Dr. Creepen's Dungeon - S6 Ep336: Episode 336: Horror Stories from Outer Space

Episode Date: May 7, 2026

Today’s first phenomenal offering is the classic ‘The Ghost World’, an old-school work by the wonderful Sewell Peaslee Wright, freely available in the public domain and read here under the conditions of the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license.https://www.gutenberg.org/files/30452/30452-h/30452-h.htm#The_Ghost_WorldToday’s second tale of terror is the classic ‘The Man from 2071’, an old-school work by the wonderful Sewell Peaslee Wright, freely available in the public domain and read here under the conditions of the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license.https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/31893/pg31893-images.html#The_Man_From_2071Today’s final tale of the macabre is the classic ‘The Ray of Madness’, an old-school work by the wonderful Captain S. P. Meek, freely available in the public domain and read here under the conditions of the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license.https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/29390/pg29390-images.html#The_Ray_of_Madness

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please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Dr. Creepin's Dungeon. Space is often imagined as a silent empty expanse, but that emptiness is precisely what makes it so terrifying. It's a place where distance is absolute, where help is impossible and where even the smallest mistake means certain death. Beyond the fragile shell of a spacecraft lies a vacuum

that will not just kill you, but erase you. Cold, indifferent and endless. As we shall see in tonight's collection of stories. Now as ever before we begin, a word of caution, tonight's tales may contain strong language as one of those descriptions of violence and horrific imagery. That sounds like your kind of thing. Then let's begin. The ghost world.

I soul, peacefully right. In tonight's adventure, Commander John Hanson records another of his thrilling interplanetary adventures with the special patrol service. I was asleep when our danger was discovered. But I knew the instant the attention signal sounded that the situation was serious. Kincade, my second officer, had a cool head, and he would not have called me except in a tremendous emergency. Hanson speaking, they snapped into the microphone. What's up, Mr. Kincade?

A field of meteorize sweeping into our path, sir. Kincade's voice was tense. I've altered our cross as much as I dared, and I'm reducing speed at emergency rate, but this is the largest swarm of meteorites I've ever seen. I'm afraid that we must pass through at least a section of it. With you in a moment, Mr. Kincaid. I then dropped the microphone and snatched up my robe, nodding its cord about me as I hurried out of my stateroom.

In those days, interplanetary ships did not have the auras of repulsion rays to protect them from meteorites. It must be remembered. Two skins of metal were all that lay between the air attack and all the dangers of space. I took the companion way to the navigating room two steps at a time and fairly burst into the room. Kincaid was crouched over the two charts that pictured the space around us.

Microphone pressed to his lips. Through the plate glass partition I could see the men in the operating room tensed over their wheels and levers and dials. Kincaid glanced up as I entered and motioned with his free hand towards the charts. One glance convinced me that he had not overestimated out of the room. danger. The space to right and left and above and below was fairly peppered with tiny pricks of greenish light that moved slowly across the milky faces of the charts. From the position of the ship, represented as a glowing red spark and measuring the distances roughly by means of the fine

black lines graved in both directions upon the surface of the charts. It was evident to any understanding observer that disaster of a most terrible kind was imminent. Kincade muttered into his microphone, and out of the tail of my eye I could see his orders obeyed on the instant by the men in the operating room. I could feel the peculiar, sickening surge that told of speed being reduced and the course being altered. But the cold, brutally accurate charts before me assured me that no action we dared take would save us from the meteorites. Ah, we're in for it, Mr. Kincade. continue to reduce speed as much as possible and keep bearing away as at present

I believe we can avoid the biggest portion of the field but we shall have to take our chances with the fringe yes sir said Kincaid without lifting his eyes from the chart his voice was calm and business like now with the responsibility on my shoulders his commander he was the efficient level-headed thinking machine that endeared him to me as both fellow officer and friend Leaving the charts to Kincaid, I sounded the general emergency signal, calling every man an officer of the Air Tuck's crew to his post, and began giving orders through the microphone.

Mr. Corrie. Corrie was my first officer. Please report at once to the navigating room. Mr. Hendricks make the rounds of all duty posts, please, and give special attention to the disintegrator-ray operators. The ray generators had to be started at once, full speed. Hendricks, I might say, was a junior officer and a very good one, although quick-tempered and excitable, the failings of youth. It only recently shipped with us to replace Anderson Croy, who, well, but that has already been recorded. These preparations made, I glanced at the twin charts again. The peppering of tiny green lights, each of which represented a meteoric body, had definitely shifted in relation to the position of the strongly glowing red spark that was the air-tack. But a quick comparison of the two charts showed that we would be certain to pass through.

Now, again, I use land terms to make my meaning clear, the upper right fringe of the field. The great cluster of meteorites was moving in the same direction as ourselves now. King Kay's change, of course, had settled that matter nicely. Naturally, this was the logical course, since we should come in contact with any of them, the impact would bear a relation to only the difference in our speeds instead of the sum, as would be the case if we struck at a wide angle. It was difficult to stand without grasping a support of some kind, and walking was almost impossible,

for the reduction of our tremendous speed and even the slightest change of direction placed terrific strains upon the ship and everything in it. Spaceships at space speeds must travel like the old-fashioned bullets if those within are to feel at ease. I believe, Mr. Kincaid, it might be well to slightly increase the power in the ground, gravity pads, I suggested.

Kincaid nodded and spoke briefly into his microphone, and an instant later I felt my weight increased perhaps 50%, and despite the inertia of my body, opposed to both the great change in speed and direction of the air-tack, I could now stand without support and could walk without too much difficulty. The door of the navigating room was flung open, and Corey entered his face alight with curiosity and eagerness. An emergency meant danger, and for the door. few beings in the universe of love danger more than Corey.

We're in for it, Mr. Carrey, I said with a nod towards the charts. Swarm of meteorites, we can't avoid them. Well, we've dodged through them before, sir, smiled, Corey. We can do it again. I hope so, but this is the largest field of them I've ever seen. Look at the charts, they're thick of them flies. Corey glanced at the charts, slapped Kincaid across his bowed, tense shoulders, and laughed aloud. "'Trust the old air-tech to worm her way through, sir,' he said.

"'The ray crews are on duty, I presume.' "'Yeah, but I doubt the rays will be of much assistance to us, particularly if these are stony meteorites, and as you know the odds are about ten to one against their being a ferrous composition. The rays, deducting the losses due to the utter lack of conducting medium, will be insufficient protection. Oh, they'll help, of course.

The iron meteorites, they'll take care of, effectively, but the conglomerate nature of the stony meteorized does not make them particularly susceptible to the disintegrating race. Well, we'll do what we can, but our success will depend largely upon good luck, or divine providence. Well, at any rate, sir, replied Corey, and his voice had lost some of its likeness. We are upon routine patrol and not on some special mission. If we do crack up, there's no emergency call that will remain unanswered. No, I said dryly. Well, just be another lost-in-space report in the records of the surface, and the Air-Tac's name will go on the tablet of lost ships.

In any case, we've done and shall do what we can. In ten minutes, we shall know all there is to know. At about right, Mr. Kincaid. Ten minutes. Kincaid studied the charts with narrowed eyes, mentally balancing distance and speed. We should be within the day. In a major area, about that length of time, sir, he answered. And out of it, if we come out, three or four minutes later.

I'll come out of it, said Corey positively. I walked heavily across the room and studied the charts again. Space above and below, to the right and the left of us, was powdered with the green points of light. Corey joined me, his feet thumping with the unaccustomed weight given him by the increasing gravity. As he bent over the charts, I heard him draw his breath sharply. Kincaid looked up. Corey looked up.

I looked up. The glance of each man swept the faces, spread the eyes with the other two. Then, with one accord, we all three glanced up of the clocks. More properly, at the twelve-figured dial of the earth clock, for none of us had any great love for the metric universal system of timekeeping. Ten minutes. Less than that now.

Mr. Cary, I said as calmly as I could. You will relieve Mr. Cincade as a navigating officer. Mr. Cincade present my compliments to Mr. Hendricks and ask him to explain the situation to the crew. You will instruct the disintegrate array operators in their duties and take charge of their activities. Start operation at your discretion. You understand the necessity.

Yes, sir. Kincaid saluted sharply, and I returned his salute. We did not shake hands, the earth gesture of strangely enough, both greeting and farewell, but we both realized that this might be a final party. The door closed behind him, and Corey and I were left together to watch the creeping hands of the earth-clock, the twin charts with their thick spatter of green lights, and the two fiery red sparks, one on each chart, that represented the air attack sweeping recklessly towards the swarming danger ahead.

In other accounts of my experiences in the Special Patrol Service, I feel that I've written too much about myself. After all, I have run my race, a retired commander of the service, and an old, old man, with the century mark well behind me. My only use is to record, in this fashion, some of those things the service accomplished in the old days when the worlds of the universe were strange to each other, and space travel was still an adventure to many. The universe is not interested in old men

It's concerned only with the youth in action It forgets that we once were young men Strong, impetuous, daring It forgets what we did But that's always been so It'll always be so John Hanson, retired commander of the Special Patrol Service Is fit now to amuse the present generation

With his tales of bygone days And well, so be it I'm content I've lived greatly Certainly I would not change my memories Of those bold daring days Even for youth and strength again Had I to live that youth

And waste that strength in this softened, gilded age But no more of this It's too easy for an old man To rumble on about himself It's only the young John Hanson Commander of the Ertack Who could interest those who may pick up And read what I'm writing here

And so I did not waste the minutes measured by that clock grouped with their other instruments in the navigating room of the air-tack. I wrote hastily in the ship's log, stating the facts briefly and without feeling. If we came through, the log would read better thus, and if not, and by some strange chance it came to humanise, then the universe would know at least that the air-tax officers did not flinch from even such a danger. As I finished the entry, Corey spoke.

Kincade's estimate was not far off, sir. he said, with a swift glance at the clock. Here we go. It was less than a half a minute short of the ten estimated by King Cade. I nodded and bent over the television disc, one of the huge hooded affairs we used in those days. Winding the field to the greatest ankle and with low power, I inspected the space before us on all sides.

The charts, operated by super radio reflexes, had not lied about the danger into which we were passing, had passed. We were in the midst of a veritable swarm of meteorites of all sizes. They were not large, I believe the largest I saw was a mass of not more than three or four times that of the air attack herself. Some of the smaller bodies were only 50 or 60 feet in diameter. And they were jagged and irregular in shape, and they seemed to spin at varying speeds, like tiny worlds. As I watched, fixing my view now on the space directly in our path,

I saw that our disintegrator ray men were at work. Deep in the bowels of the air attack, the moan of the ray generators had deepened in note. I could even feel the slight vibration beneath my feet. One of the meteorites slowly crumbled on top, the dust of disintegration hovering in a compact mass about the body. More and more of it melted away. The spinning motion grew regular, eccentric,

as the centre of gravity was changed by the action of the ray. Another ray, two more, centred on the wobbling mass. It was directly in our path looming out larger and larger with every second. Faster and faster it melted, the rays eating into it from four sides. But it was perilously near now. I had to reduce power in order to keep all of it within the field of my disc. Oh, if a... But the thing had vanished before the very nose of the ship,

and not an instant too soon. I glanced up at the surface temperature indicator and saw the big black hand move slowly for a degree or two and then stop It was a very sensitive instrument And registered even the slight friction of our passage through the disintegrated dust of the meteorite Our rays were working desperately But disintegrator rays are not nearly so effective in space

As in an atmosphere of some kind Half a dozen times it seemed that we must crash head on into one of those fly-a-moving bodies, but our speed was reduced now to such an extent that we were going to just a little faster than the meteorites, and this fact was all that saved us. We had more time for utilizing our rays. We nosed upward through the trailing fringe of the swarm in safety. The great field of meteorites was now below and ahead of us. We'd won through.

The air-tuck was safe, and there seems to be another one directly above us, sir. commented Corey quietly, speaking for the first time since we'd entered the area of danger. I believe your disc is not picking it up. Thank you, Mr. Corey, I said, while operating on an entirely different principle. His two charts had certain very definite advantages. They showed the entire space around us instead of just a portion. I picked up the meteorite he'd mentioned without difficulty. It was a large body about three times the mass of the air attack.

and some distance above us, a laggard in the group that we just eluded. Will it coincide with our path at any point, Mr. Corry? I asked, doubtfully. The television disc could not, of course, give me this information. I believe so, yes, replied Corry, frowning over his charts. Are there a raise on it, sir? Yes, all of them. Well, I judge anyway, but they're making slow work of it.

I fell silent, bending. lower over the great hooded disc. There were a dozen, a score of rays playing upon the surface of the meteorite. A halo of dust hung around the rapidly diminishing body, but still the mass melted all too slowly. Pressing the attention signal for Kincaid, I spoke sharply into the microphone. Mr. Kincaid is every ray on that large meteorite above us. Yes, sir, he replied instantly. Full power? Yes, sir. Very well. Carry on, Mr. Kingade.

I turned to Corrie. He'd just glance from his charts to the clock, with his jerking second-hand and then back to his charts. What, they'll have to do it in the next ten seconds, sir, he said. Otherwise, then Corrie shrugged, and his eyes fixed with a peculiar, fascinated stare onto the charts. He was looking death squarely in the eyes. Ten seconds. It wasn't enough? I'd watched the rays working, and I knew their power to disintegrate this death-dealing stone that was hurtling along above us while we rose helplessly into its path. I did not ask Corrie if it was possible to alter the course enough and quickly enough to avoid that fateful path.

Had it been possible without tearing the air-tack to pieces with the strain of it, Corrie would have done it seconds ago. I glanced up swiftly at the relentless, jerking secondhand. seven seconds gone, three seconds more. The rays were doing all that they could, and there was only a tiny fragment of the meteorite left, and it was dwindling swiftly, but our time was passing even more rapidly.

The bit of rock loomed up at me from the disc. It seemed to fly up into my face to meet me. Goddust, Corry, I said hoarsely. Goodbye, old man. I think he tried to, reply. I saw his lips open, the flash of bright light from the ethon tubes on his big white teeth. Then there was a crash that shook the whole ship. I shot into the air. I remember falling terribly. A blinding flash of light that emanated from the very center of my brain. And then a

sickening sense of utter catastrophe and blackness. I think I was conscious several seconds before I finally opened my eyes. My mind was still wandering. My thoughts kept flying around in huge circles that kept closing in. We'd hit the meteorite. I remembered the crash. I remembered falling. I remembered striking my head. But I was still alive. There was air to breathe and there was firm material under me. So I opened my eyes. For the first instant it seemed I was in an utterly strange room. Nothing was familiar. Everything was, well, was inverted. Then I glanced upward and I saw what had happened. I was lying on the ceiling of the navigating room.

Over my head with the charts, still glowing. The chronometers and their gimbled beds and the television disc. Beside me, sprawled out limply was Corrie, a trickle of dry blood on his cheek. A litter of papers, chairs, framed licenses and other movable objects were strewn on and around us. my first instinctive foolish thought was that the ship was upside down man has a ground train mind no matter how many years he may travel in space and then of course i realized that in the open void there is no top nor bottom the illusion is supplied in spaceships by the gravity pods

and somehow the shock of impact had reversed the polarity of the leads to the pads and they become repulsion pads and that was why i dropped from the floor to the ceiling All this flashed through my mind in an instant as I dragged myself toward Corrie, dragged myself because my head was throbbing so that I dared not stand up, and one shoulder, my left, felt numb. For an instant I thought that Corrie was dead. Then, as I bent over him, I saw a pulse leaping just under the angle of his jaw. Carrie, old man, I whispered.

Do you hear me? All the formality of the service was forgotten for the time. "'Yeah, you heard badly.' His eyes flickered in his side, and then suddenly he looked up at me and smiled. "'We're still here, sir.' "'After a fashion. Look around, see what's happened.' He glanced about curiously, frowning. His wits were not all with him just yet.

"'We're in a mess, aren't we?' he grinned. "'What's the matter?' "'I told him what I thought, and he nodded slowly, feeling his head tenderly. How long ago did it happen? He asked. The blooming clocks upside down. Can you read it?

Well, I could, with an effort. Well, um, over twenty minutes, I said. And how the rest of the men are. And with an effort, I got to my feet and peered into the operating room. Several of the men were moving about, dazedly, and as I signaled to them, reassuringly, a voice held us from the doorway. Any odour, sir? It was King Cade.

He was peering over what had been the top of the doorway, and he was probably the most disreputable looking officer who'd ever worn the blue and silver uniform of the service. His nose was bloody and swollen to twice its normal size. Both eyes were blackened, and his hair, matted with blood, was plastered in ragged swells across his forehead. Yeah, Mr. Kincaid, plenty of them. Round up enough of the man to locate the trouble with the gravity pads.

There's a reverse connection somewhere, but don't let them make the repairs until the signal is given. Otherwise, we'll all fall on our heads again. Mr. Corey and I will take care of the injured. The next half hour was a trying one. Two men had been killed outright, and another had died before we could do anything to save him. Every man in the crew was shaken up and bruised, but by the time the check was completed, we had a good half of our personnel back on duty. Returning at last to the navigating room, I pressed the attention.

signal for Kincaid and got his answer immediately. Okay to the trouble yet, Mr. Kincaid? I asked anxiously. Yes, sir. Mr. Hendricks has been working with a group of men has just made his reports. They're ready when you are. Good.

I drew a sigh of relief. It had been easier than I thought. Pressing the general attention signal, I broadcast the warning, giving particular instructions to the men in charge of the injured. Then I issued orders to take. Hendricks. Reverse the current in five seconds, Mr. Hendricks. Stand by for further instructions. Hastily then, Corey and I followed the orders we'd given to the men. Briefly, we stood on our heads

against the wall, feeling very foolish and dreading the fall we knew was coming. It came. We slid down the wall and lit heavily on our feet, while the litter that had been on the ceiling fell around us. Miraculously, the ship seemed to have righted itself. Corey and I picked ourselves up and looked around. Well, we're still operating smoothly. I commented with a sweeping glance at the instruments over the operating table. Everything seems in order. Did you notice the speed indicator, sir?

asked Corey grimly. When he fell, one of the men in the operating room must have pulled the speed lever all the way over. We're at maximum space speed, sir. We have been for nearly an hour, with no one of the controls. We stared at each other dully. Nearly an hour, at maximum space speed, a speed seldom used except in case of great emergency. With no one at the controls and the ship set at maximum deflection from her course,

that meant for nearly an hour we'd been sweeping into infinite space in a great hour, could a speed I dislike to think about. Well, I'll walk out our position at once, I said, and in the meantime reduce speed to normal as quickly as possible. We must get back on our cause at the earliest part, possible moment. We hurried across to the charts that were our most important aids in proper navigation. By comparing the groups of stars there with our space charts of the universe, the working out of our position was ordinarily a simple matter. But now, instead of milky rectangles, ruled with

fine black lines, with a fiery red speck in the centre, and the bodies of the universe grouped in green points of light, there were only nearly blank rectangles, shot through with vague flickering lights that revealed nothing except the presence of disaster. The meteoric fragment wiped out some of our plates, I imagine, said Corey slowly. The things useless. I nodded, staring down at the crawling lights on the charts. Oh, we'll have to sit down for repairs, Mr. Corey. If, I added, we can find a place.

Corey glanced up at the attraction meter. I'll take a look in the big disc. he suggested. There's a sizable body off to part. Perhaps our luck's changed. He bent his head under the big hood, adjusting the controls until he located the source of the registered attraction.

Right, he said, after a moment's careful scrutiny. She's as big as Earth, that venture. I believe I can detect clouds, so there should be an atmosphere. Should we try it, sir? Yes, we're helpless until we make repairs. As big as Earth, you said. Is she familiar?

Corey studied the image under the hood again, long and carefully. No, sir, he said, looking up and shaking his head. She's a new one on me, calling the ship first by means of the television disc and then navigating visually as we neared the strange fear. We were soon close enough to make out the physical characteristics of this unknown world. Our spectroscopic tests had revealed the presence of atmosphere suitable for breathing, although strongly laden with mineral fumes, which, well, possibly unobjectionable, would probably not be so dangerous. So far as we could see, there was but one continent, somewhat north of the equator, roughly triangular in shape, with its northernmost point reaching nearly to the pole.

It's an unexplored world, sir, I'm certain of that, said Corey. I'm sure I would have remembered that single triangular continent had I seen it on any of our charts. And in those days, of course, the universe was by no means so well mapped as it is today. Well, if not unknown, it's at least uncharted, I replied. Rough-looking country, isn't it? No sign of life, either. The disc will reveal anyway. That's as well, sir.

Better know people than wild natives who might interfere with our work. Any choice in the matter of a spot on which to sit her down? I inspected the great triangular continent carefully. Towards the north it was a massive snow-covered mountains, some of them from their craters, dead volcanoes. Long spurs of these ranges can reach southward, with green and apparently fertile valleys between. The southern edge was covered with dense tropical vegetation,

a veritable jungle. At the base of that central spur there seems to be a sort of plateau, I suggested. I believe that would make a likely spot. "'Very well, sir,' replied Corrie, "'and the old air-tack, reduced to atmospheric speed, "'swiftfully swept toward the indicated position, "'while Corey kept a wary eye on the surface temperature gauge,

"'and I swept the terrain for any sign of intelligent lives. "'I found a number of trails, particularly around the base of the foothills, "'but they were evidently game trails, "'for there were no dwelling places of any kind, "'n't cities, no villages, "'not even a single habitation of any kind that the searching eyes of the disc could detect. Corrie set her down as neatly and as softly as a rose-pedal drifts to the ground.

Roses, I may add, are a beautiful and delicate flower, with very soft petals peculiar to my native earth. We open the main exit immediately. I watched the huge, circular door back slowly out of its threads, and finally swing aside, swiftly and silently, into the grip of its mighty gimbals, with a weird, unearthly feeling I, have always had when about to set foot on some strange star where no man has trod before.

The air was sweetened, delightfully fresh, after being cooped up for weeks in the air-tack, with her machine-made air. A little thinner I should judge than the air to which we were accustomed, but strangely exhilarating and laden with a faint scent of some unknown constituent, undoubtedly the mineral elementar spectroscope had revealed but not identified. Gravity, I found upon passing through the exit, was normal, altogether an extremely satisfactory repair station. Corrie's guess as to what had happened proved absolutely accurate.

Along the top of the airtack, from a midship to within a few feet of her pointed stem, was a jagged groove that had destroyed hundreds of the bright coppery discs set into the outer skin of the ship that operated our super radio reflex charts. The groove was so deep in places that it must have bent the outer skin of the airtack down against the inner skin. Oh, the foot or more, well, it was best not to think of what would have happened then. By the time we completed our inspection,

dusk was upon us. A long lingering dusk due, no doubt, the afterglow resulting from the mineral content of the air. I'm no pale-skinned, stoop-shouldered laboratory man, so I'm not sure what the real reason was, but sounds logical, however. Mr. Corrie, I think we shall break out our field equipment

and give all the men not on watch an opportunity to sleep out in the fresh air, I said. Will he give the orders, please? Yes, sir. Mr. Hendricks will stand the eight to twelve watch as usual. I nodded. Mr. Kincaid will relieve him at midnight, and you'll take over at four. Very well, sir. Corey turned to give the orders, and in a few minutes an orderly array of shelter tents

made a single street in front of the fat, dully gleaming side of the air. Our tents were the head of this short company streets, three of them in a little roll. After the evening meal, cooked over open fires, with the smoke of the very resinous wood we collected hanging comfortably in the still air, the men gave themselves up to boisterous, noisy games, which, I confess, I should have very much liked to participate in. They raced and tumult around the two big fires like schoolboys on a lark. Only those who've spent most of their days in the moment. metal belly of a spaceship and of the sheer joy of utter physical freedom.

Corey, Kincaid and I sat before our tents and watched them, chatting about this and that. I've long since forgotten what exactly. But I shall never forget what occurred just before the watch changed that night. Nor will any man of the air-tax crew. It was just a few minutes before midnight. The men had quieted down and were preparing to turn in. I had given orders that this full. first night they could suit themselves about retiring. A good officer, and I tried to be one,

is never afraid to give good men a little rain now and then. The fires had died down to great heaps of red coals, filled with ashes, and, aside from the brilliant galaxy of stars overhead, there was no light from above. Either this world had no moons, or he was just a single moon, like my native earth, or it had not yet arisen. Kincaid rose lazily. stretched himself and glanced at his watch. "'Seven till twelve, sir,' he said. "'I believe I'll run along and relieve.' But he never finished that sentence.

From somewhere there came a rushing sound and a damp, stringy net, a living horrible, something, descended upon us from out of the night. In an instant, what had been an orderly encampment became bedlam. I tried to fight against the stringy animated, nearly intangible mass or masses that held me, but my arms, my legs, my whole body, was bound, as with strings and loops of elastic bands.

Strange whispering sounds filled the air, audible above the shouting of the men. The net about me grew tighter. I felt myself being lifted from the ground. Others were being treated the same way. One of the air-tax crew shot straight up, not a dozen feet away, writhing and squirming. Then, at an elevation of the air-tacks,

perhaps twice my height, he was hurried away. Hendrik's voice called out my name from the air-tax exit, and I shouted a warning. Hendrik, go back, close the emergency. Then a gluey mask cut across my mouth, and, as though carried on huge soft springs, I was hurried away, with the sibilant whispering sounds louder and closer than ever.

With me, as near as I could judge, when every man who had not been on duty in the ship, I ceased struggling, and immediately the rubbery network about me loosened. It seemed to me that the whisperings around me were suddenly approving. We were in the grip then of some sort of intelligent beings, ghost-like and invisible, though they were. After a time, during which we were all in a ragged group, being borne swiftly towards the mountains, all at a common level from the ground, I managed to turn my head so that I could see against the starlit sky, something of the nature of the things that had made as captive.

As is not infrequently the case in trying to describe things of an utterly different world, I find myself at a loss for words. I think of jellyfish, such as inhabit the seas of most of the inhabited planets, and yet this is not a good description. These creatures were pale, and almost completely transparent. What their forms might be, I could not even guess. I could make out writhing, tentacles, like arms and wrinkled flabby excruescidences and that was all. That these creatures were huge

was evident from the fact that they, apparently walking from the irregular undulating motion, held us easily ten or a dozen feet from the ground. With the release of the pressure about my body, I was able to talk again, and I called out to Corrie, who was fighting his way along, muttering angrily just ahead of me. Corrie, no use fighting them. Save your strength, man. "'Then what are they in God's name? What spawn of hell?' "'A command is right, Corry,' interrupted Kincaid, "'who was not far from my first officer. "'Let's get our breaths and try to figure out what happened. I'm winded.'

His voice gave plentiful evidence of the struggle that he'd put up. "'I want to know where I'm going, and why?' growled Corey, ceasing his struggling nevertheless. "'What has us? Are they fish or flesh or fowlid? I think we shall know before very long, Harry, I replied. Look ahead. The bearers of the men in the fore part of the group had apparently stopped before a shadowy wall, like the face of a cliff. Rapidly the rest of us were brought up until we were in a compact group,

some in sitting position, some upside down, the majority were climbing on back or side. The whispering sound now was intense and excited, as though our strange bearers waited. some momentous happening. I took advantage of the opportunity to speak very briefly to my companions. Man, I'll admit freely that I don't know what we're up against. I said, but I do know this.

We'll come out on top of the heap. Now, conserve your strength, keep your eyes open, and be prepared to obey instantly, any orders that may be issued. I know that last remark is not needed, but if any of you should see or learn something of interest or value,

report at once to Mr. Corry, Mr. Kincade, or my... A simultaneous involuntary exclamation from the men interrupted me, and it was not surprising that this was so, for the war before us had suddenly opened, and there was a great burst of yellow light in our faces. A strong odour, like the faint scent we had first noticed in the air, but, infinitely more powerful, struck our nostrils, but I was not conscious of the fact for several seconds.

My whole attention, my every startled thought, was focused upon the group of strange beings silhouetted against the glowing light, that stood in the opening. Imagine, if you can, a huge globe, perhaps eight feet in diameter, flattened slightly at the bottom and supported on six short, huge stumps, like the feet of an elephant, and topped by an excredescence like a rounded coning tower, merging into the globular body. From points slightly below this excredescence, visualised six long, limp tentacles, so long that they dropped from the equators of these animated spheres and trail on the ground. Now you have some conception of the beings that stood before us.

A sharp, sibilant whispering came from one of these figures, to be answered in an eager chorus from our bearers. There was a reply like a command, and the group in the doorway marched forward. one by one these visible tentacles wrapped themselves around a member of the air-tax crew each one of the globular creatures bearing one of us I heard a disappointed whisper go up from the outer darkness where but a moment before we had been

then there was a grating sound and a thud as the stone doorway was rolled back into place the entrance was sealed and we were prisoners indeed all right now what gritted Corrie. God, if I ever get a hand loose. Swiftly each of us held the head-like excredescence

atop the globular body of the thing that held us, and we were carried down a widening rocky corridor towards the source of the yellow light that beat about us. The passage led to a great cavern, irregular in shape, and apparently possessed of numerous other outlifts which converged here. I'm not certain as to the size of the cavern, save that it was great and that the roof was so high in most sections that it was lost in shadow. The great cavern was nearly filled with creatures similar to those which were bearing us,

and they fell back in orderly passage to permit our conductors to pass. I could see now that the hump atop each rounded body was a travesty of a head, hairless and without a neck. Their features were particularly hideous, and I shall pass over a description as rapidly as possible. The eyes were round and apparently lidless, a pale drab or bluff in colour. Instead of a nose, as we understand the term, they had a convoluted rosette in the centre of the face, not unlike the olfactory organ of a bat. Their ears were placed as are ours but were of thin, pale parchment, and hug the side of the head tightly.

Instead of a mouth, there was a slightly depressed oval of fluttering skin near the point where the head melted into the rounded bonnet. body. The rapid fluttering or vibration of the skin produced the whispering sound that I've already remarked. The cavern, as I said, was flooded with yellow light, which came from a great column of fire near the centre of the clear space. I had no opportunity to inspect the exact arrangements, but from what I did see, I judged that this flame was fed by some sort of highly inflammable substance, not unlike crude oil, except that it burned clearly and without smoke. This substance was conducted to the font from which the flame leaped by means of a large pipe of hollow reed or wood. At the far end of the cavern a procession entered from one of the passages, nine figures

similar to those which bore us, save that by the greater darkness of their skin and the wrinkles upon both face and body, I judge these to be older than the rest. From the respect with which they were treated and the dignity of their movements. I gather these were the persons of authority, a surmise which very quickly verified itself. These nine elders arranged themselves, standing in the form of a semicircle, the centre creature standing a pace or two in front of the others. At a whispered command, we were all dumped unceremoniously on the floor of the cavern before this august council of nine. Nine pairs of fish-like, unblinking eyes inspected us, whether with enmity or otherwise I could not determine.

One of the nine spoke briefly to one of our conductors and received an even more brief reply. I felt the gaze of the creature in the centre fix on me. I had taken my proper position in front of my men, and he apparently recognised me as the leader of our group. In a sharp whisper he addressed me, I gathered from the tone that he uttered a command, but I could only shake my head in response.

No words could convey thought from his name. mind to mine, but we did have a means of communication at hand. Mr. Corrie, I said, your manure, please. I released my own from the belt which held it, along with the other expeditionary equipment which we always wore when outside our ship, and placed it in position upon my head, motioning for one of the nine to do likewise with Corey's menor. They watched me suspiciously, despite my attempt to convey by gestures that by means of these instruments we could convey thoughts to each other.

The minors of those days were bulky, heavy things, and undoubtedly they looked dangerous to these creatures. Thought transference instruments at that time were complicated affairs. However, I must have made myself partially understood, at least, for the chief of the knight uttered a whispered command to one of the beings, who had borne us to the large cavern, and motioned with a writhing gesture of one tentacle, that I was to place the manure upon this creature's head. "'Your boy's playing it's safe, sir,' muttered Corey, chuckling.

"'Mast to try it out on the dark first.' "'Ah, right,' I nodded, "'and not without difficulty placed the other menor upon the rounded dome "'of the individual selected for the trial. "'Both instruments were adjusted to full power, "'and I concentrated my mental energy upon the simple pictures "'that I thought I could convey "'to the limited mentality of which I suspected these creatures,

"'watching his fishy eyes the whole while. It was several seconds before he realised what was happening. Then he began talking excitedly to the waiting line. The words fairly burned themselves in my consciousness, but of course were utterly unintelligible to me. Before the creature had finished, a lash-light tentacle shot out from the chief of the nine and removed the manure.

A moment later it reposed at a rather rakish slant on the shining dome of its new possessor. Get anything, sir? asked Corey in a low voice. Not yet. I'm trying to make him see how we came here, and that we're friends. Then I'll see what I can get out of him.

He'll have to get the idea of coming back at me with pitches instead of words, and it'd take a long time to make him understand. And it did take a long time. I could feel the sweat trickling down my face as I strove to make him understand. His eyes revealed wonderment and a little fear, but an almost utter lack of understanding. I pictured for him the heavens and our ship sailing through space. Then I showed him the airtac coming to rest on the plateau,

and he made little impatient noises as though to convey that he knew all about that. After a long time, he got the idea. Crudely dimly, he pictured the airtuck leaving this strange world and soaring off into vacant space. Then his scene faded out, and he pictured the same thing again, as one might repeat a question or understood. He wanted to know where we would go if we left this world of his. I pictured for him other worlds,

peopled with men more or less like myself. I showed him the great cities and the fleets of ships like the air-tack that plied between them. Then, as best I could, asked him about himself and his people. It came to me jerkily and poorly pictured, but I managed to piece out the story. Whether I guess correctly on all points I'm not sure, nor will I ever be sure. But this is a story as I got it. These people at one time lived in the open, and all the people in this world were like those in the cavern,

possessed of opaque bodies and great strength. There were none of the ghost-like creatures who had captured us. But after a long time a ruling class arose, they tried to dominate the masses, and the masses refused to be dominated. So the ruling classes were wise, and versed in certain sciences. The masses were ignorant, so the ruling classes devised a plan. These creatures did not eat. There was a belief that at one time they had had mouths as I had, but that was not known.

Their strength, their vitality came from the powerful mineral vapour, which came forth from the bowels of the earth. The ruling classes decided that if they could control the supply of this vapour, they would have the whip hand, and they set about realizing this condition. Well, it was quickly done. All the sources of supply, save one, were sealed. This one source of supply was the cavern in which we stood. These were members of the ruling class, and outside was the rabble, starved and unhappy,

living on the faint seepage of the vital fumes, without which they became almost bodiless, and the helpless slaves of those within the cavern. These creatures then were boneless, as boneless as sponges, and, like sponges, capable of absorbing huge quantities of a foreign substance, which distended them and gave them weight. I could see now why the rotund bodies sagged and flattened at the base, and why six short stubby legs were needed to support the body. There was only tissue, unsupported by bone, to bear this weight. The chief of the nine went on to show me how ruthlessly, how cruelly those within the cavern ruled those without. The substance that fed the flame had to be gathered

and a great reservoir on the side of the mountain kept filled. Great masses of dry, sweet grass, often changed, must be harvested and brought to the entrance of the cavern for bedding. A score of other tasks kept the outside as busy always, and the driving force was that, if the slaves became disobedient,

the slight supply of minimal vapour available in the outside world would be cut off utterly, and all outside would surely dark. slowly and in agony. Those within the cave were the rulers. They would always remain the rulers, and those outside would remain the slaves to wait upon them. And we, well, how strangely he pictured us, as he saw us,

were not to return to our strange worlds, that we might bring many other ships, like the airtack, back to interfere. No. The pupils of his eyes contracted, and the leafy structure of his nose fluttered as though with strong emotion. No, we would not go back. He would give a signal to those of his creatures who stood behind us. A sort of soldiery, I gathered, and our heads, our legs, at arms would be torn from our bodies.

And then we would not go back to bring... Well, that was enough for me. Man, I spoke softly, but with an intensity that gave me their instant attention. It's going to be a fight for life. When I give the signal, make a rush for the entrance by which we came in. I'll lead the way. Use your pistols and your bombs, if necessary. All right.

Forward. Corrie's great shout rang out after mine, and I flung my minor in the face of the nearest guard. It bounced off as though it had struck a rubber ball. Behind me, one of the men caught out sharply. I heard a sharp crunch of bone, and with a pang realized at the airtime. The attack's log would have at least one death to record. A dozen tentacles lashed out at me, and I sprayed their owners with pellets from my atomic pistol. The air was filled with the shouts of my men and the whispers of our enemies.

All around me I could hear the screaming of ricochets from our pistols. Twice, atomic bombs exploded not far away, and the solid rock shook beneath my feet. Something shot by close to my face, an instant later a limp bundle in the silver and blue uniform of our service struck the rock wall of the cavern 30 feet away. The strength in those rubbery tentacles was terrible. The pistol seemed to have but little effect. They wounded, but they did not kill unless the pellet struck the head. And then the victim rolled over, rocking idiotically on its middle.

In the head, men, I shouted. That downs them. And keep those bombs in action. Throw them against the walls of the cavern. take a chance. A ragged cheer went up, and I heard Corrie's voice raised in angry conversation with the enemy. You will, eh? There now.

Right, right through the eye. Yeah, that's the place. A score of times I was grasped and howled by the writhing arms of the angry horde, whispering all around me. Each time I literally shot the tentacle away with my atomic pistol, leaving the severed end to unwrap itself and drop from my struggling body. The things had no blood in them. so steadily we fought our way toward the doorway out of the cavern down the passageway pressed into a compact sweating mass by the pressure of the eager bodies around us i've never heard any sound even remotely like the babble of angry sibilant whispering that beat against the walls and roof of that cabin i'd save my own bombs for a specific purpose and now i unslung them and managed to work them up above my shoulders one in either hand i'm going to try and blow the entrance clear man i shouted The instant I fling the bombs, drop, the fragments will be stopped by the enemy crowding around us.

One, two, three, drop. The two bombs exploded almost simultaneously. The ground shook and all over the cavern masses of stone came crashing to the floor. Bits of rock hummed and shrieked over our heads. And yes, there was a draught of cooler, pure air on our faces. The bombs had done their work. One more effort were outside men, I called. The passage is open, and there are only a few of the enemy before us.

Ready? Ready, went up, the horse shout. Then, forward. It was easy to give the command, but hard to execute it. We were pressed so hard that only the men on the outside of the group could use their weapons, and our captors were making a terrible, desperate effort. to hold us. Two more of our men were literally torn to pieces before my eyes, but I had the satisfaction of ripping holes in the heads of the creatures whose tentacles had done the beastly work,

and in the meantime we were working our way slowly but surely to the entrance. I glanced up as I dodged out into the open. That soft humming sound was familiar, and properly so. There at an elevation of less than fifty feet was the air-tack, with Hendricks standing in the exit, leaning of the forward at a perilous angle. "'Ahoi the air-tuck,' I hailed. "'Descend at once.' "'Right, sir,' Hendricks turned to relay the order, and as the rest of the men burst forth from the cavern,

the ship struck the ground before us. "'All hands aboard ship,' I ordered. "'Lively now.' "'Well, as many years as I have commanded men, "'I have never seen an order obeyed with more alacrity. "'I was the last man to enter, "'and as I did so I turned for a last glance at the end of, me. They couldn't come through the small opening, my bombs had driven in the rock,

although they were working desperately to enlarge it. Leaving back and forth between me and the entrance, I could see the vague, shadowy figures of the outside slaves, eagerly seeping up the life-giving fumes that escaped from the cavern. "'Your orders, sir?' asked Hendricks anxiously. He was a very young officer, and he'd been through a very trying experience. "'Acent to five hundred feet, Mr. Hendricks.' I said thoughtfully, directly over this spot, and then I'll take over. Well, it isn't often, I added, that the service concerns itself with economic conditions. This, however, is one of the exceptions.

Yes, sir, said Hendricks, for the very good reason, I suppose, that that was about all a third officer could say to his commander, under the circumstances. Five hundred feet, sir, said Hendricks. Very well. I nodded and pressed the attention signal of the non-commissioned officer in charge of the big forward ray projector. But, Commander Hanson speaking, I have special orders for you. Yes, sir. Direct your ray, narrowed to normal beam and at full intensity on the spot directly below.

Keep the ray motionless and carry on until further orders. Is that clear? Perfectly, sir. The disintegrator ray generators deepen their purrs. as I turned away. I trust, sir, that I did the right thing in following you with the air attack, asked Hendricks. It was absolutely without president, and the circumstances were so mysterious. You handled the situation very well indeed, I told him. Had you not been waiting when we fought our way into the open, the nearly invisible things on the outside manner of,

well, but you don't know about them yet. Picking up the microphone again, I ordered a pair of searchlights to follow this. disintegrator ray and made my way forward where I could observe activities through a port. The ray was boring straight down into a shoulder of a rocky hill, and the bright beams of the searchlights glowed readily with the dust of disintegration. Here and there I could see the shadowy transparent forms of the creatures that the self-constituted rulers of this world had doomed to a demi-existence, and I smiled grimly to myself. The tables would soon be turned. For perhaps an hour the rain melted its way into the solid rock while I stood beside Ott and his crew watching.

Then, down below us, things began to happen. Little fragments of rock flew up from the shaft that ray had drilled. Jets of black mud leaped into the air. There was sudden blasts from below that rocked the airtack, and the shaft became a miniature volcano, throwing rocky fragments and mud high into the air. "'Very good, Ot,' I said triumphantly. Now cease action. As I spoke, the first light of the dawn, unnoticed until now, spread itself over the scene,

and we witnessed then one of the strangest scenes that the universe has ever beheld. Up to the very edge of that life-giving blast of mineral-laden gas, the tenuous creatures came crowding. There were hundreds of them, thousands of them. They were still coming, crowding closer and closer and closer, a mass of crawling, yellowish shadows against the somber earth. Slowly they began to fill out and darken, as they drew in the fumes that were more than bread and meat and water to us. Where there had been formless shadows, rotund creatures such as we had met in the cavern stood and lashed their tentacles about in a sort of frenzy gladness,

and fell back to make room for their brothers. "'That's a sight to make a man doubt his own eyes, sir,' said Corrie, who come to stand beside me. "'Look at them, thousands of them pouring from every direction. How did it happen? Ah, it didn't happen. I used our disintegrator ray as a drill. We simply sunk a huge shaft down into the bounds of the earth, until we struck the source of the vapor,

which the self-appointed ruling class had bottled up. We've emancipated a whole people, Mr. Corey. I hate to think of what will happen to those in the cavern, replied Corey, smiling grimly. Or rather, since you've told me of the pleasant little death they'd arrange for us, I'm mighty glad of it. They'll receive rough treatment, I'm afraid. Oh, they deserve it.

It's been a great sight of watch, but I believe we've seen enough. It's been a good night's work, but it's daylight now. It'll take us hours to repair the damage to the Ertax Hall. Take over in the navigating room, if you will, and pick a likely spot where we will not be disturbed. We should be on our course by tonight, Mr. Corrie. Right, sir, said Corrie, with a love. The last, wondering look at the strange miracle we'd brought to pass on the earth below us.

Well, it seemed good to be off in space again, away from the troubles of these little worlds. "'There are troubles in space, too,' I said dryly, thinking of the swarm of meteorites that had come so close to wiping the air-tack off the records of the service. "'You can escape trouble even in space.' "'No, sir,' said Corey from the doorway. "'But you can get your sleep regularly. And sleep is, when one comes to think of it, a very precious thing, particularly for an old man whose eyelids are heavy with ears. The man from 2071.

Perhaps this story does not belong with my other tales of the Special Patrol Service. And yet there is, or should be, a report somewhere in the musty archives of the service covering the incident. Not accurately, you know, not in detail. Among a great mass of old records which I was browsing through the other day, I happened across that report. It occupied exactly three lines, a logbook of the airtuck. Just before departure, discovered Stowaway, apparently demented and ejected him.

For the hard-headed higher-ups of the service, that report was enough. Not had I given the facts they would have called me to the base for a long-winded investigation. It would have taken weeks and weeks filled with fussy questioning. Dozens of stoop-shouldered laboratory men would have prodded and snooped

and asked for long-written accounts. In those days, keeping the logbook was writing enough for me and being grounded at base for weeks would have been punishment. Nothing would have been gained by any detailed reports. The service needed action

rather than reports anyway. But, well, now that I'm an old man, on the retired list, I have time to write. And it will be a particular pleasure to write this account, for it will go to prove that these much honored scientists of ours, with all their tremendous appropriations and long, windy discussions, are not nearly so wonderful as they think they are.

They are, and always have been, too much interested in abstract formulas, and not enough in their practical application. I've never had a great deal of use for them. Well, I'd received orders to report to Earth, regarding a dull routine matter of reorganising the emergency base which had been established there, well, Earth, I might add, for the benefit of those who have forgotten your geography of the universe.

It's not a large body, but its people furnished almost all of the office of personnel of the Special Patrol Service. I being a native of Earth, I received the assignment with considerable pleasure, despite its dry and uninteresting nature. It was a good sight to see Old Earth, bundled up in her colony clouds growing larger and larger in the television disc.

No matter how much you wander around the universe, no matter how small and insignificant the world of your birth, there is a tie that cannot be denied. I've set my ships down on many strange and unknown worlds, with danger and adventure awaiting me, but there is, for me, no thrill which quite duplicates that of viewing again that particular little ball of mud from whence I sprang. I've said that before, I shall probably say it again.

I'm proud to claim Earth is my birthplace, a small end out of the way as she is. Our base on Earth was adjacent to the city of Greater Denver on the Pacific coast. Couldn't help wondering, as we settled swiftly over the city, whether our historians and geologists and other scientists were really right in saying that Denver had at one period been far from the Pacific. Well, it seemed impossible, as I gazed down on that blue tranchequist. will see that it had engulfed hundreds of years ago such a vast portion of North America,

but I suppose the men of science know best. Well, I need not go into the routine business that brought me to Earth. Suffice to say, it was settled quickly by the afternoon of the second day. Well, I'm referring, of course, to Earth days, which are slightly less than half the length of an Inaran of Universe time. A number of my friends had come to meet me, visit me during my brief stay on earth and having finished my business with such dispatch I decided to spend that evening with them and leave the following morning. It was very late when my friends departed and I strolled out with them to their monocar, returning the salute of the Airtak's low and sentry, who was pacing his post before the huge circular exit of the ship. The Airtak lay lightly upon the earth, her polished

sides gleaming in the light of the crescent moon. In the side toward me the circular entry Gap like a sleepy mouth. The sentry, knowing the eyes of his commander were upon him, strode back and forth with brisk military precision. Slowly, still thinking of my friends, I made my way toward the ship. I'd taken only a few steps when the sentry's challenge rang out sharply. Halk, who goes there? I glanced up in surprise. Shira, the man on guard, had seen me leave. I should have had no difficulty in recognition. recognizing me, but, well, the challenge had not been meant for me. No, between myself and the air-tucks, they stood a strange figure.

An instant before, I would have sworn that there was no human in sight, save for myself in the century. But now this man stood not twenty feet away, swaying as though ill or terribly weary, barely able to lift his head and turn it toward the century. Friend, he gasped. Friend! I think you would have fallen to the ground if I hadn't clapped an arm around his shoulders and supported him.

Just a moment, whispered the stranger. I'm a bit faint. I'll be all right. I stared down at the man, unable to reply. This was a nightmare, no less. I could feel the sentry staring, too. The man was dressed in a style so ancient that I couldn't remember that period. 21st century at least, perhaps earlier.

And while he spoke English, which is a language of earth, he spoke it with a harsh and unpleasant accent that made his words difficult, almost impossible, to understand. Their meaning did not fully sink in until an instant after he'd finished speaking. Shiro, I said sharply. Help me take this man inside, he's ill. Yes, sir.

The guard leapt to obey the order, and together we led him into the air-tuck, and to my own state room. There was some mystery here, and I was eager to get at the root of it. The man with the ancient costume and the strange accent had not come to the spot where we'd seen him by any means with which I was familiar.

He materialised out of thin air. There was no other way to account for his presence. We propped the stranger in my most comfortable chair, and I turned to the sentry. I was staring at our weird visitor with wondering, fearful eyes, and when I spoke, he saw. started as though stung by an electric shot. Very well, I said briskly.

That'll be all, resume your post immediately at the end. Shiro? Yes, sir. It won't be necessary for you to make a report of this incident. I'll attend to that, understand. Yes, sir. I think it's to the man's everlasting credit,

and to the credit of the service which had trained him, that he executed a snappy salute, did an about-face, I left the room about another glance at the man slumped down in my big easy chair. With a feeling of cold, nervous apprehension, such as I've seldom experienced in a rather varied and active life, I then turned to my visitor. He hadn't moved, save to lift his heads.

He was staring at me, his eyes fixed in his chalky white face. They were dark, long eyes, abnormally long, and they glittered with a strange, uncanny light. "'You feeling better?' I asked. His thin, bloodless lips moved, but for a moment no sound came from them. He tried again. "'Worder,' he said. I drew him in glass from the tank in the wall of my room.

He downed it at a gulp and passed the empty glass back to me. "'More,' he whispered. He drank the second glass more slowly, his eyes darting swiftly, curiously, around the room. Then his brilliant, piercing glance fell upon my face. Tell me, he commanded sharply. What year is this? I stared at him. It occurred to me that my friends might have conceived and executed an elaborate hoax.

And then I dismissed the idea instantly. There were no scientists among them who could make a man materialize out of nothingness. Are you in your right mind? I asked slowly. Your question strikes me as damnably odd, sir. The man laughed wildly and slowly straightened up in the chair. His long bony fingers clasped and unclasped slowly, as though feeling were just returning to them.

Your question, he replied in his odd, unfamiliar accent. It's not unnatural, under the circumstances. I assure you that I am of sound mind of very sound. mind. He smiled, rather a ghastly smile, and made a vague, slight gesture with one hand. Would you be good enough to answer my question? What year is this? Earth year, you mean? He stared at me then, his eyes flickering. Yes, he said. Earth year, are there other ways of figuring time now? Oh, certainly. Each inhabited world has a its own system. There's a master system for the universe. Who are you? What are you that you should

ask me a question the smallest child should know? First, he insisted, tell me what year this is, earth reckoning. I told him and the light flickered up in his eyes again, a cruel, triumphant light. Thank you. He nodded and then slowly and softly as though he spoke to himself, he added. Less than half a century off. Less than half a century. And they laughed at me. Oh, I shall laugh at them now.

You choose to be mysterious, sir, I asked impatiently. No, no. You'll understand. And then you'll forgive me, I know. I've come through an experience such as no man has ever known before. If I'm shaken weak, surprising to you, it's because of that experience. He paused for a moment, his long, powerful fingers gripping the arms of the chair. You see, he added, I've come out of the past and into the present, or from the present into the future, depends upon one's viewpoint.

If I'm distraught, then forgive me. A few minutes ago, I was Jacob Harbauer in a little laboratory on the end. edge of a mountain park near Denver. Now my nameless being hurtled into the future, pausing here many centuries from my own era. Do you wonder now that I'm so unnerved? Do you mean? I said slowly, trying to understand what he'd babbled forth.

That you have come out of the past, that you... That you... It was too monstrous to put into words. I mean... He replied. I was born in the year 28. I'm 43 years old. I was a few minutes ago, but

his eyes flickered again with that strange, mad light. I'm a scientist. I've left my age far behind me for a time. I've done what no other human being has ever done. I've gone centuries into the future. What? I don't understand. Could he, after all, be a man?

madman? How can a man leave his own age and travel ahead to another? Even in this age of yours? Have they not discovered that secret? Harbauer exalted. You travel the universe, I gather. Your scientists have not yet learned to move in time. Listen, let me explain to you how simple the theory is. A ticket that you're an intelligent man. Your uniform and its insignia would seem to to indicate a degree of rank can I crack. I'm John Hanson, commander of the airtight,

of the special patrol service, I informed him. Then you will be capable of grasping, in part at least, what I have to tell you. It's really not so complex. See, time is a river, flowing steadily,

powerful, and a fixed rate of speed. He sweeps the whole universe along in its bosom at that same speed. That's my conception of it. Is that clear to you? Well, I should think, I replied, that the universe is more like a great rock

in the middle of your stream of time that stands motionless while the minutes, the malice, and the days roll by. No, the universe travels on the breast of the current of time. It leaves yesterday behind and sweeps on towards tomorrow. It's always been so until I challenged this so-called immutable law. I said to myself, why should a man be a helpless stick on the stream of time? Why need he be borne on this slow current at the same speed?

Why cannot he do as a man in a boat? Paddle backwards or forwards? Back to a point already passed. Ahead, faster than the current, to a point that drifting, he would not reach so soon. In other words, why can he not slip back through time to yesterday or ahead to tomorrow? and if to tomorrow, why not next year, next century? These are questions I ask myself. Other men have asked themselves the same questions, I know.

They were not new, but... Arbauer drew himself far forward in his chair and leaned close to me, almost as though he prepared himself to sprint. No other man ever found the answer. That remained for me. I was not entirely correct, of course. I found that one could not go back in time. The current was against one.

But to go ahead with the current at one's back, that was different. Spent six years on the problem, working day and nights, handicapped by lack of funds, ridiculed by the press. Look. Harbauer reached inside his antiquated costume, and drew forth a flat packet, which he passed to me. I unfolded it curiously.

My fingers clumsy with excitement. I could hardly believe my eyes. The thing Harbauer had handed me was a folded fragment of a newspaper such as I'd often seen in museums. I recognised the old-fashioned type and the peculiar arrangement of the columns. Instead of being yellow and brittle with age

and preserved in fragments behind sealed glass, this paper was fresh and white. and the ink was as black as the day it had been printed. What this man said then, must be true. He must... I can understand your amazement, said Harbao. It had not occurred to me that a paper which, to me, was printed only yesterday,

would seem so antique to you. But that must appear as remarkable to you was fresh papyrus, newly inscribed with the hieroglyphics of the ancient Egyptians, which seemed to, well, people of my day. age. But you read it. You'll see how my world viewed my efforts. There was a sharpness, a bitterness in his voice that made me vaguely uneasy. Even though he'd solve the riddle of moving in time, as men have always moved in space, my first conjecture that I had a madman to deal with might not be so far from the truth. Well, ridicule and persecution have unseated the reason

of all too many men. The type was unfamiliar to me, and the spelling was archaic, but I managed to stumble through the article. It read, as nearly as I can recall it, like this. Harbauer says time is like great river. Jacob Harbauer, local inventor, an exclusive interview, propounds a theory that man can move about in time exactly as a boat moves about on the surface of a swift-flowing river, save that he cannot go back in time on account of the opposition of the current. Well, that is very fortunate, this writer feels.

It would be a terrible thing, for example, if some good-looking scam from our present 21st century were to dive into the past and steal Cleopatra from Anthony, or start an affair with Josephine and send Napoleon scurrying back from the front and let the Napoleonic wars go to part. We'd have to have all our histories rewritten. Harbaugh is well known in Denver as the eccentric eventor who for the last five or six years

has occupied a lonely shack in the mountains guarded by a high fence of barbed wire He claims he's now perfected equipment Which will enable him to project himself forward in time Expects to make the experiment in the very near future This writer was permitted to view the equipment Which Harbao says will shoot him into the future The apparatus is howitzer

is housed in a low, barn-like building, in the rear of his shack. Along one side of the room is a veritable bank of electrical apparatus, with innumerable controls, many huge tubes of unfamiliar shape and appearance, a mighty generator of some kind, an intricate maze of gleaming copper busbar. In the center of the room is a circle of metal, about a foot in thickness,

insulated from the flooring by four truncated cones of fluted glass. Now this disc is composed of two unfamiliar metals arranged in concentric circles Above this disc At the height of about eight feet It suspended a sort of grid composed of extremely fine silvery wires Supported on a framework of black insulating material

Ask for a demonstration of his apparatus Harbauer finally consented to perform an experiment with a dog A white short-haired mongrel that Harbauer informed us he kept to warn him of approaching strangers. Now he bound the dog's legs together securely and placed the struggling animal in the center of the heavy metal disc. Then the inventor hurried to the central control panel

and manipulated several switches, which caused a number of things to happen almost at once. The big generator started with a growl and unsettled immediately into a deep hum. A whole row of tubes glowed with a purplish brilliancy. There was a crackling sound in the air, and the grid above the disc seemed to become incandescent, although it gave forth no apparent heat. From the rim of the metal disk, thin blue streamers of electric flames shut up toward the grid,

and the little white dog began to whine nervously. Now watch! shouted Harbauer. He closed another switch, and the space between the disk and the grid became a cylinder of livid light, for a period of perhaps two seconds. Then Harbao pulled all the switches and pointed triumphantly to the disc. It was empty. We looked around the room for the dog,

but he was not visible anywhere. I've sent him nearly a century into the future, said Harbauer. We'll let him stay there every moment and then bring him back. What you mean to say? We asked. That the pup is now roaming around somewhere in the 22nd century. Arbo said he meant just that, and added that he would now bring the dog back to the present time. The switches were closed again, but this time it was the metal plate that seemed incandescent,

on the grid above that shot out the streaks of thin blue flame. As he closed the last switch, the cylinder of light appeared again, and when the switches were opened, there was the dog in the center of the disc, howling and struggling against his bonds. "'Look!' cried Harbauer. "'He's been attacked by another dog or some other kind of animal, while in the future. You see the blood on his shoulders?'

We ventured the humble opinion that the dog had scratched or bid himself in struggling to free himself from the cause with which Harbao had bound him, and the inventor flew into a terrible rage, cursing and waving his arms as though demented. Feeling that discretion was the better part of valor, we beat a hasty retreat. Pausing at the barbed wire gate only long enough to ask Mr. Harbauer if he'd be good enough, some time when he had a few minutes to spare,

to dash into next week and bring back some stock market reports to aid us in our financial investments. Under the circumstances, we did not wait for a response, but we presume we are persona non grata at the Harbao establishment from this time on. And all in all, we are not sorry. I folded the paper and passed it back to him. Some of the illusions I did not understand, but the general tone of the article was very clear indeed.

You see, said Harbauer, his voice grating with anger. I try to be courteous to that man, to give him a simple, convincing demonstration of the greatest scientific achievement in centuries. When the fool returned to write this, to hold me up to ridicule, to paint me as a crack-brained wild-eyed phonetic. Look, it's hard for the layman to conceive of a great scientific achievement.

I said soothingly, all great inventions and inventors have been laughed at by the populace at large. True, true. Harbauer nodded his head solemnly. But just the same. He broke off suddenly and forced a smile. I found myself wishing that he'd completed that broken sentiment. though, I felt that he'd almost revealed something that would have been most enlightening. Oh, but enough of that fool and his babblings, he continued.

I'm here as living proof that my experiment is a success. I have a tremendous curiosity about the world in which I find myself. This, I take it, is a shift for navigating space. That's right, the air-talk of the Special Patrol Service. Would you care to look around a bit? I would indeed. There was a tremendous eagerness in the man's voice. You're not too tired.

No, I'm quite recovered from my experience. Harbauer leapt to his feet, those abnormally long, slitted eyes of his glowing. I'm a scientist, and I'm most curious to see what my fellows have created since my own era. I picked up my dressing gown and tossed it to him. Slibniss on then, to cover your clothing. You'd be an object of too much curiosity to those men who are on duty, I suggested. Well, I was much taller than he was, and the garment came within a few inches of the floor. He nodded the sincture around his middle and thrust his hands into the pockets, turning to me for approval.

I nodded, and motioned for him to proceed me through the door. As an officer of the Special Patrol Service, it's often been my duty to show me to show him. Show parties and individuals through my ship. Well, most of these parties are composed of females who have only exclamations to make instead of intelligent comment, and who possess an unbounded capacity for asking utterly asinine questions. It was therefore a real pleasure to show Harbauer through the ship. He was a keen, eager listener.

When he asked a question, and he asked many of them, he showed an amazing grasp of the principles involved. My knowledge of our agreement was, of course, only practical, save for the rudimentary theoretical knowledge that everyone has of present-day inventions and devices. The ethon shoes which lit the ship interested him only a little. The atomic generators, the gravity pads, their generators, and the disintegrator ray, however, well, he delved into with that frenzied ardour, of which only a scientist, I believe, is capable. Questions poured out of him, and I asked them as about,

I could, or sometimes completely and satisfactorily, so that he nodded and said, I see, I see, but sometimes so poorly that he frowned, and cross-question me insistently until he obtained the desired information. In the big, soundproof navigating room, I explained the operation of the numerous instruments, including the two three-dimensional charts actuated by super radio reflexes, a television disc, the attraction meter, the surface temperature gauge and the complex control system. Forward, I added, is the operating room. You can see it through these glass partitions.

The navigating officer in command relays his orders to men in the operating room who attend to the actual execution of those orders. Just as a pilot or the navigating officer of a ship of my day gives his orders to the quartermaster of the wheel, nodded Harbauer, and began firing fire. firing questions at me again, going over the ground we'd already covered, to check up on his information. I was amazed at the uncanny accuracy with which he'd graphed such a great mass of technical detail. It had taken me years of study to pick up what he had taken from me, and

apparently retained intact in something more than an hour of Earth-time. I glanced at the Earth-time clock on the wall of the navigating room as he triumphantly finished his questioning. less than an hour remained before the time set for our return trip. I'm sorry, I commented, to be an ungracious host, but I'm wondering what your plans may be. You see, we're due to start in less than an hour, and... A passenger would be in your way. Harbaugh smiled as he uttered the words,

but there was a gleam in his long eyes that rather startled me, and I wondered if I only imagined the steeliness of his voice. Don't let that worry you, sir. It's not worrying me, I replied, watching him closely. I have enjoyed a very remarkable, a very pleasant experience. If you should care to remain aboard the air-tuck, I should like exceedingly to have you accompany us to our base, or I could place you in touch with other laboratory men,

with whom you would have much in common. Harbauer threw back his head and laughed, not pleasantly. Thanks, he said. but I have no time for that. They could give me no knowledge that I need now. You've told me and showed me enough. I understand how you've released atomic energy.

It's a matter so simple that a child should have guessed it. A man has wandered about it for centuries, knowing that the power was there but lacking a key to unfetter it. But now I have that key. True, but perhaps our scientists would like in exchange. The secret of moving forward in time, I suggested, reasonably enough. What do I care about them? snapped Harvauer. He loosened the cord of the robe with a quick, impatient gesture,

as though it confined him too tightly, and threw the garment from it. Then, suddenly, he took a quick stride toward me and thrust out his ugly head. I know enough now to give me power over all my world, he cried. haven't you guessed the reason for my interest in your engines of destruction? I came down the centuries ahead of my generation, so I might come back with power in my hand, power to wipe out the fools who've made a mockery of me. And I have that power here.

He tapped his forehead dramatically with his left hand. I'll bring a new regime to my era, he continued, fairly shouting now. I'll be what many have tried to be and what no man has ever been a master of the world absolute unquestioned supreme master he paused

his eyes glaring into mine and I knew from the light that shone behind those long narrow slits that I was dealing with a madman true you will I said gently moving carelessly toward the microphone. With that in my hand, a slight pressure on the general attention signal, and I would

have the whole crew of the air attack here in a moment. But I'd explain the workings of the navigation room's equipment only too well. Stop, snarled Halbauer, and his right hand flashed up. See this? Perhaps you don't know what it is, so I'll tell you. It's an automatic pistol, not so efficient as your disintegrator Ray, deadly enough. There's certain death for eight men in my hand, understand. Perfectly.

What an utter fool I'd been. I was not armed, and I knew that Harbauer spoke the truth. I'd often seen weapons similar to the one he held in the military museums. They're still there, if you're curious, rusty and broken, but not unlike our present

atomic pistols in general appearance. They propelled the bulletin. bullet by the explosion of a sort of powder. Inefficient, of course, but, as he'd said, deadly enough for the purpose. Good. You are a good sort, Hansen, but don't take any chances. I'm not going to, I promise you. You see?

And he laughed again, the light in his long eyes dancing with evil. I'm not likely to be punished for a few killings committed centuries after I'm dead. I've never killed a man, but I'm on head. hesitate to do so now if one or more should get in my way. But why? I asked, soothing. Why should you wish to kill anyone? You have what you came for, you say. Why not depart in peace? He smiled crookedly, and his eyes narrowed with cunning. You approve of my little plan to dominate the world? He asked softly, his eyes searching my face. No, I said boldly. I said bold. refusing to lie to him.

I do not, and you know it. Very true. He pulled out his watch with his left hand, and held it before his hand, so he could observe the time without losing sight of me for even an instance. I doubted that I could secure your willing cooperation. Therefore, I am commanding it. You see, there are a few instruments and pieces of equipment that I should like to take back to my laboratory with me. Perhaps I'd be able to reproduce some without models, but with the models my task will be much easier. The question remaining is a simple one.

Will you give me the proper orders to have this equipment removed to the spot where you first saw me? Or shall I be obliged to return to my own era without these equipment? Leaving behind me a dead commander of the Special Patrol Service and any other who may try to stop me. I tried to keep cool under the lash of his mocking. voice. I've never been adept at holding my temper when I should, but somehow I managed it this time. Frowning, I kept him waiting for a reply, utilising the time to do what was perhaps the hardest, fastest thinking of my life. There wasn't a particle of doubt in my mind regarding his ability to make good his threat, nor his readiness to do so. I caught the faint glimmering of an idea

and fenced with it eagerly. How are you going back to your own period? You're, I'm a I asked him. Well, you told me that it was impossible to move backward in time. That's not answering my question, he said, Learing. Don't think you're a fooling me, but I'll tell you just the same. I can't go back to my own era, that is back to my own actual existence. I shall return just two hours after I leave. I couldn't go back further than that, and it's not necessary that I do so. I can only go back. because I came from that present. I'm not really of this future at all,

so I go back from whence I came. But, uh, I objected, thinking of something I'd read in the clipping he'd showed me. You're not going back to your own era. You can't. If you return, you put your project into execution, and history doesn't record that activity. I saw from the sudden narrowing of his abnormally long eyes

that I caught his interest. interest, and I press my advantage hastily. Remember that all the history of your time is written, Harbauer. It's in the books of Earth's history, with which every chart of this age into which you have thrust yourself is familiar. And those histories do not record the domination of the world by yourself. So, you're confronted by an impossibility. Oh, my reasoning now sounds specious, and yet it was a little. line of thought which could not be waived aside. I saw Harbauer's black brows knit together,

a mounting anger dark in his face. I don't know, but I believe I was never near a death than I was at that instance. A fool, he cried. Idiot, imbecile. You think you can confuse me, turn me from my purpose with words, do you? Do you believe me to be a child or weakling? I tell you, I've planned this thing to the last detail. If I hadn't found what I saw from this first trip, I would have taken another, a dozen, a score, until I found the information I saw. Now, the last 60 years of my life, I've worked day and night to this end.

Your histories and your words. Well, my plan had worked. The man was beside himself with insane anger, and in his rage he forgot, for an instant, that he was my captor. Taking a desperate chance, I launched myself at his legs. His weapon roared over my head, just as I struck. I felt the hot gas and the thing beat against my neck.

I caught the reeking scent of the smoke. Then we were both on the floor, unlocked in a mad embrace. Harbao was a smaller man than myself, but he had the amazing strength of a xenium. He fought viciously, using every ounce of his strength against me. me, striving to bring his weapon into use, hammering my head upon the floor, racking my body mercilessly, grunting, cursing, mumbling constantly as he did so. But I was in better shape than half-hour. I've never seen a laboratory man who could stand the strain of prolonged physical exertion, bending over test tubes and meters is no life for a man. At grips with him, I was in my own

element and he was out of his. I let him wear himself out, exerting myself as little as possible, confining my efforts to keeping his weapon where he couldn't use it. I felt him weakening at last. His breath was coming in great sobs, and his long eyes started from their sockets with the strained effort he was putting forth. And then, with a single mighty effort, or not the pistol from his hand so that it slid across the floor and brought up with a crash against a war. of the room. Now, I said, and turned on him. He knew, at that moment when I put forth my strength,

that I had been playing with him. I read the shock of sudden fear in his eyes. My right arm went about him in a deadly hold. I had him in a grip that paralysed him. Grimely, I jerked him to his feet, and he stood there trembling with weakness, his shoulders heaving as his breath came and went between his teeth. You realize, of course, that you're not going back, I said quietly.

Back! Half dazed, he stared at me through the quivering lids of his peculiar eyes. What do you mean? I mean that you're not going back to your own era. You've come to us, uninvited, and you're going to stay here. No, no, he shouted and struggled so desperate. to free himself, but I was high put to hold him, without tightening my grip sufficiently to dislocate his shoulders. You wouldn't do that. I must return. I must prove to them.

No. That's exactly what must not happen. And what shall not happen, I interrupt it. You're in a strange predicament, Harbao. It's already written that you do not return. Can't you see that, man? If it were to be that you left this age and returned to your own, You'd make known your discovery. History would record it, and history does not record it. You're struggling, not against me, but against, well, against a fate that's been sealed all these centuries. When I'd finished, he stared at me as though hypnotized, motionless and limp in my grasp. And then, suddenly he began to shake, and I saw such depths of terror and horror in his eyes as I never hoped to see again. Mechanically, he glanced down at his watch, lifting his wrist into his line of vision as slowly and ponderously as though it bore a great weight.

Two minutes, he whispered huskily. Then the automatic switch will close, back in my laboratory. If I am not standing where you found me between the disk and the grid of my time machine, where the reversed energy can reach me to. To take me back then, oh God. He sagged in my arms and dropped to his knees, sobbing. And yet, what you say is true. It's already written that I did not return.

His sobs cut harshly through the silence of the room. Pitying his despair, I reached down to give him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. It is a terrible thing to see a man break down as Harbauer had done. As he felt my grip on him, relax, he suddenly shot his fist into the pit of my stomach and leapt to his feet. Groaning, I doubled up, weak and nerveless, from that instant, vicious, unexpected blow. Shrieked Harbaugh, you soft-hearted fool. He struck me then in the face, sending me crashing to the floor, and snatched up his pistol. I'm going now, he shouted.

Going! What do I care for your records and your histories? They're not yet written. If they were, I'd change them. He then bent over me and snatched from my hand the ring of keys, one of which I'd used to unlock the door of the navigating room. I tried to grip him around the legs, but he tore himself loose, laughing insanely in a high-pitched cackling sound that seemed hardly human.

Farewell, he caught mockingly from the doorway. and then the door slammed and as I staggered to my feet I heard the lock click I must have acted then by instinct or inspiration there was no time to think it would take him not more than three or four

seconds to make his way to the exit straw by the guard to the spot where we'd found him and then disappear by the time I could arouse the crew and have my orders executed his time will be up and unless the whole affair were some

terrible nightmare, he would go hurtling back through time to his own era, armed with a devastating knowledge. There was only one possible means of preventing his escape in time. I ran across the room to the emergency operating controls, cut in the atomic generators with one hand, poured the vertical ascent lever to full power. There was a sudden shriek of air, and my legs almost thrust themselves through my body. Quickly I pushed the lever back until, with my eye on the altimeter, I held the air attack at her retained height, something over a mile, as I recall it. Then I pressed the general attention signal and snatched up my microphone. Less than a minute later, Corrie and Hendricks' fellow officers were in the room and besieging

me with solicitous questions. It had been my idea, of course, to keep Harbauer from leaving the ship, but it was not so destined. Shiro, the sentry on duty outside the airtac, was the only witness to Harbaugh's fate. I was walking my post, sir, he reported, watching the sun come up when suddenly I heard the sound of running feet inside the ship. Turned towards the entrance and drew my pistol to be in readiness. I saw the stranger we had taken into the ship appeared the exit, which, as you know, was open. Just as I opened my mouth to command him to halt, the airtack shot up from the ground at terrific speed. The stranger had been about to leap upon me.

Indeed, he had discharged some sort of weapon at me, for I heard a crash of sound and a missile of some kind. Well, as you know, this passed through my left arm. As the ship left the ground, he tried to draw back, but he was off balance and the inertia of his body momentarily incapacitated him, I think. He slipped, clutched at the gangway across the threads which seal the exit and then, at a height I estimate to be of around 500 feet, he fell. The air-tack shot on up until it was lost to sight, and the stranger crashed to the ground a few feet from where I was standing, on almost exactly the spot where we first saw him, sir.

And now, sir, comes apart, I guess you'll find hard to believe. When he struck the ground, he was smashed, flat. He died instantly. I started to run toward him and then, then I stopped. My eyes had not left the spot for a moment, sir, but his body, that is, suddenly disappeared. That's the truth, sir, for I saw it with my own eyes. There wasn't a sign of him left. I see, I replied. I believe that I did see. We've gone straight up, and his body, by no great coincidence. incidents had fallen upon the spot close to the exit of the airtack where we'd first found him, and his machine in operation had brought him, or rather, his mangled body, back to his own age.

Dom, you've not mentioned this affair to anyone, Shiro. No, sir, it wasn't anything you'd be likely to tell. Nobody would believe you were. I went at once to have my arm attended to and then reported here, according to, Very good, Shiro. You keep the entire affair to yourself. I'll make all the necessary reports. That's an order, understand.

Yes, sir. And that'll be all. Take good care of your arm. He saluted me with his good hand and then left. Later in the day, I wrote in the logbook of the air attack, the report I mentioned at the beginning of this story. just before departure discovered stalway apparently demented and ejected

him and that was a perfectly truthful statement and it served its purpose now I've given the whole story in detail just to prove what I've so often contended that these owlish laboratory men whom this age reveres so much are not nearly so wise and omnipotent as they think they are

well I'm quite sure they would have discreet discredited or attempted to discredit my story had I told it at the time they would have resented the idea that someone so much ahead of them had discovered a principle that still baffles this age of ours i would have had no evidence to present well perhaps even now the story will be discredited if so i don't care i'm much too old and too near the portals of that impenetrable mystery in the shadow of which i've stood so many times to consider myself with what others may think or say well I know that what I've related here is the truth and in my mind I have a vivid and rather pitiful picture of a mangled body bloody and

alone in the barn-like structure that the ancient paper described a body broken emotions lying across that striated metal disc like a sacrificial victim a victim and a sacrifice of science. There have been many such. In this episode, Dr. Bird discovers a dastardly plot, amazing in its mechanical ingenuity, behind the apparently trivial eye trouble of the United States President. The Ray of Madness by Captain S. P. Meek. A knock-handed at the door of Dr. Burr's private laboratory in the Bureau of Standards. The famous scientist paid no attention to the interruption, but rather bent his head lower over the spectroscope with which he was working. The knock was repeated with a quality of quiet insistence upon recognition.

The doctor smothered an exclamation of impatience and strode over to the door and threw it open to the knocker. Hello, Karns. He exclaimed as he recognized his visitor. Come in, sit down. Keep your mouth shut for a few minutes. I'm busy just now, but I'll be free soon. There's no hurry, Doctor, replied Operative Kahn's of the United States Secret Service as he entered the room and sat on the edge of the doctor's desk. I haven't got a case up my sleeve this time, just came in for a little chat. All right, glad to see you. Read the latest volume of Zeischrift for a while.

That article of Von Baez has got me guessing, all right. Kans picked up the indicated volume and settled himself to read. The doctor bent over his apparatus. Time and again he made minute adjustments and gave a vent and muttered exclamations of annoyance at the results he'd obtained. Half an hour later he rose from his chair with a sigh and turned to his visitor once again. Well, what do you think of Vambaia's alleged discovery? He asked the operative.

That's too deep for me, doctor, replied Carnes. All I can make out of it is that he claims to have discovered a new element named Loonium, It hasn't been able to isolate it yet. Was there anything remarkable about that? Seems to me I've read of other new elements been discovered from time to time. Well, there's nothing remarkable about the discovery of a new element by the spectroscopic method, replied Dr. Bird. We know from Mendelph's table that there are a number of elements which we have not discovered as of yet. Several of the ones we know were first detected by the spectroscope.

The thing which puzzles me is that so brilliant a man is von Baeck. claims to have discovered it in the spectre of the moon, whose name Lunium. He's taken from Luna, the moon. Why not the moon? Have several elements been discovered in the spectre of stars? Well, certainly. The classic example is Lockyer's discovery of an orange line

in the spectra of the sun in 1868. No known terrestrial element gave such a line and he named the new element, which he deduced helium, from Helos, the sun. The element helium was first isolated by Ramsey some 27 years later. Other elements have been found in the spectra of stars, but the point I'm making is that the sun and the stars are incandescent bodies and can be logically expected to show the characteristic lines of their constituent elements in their spectrum.

But the moon is a cold body, without an atmosphere, and is visible only by reflected lines. The element, luneum, may exist in the moon, but the manifestations which von Baer was observed must be, not from the moon, but from the source of the reflected light which he spectral analyzed. Oh, you are over my depth here, Doctor. Well, I'm over my own. I've tried to follow von Beyer's reasoning,

and I've tried to check his findings. Well, twice this evening I thought, I caught a momentary glimpse to the screen of my fluoroscope of the ultra-violet line which he reports of characteristic of lunium, but, well, I'm not yet certain. I haven't been able to photograph it yet. He notes in his article that the line seems to be quite impermanent and fade so rapidly that an accurate measurement of his wavelength is almost impossible. However, well, let's drop the subject.

Hey, how do you like your new assignment? That's all right. I'd rather be back on my old work, though. I haven't seen you since you were assigned to the presidential detail. Yeah, I suppose you fellas are pretty busy getting ready for Premier McDougal's visit. Well, I doubt he'll come, replied Khan soberly. Things are not exactly ideal for a visit of that sort just now. Dr. Bird sat back in his chair and surprised.

I thought the whole thing was arranged. Press seems to think so at any rate. Everything is arranged, but arrangements may be cancelled. Don't be surprised to hear that they were. "'Carns,' replied Dr. Byrd gravely, "'you've either said too much or too little. "'There's something more to this than appears on the surface. "'If it's none of my business,

"'don't hesitate to tell me so, "'and I'll forget what you said. "'But if I can help you any, speak up.' "'Karns puffed meditatively at his pipe "'for a few minutes before replying. "'Oh, it's really none of your business, doctor.' "'He said at length, "'yet I know.

that a corpse is a chatterbox compared to you when you're told anything in confidence and I really do need to unload my mind. It's been kept from the press so far but I don't know how long it can be muscled. Well, in strict confidence the president of the United States acts as though he were crazy. Quite a section of the press has claimed that for a long time,

replied Dr. Bird with a twinkle in his eye. I don't mean crazy in that way, doctor. I mean, really crazy. It bugs, nuts. with bats in his belfry. Dr. Bird then whistled softly. Yeah, sure, currents, he asked. What a show's may be.

Both of his physicians think so. They were non-committal for a while, especially as the first attack waned and he seemed to recover. When his second attack came on more violently than the first, and the president began to act queerly, they had to take the presidential detail into their confidence. He's been quietly examined by some of the greatest psychiatrists in the country. But none of them have ventured on a positive verdict as to the nature of the malady.

Well, they admit, of course, that it exists, but they won't classify it. The fact that it's intermittent seems to have them stumped. He was bad a month ago, but then he recovered and became, to all appearances, normal for a time. About a week ago, he began to show strange symptoms again, and now he's getting worse daily. If it goes on getting worse for another week, it'll have to be announced that the vice president should take over the duties of the head of the government. One of the symptoms. The first we noticed was a failing of his memory.

A couple with this was a restlessness and a habit of nocturnal prowling. He tosses continually on his bed and mutters, and at times leaps up and rages back and forth in his bedchamber, howling and raging. Then I'll calm down and compose himself and go to sleep. only to wake in half an hour and go through the same performance. It's pretty ghastly for the man on night guard. Hmm, well, how does he act in the daytime?

Oh, he's heavy and lethargic. His memory becomes a complete blanket times and he talks wildly. Those are the times we must guard against. Um, overwork? Query the doctor. Not according to his physicians. His physical health is splendid. His appetite unusually keen.

He takes his exercise regularly and suffers no ill health except for a little eye trouble. At this, Dr. Bird leapt to his feet. Right, tell me more about his eye trouble, Carnes, he demanded. Why, I don't know much about it, Doctor. Admiral Clay told me that it was nothing but a mild ophthalmia which should yield readily to treatment. That was when he told me to see the shades of the President's study were partially drawn to keep the direct sunlight out. I hope Thelmia be damned.

Tell me, what does his eyes look like? They are rather red and swollen, and a little bloodshot. He has a tendency to shut them while he's talking. Your voice lied as much as possible. I hadn't noticed anything strange about it. Carnes, did you ever see a case of snow blindness? The operative looked up in surprise. Yes, I have.

had him myself once in Maine. Now that he should mention it, his case does look like snow blindness, but such a thing is absurd in Washington in August. Dr. Bird rummished in his desk and drew out a book. We should consult it for a moment. Oh, Carnes, he said, I want some dates from you and I want them accurately. Don't guess, for a great deal may depend on the accuracy of your answers.

Now, when was his mental disability on the part of the president first, noticed. Cairns drew a pocket diary from his coat and consulted it. The 17th of July, he replied. That is, we are sure, in view of later developments, that was the first date it came on. We didn't realize that anything was wrong until the 20th. On the night of the 19th, the president slept very poorly, getting up and creating a disturbance twice. On the 20th, he acted so strange that it was necessary to cancel three conferences. Dr. Bird checked off the dates on the book before him and nodded. Hmm, go on, he said, and described the progress of the malady by days.

Well, he got progressively worse until the night of the 23rd. On the 24th, he was no worse, on the 25th a slight improvement was noticed. He got steadily better until by the 3rd or 4th of August. He was apparently normal. after the 12th he began to show signs of restlessness which have increased daily during the past week last night the 19th he slept only a few minutes and brady who was on guard said that his howls were terrible his memory has been almost a total blank today and all of his appointments were cancelled ostensibly because of his eye trouble if it gets any worse he probably will be necessary to inform the country as to his true condition when cards had finished Dr. Bert sat for a time in concentrated thought. Well, you did exactly right and come to me, Carnes, he said presently.

I don't think that this is a job for a doctor at all. I believe that it needs a physicist and a chemist and possibly a detective to cure him. Right, let's get busy. What do you mean, Doctor? Demand it comes. You think that some exterior force is causing the president's disability? I think nothing, Carnes, replied the Dr. Grimley, but I intend to know something before I'm through. Don't ask for explanations. This is not the time for talk. It's the time for action. Can you get me

into the White House tonight? Well, I doubt it, doctor, but I'll try. What excuse shall I give? I suppose to have told you anything about the president's illness. We'll get Bolton, your chief on the phone and tell him that you've talked to me when you shouldn't. have. Oh, he'll blow up, but after he's through exploding, tell him that I smell a rat, and I want him down here at once, with carte blanche authority to do as I see fit in the White House. And if he makes any fuss about it, remind him of the fact that he's considered me crazy several times in the past but eventually showed that I was right. If he won't play ball after that, let me talk to him. All right, doctor, replied Kahn's as he picked up the

scientist's telephone and gave the number of the home of the chief. of the secret service. I'll try to bully him out of it. It's a good deal of confidence in your ability. Half an hour later, the door of Dr. Bird's laboratory opened suddenly to admit Bolton. Hello, Doctor! exclaimed the chief.

What the hell have you got on your mind now? I ought to skin cars alive for talking out of turn, but, well, if you really do have an idea, I'll forgive him. Now, what do you suspect? I suspect several things, Bolton, but I haven't got the time to tell you what they are. I want to get quietly into the White House as promptly as possible. That's easy, replied Bolton.

But first I want to know what the objective of the visit is. The objective is to see what I can find out. Ideas are entirely too nebulous to attempt to lay them out before you just now. You've never worked directly with me on a case before. Kans can tell you that I have my own methods of work and that I won't spill my ideas until I am. have something more definite to go on than I have at present. The doctor's right, Chief, said Kans. He has an idea all right, but wild horses won't drag it out of him until he's ready to talk.

You'll have to take him on faith, as I always do. Odin hesitated a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. Well, have it your own way, doctor, he said. Your reputation, both as a scientist and as an unraveler of tangled skins, is too good for me to boggle about your methods. Tell me what you want, and I'll try my best to get it. I want to get into the White House without undue prominence being given to my movements, and listen outside the president's door for a short time.

Later, I will want to examine his sleeping quarters carefully, and to make a few tests. I may be entirely wrong in my assumptions, but I believe that there's something there that requires my attention. Come along, said, I'll get you in and let you listen, but the rest we'll have to do to trust to luck on. You may have to wait until morning. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, replied the doctor. I'll get a little stuff together that we may need.

A few moments later, he packed some apparatus in a bag end, taking up it and an instrument case. He followed Bolton and Kahn's down the stairs and out into the grounds of the Bureau of Standards. Part 2. It's a beautiful moon, isn't it? He observed. Kahn's assented absently to the doctor's remark, but Bolton paid no attention to the luminous disc overhead, which was flooding the landscape with its mellow light.

My car is waiting, he announced. All right, old man, but stop for a moment and admire this moon, protested the doctor. Have you ever seen a final one? Come on and leave the moon alone. snorted bolt. Oh my dear man, I absolutely refuse to move a step until you pause in your headlong devotion to duty

and pay the homage to Lady Luna. Don't you realize, you benighted fool, that you were gazing upon what has been held to be a deity, or at least the visible manifestation of deity, for ages and memorial? Haven't he ever had time to study the history of the moon-worshiping gods? Ah, they're as old as mankind, you know. the worship of Isis was really only an exalted type of moon worship.

The crescent moon, you may remember, was one of her most sacred emblem. Bolton paused and looked at the doctor suspiciously. What are you doing? Pull in my leg? He demanded. Well, not at all, my dear fellow. Corns, does the sight of the glowing orb of night influence you to Pius' meditation upon the frailty of human life and the insignificance of human ambition? Well, not too old.

any very great degree, replied Carnes dryly. Oh, Carnes, old man, I fear that you're a crass materialist. I'm beginning to lose hope of ever teaching you any respect for the finer and subtler things of life. Well, I must try, though, Bolton. Bolton, have you ever seen a finer moon? Remember that I won't move a step until you've carefully considered the matter and fully answered my question.

Bolton looked first at the doctor, then at Karnes, and finally he looked reluctantly at the moon. Well, it's a fine one, he admitted. But all full moons look large on clear nights at this time at the year. And you have studied the moon, cried Dr. Bird with the delight. Oh, I was sure. He broke off his speech then, and suddenly, and listened. From a distance came the mournful howl of a dog. It was answered in a moment by another how from a different direction.

Dog after dog took up the chorus until the air was filled with the melancholy wailing of the animals. See, Bolton, remarked the doctor. Even the dogs feel the chastened influence of the Lady of Night and repender the sins of their youth and the follies of their manhood. Or should one say doghood? Come along, I feel that the call of duty must tear us away from the contemplation of the beauties of nature. He then led the way to Bolton's car and got in without further words. Half an hour later, Bolton led the way into the White House.

A word to the Secret Service operative on guard at the door admitted him and his party, and he led the way to the newly constructed solarium where the president slept. An operative stood outside the door. What word, Brady? asked Bolton in a whisper. He, uh, it seems worse, sir. I doubt if he slept at all. Admiral Clay has been in several times, but he didn't do much good. There, listen, the present's getting up again.

From behind the closed door, which confronted them, came sounds of a person rising from a bed and pacing the floor, slowly at first, and then more and more rapidly, until it was almost a run. A series of groans came to the watchers, and then a long drawn-out how. Bolton shuddered. "'Ah, poor devil,' he muttered.

"'Dr. Burr shot a quick glance around. "'Where is Admiral Clay?' he asked. "'He's sleeping upstairs. Shall I call him?' "'No, no. Take me to his room.' The President's naval physician opened the door in response to Bolton's knock. "'Is he worse?' he demanded anxiously. "'I don't think so, Admiral,' replied Bolton. "'I want to introduce you now to Dr. Burrude.

of the Bureau of Standards. He wants to talk to you about the case. Well, I'm on a doctor, said the physician, as he grasped the scientist outstretched hand. Oh, come in, I pardon my appearance, but I was startled out of a doze when you're not. I'll have a chair and tell me how I can serve you. Dr. Bird drew a notebook from his pocket.

I've received certain dates in connection with the president's malady with from operative currency, he said, and I wish you to verify them. "'Well, pardon me a moment, doctor,' interrupted the Admiral. "'But may I ask, what is your connection with the matter? "'I was not aware that you were a physician or a surgeon.' "'Well, Dr. Bird's here by the authority of the Secret Service,' replied Bolton.

"'He has no connection with the medical treatment of the President, "'but permit me to remind you that the Secret Service is responsible for the safety of the President, "'and so have a right to demand such details about him as are necessary for his proper protection.' section. Well, I have no intention in obstructing you in the proper performance of your duties, Mr. Bolton, began the Admiral stiffly. Well, pardon me, Admiral, broke in Dr. Bird. It seems to me that we're getting started wrong here. I suspect that certain exterior forces are more or less concerned in this case, and I've communicated my suspicions to Mr. Bolden here. He in turn brought me here in order to request from your cooperation in the manner.

We have no idea of demanding anything, and really seeking help which we believe you can give us. Yeah, pardon me, Admiral, said Bolton. I had no intention of anger in you. Oh, I'm at your service, gentlemen, replied Admiral Clay. What information did you wish, Doctor? Well, at first, merely a verification of the history of the case, as I have it. Dr. Bird then read the notes he'd taken down from Carnes in the average. The Admiral nodded in agreement. Those dates are correct, he said.

Now, Admiral, there are two further points on which I must get enlightenment. The first is the ophthalmia, which is troubling the patient. There's nothing to be allowed about as far as symptoms go, doctor, replied the Admiral. It is a rather mild case of irritation, somewhat analogous to granuloma, but rather stubborn. He had an attack several weeks ago, and why? While it didn't yield to treatment as readily as I could have wished, he did clear up nicely in a couple of weeks, and I was quite surprised at this recurrent attack. But his sight is in no danger. Have you tried to connect this ophthalmia with his mental aberrations?

Why, no, doctor. There is no connection. Are you sure? I am certain. A slight pain which his eyes give him could never have such an effect upon the mind of so able and energy. a man as he is. Well, um, we'll let that pass for a moment. My other question is this.

Has he any form of skin trouble? Well, the Admiral looked up in surprise. Yes, he has, he admitted. Well, I'd mentioned it to no one, for it really amounts to nothing, but, well, he has a slight attack of some obscure form of dermatitis, which I'm treating. It's affecting only his face and hands.

Um, please describe it. It has taken the form of a brown pigmentation on the hands. On the face it causes a slight itching and subsequent peeling of the affected areas. So, um, in other words, it's acting like sunburn. Why, yes, somewhat. It's not that, however, for he's been exposed to the sun very little lately, well, on account of his eyes. I noticed that he's sleeping in the new solarium, which was added last winter, to the executive mansion. Can you tell me with what type of glass it's equipped?

Yeah, it's not equipped with glass at all, rather with fused quartz. When did he start to sleep there? As soon as it was completed. And all the time the windows have been infused quartz? No, no, no. They were glazed at first, but the glass was removed, and the fused quartz saw. substituted at my suggestion about two months ago, just before this trouble started. Thank you, Admiral. You've given me several things to think about.

My ideas are a little too nebulous to share as yet, but I think I can give you one piece of very sound advice. The President is spending a very restless night right now. If you'd remove him from the solarium, get him to lie down in a room which is glazed with ordinary glass, oh, and pull down the shades so that you'll be in the dark, I think you'll pass a better night. Admiral Clay looked keenly into the piercing black eyes of the doctor. I know something of you by reputation, Bird, he said slowly, and I will follow your advice. Will you tell me why you make this particular suggestion? So that I can work in that salarium tonight without interruption, replied Dr. Bird.

I have some tests which I wish to carry out while it's still dark. If my results are negative, forget what I've told you. If they yield any information, I'll be glad to share it with you at the proper time. Now, get the president out of that salarium and tell me when the coast is clear. The Admiral donned a dressing-gown and stepped out of the room. He returned 15 minutes later. Well, the salarium is at your disposal, doctor, he announced. Shall I accompany you?

Oh, if you wish, assented Dr. Bird as he picked up his apparatus and strode out of the room. In the celerium he glanced quickly around, noting the position of each of the articles of furniture. I presume that the President always sleeps with his head in this direction, he remarked, pointing to the pillow on the disturbed bed. The Admiral nodded. Dr. Bird opened the bag which he'd packed in his laboratory, took out a sheet of cardboard covered with a metallic-looking substance, and placed it on the pillow. He stepped back and donned a pair of smoke glasses, watching it intently. Without a word, he took off the glasses and handed them to the Admiral. The Admiral then donned them and looked at the pillow.

And as he did so, an exclamation broke from his lips. What? That plate, it seems to glow, he said in an astonished voice. Dr. Bird stepped forward and laid his hand on the pillow. He was wearing a wristwatch with a radiolite dial. The substance suddenly increased its luminescence and began to glow fiercely. Long, luminous streamers seemed to come from the dial. The doctor took his hand away and substituted a bottle of liquid for the plate on the pillow.

Immediately the bottle began to glow with a phosphorescent light. What an earth is it? gasped cards. excitation of a radioactive fluid, replied the doctor. The question is, what is exciting it? Now, somebody get a step-ladder. While Bolton was gone after the ladder, the doctor took from his bag what looked like an ordinary pane of glass. Here, take this, Carnes, he directed,

and start holding it over each of those panes of quartz, which you can reach, that is, and stop when I tell you to. The operative held the glass over each of the pains in succession, but the doctor who kept his eyes covered with the smoke glass and fastened on the plate which he replaced on the pillow, said nothing. When Bolton arrived with the ladder, this process went on.

One end and most of the front of the salarium had been covered before an exclamation from the doctor halted the work. Yeah, that's the one, he exclaimed. I'll hold the glass there for a moment. hurriedly he removed the plate from the pillow and replaced the file of liquids that was only a very feeble glow good enough he cried take away the glass but marked that pain and be ready to replace it when i give the word from the instrument case he'd brought he took out a spectroscope he turned back the mattress and mounted it on the bedstead right cover that pain he directed it. Karns did so and the doctor swung the receiving tube

with the instrument until it pointed at the covered pain. He glanced into the eyepiece and held a tiny flashlight for an instant opposite the third tube. Right, uncover that pain, he said. Kans took down the glass plate

and the doctor gazed into the instrument then made some adjustments. The army, you familiar with spectroscopy, Admiral? he asked. well somewhat right take a squint in here and tell me what you see the admiral applied his eye to the instrument and looked long and earnestly there are some lives there doctor he said but your instrument is badly out of adjustment there in what should be the ultraviolet sector according to your scale oh i forgot to tell you that this is a fluoroscopic spectroscope designed for the detection of ultra-violent lines, replied Dr. Bird. Those lines you see are ultra-violet, made visible to the eye by the activation of a radioactive compound

whose rays in turn impinge on a zinc blend sheet. Now, you recognize those lines? No, I don't. A small wonder. But out there are a dozen people in the whole world who would. I've never seen them before, though I recognize them from me. descriptions that I've read. Hey, Bolton, come here. Sight along this instrument and look through that plate of glass which Kans is holding and tell me what office that window belongs to.

Bolton sighted as directed up at the side of the state war and navy building. Can't tell exactly at this time of night, Doctor, he said, but I'll go into the building and find out. Please do so. Hey, you have a flashlight? Yeah. Now, flash it momentarily out of each of the suspected windows in turn until you get an answering flash from here. When you do, flash it out of each pane of glass in the window until you get another flash from here.

Then come back and tell me what the office is. Mark the pane so we can locate it again in the morning. Part 3. It's the office of the assistant to the adjutant general of the army. Bolton 10 minutes later. What's there in the room? Nothing but the usual desks and chairs. I suspected as much.

The window is merely a reflector. That's all we can get for tonight, gentlemen. Abram, keep your patient quiet in a room with glass windows, preferably with the shades drawn until further notice. Bolton, meet me here with cards at sunrise. Have a big detail of ten men standing. by, we can get hold of them in a hurry. In the meantime, get the chief of the air service out of bed and have him order a plane at Langley

Field to be ready to take off at 6 a.m. Oh, but he's not to take off, though, until I give him orders to do so. Do you understand? Everything will be ready for you, Doctor. But I confess that I don't know what this is all about. It's the biggest case you've ever tackled, old man, and I hope that we can put it off successfully. I'd like to go over it with you now, but I'll be busy at the bureau for the rest of the night. Drop me off there, will you?

At sunrise the next morning, Bolton met Dr. Bird at the entrance to the White House grounds. Where's your detail? he asked. In the state war, Navy building. Good. I want to go to the solarium, put a light on the place where the president's pillow was last night, and mark that pain of quartz we were looking through. then we'll join the detail Dr. Bird placed the light and walked with Carnes across the White House grounds.

Bolton's badge secured admission to the state, war and navy building for the party and they made their way to the office of the assistant to the adjutant general. Did you mark the pane of glass through which you flashed your light last night, Bolton? Asked the doctor. The detective touched one of the pains.

Good, the doctor exclaimed. I noticed that this window has hooks for a window washer's belt. Get a life belt, will you? When the belt was brought, the doctor turned to Kans. Karns, he said, hook on this lifesaver

and climb out on the window ledge. Take this piece of apparatus with you. He handed Kans a piece of apparatus which looked like two telescopes fastened to a base with a screw adjustment for altering the angles of the barrels. Kans took it

and looked at it inquiringly. "'That's what I was making at the Bureau last night,' explained Dr. Bird. "'It's a device which will enable me to locate the source of the beam which was reflected from this pane of glass under the President's pillow. I'll show you how to work it.' "'You know that when light is reflected the angle of reflection always equals the angle of incidence. Well, he placed these three feet against the pane of glass, thus putting the base of the instrument in a plain parallel to the pane of glass.

By turning these two knobs, one of which gives lateral and the other vertical adjustment, you'll be able to manipulate the instrument until the first telescope is pointing directly toward the President's pillow. Now notice that the two telescope barrels are fastened together and are connected to the knobs, so that when the knobs are turned, the scopes are turned in equal and opposite amounts. When one is turned from its present position five degrees to the west, the other automatically turns five degrees to the east. When one is elevated, the other is correspondingly depressed. Thus, when the first tube points down toward the pillow,

the other will point toward the source of the reflected beam. Clever, noted Bolton. It's rather crude and may not be accurate enough to locate the source exactly, but at least it will give us a pretty good idea of where to look. Given time, a much more accurate instrument could have been made, but two telescopic rifle sights and a theory, other light base were all the materials I could find to work with. Now, climb out, Carnes, and do your thing. Carnes climbed out of the window and fastened the hooks of the lifesaver to the

ring set in the window casings. He sat the base of the instrument against the pane of glass and manipulated the telescope knobs as Dr. Bird signalled from the inside. The scientist was hard to please with the adjustment, but at last the process of the first telescope was centered on the light in the solarium. He changed its position. and stared through the second tube. The angle is too acute and the distance too great for accuracy, he said with an air of disappointment.

The beam comes from the roof of a house down along Pennsylvania Avenue, but I can't tell from here which one it is. Now, take a look, Baldwin. The chief of the Secret Service stared through the telescope. I couldn't be sure, Doctor, he replied. I can see something on the roof of one of the houses, but I can't tell.

what it is and I couldn't tell the house when I got in front of it. It won't do to make a false move here, said the doctor. Did you arrange for that plane? It's waiting your orders at the field, doctor. Good. I'll go up to the office of the chief of air service and get in touch with the pilot over the chief's private line. There are some orders that I wish to give him and some signals to be arranged.

Dr. Bird returned a few minutes later. All right, the plane is taken off now. soon be over the city, he announced. We'll take a stroll down the avenue until we're in the vicinity of the house, and then wait for the plane. Cairns will take five of your men and go down behind the house, and the rest of us will go in the front. Which building do you think it is, Bolton? About the fourth from the corner. All right, the men going down the back will take station behind the house next to the corner, and the rest of us will get in front of the same building. When the plane comes over, watch it.

If you receive no signal, go to the next house and wait for him to make a loop and come over you again. Continue this until the pilot throws a white parachute over. That's the signal that we're covering the right house. When you get that signal, Carnes, leave two men outside and break in with the other three. Get that apparatus on the roof and the men who are operating it. Bold and I will attack the front door at the same time. Right, as everybody understand. Mirmers of Ascent came from the detail.

All right, let's go. Carnes lead out with your men and go half a block ahead so that the two parties will arrive in position at about the same time. Carnes left the building with five of the operatives. Dr. Bird and Bolton waited for a few minutes and then started down Pennsylvania Avenue, the five men of their squad following at intervals. For three quarters of a mile, they sauntered down the street.

Right, that should be a doctor, said Bolton. I think so, and here comes our plane. They watched the swift scout plane from Langley Field swing down low over the house and then swoop up into the sky again without making a sound. The party walked down the street one house more, then paused. Again the plane swept over them without a sign. As they stopped in front of the next house, a white parachute flew from the cockpit of the plane,

and the aircraft, its mission accomplished, veered off to the south towards its hangar. This is the place, cried Bolton. Haggerty and Johnson, you two cover the street. Bemish, take the lower door, the rest come with me. Followed closely by Dr. Bird and two operatives, Bolton sprinted across the street and up the steps leading to the main entrance of the house. The door was barred, and he hurled his weight against it without result. Step aside, Bolton, snapped Dr. Bird.

The diminutive chief drew aside, and Dr. Burr's 200 pounds of bone and muscle crashed against the door. The lock gave, and the doctor barely saved himself from sprawling headlong onto the whole floor. A woman's scream rang out, and the doctor swore under his breath. Upstairs, to the roof. followed by the rest of the party he sprinted up the stairway which opened before him just as he reached the top his way was barred by an amazonian figure in a green bathroom who the devil are you demanded an outraged voice police snap bolton step aside what side is it demanded the fiery-haired amazon the devil'll stop you until you'll tell me your business what the devil is it demanded the fiery-haired amazon the devil'll stop you until you'll tell me your business what the devil you're doing the house of a respectable female at this hour of the morning. To one side, I tell you, cried Bolton, as he strove to push past the figure that barred his way. Ah, you would, what you little man, demanded the woman as she grasped Bolton by the collar,

and shook him as a terrier would a rat. Lordebert stifled his laughter with difficulty and seized her by the arm. With a heave on Bolton's collar, she raised him from the ground and swung him against the doctor, knocking him off his feet. Help, please, murder! She screamed at the top of her voice. Oh, damn it, woman. Look, we're on it.

Dr. Bird's voice was cut short by the sound of a pistol shot from the roof, followed by two alleys. The woman dropped Bolton, slumped into a sitting position, and screamed lustily. Bolton and Dr. Bird, with the two operatives at their heels, then raced for the roof. before they reached it another volley of shots rang out

these sounding from the rear of the building they made their way to the upper floor and found a ladder running to a skylight in the roof at the foot of the ladder stood one of Kans's party What is it, Williams? demanded Bolton I don't know Chief Kans and the other two went up there

then I heard shooting My orders was to let no one come down the ladder As he spoke Kans' head appeared at the skyline light. That's the right place, all right, doctor, he called. Come on up. The shooting's all over. Dr. Bird mounted the ladder and stepped out onto the roof. Cere on one edge was a large piece of apparatus, toward which the scientist eagerly hastened. He bent over it for a few moments and then straightened up. Hey, where's the operator? he asked.

Kahn suddenly led the way to the edge of the roof and pointed down. Dr. Bird leaned over. At the foot of the fire escape, he saw a crumpled dark heap, with a secret service operative bending over it. Is he dead, almost dead? Called Carnes. Dead as a mackerel, came the reply. Rich has got him through the head on his first shot.

Right, good business, said Dr. Bird. He probably could never have secured a conviction, and the matter is best hushed up anyway. Bolton, have two of your men help me get this apparatus up to the bureau. I want to examine it a little. Have the body taken to the morgue and shut up the press. Find out which room the chap occupied and searched it. Bring all of his papers to me.

From a criminal standpoint, the case is settled. But I want to look into the scientific end of this a little more. Well, I'd like to know what it was all about, Doctor, protested Bolton. Now I've followed your lead, blindly and now I have a house-breaking without search warrant and the killing to explain. And still, I'm about as much in the dark as I was at the beginning. Excuse me, pardon, said Dr. Bird contritely. I didn't mean to slide you.

Admiral Clay wants to know about it, so does Carnes, although he knows me too well to say so. As soon as I've digested the case, I'll let you know and I'll go over the whole thing with you. Part four. A week later, Dr. Byrd sat in conference. with the president in the executive office of the White House. Beside him sat Admiral Clay, Khan, and Bolton. I've taught the president as much as I know, doctor,

said the Admiral, and he'd like to hear the details from your lips. He's fully recovered from his malady, and there's no danger of exciting him. Well, I cannot read Russian, said Dr. Byrd slowly, and so was far as to depend on one of my assistants to translate the papers which Mr. Bolton found in Storkowski.

room. There's nothing in them to definitely connect him with the Russian Union of Soviet republics. But there's little doubt in my mind that he was a red agent and that Russia supplied the money which he spent. And it'd be disastrous to Russia's plans to have too close in accord between this country and Britain, and I have no doubt that the coming visit of Premier McDougal was the underlying cause of this attempt. And that's it for the reason. Now, as to how I came to suspect what was happening. The explanation is very simple. When Kahn's first told me of your malady, Mr. President, I happened to be checking von Baier's results in the alleged discovery of a new element, Lunium. In the article describing his experiments, Von Baer mentions that when he

tried to observe the spectra, he encountered a mild form of ophthalmia, which was quite stubborn to treat. And he also mentions a peculiar mantle on balance and intense exhilaration in which the rays seem to cause both in himself and his assistance. The analogy between his observations and your case struck me at once. For ages the moon has been an object of worship by various religious sects, and some of those obscene orgies of which we have record occurred in the moonlight. The moon seems to affect dogs to a state of partial hypnosis, with a consequent howling and evident pain in the eyes.

And certain feeble-minded persons have been known to be adverse. affected by moonlight, as well as some cases of complete mental aberration. In other words, while moonlight has no practical effect on the normal human, in its usual concentration, it does have an adverse effect on certain types of mentality, and that despite the laughter of medical science, there seems to be something in the theory of moon madness. This effect von Baer attributed to the emanations of lunium, the element which he detected in the spectre of the moon, in the form of a wide band, and the form of a wide band, and the

in the ultra-violent region. I obtained from Carnes a history of your case. When I found that your attacks grew violent with the full moon and subsided with the new moon, I was sure that I was on the right track. Although I had that time, well, I had no way of knowing whether it was from natural or artificial causes

that the effect was being produced. I interviewed Admiral Clay and found that you was suffering from a form of dermatitis resembling sunburn. That convinced me that an attack was being made on your sanity for an excess of ultraviolet light will always tend to produce somber. I inquired about the windows of your solarium, for ultraviolet light will not pass through a lead glass.

When the admiral told me that the glass had been replaced with fused quartz, which is quite permeable to ultraviolet, and that the change had been almost coincident with the start of your malady, I asked him to get you out of the solarium and let me examine it. By means of certain fluorescent substances, which I used, I found that your pillow was being bathed in a flood of ultraviolet light, and the flora of spectroscope soon told me that lunium emanations were present in large quantities. These rays were not coming to you directly from their source,

but one of the windows of the state warren navy building, which was being used as a reflector. I located the approximate source of the ray by means of an improvised apparatus, and we surrounded the place. Stikowski was killed while attempting to escape, and I guess, That's about all there is to it. Well, thank you, Doctor, said the President. I'd be interested in a description of the apparatus which he used to produce his effect.

The apparatus was quite simple, sir. It was merely a large collector of moonlight, which was thrown after a collection onto a lunium plate. The resultant emanations were turned into a parallel beam by a parabolic reflector, and focused through a rock crystal lens with an extremely long focal length, onto your pillow. Then Stokosky is isolated von Bayer's new element?

asked the president. I'm still in doubt whether it's the new element or million allotropic modification of the common element cadmium. The plate which he used has a very peculiar property. When moonlight or any other reflected light of the same composition falls on it, it acts on the ray much as the button of a runtgen, chew, acts on a cathode ray, as the cathode ray is absorbed and entirely new ray the x-ray is given off by the button, so is reflected moonlight absorbed in a new ray of ultra-violet light given off.

This is the ray which Vombaya detected. I thought I could catch traces of Vombaer's lines in my spectroscope, and I think now that it's due to a trace of lunium in the cadmium plating of the barrels. Vomba could have easily made the same mistake. Well, Von Baer's work, together with Stokoskies, opens up an entirely new field of spectroscopic research. I give a good deal to go over to Baden and get into the matter with Von Baeer and make some plans for the exploitation of the new field. But, well, I'm afraid that my pocket wouldn't stand the trip. Well, I think that the United States owes you that trip, Dr. Bird, said the chief executive with a smile.

Make your plans to go as soon as you get your data together. I think that the treasury will be able to take care of the expense without raising the income tax next year. And so once again, we reach the end of tonight's podcast. My thanks as always to the authors of those wonderful stories and to you for taking the time to listen. Now, I'd ask one small favor of you. Wherever you get your podcast from, please write a few nice words and leave a five-star review as it really helps the podcast. That's it for this week,

but I'll be back again, same time, same place, and I do so hope you'll join me once more. Until next time, sweet dreams and bye-bye.