalous rise in the background count of stray suburb. atomic particles. Not at all. The United States was the victim of an attack which would end, if not somehow, countered, with the death of every living organism on its surface, down to the smallest quasi-cellular virus on a rotting leaf. And there was no defense against such a weapon as this, unless Bud Gregory could contrive it. Murphy's voice was unsteady when he spoke again. Listen, he said, somebody's turning loose that dust.

Somebody's making it. They're spreading it to drift all over the United States and settle so that everybody in the country will die. But Gregory spoke obliviously. I never did like the idea of working myself to death. From now on I can just set, not bothering nobody and nobody bothering me. Then what Murphy had said hit home. He turned his head. What's that, Mr. Murphy?

Somebody, said Murphy shakily. Somebody out in the Pacific most likely. Then his brain worked swiftly and surely. It matters that he knew, and his training had fitted him to handle. His brain was probably better than Bud Gregory's. He simply had not the intuitive knowledge of facts beyond science, which but Gregory possessed. "'I see how it's done,' said Murphrey in a sudden, deadly hatred.

"'You take an atomic pile. If you want radioactive iron, you put a rod of iron in it. When it comes out, it's radioactive. If you want carbon or copper or anything else, all you need to do is put it in the right part of a pile where neutrons of the proper speed will hit.' Gregory blinked at him. Perhaps Murphy's statements seem so elementary as to be nonsense to Bud.

Or perhaps they were far beyond his comprehension. They'd make a pile and run a coated pipe through it, said Murphy savagely. Then they'd run a liquid through that pipe. Any liquid? Gasoline, kerosene? It would come out radioactive. It could be evaporated, and it would spread and diffuse in the air, and as it spread here and atom in their air.

And as it spread, here and atom and there an atom would break down, emitting radiation, and becoming another substance entirely. And that would be a new compound which wouldn't stay vapor, but would come out as a microscopic particle of dust with an electric charge that would draw moisture or other particles to it. It would grow and grow, and ultimately settle down as a dust-mote too small to be seen. And that would happen quintillions and quintillions and quintillions of times, and moats of poison would settle, or settling. Hmm, said Bud Gregory.

Yeah, the dust ain't, and then all of a sudden it is, like a soot forming. The parallel was exact. A vapor-like gasoline, burning without enough oxygen, turned to solid soot. Radioactive vapor, transforming itself, would become solid particles of dust, which would attract water vapor and other particles, and settle to the earth. "'Somebody's doing it,' said Murphy, grinding his teeth. Somebody who wants to rule the earth. They know they've got to knock us out first, before they can try to build up their own nation

to jingoism again. So they've started to murder us. one of us. Bud Gregory spoke contentedly. They ain't got nothing against me. I don't bother nobody. He beamed at the sunset. He was gangling and sloped, shouldered and untidy.

He was utterly without ambition and practically without desires. And he looked at all the possible situations only as they affected his desire not to do anything at all. But he was the most important man in the United States. States. He could have earned any conceivable sum if he had wanted it, but he didn't. He only wanted to sit in the sun. You've got to figure out how to beat this trick, said Murphrey, very pale. In two weeks the babies that are conceived will begin to be freaks. In a month there won't be any babies conceived. In two months people will begin to die.

You a good friend of mine, Mr. Murphy, said Bud Gregory amiably. "'You just brought me the best news I ever had in my life. "'You told me I don't have to worry no more. "'I ain't going to, Mr. Murphy. "'I'm going to rest.' "'I'm telling you,' said Murphy sharply, "'that there are men at war against the United States. "'They're making war on your country.'

"'All right, sir,' Bud Gregory said amiably. "'Maybe so. "'But it ain't likely they'll draft me for no war. "'I'm married, and I got children. Let him have a war. If I got ten dollars a day coming in steady, I'm satisfied. I ain't going to bother nobody, and I don't want nobody to bother me. Murphrey clenched his fists.

He hated Bud Gregory for a moment. But the most important man in America was neither willful nor unpatriotic. He was simply impervious to abstractions such as riches or the love of country. The problem had not yet been. been stated so it had meaning to him." Murphrey compressed his lips. After a long time he stood up. All right, figure it this out.

If you don't figure some way to take care of that radioactive dust in three months at the outside I'll be dead. And if I'm dead, who's going to collect that ten dollars a day and send it to you?" He strode away into the darkness for the four-mile hike back to town. It was the only argument that could possibly make Bud Gregory exert himself. End of Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Danger Point The little boats went about their business, which was the murder of a nation. Even Nazis never dreamed of the extermination of a nation, and every living organism which lived on its soil,

down to the last one-celled and immaculate living in a mud-pubber. The crews of the little boats moved competently about their task of towing great containers of a deadly liquid for hundreds of miles from their base, and then spreading out that liquid on the water. It evaporated at a known rate. Its vapor was blown eastward at a known rate. It thinned and attenuated and was mixed with other air, so that when it reached the coastline of America it was undetectable, except as a minute rise in the very much.

background count of subatomic particles. But as it moved and thinned and thinned it changed at a known rate. Presently it was not a vapor, but an infinitely diffuse dust cloud which no instrument on earth could detect as such. It settled to the earth and continued to change in slowly, slowly, slowly, accumulated to a layer which, when less than a molecule thick, would make North America a desert. The inhabitants of the island and the crews of the little ships were very industrious people.

They seemed to love their work. Murphy had his suitcase on the porch of the hotel when Bud Gregory came shambling into the town. The suitcase was on view for Bud Gregory to see. Murphy saw the most important man in the United States come awkwardly, hesitantly down the street. Murphy went briskly out, picked up his suitcase, and started toward the bus stop. "'Oh, hello, Mr. Murphy?' said Bud Gregory unhappily. "'You leaving?' "'Nothing to stay here for,' said Murphrey.

"'If I'm going to die, I might as well be with my family. No you staying here.' "'Ah, you mean?' Bud Gregory said. "'You can make gadgets,' said Murphrey crisply. one happens to be needed to keep me from being killed with everybody else in the United States. Including you, by the way, you won't make it. So that's that.

Bud Gregory scraped his foot on the ground. "'I made one this morning, Mr. Murfrey,' he said awkwardly. "'I got to figuring, and I figured you was right. That stuff that keeps busting up by itself is settling down all around. and it ain't good for humans if it gets too strong. So I made a dinkus that can gather it up. I figured I could have my kids clean it up around the house. You want to see it?

Cleaning up around your house won't be enough, Murphrey said evenly. For one thing, if there were no crops or any birds or any fish, and every tree and bush in the woods was dead, what would you eat? Bud Gregory looked miserable. You want to come look, Mr. Murphy? He asked. Maybe it ain't a good, dinkus, but I'll come, said Murphy shortly. Inside he felt a queer, envious turmoil.

Bud Gregory could make anything, but he had no idea of the possibilities inherent in his gadgets. He'd made devices of incredible possibilities, and used them to keep from working, and to make it possible to win two-dollar bets, and to keep from having to buy a new car instead of the wreck he'd owned. If Murphreys possessed Bud Gregory's ability— "'I'll get a car to drive us out,' said Murphy, grimly. "'So if there's no use staying, I needn't miss my bus.'

"'I'll get some beer and some ten-cent cigars,' said Bud Gregory, hopefully. "'If this stink this ain't right, maybe you can figure out something else.' that was hopeful but gregory was afraid of losing his pension therefore he would try to perform any mere miracle the situation demanded and he should be able to do anything that could be imagined they drove out murfrey was very silent he didn't know how the original radioactive material was put into the air or where for its sweep across north america at a guess the distribution point should be somewhere out in the air the Pacific. Plains equipped with Geiger-Miller counters might be able to track back the origin of the deadly dust. But planes, hunting the hideout of a nation's would-be murderers, would surely be detected far away.

And if they were detected, the murderers might simply lose a cloud of dust, which nothing could either stop or survive. So there should be no hunt for the men who wielded the weapon until the weapon itself could be withstood. They reached the woods road. They went down it. They reached the water's edge. Bud Gregory spoke uneasily under his breath.

"'Mr. Murfrey, I wish you'd send this fellow back. Tell him to come this away presently. I—that dinkus is kind of funny. If it ain't no good I wouldn't want nobody to know about it. They might—'I think there was witchery in it." "'All right,' said Murfrey. In spite of himself, Murphy began to hope. Bud Gregory had been so completely unimpressed by his own achievements before that if he had made

something which disturbed him, it must be remarkable. The car went away. Bud Gregory expanded. He went in his house and came out again, bearing an intricate contrivance. It was evident that he was at once proud and apprehensive. The device had no radio tube about it. There were wires, and there were scraps of glass here and there, and there was a painstakingly straightened out bit of copper gas-line tubing inside an arrangement of wires which was, well,

it was not exactly a coil, and it was certainly not a helix. The wires were arranged in several patterns, of which one was certainly a logarithmic spiral. The whole assembly looked insane, and there was a metal plate at one end, nailed. to the wooden base. It looked protective, as if it defended the device against something. Mr. Murphrey, sir, said, said Bud Gregory anxiously. I worked right hard on this, trying to please you, sir. You always been a good friend to me, and I want you to know it.

So this was the best I could do. If it ain't enough, you try to figure out something, and I'll try to make it. What does this do? asked Murphrey. He looked at it and enviously admitted to himself that every single part of it was meaningless. He saw a switch, which was a light switch from Bud's wrecked car. He saw a bare iron wire which he guessed would turn white with frost when the device was turned on to reveal that it was absorbing heat and yielding electricity. But every other part seemed nonsense.

This here, Dinkus, said Bud Gregory hopefully. It, uh, you know, Mr. Murphy, how the hunk's a stuff that things are made of stick together, sir? They kind of pull on each other? Murphy nodded. Bud Gregory referred to interatomic and intramolecular attraction. The force which holds atoms together in molecules and molecules in crystals, and ultimately makes planets possible. When you, uh, break something, said Bud Gregory.

The parts you break it into stop pulling at each other. other. They're too far away from each other. Here, Bud Gregory referred to the inexorable operation of the law of inverse squares. Adams straw each other only at atomic distances, molecules that here only at distances comparable to the diameter of molecules. Otherwise, all objects would fuse together immovably. This kind of changes that, said Bud Gregory. His forehead increased in the effort to explain. It makes them still pull at each other even far away. If you break a nail or a piece of glass and put one piece in this place here, it kind of gets in focus, Mr. Murphy, and if you point the dinkist at the other piece, no matter how far away

the other part is, it pulls back to the one that's in focus. Murphy felt incredulous, but he suppressed it. In his mom, he knew that if Bud Gregory said it, it was so. Of course it violated all-known laws of physics. "'It ain't,' said Bud Gregory, "'because they used to be one piece of stuff, but because they're the same kind of stuff.' Then Murphrey felt as if he'd been jolted all the way down to his shoe-soles.

A steel magnet will draw another steel magnet to it, not because they are steel, but because they are magnets. but bud gregory was saying that a bit of iron in the focus of his gadget would draw other bits of iron whether there was magnetism or not more he said that glass would draw glass murfrey knew that bud gregory could do anything but he could not believe that i don't see how i'll show you sir said bud gregory anxiously i put a drop of water right here where it focuses sir and pointed at the inlet yonder it'll draw water. He put a drop of water on a plate behind the straightened out section of gas-line tubing. He pointed the device at the broad waters of this inlet of Puget Sound. He turned the switch.

Water splashed from the protective metal baffle plate at the end of the gadget space. Quantities of water. It splashed as if a fire hose played upon the baffle plate. Murphrey, goggling, saw a straight pencil of pure liquid water, impossibly defying gravity, coming straight toward the gadget from an indefinite distance out in the sound. It flowed through emptiness, through space, through the air itself as if it were in an invisible hose. It came in a mathematically straight line from the inlet beyond the shore.

It hit the baffle and splashed. and Murphy knew that since water was in the focus of the gadget, therefore water had been drawn from wherever the tube pointed. Bud Gregory flipped off the switch. Water ceased to splash. A half-mile-long cable of water stretched, tot in mid-air, abruptly dropped. There was a wet streak across the ground toward the inlet. There was a long, long path of pock-walkings where a straight-long. line of water had fallen back into the inlet.

My gracious, said Murphrey, dazed, even though he knew Bud Gregory's gifts. You've got a sort of artificial gravity, only it's selective. You can pull any element toward you. Yes, sir, said Bud Gregory. He sweated, looking uncertainly at Murphrey. I, I figured, sir, that if we could get up a little bit of that dust, we could kind of put it in this focus place, sir, and we could sweep this dingus all around, and all the dust that was the same kind as that in the focus, we'd get tolled up and stop against this plate

that stopped the water. I put that plate on last, he added ruefully. First time I turned on this thing I tried water, and I got soaking wet. I had to put something on to catch the stuff that was being pulled. Murphrey stared, stunned at the completely impossible device. No wonder Bud Gregory hadn't wanted its scene, lest it make him liable to a charge of witchcraft. Such a charge was more likely in his native appellations, but even here— "'You think that'll do what you want, Mr. Murphy?' asked Bud Gregory, hopefully.

Murphrey opened his mouth to speak exultantly. Then he realized he became tormented by the ruthless reasoning which told him of the present uselessness of this device, even while he was filled with envy of the man who had been able to make it and with an admiration for the achievement itself. "'No,' said Murphrey reluctantly. "'It won't do, because there'd be a job of getting a sample of the dust. It would take weeks to gather up a carload of topsoil and separate the radioactive dust from it. We couldn't allow impurities such as humus or sand, or it would pull humus and sand with the

dust. And if it took weeks we wouldn't have the dust itself, but the stuff the dust had turned into. And even beside that, what would happen if you pulled into that gadget all the radioactive matter intended for a dazed dose of poison for a continent? But Gregory's shoulders drooped. I reckon, he admitted, that it would sure kill anybody. who was working the dinkas. Definitely, said Murphrey. So far, no good. There was a pause.

Mr. Murphy, sir, said Bud Gregory anxiously. Let's us drink a little beer and just set a while, sir. Maybe you'll think of something. Murphy followed him grimly back to the shack. He was in the completely maddening position now of having Bud Gregory's complete cooperation and having no idea how it could possibly be used. Bud would make anything Murphy asked, but Murphy could not imagine a device

which would defeat the weapon in use against the United States, and the weapon had to be defeated before any search could be made for those who wielded it. Murphy sat with a glass of beer in his hands. He racked his brains vainly. Bud Gregory sat beside him drinking beer, presently he spoke dreamily. You know, sir, I'm thinking that maybe instead of buying a car out of that ten dollars a day I got coming to me,

maybe I'll get me a boat. You can set a lot more comfortable in a boat than in a car. You got to be driving all the time. Yeah, sir, I'm going to think about buying me a boat. The tuna boats worked valorously for the murder of a nation. Their crews knew joyfully that the last of their fellows who had remained in the United States to test the results of their campaign had left that country. The intensity of radioactivity which should result in mutations and monsters had almost

been reached. Sterility would follow. Then death. And of course, those who worked to murder America would cheerfully sacrifice their lives to accomplish it if necessary. Hatred is a stronger force. force than patriotism. But there was no need, and every man wanted to survive for the hellest satisfaction of knowing

that all North America was a place of corpses, not even rotting, because even the bacteria of putrefaction were dead, too. The tuna boats towed their lead torpedoes away from the island where atomic piles made poison for them to scatter on the wind. They scattered that poison and returned for more. Enthusiasm mounted and mounted. Plans began for such a celebration as would befit the destruction of the greatest nation upon earth. End of Chapter 4.

Chapters 5 and 6 of The Deadly Dust by Murray Lister. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 5. Killing Fish It was dark. The car had come back from Murphrey and he had sent it away again. He paced up and down. He chewed his fingers. To know of certain doom awaiting one's country, and to have as one's ally a man who can do anything that can be imagined in the way of

physics, and much that cannot be imagined, and not to be able to think of anything either possible or impossible to avert the doom. It was maddening. Bud Gregory grinned amiably. "'Mr. Murfrey, sir, have you thought of anything? If he ain't, maybe we better set and eat.' Murphrey shook his head wearily. "'I'm trying to think, if there were only some way to make that trick of yours work on any and every unstable element. You mean, sir, all the kinds of stuff that busts up by itself?'

Bud Gregory asked. "'That's it,' said Murphrey, exhaustedly. "'But there's nothing. "'Shucks,' said Bud Gregory. "'That's easy, sir.' "'The middle of the little hunk of stuff that breaks down, it ain't solid, sir. "'There's something holding it together, only it ain't satisfied. "'There's something else pushing it apart.

"'So those two things fighting each other, they make a kind of—' "'Ah, he knitted his brows. "'Like a magnet, sir, and a coil. "'A—a field?' Yeah, there's a field about the little hunks of stuff that are the kind that break down. All of them. You can pull them by that field. He beamed, but rather pityingly, as if explaining something to an infant and fond

astonishment at the child's lack of knowledge. He had spoken casually of the factors causing instability in all elements heavier than Bismuth and then had gone on from there. Murphrey looked at him with lackluster eyes, worn out by his hopeless struggle to think. "'That would be a start,' he said heavily. "'But even then it wouldn't be practical, because if you dragged all radioactive substances to your dinkas, you'd start a pile going around it to make more. If you could make it—make it—wait!'

He stood tense for a moment. Then he spoke hopelessly. "'You couldn't make radioactives clump together where they were, could you? If we could make the dust gather into pellets so it'd be heavy and drop into the sea, the sea might be poisoned, but we'd gain time.' "'Clump together, sir,' but Gregory said. "'I'll think about that. It'd mean turning the dinkus around, putting the focus out front.'

He frowned. presently he complained i'm sure havin to earn that ten dollars a day i ain't thought so hard since i fixed a fellow's car for him down los angeles way and he paid me two dollars then suddenly he snapped his fingers he stood up and stretched we'll eat us some supper sir and i'll get to tinkering it ain't going to be so hard but i got to make a brand-new dinkas he led the way happily into the shack What do you think about a kind of boat? Seems to me I could just buy me a sailboat and put a hunk of metal somewhere inside. Say, I could put a big pipe outside and run that field I used to pull my car uphill into it. It had pulled the boat along and water it run through it and keep it from getting too cold. Yes, sir, not have to bother with no gasoline or nothing.

Save money that way, and with ten dollars a day coming in, and only having a throw a fish-line over the side. Wind blew across the Pacific through the darkness. Across uncounted leagues it blew, carrying invisible molecules of vapor. And now and again some atom in one of those molecules emitted a fierce invisible particle and became another element entirely, and the compound of which it was a part became another compound. It ceased to be vapor, and became an ultra-eastern.

microscopic particle of dust which was deadly poison. Some of those dust particles fell into the sea, but most of them passed over the dark shoreline, gathering moisture and attracting other particles to themselves. They settled down toward the ground. But the wind was not cleared of poison by that settling. Other invisible molecules of vapor emitted fierce rays and became other dust particles. this happened quintillions of quintillions of quintillions of times in the wind which blew in over the sea. The tuna boats were still busy. Shortly after one o'clock in the morning, Bud Gregory grinned

exuberantly at Murphy. He had made a new contrivance on a bit of slab, casually ripped from the outside of the shanty. There was a larger brass tube in the place of the gasline of the earlier model, it had once been part of a tire pump. There was the same strangely shaped sequence of wire wrappings, including the logarithmic spiral. Their sequence, however, was reversed. And there was a new device at what had been the focus, which was simply meaningless. Of course, an iron wire was there.

Murphy knew it would turn white with frost when the device began to operate. It absorbed heat and made electricity. Perhaps primarily it made something else, with electricity only as a byproduct. In any case, it provided the power. "'It's all to take care of it, sir,' said Bud Gregory. "'We'll set it up and aim it and turn it on. Any kind of stuff that's in the wind that could bust up of itself gets like the water I put in the focus this morning.

It pulls to itself all the other kinds of stuff that busts down, which way I pointed, sir.' Murphrey considered, rather hopelessly. We want to clean up the wind that blows to the coast. How far would it range? A long ways, sir, a long ways. It won't go straight off out in the air, neither. It won't travel nowhere there ain't some air. It'll bounce back when the air gets thin enough.

It would not be like a radar wave limited by the horizon. We'll try southwest, said Murphrey. maybe a little west of southwest. We want to spread it out and work as far off shore as possible. Are you certain it will work? You got a radium-dial watch? asked Bud Gregory. Murphrey understood. He stripped off the watch.

Bud Gregory hung it to a bush some fifty yards away. He pointed the new device at it and turned it on. Instantly the faintly luminous numerals on the watch face seemed to flame a lurid blue. Bud Gregory turned off the device. The watch-style still glowed brightly, brightly. The dust that's been fallen, said Bud Gregory humorously, got pulled to the stuff in your watch.

You better not wear that watch no more, Mr. Murphy. Not without you washed that dust off. Murphrey swallowed. Bud Gregory's device had endowed every particle of radioactive matter in its beam, with the property of attracting and being attracted by all other radioactive matter. The tiny particles of radium in the luminous paint, one part of radium in twelve million of zinc sulfide, had been unable to move. They were anchored in the paint. But the radioactive dust on the ground could move. It did move swiftly, to cluster about the watch. And the zinc sulfide glowed

as brightly as if it had suddenly been enriched to a thousand times its former radium content. Murphrey drew a deep breath. "'We'd kill a lot of fish,' he said grimly. "'Maybe we'll do more damage than that. But I'll take the responsibility. There's nothing else to do. Come on. We'll aim it and turn it on again.'

They did. They set it on a tree stump, and Murphy oriented himself. by the North Star, and pointed the botched-together device, which only by Gregory could understand a little, to the west of Southwest. That was Murphrey's best guest of the optimum setting, considering the coastline. He threw over the switch. The iron wire frosted, providing power. He saw it turn white in the starlight.

Aside from that, nothing at all seemed to happen. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Ball of Fire A tuna boat was towing a lead torpedo through the darkness. It was, as it happened, heading back toward the island, which was its base as it let the volatile liquid pour out on the sea. It had been forced to make a wide circuit to avoid observation by ships below the horizon,

but otherwise everything was commonplace. Then, without drama, The wind seemed to change peculiarly. Not the upper wind above the sea's surface. Just the wind at the water's own level, saturated with the vapor of the liquid the torpedo had let out. It blew toward the island on which the uranium piles worked. Since the tuna boat lay in its path and offered resistance, the surface wind piled up

near the hull and flowed over and through the little ship. A bell clanged stridently, frenziedly. The bell was attached to a very ingenious device which tripped a relay if the background count of a standard Geiger-Miller tube went above a conservative minimum. It was necessary on a boat towing tanks of volatile and furiously radioactive liquid, but it was quite dependable. It gave instant warning, and the members of the crew, to put on their protective suits, which long custom had led them to discard.

The only flaw in the whole affair was that the warning device had not operated fast enough. No device could have been fast enough. The men who climbed into their protective suits breathed in as they moved, a concentration of radioactive vapor intended to provide a day's increment of poison for acres in every breath. The men who locked their suits airtight locked in enough radioactive gas in their lungs to kill them fifty times over. Of course they did not notice it at the time. Perhaps they never noticed it. The little tuna boat went on through the night. Presently it strayed off course. The man at the wheel happened to be dead. So was everybody else on board.

The great leaden float was empty of its poison, which did not. not happen to be moving toward America. It constituted a crosswind blowing toward the home island of the tuna boat. It was drawn by the force which holds the nuclei of atoms together, which force does not diminish according to the law of inverse squares. At all distances, radioactive particles within the beam were drawn together with a force proportional to their masses, but not in proportion to distance. There were atomic piles on the island from which the tuna boat came.

There were tons upon tons of uranium in those piles. They drew radioactive particles as the sun draws meteorites. Even radioactive gas particles given off in the decay of fish killed by the towed tanks. Even such gases moved toward the island. There was nothing spectacular about anything which happened at first. A tuna boat drove aimlessly through the night with all of its crew dead. A swift low breeze blew toward the island. Many swift low breezes.

Until they arrived, nothing in particular seemed to be entrain. But when those winds flowed over the island, the situation altered gradually. Radioactive gases and vapors clustered about the shielding around the atomic piles. More and more vapors in dust. dust particles arrived momentarily, drawn as by irresistible magnetic attraction. They reached the shielding walls and clung. More came, and more, and more, and more. As they flowed and darted across the island, the island's population died.

They did not notice. For a space they moved and chattered and prepared celebration, before they discovered that their bodies were still moving corpses, which gradually ceased to move. There were no witnesses to what happened after that, but it went on quite rationally. The atomic piles had been limited in their size so that they could be controlled. An atomic pile will never explode. If it runs wild, it will simply heat up and up to a temperature dependent solely upon its size and material. But the homing radioactive particles raised the temperature limit of the piles they clustered about and seeped in to join.

Pile activity increased by the activity of the short-life products returned to it. The cooling water turned to steam and ceased to flow. The piles glowed dull red and then cherry-red, and then blinding white, still without reaching their self-limiting temperature. There was too much short-life radioactive matter around. Presently the piles vaporized, and then they ran together in one monstrous mass of incandescent vapor, whose normal self-limited temperature was higher yet. This took time.

It was all of an hour after the beginning of the whole process, when a great globe of incandescent gas burned everything upon the island to a ghastly ash. The island was blasted, baked, dead, desolate. Then the globe of vaporized metal, it was almost a mild in diameter, soared skyward in exactly the manner, and for exactly the reason, that a balloon would have risen. It was as bright as the sun, but it was utterly harmless. The radiations it admitted were absorbed by other elements, which became radioactive,

and instantly joined the globe. The globe rose skyward. It made all the sea as bright as day for twenty miles around. It went up, and up, and up. When dawn came it had burned out. Its energies had been so trapped that only light and heat could permanently leave its mass. Undoubtedly, if there were observers on the then-favorable situated planet Mars, they saw the flare.

But it did no harm beyond producing an anomalous warm area over the sea. a certain part of the Pacific, which ultimately resulted in a local low-pressure area with resultant winds and precipitation, in short, a local thunderstorm. That was all. Only the people on the island would have noticed that, and they were dead. When the background count was down to 45 to 47 on the Pacific coast, Murphrey agreed that the device could be turned off. It was nearly a week before that happened, and in the meantime, while, he had calculated very nearly

what must have happened far out of sea. He knew that nobody who had planned to murder America could still be alive, and it was very unlikely that anything remained of the apparatus they had worked with. He did wait until the radioactive dust that had spread across America had definitely entered the second half of his life. Then he got ready to go back to his wife and his wife. daughter. Yes, sir, said Bud Gregory warmly.

You sure are a friend of mine. You're going to send me that money, regular, sir? I'll send it, said Murphy, every week. A boy came with a telegraph for him. He put it in his pocket. It would be a background count report, he considered, and it didn't matter. I'd like to give you a present, said Bud Gregory, warmly. Something to show my appreciation.

sir. Could—would you like to have this here dinkus I made first, sir? I'll just give it to the children to play with if you don't want it. If you'll take it to remember me by?' "'Thanks,' said Murphrey. He got on the bus that would take him to the nearest town with an airport. After the bus pulled out, he idly opened the telegram. It was from the generating station that had been using Bud Gregory's gadget. Friction elimination device smashed today, stop. Workman dropped tool from overhead, stop. Can you supply others? Wire immediately?

Murphrey felt a little sick. He had to keep Bud Gregory's confidence for dealings in the future, should Bud Gregory be needed. He had strained that confidence to the limit now. If he asked for more or a second threat to stop the ten dollars a day, Bud Gregory counted on, it would be an end to everything. With that money, Bud Gregory would sit in the sun and, when needed, he'd be on hand. If he didn't get that ten dollars... At the airport, Murphy sent a telegram to his former superiors in the civil service.

He asked for his job back. He didn't know how he could make out, having to pay Bud Gregory's ten dollars a day, out of a 4,700-year income, but he felt desperately that it simply had to be done. At the Cleveland Airport, he got an answer. You were warned your resignation would be considered final stop. It is final. It was signed by the administrative officer who had objected to the disarrangement of vacation schedules in order that Murphy might stop, as it had developed, a radioactive dust attack across the

States. Murphy sank back gloomily into his plane seat. He had to find a new source of income. He had to pay Bud Gregory $3,650 a year before he bought a loaf of bread for his own family. To live as he'd live before, he'd have to make over 8,000 a year. And the only thing he had now that he hadn't possessed before was the gadget Bud Gregory had made. Suddenly his face went blank.

He whistled softly to himself. He stared out the plain window for a long time. Then he went composedly to sleep. When he joined his family at the seashore, his wife was worried. She knew he left the civil service and had no immediate prospects. She asked him what his plans were. He grinned at her. He unpacked the untidy parcel Bud Gregory had made for him,

the device that had drawn water from a half-mile away. This was in the boarding-house where his wife and daughter had stayed while he was on the West Coast. I think I'll go in business for myself, he said comfortably. "'Lend me your wedding ring for capital, my dear?' Her expression was bewildered as she gave him the plain gold band. He put it in the focus of the device where Bud Gregory had put a drop of water. He sighted the gadget out of the window at the ocean. He turned it on.

It would draw to itself any particles in its beam, which happened to be of the same material as that in the focus of the device. There was a metal plate to catch the drawn particles. His wife's gold wedding ring was the focus, and the sea contains gold. Only about a grain of gold and a ton of seawater, to be sure, but still. A deposit of tiny, impalpable particles built up on the baffle plate.

Each infinitesimal grain, perhaps, came from a ton of seawater. But there were some thousands of billions of tons of seawater in view from the boarding-house window, and it would change more or less with each tide. Gold dust came to the baffle plate with respectable speed. Murphy turned it off presently. "'This is useless stuff, though,' he said. "'I'll go out and buy you something made of platinum. That's useful, and it's worth more than gold besides.

I'd rather go into the platinum-producing business any day.' "'His wife gaped at him.' He explained. "'I have to pay Bud Gregory a pension,' he explained, and this is the answer. I'm going to build myself a laboratory and see if I can get an inkling of what he knows offhand. I'll be able to give him all the money he can use now, and I've always wanted to do some research on my own. I know just about exactly what sort of laboratory I want.

Then he added, somewhere on the seizure. End of Part 6. End of the deadly dust by Murray Lindster.