Cold Light By Capt Read online

  Astounding Stories of Super Science, March, 1930

  Cold Light

  By Capt. S. P. Meek

  How could a human body be found actually splintered—broken into sharp fragments like a shattered glass! Once again Dr. Bird probes deep into an amazing mystery.

  “Confound it, Carnes, I am on my Washington to San Francisco to get away vacation!”

  from you and the very day that I get here you

  “I know it, Doctor, and I hate to are after me. I won’t have anything to do with disturb you, but I felt that I simply had to. I it. Where are you, anyway?”

  have one of the weirdest cases on my hands

  “I am at Fallon, Nevada, Doctor. I’m

  that I have ever been mixed up in and I think sorry that you won’t help me out because the that you’ll forgive me for calling you when I case promises to be unusually interesting. Let tell you about it.”

  me at least tell you about it.”

  Dr. Bird groaned into the telephone

  Dr. Bird groaned louder than ever into

  transmitter.

  the telephone transmitter.

  “I took a vacation last summer, or tried

  “All right, go ahead and tell me about

  to, and you hauled me away from the best

  it if it will relieve your mind, but I have given fishing I have found in years to help you on a you my final answer. I am not a bit interested case. This year I traveled all the way from in it.”

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  “That is quite all right, Doctor, I don’t

  popularly supposed to contain certain essential expect you to touch it. I hope, however, that features of the Army’s war plans. This much you will be able to give me an idea of where is certain: The plane carried not only the

  to start. Did you ever see a man’s body broken regular T. A. C. pilot and courier, but also an in pieces?”

  army courier, and it was guarded during the

  “Do you mean badly smashed up?”

  trip by an army plane armed with small bombs

  “No indeed, I mean just what I said,

  and a machine-gun. I rode in it. My orders

  broken in pieces. Legs snapped off as though were simply to guard the ship until it landed at the entire flesh had become brittle.”

  Mills Field and then to guard the courier from

  “No, I didn’t, and neither did anyone

  there to the Presidio of San Francisco until his else.”

  packet was delivered personally into the hands

  “I have seen it, Doctor.”

  of the Commanding General of the Ninth

  “Hooey! What had you been Corps Area.

  drinking?”

  “The trip was quiet and monotonous

  Operative Carnes of the United States

  until after we left Salt Lake City at dawn this Secret Service chuckled softly to himself. The morning. Nothing happened until we were

  voice of the famous scientist of the Bureau of about a hundred miles east of Reno. We had

  Standards plainly showed an interest which

  taken elevation to cross the Stillwater

  was quite at variance with his words.

  Mountains and were skimming low over them,

  “I was quite sober, Doctor, and so was

  my plane trailing the T. A. C. plane by about Hughes, and we both saw it.”

  half a mile. I was not paying any particular

  “Who is Hughes?”

  attention to the other ship when I suddenly felt

  “He is an air mail pilot, one of the

  our plane leap ahead. It was a fast Douglas crack fliers of the Transcontinental Airmail and the pilot gave it the gun and made it

  Corporation. Let me tell you the whole thing move, I can tell you. I yelled into the speaking in order.”

  tube and asked what was the reason. My pilot

  “All right. I have a few minutes to

  yelled back that the plane ahead was in

  spare, but I’ll warn you again that I don’t trouble.

  intend to touch the case.”

  “As soon as it was called to my

  “Suit yourself, Doctor. I have no attention I could see myself that it wasn’t authority to requisition your services. As you acting normally. It was losing elevation and know, the T. A. C. has been handling a great was pursuing a very erratic course. Before we deal of the transcontinental air mail with a could reach it it lost flying speed and fell into pretty clean record on accidents. The day a spinning nose dive and headed for the before yesterday, a special plane left ground. I watched, expecting every minute to Washington to carry two packages from there see the crew make parachute jumps, but they to San Francisco. One of them was a shipment didn’t and the plane hit the ground with a

  of jewels valued at a quarter of a million, terrific crash.”

  consigned to a San Francisco firm and the

  “It caught fire, of course?”

  other was a sealed packet from the War

  “No, Doctor, that is one of the funny

  Department. No one was supposed to know

  things about the accident. It didn’t. It hit the the contents of that packet except the Chief of ground in an open place free from brush and Staff who delivered it to the plane personally, literally burst into pieces, but it didn’t flame but rumors got out, as usual, and it was up. We headed directly for the scene of the

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  3

  crash and we encountered another funny the St. Francis, I called you up.”

  thing. We almost froze to death.”

  “What are your plans?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I made none until I talked with you.

  “Exactly what I say. Of course, it’s The country where the wreck occurred is pretty cold at that altitude all the time, but this unbelievably wild and we can’t get near it

  cold was like nothing I had ever encountered.

  with any transportation other than burros. The It seemed to freeze the blood in our veins and only thing that I can see to do is to gather it congealed frost on the windshields and together what transportation I can and head made the motor miss for a moment. It was

  for the wreck on foot to rescue the packets and only momentary and it only existed directly to bring out the bodies. Can you suggest

  over the wrecked plane. We went past it and anything better?”

  swung around in a circle and came back over

  “When do you expect to start?”

  the wreck, but we didn’t feel the cold again.

  “As soon as I can get my pack train

  “The next thing we tried to do was to

  together. Possibly in three or four hours.”

  find a landing place. That country is pretty

  “Carnes, are you sure that those bodies

  rugged and rough and there wasn’t a flat place were broken into bits? An arm or a leg might for miles that was large enough to land a ship easily be torn off in a complete crash.”

  on. Hughes and I talked it over and there

  “They were smashed into bits as nearly

  didn’t seem to be much of anything that we

  as I could tell, Doctor. Hughes is an old flier could do except to go on until we found a

  and he has seen plenty of crashes but he never landing place. I had had no experience in

  saw anything like this. It beats anything that I parachute jumping and I couldn’t pilot the

  ever saw.”

  plane if Hughes jumped. We swooped down

  “If your observations were accurate,

  over the wreck as close as we dared and that there
could be only one cause and that one is a was when we saw the condition of the bodies.

  patent impossibility. I haven’t a bit of

  The whole plane was cracked up pretty badly, equipment here, but I expect that I can get but the weird part of it was the fact that the most of the stuff I want from the University of bodies of the crew had broken into pieces, as California across the bay at Berkeley. I can though they had been made of glass. Arms and get a plane at Crissy Field. I’ll tell you what to legs were detached from the torsos and lying do, Carnes. Get your burro train together and at a distance. There was no sign of blood on start as soon as you can, but leave me half a the ground. We saw all this with our naked

  dozen burros and a guide at Fallon. I’ll get up eyes from close at hand and verified it by

  there as soon as I can and I’ll try to overtake observations through binoculars from a you before you get to the wreck. If I don’t, greater height.

  don’t disturb anything any more than you can

  “When we had made our observations

  help until my arrival. Do you understand?”

  and marked the location of the wreck as

  “I thought that you were on your

  closely as we could, we headed east until we vacation, Doctor.”

  found a landing place near Fallon. Hughes

  “Oh shut up! Like most of my

  dropped me here and went on to Reno, or to

  vacations, this one will have to be postponed.

  San Francisco if necessary, to report the I’ll move as swiftly as I can and I ought to be accident and get more planes to aid in the

  at Fallon to-night if I’m lucky and don’t run search. I was wholly at sea, but it seemed to into any obstacles. Burros are fairly slow, but be in your line and as I knew that you were at I’ll make the best time possible.”

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  “I rather expected you would, Doctor.

  I can’t get my pack train together until The guides consulted a moment and started evening, so I’ll wait for you right here. I’m out. Carnes drove up the burro the Doctor had mighty glad that you are going to get in on it.”

  indicated and Dr. Bird unpacked it. He opened a mahogony case and took from it a high

  Silently Carnes and Dr. Bird surveyed the

  powered microscope. Setting the instrument

  wreck of the T. A. C. plane. The observations up on a convenient rock, he subjected portions of the secret service operative had been of the wreck, including several fragments of correct. The bodies of the unfortunate crew flesh, to a careful scrutiny. When he had

  had been broken into fragments. Their limbs completed his observations he fell into a

  had not been twisted off as a freak of the fall brown study, from which he was aroused by

  but had been cleanly broken off, as though the Carnes.

  bodies had suddenly become brittle and had

  “What did you find out about the cause

  shattered on their impact with the ground. Not of the wreck, Doctor?”

  only the bodies, but the ship itself had been

  “I don’t know what to think. The

  broken up. Even the clothing of the men was immediate cause was that everything was

  in pieces or had long splits in the fabric whose frozen. The plane ran into a belt of cold which edges were as clean as though they had been froze up the motor and which probably killed cut with a knife.

  the crew instantly. It was undoubtedly the

  Dr. Bird picked up an arm which had

  aftermath of that cold which you felt when

  belonged to the pilot and examined it. The

  you swooped down over the wreck.”

  brittleness, if it had ever existed, was gone and

  “It seems impossible that it could have

  the arm was limp.

  suddenly got cold enough to freeze everything

  “No

  rigor mortis,” commented the up like that.”

  Doctor. “How long ago was the wreck?”

  “It does, and yet I am confident that

  “About seventy-two hours ago.”

  that is what happened. It was no ordinary cold,

  “Hm-m! What about those packets that

  Carnes; it was cold of the type that infests were on the plane?”

  interstellar space; cold beyond any conception Carnes stepped forward and gingerly

  you have of cold, cold near the range of the inspected first the body of the army courier absolute zero of temperature, nearly four

  and then that of the courier of the T. A. C.

  hundred and fifty degrees below zero on the

  “Both gone, Doctor,” he reported, Fahrenheit scale. At such temperatures, things straightening up.

  which are ordinarily quite flexible and elastic, Dr. Bird’s face fell into grim lines.

  such as rubber, or flesh, become as brittle as

  “There is more to this case than glass and would break in the manner which appears on the surface, Carnes,” he said. “This these bodies have broken. An examination of was no ordinary wreck. Bring up that third

  the tissues of the flesh shows that it has been burro; I want to examine these fragments a

  submitted to some temperature that is very

  little. Bill,” he went on to one of the two low in the scale, probably below that of liquid guides who had accompanied them from air. Such a temperature would produce instant Fallon, “you and Walter scout around the death and the other phenomena which we can ground and see what you can find out. I observe.”

  especially wish to know whether anyone has

  “What could cause such a low

  visited the scene of the wreck.”

  temperature, Doctor?”

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  5

  “I don’t know yet, although I hope to

  core. This core will have the temperature of find out before we are finished. Cold is a

  the surrounding air plus the small amount

  funny thing, Carnes. Ordinarily it is which has radiated into it from the considered as simply the absence of heat; and surrounding pipe. If we now pass this beam of yet I have always held it to be a definite

  light through a lens in order to concentrate the negative quantity. All through nature we beam, both the pipe of heat and the cold core observe that every force has its opposite or will focus. If we place a temperature

  negative force to oppose it. We have positive measuring device near the focus of the dark and negative electrical charges, positive and core, we will find that the temperature is

  negative, or north and south, magnetic poles.

  lower than the surrounding air. This means

  We have gravity and its opposite apergy, and I that we have focused or concentrated cold.”

  believe cold is really negative heat.”

  “That sounds impossible. But I can

  “I never heard of anything like that,

  offer no other criticism.”

  Doctor. I always thought that things were cold

  “Nevertheless, it is experimentally

  because heat was taken from them––not true. It is one of the facts which lead me to because cold was added. It sounds consider cold as negative heat. However, this preposterous.”

  is true of cold, as it is of the other negative forces; they exist and manifest themselves

  “Such is the common idea, and yet I cannot

  only in the presence of the positive forces. No accept it, for it does not explain all the one has yet concentrated cold except in the recorded phenomena. You are familiar with a presence of heat, as I have outlined. How this searchlight, are you not?”

  cold belt which the T. A. C. plane encountered

  “In a general way, yes.”

  came to be there is another question. The

  “A searchlight is merely a source of

  thing which we have to determine
is whether light, and of course, of heat, which is placed at it was caused by natural or artificial forces.”

  the focus of a parabolic reflector so that all of

  “Both of the packets which the plane

  the rays emanating from the source travel in carried are gone, Doctor,” observed Carnes.

  parallel lines. A searchlight, of course, gives

  “Yes, and that seems to add weight to

  off heat. If we place a lens of the same size as the possibility that the cause was artificial, but the searchlight aperture in the path of the it is far from conclusive. The packets might beam and concentrate all the light, and heat, at not have been on the men when the plane fell, one spot, the focal point of the lens, the or someone may have passed later and taken temperature at that point is the same as the them for safekeeping.”

  temperature of the source of the light, less The doctor’s remarks were interrupted

  what has been lost by radiation. You by the guides.

  understand that, do you not?”

  “Someone has been here since the

  “Certainly.”

  wreck, Doctor,” said Bill. “Walter and I found

  “Suppose that we place at the center of

  tracks where two men came up here and

  the aperture of the searchlight a small opaque prowled around for some time and then left by disc which is permeable neither to heat nor the way they came. They went off toward the light, in such a manner as to interrupt the northwest, and we followed their trail for

  central portion of the beam. As a result, the about forty rods and then lost it. We weren’t beam will go out in the form of a hollow rod, able to pick it up again.”