Into Space By Sterner St Read online

  Astounding Stories of Super Science, February, 1930

  What was the extraordinary connection between Dr. Livermore’s sudden disappearance and the coming of a new satellite to the Earth?

  M any of my readers will remember twenty-fifth. At the time, some inspired the mysterious radio messages writers tried to connect the two events, which were heard by both amateur

  maintaining that the discovery of the fact that and professional short wave the earth had a new satellite coincident with operators during the nights of the twenty-third the receipt of the mysterious messages was

  and twenty-fourth of last September, and even evidence that the new planetoid was inhabited more will remember the astounding discovery

  and that the messages were attempts on the

  made by Professor Montescue of the Lick

  part of the inhabitants to communicate with

  Observatory on the night of September us.

  Astounding Stories of Super Science 2

  The fact that the messages were on a

  and who had no interests in life, so far as

  lower wave length than any receiver then in

  anyone knew, other than his work.

  existence could receive with any degree of

  I first made contact with him when I

  clarity, and the additional fact that they was a freshman at Calvada, and for some appeared to come from an immense distance

  unknown reason he took a liking to me. My

  lent a certain air of plausibility to these father had insisted that I follow in his ebullitions in the Sunday magazine sections.

  footsteps as an electrical engineer; as he was For some weeks the feature writers harped on

  paying my bills, I had to make a show at

  the subject, but the hurried construction of

  studying engineering while I clandestinely

  new receivers which would work on a lower

  pursued my hobby, literature. Dr. Livermore’s wave length yielded no results, and the solemn courses were the easiest in the school and they pronouncements of astronomers to the effect

  counted as science, so I regularly registered that the new celestial body could by no for them, cut them, and attended a class in possibility have an atmosphere on account of

  literature as an auditor. The Doctor used to

  its small size finally put an end to the talk. So meet me on the campus and laughingly scold

  the matter lapsed into oblivion.

  me for my absence, but he was really in

  While quite a few people will sympathy with my ambition and he regularly remember the two events I have noted, I doubt gave me a passing mark and my units of credit whether there are five hundred people alive

  without regard to my attendance, or, rather,

  who will remember anything at all about the

  lack of it.

  disappearance of Dr. Livermore of the

  When I graduated from Calvada I was

  University of Calvada on September twenty-

  theoretically an electrical engineer. Practically third. He was a man of some local I had a pretty good knowledge of prominence, but he had no more than a local

  contemporary literature and knew almost

  fame, and few papers outside of California

  nothing about my so-called profession. I

  even noted the event in their columns. I do not stalled around Dad’s office for a few months

  think that anyone ever tried to connect up his until I landed a job as a cub reporter on the disappearance with the radio messages or the

  San Francisco Graphic and then I quit him discovery of the new earthly satellite; yet the cold. When the storm blew over, Dad admitted

  three events were closely bound up together,

  that you couldn’t make a silk purse out of a

  and but for the Doctor’s disappearance, the

  sow’s ear and agreed with a grunt to my new

  other two would never have happened.

  line of work. He said that I would probably be Dr. Livermore taught physics at a better reporter than an engineer because I Calvada, or at least he taught the subject when couldn’t by any possibility be a worse one,

  he remembered that he had a class and felt

  and let it go at that. However, all this has

  like teaching. His students never knew nothing to do with the story. It just explains whether he would appear at class or not; but

  how I came to be acquainted with Dr.

  he always passed everyone who took his Livermore, in the first place, and why he sent courses and so, of course, they were always

  for me on September twenty-second, in the

  crowded. The University authorities used to

  second place.

  remonstrate with him, but his ability as a

  research worker was so well known and The morning of the twenty-second the City recognized that he was allowed to go about as Editor called me in and asked me if I knew

  he pleased. He was a bachelor who lived alone

  “Old Liverpills.”

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  3

  “He says that he has a good story

  me was that a “lot of junk” had come for the

  ready to break but he won’t talk to anyone but Doctor by express and that a lot more had

  you,” went on Barnes. “I offered to send out a been hauled in by truck from Redding.

  good man, for when Old Liverpills starts a

  “What kind of junk?” I asked him.

  story it ought to be good, but all I got was a

  “Almost everything, Bub: sheet steel,

  high powered bawling out. He said that he

  machinery, batteries, cases of glass, and Lord would talk to you or no one and would just as knows what all. It’s been going on ever since soon talk to no one as to me any longer. Then he landed there. He has a bunch of Indians

  he hung up. You’d better take a run out to

  working for him and he don’t let a white man

  Calvada and see what he has to say. I can have on the place.”

  a good man rewrite your drivel when you get

  Forced to be satisfied with this meager

  back.”

  information, I started old Lizzie and lit out for I was more or less used to that sort of

  the ranch. After I had turned off the main trail talk from Barnes so I paid no attention to it. I I met no one until the ranch house was in

  drove my flivver down to Calvada and asked

  sight. As I rounded a bend in the road which

  for the Doctor.

  brought me in sight of the building, I was

  “Dr. Livermore?” said the bursar. forced to put on my brakes at top speed to

  “Why, he hasn’t been around here for the last avoid running into a chain which was

  ten months. This is his sabbatical year and he stretched across the road. An Indian armed

  is spending it on a ranch he owns up at Hat

  with a Winchester rifle stood behind it, and

  Creek, near Mount Lassen. You’ll have to go

  when I stopped he came up and asked my

  there if you want to see him.”

  business.

  I knew better than to report back to

  “My business is with Dr. Livermore,” I

  Barnes without the story, so there was nothing said tartly.

  to it but to drive up to Hat Creek, and a long,

  “You got letter?” he inquired.

  hard drive it was. I made Redding late that

  “No,” I answered.

  night; the next day I drove on to Burney and

>   “No ketchum letter, no ketchum

  asked for directions to the Doctor’s ranch.

  Doctor,” he replied, and walked stolidly back

  “So you’re going up to Doc to his post.

  Livermore’s, are you?” asked the Postmaster,

  “This is absurd,” I shouted, and drove

  my informant. “Have you got an invitation?”

  Lizzie up to the chain. I saw that it was merely I assured him that I had.

  hooked to a ring at the end, and I climbed out

  “It’s a good thing,” he replied, and started to take it down. A thirty-thirty

  “because he don’t allow anyone on his place

  bullet embedded itself in the post an inch or without one. I’d like to go up there myself and two from my head, and I changed my mind

  see what’s going on, but I don’t want to get

  about taking down that chain.

  shot at like old Pete Johnson did when he tried

  “No ketchum letter, no ketchum

  to drop in on the Doc and pay him a little call.

  Doctor,” said the Indian laconically as he

  There’s something mighty funny going on up

  pumped another shell into his gun.

  there.”

  I was balked, until I noticed a pair of

  Naturally I tried to find out what was going on telephone wires running from the house to the but evidently the Postmaster, who was also the tree to which one end of the chain was

  express agent, didn’t know. All he could tell fastened.

  Astounding Stories of Super Science 4

  “Is that a telephone to the house?” I

  until I got there that you were up here.”

  demanded.

  The Doctor chuckled.

  The Indian grunted an assent.

  “I guess I forgot to tell where I was,”

  “Dr. Livermore telephoned me to he said.

  come and see him,” I said. “Can’t I call him

  “That man I talked to got me so mad

  up and see if he still wants to see me?”

  that I hung up on him before I told him. It

  The Indian debated the question with

  doesn’t matter, though. I can dig you up a new himself for a minute and then nodded a toothbrush, and I guess you can make out with doubtful assent. I cranked the old coffee mill that. Come in.”

  type of telephone which I found, and presently I followed him into the house, and he

  heard the voice of Dr. Livermore.

  showed me a room fitted with a crude bunk, a

  “This is Tom Faber, Doctor,” I said.

  washstand, a bowl and a pitcher.

  “The Graphic sent me up to get a story from

  “You won’t have many luxuries here,

  you, but there’s an Indian here who started to Tom,” he said, “but you won’t need to stay

  murder me when I tried to get past your here for more than a few days. My work is barricade.”

  done: I am ready to start. In fact, I would have

  “Good for him,” chuckled the Doctor.

  started yesterday instead of to-day, had you

  “I heard the shot, but didn’t know that he was arrived. Now don’t ask any questions; it’s

  shooting at you. Tell him to talk to me.”

  nearly lunch time.”

  The Indian took the telephone at my

  “What’s the story, Doctor?” I asked

  bidding and listened for a minute.

  after lunch as I puffed one of his excellent

  “You go in,” he agreed when he hung

  cigars. “And why did you pick me to tell it

  up the receiver.

  to?”

  He took down the chain and I drove on

  “For several reasons,” he replied,

  up to the house, to find the Doctor waiting for ignoring my first question. “In the first place, I me on the veranda.

  like you and I think that you can keep your

  “Hello, Tom,” he greeted me heartily.

  mouth shut until you are told to open it. In the

  “So you had trouble with my guard, did you?”

  second place, I have always found that you

  “I nearly got murdered,” I said had the gift of vision or imagination and have ruefully.

  the ability to believe. In the third place, you

  “I expect that Joe would have drilled

  are the only man I know who had the literary

  you if you had tried to force your way in,” he ability to write up a good story and at the

  remarked cheerfully. “I forgot to tell him that same time has the scientific background to

  you were coming to-day. I told him you would

  grasp what it is all about. Understand that

  be here yesterday, but yesterday isn’t to-day unless I have your promise not to write this

  to that Indian. I wasn’t sure you would get

  story until I tell you that you can, not a word here at all, in point of fact, for I didn’t know will I tell you.”

  whether that old fool I talked to in your office I reflected for a moment. The Graphic

  would send you or some one else. If anyone

  would expect the story when I got back, but

  else had been sent, he would have never got

  on the other hand I knew that unless I gave the by Joe, I can tell you. Come in. Where’s your desired promise, the Doctor wouldn’t talk.

  bag?”

  “All right,” I assented, “I’ll promise.”

  “I haven’t one,” I replied. “I went to

  “Good!” he replied. “In that case, I’ll

  Calvada yesterday to see you, and didn’t know tell you all about it. No doubt you, like the

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  rest of the world, think that I’m crazy?”

  that the two are separate, but similar

  “Why, not at all,” I stammered. In manifestations of one force. The parallel point of fact, I had often harbored such a

  between the two grows closer with each

  suspicion.

  succeeding experiment. You know, for

  “Oh, that’s all right,” he went on example, that each magnetized particle has cheerfully. “I am crazy, crazy as a loon, two poles. Similarly each gravitized particle, which, by the way, is a highly sensible bird

  to coin a new word, had two poles, one

  with a well balanced mentality. There is no

  positive and one negative. Every particle on

  doubt that I am crazy, but my craziness is not the earth is so oriented that the negative poles of the usual type. Mine is the insanity of

  point toward the positive center of the earth.

  genius.”

  This is what causes the commonly known

  phenomena of gravity or weight.”

  He looked at me sharply as he spoke, but long

  “I can prove the fallacy of that in a

  sessions at poker in the San Francisco Press

  moment,” I retorted.

  Club had taught me how to control my facial

  “There are none so blind as those who

  muscles, and I never batted an eye. He seemed will not see,” he quoted with an icy smile. “I satisfied, and went on.

  can probably predict your puerile argument,

  “From your college work you are but go ahead and present it.”

  familiar with the laws of magnetism,” he said.

  “Perhaps, considering just what your college

  “If two magnets are placed so that the north

  career really was, I might better say that you pole of one is in juxtaposition to the south

  are supposed to be familiar with them.”

  pole of the other, they attract one another,” I I joined with him in his laughter.

  said. “If the position of the
magnets be

  “It won’t require a very deep reversed so that the two similar poles are knowledge to follow the thread of my opposite, they will repel. If your theory were argument,” he went on. “You know, of course,

  correct, a man standing on his head would fall that the force of magnetic attraction is off the earth.”

  inversely proportional to the square of the

  “Exactly what I expected,” he replied.

  distances separating the magnet and the “Now let me ask you a question. Have you attracted particles, and also that each ever seen a small bar magnet placed within the magnetized particle had two poles, a positive field of attraction of a large electromagnet? Of and a negative pole, or a north pole and a

  course you have, and you have noticed that,

  south pole, as they are usually called?”

  when the north pole of the bar magnet was

  I

  nodded.

  pointed toward the electromagnet, the bar was

  “Consider for a moment that the laws

  attracted. However, when the bar was reversed of magnetism, insofar as concerns the relation and the south pole pointed toward the

  between distance and power of attraction, are electromagnet, the bar was still attracted. You exactly matched by the laws of gravitation.”

  doubtless remember that experiment.”

  “But there the similarity between the

  “But in that case the magnetism of the

  two forces ends,” I interrupted.

  electromagnet was so large that the polarity of

  “But there the similarity does not end,”

  the small magnet was reversed!” I cried.

  he said sharply. “That is the crux of the

  “Exactly, and the field of gravity of the