iwMtmow
NOVEMBER
1929
7 CENTS
Canacla30<
HUGO GERNSBACK
Science /iviation Stories
J/lCK\m
PI
If
I-'
Ip
1 J
M irKW
K
Grandfather Walked-
Father Motored
YOU WILL FLY!
If the sound of ROARING motors, or the very thought of
racing thru the sky makes you “tingle” with joy, then you
arc among the lucky ones for whom Fame and Fortune
await !
The present demand for trained flyers is so overwhelming,
that a Pilot can easily command a starting salary of $5,000
a year. This is not a mere statement — it is a POSITIVE
FACT — and comes from reliable authority.
A time is coming — and it is not far off — when airplanes will
be as common as automobiles. Aviation may even surpass
the automotive industry, as it has been conclusively proven
that the airplane can be depended upon for Safe and Swift
transportation.
THIS IS AN AGE OF SPEED!
'*
That is why good judgment will tell you to enroll at GREER
COLLEGE — because it is a j Pioneer and a Leader in the
profession of teaching. Because it has been training men
for responsible positions for (Tver 27 years!
Greer trained men arc AI^STERS OF THE AIR! The
new 1929 Wacos and other planes, as well as the Flying
Instructors at the 3 Greej* Airports are licensed by the
United States Department pf Commerce.
i
After completing your training at one of these flying fields
under the personal supervision of a licensed transport Pilot,
you will trnlj' be able fo say: “I HAVE WON MY
WINGS I”
From then on there will be no limit to your earning power—
It will depend entirely upon your own efforts and qualific-
ations !
In the near future distance between cities will be measured
in terms of HOURS instead of miles. The traveling sales-
man of today will be the FLYING representative of to-
morrow'. Companies that now operate fleets of taxi-cabs on
the streets will maintain squadrons of taxies for air service.
Send for YOUR copy of the new Greer Aviation book just
off the press. Every page contains an interesting story which
will take you thru the 12 floors of Greer Shops and Labora-
tories where you will see students actually at work !
Railroads, steamship lines, manufacturers, jobbers and prac-
tically all industries will rely upon competent pilots, expert
mechanics and sturdy planes because they will be able to
buy and sell, import and export, bring and deliver their
wares QUICKER and cheapep,-’'
These things will soon become realities. THEN . . . Pilots
and Mechanics will vie for Supremacy I
SKILL WILL COUNT!
The best trained men will lead the field. They w'ill hold
the most important and highest-salaried positions in the
Aviation industry. Those of lesser qualifications will take
their pick of the “leavings,” while the Cream of the Crop
will go as just rewards to the men who were willing to
PREPARE — men who w'ere not afraid to make a sacrifice
for the sake of their future — men who will thoroughly un-
derstand the HOW and WHY of Aviation I
MODEL OF AMPHIBIAN
This giant Air liner has a 72-foot wing spread, a seating capacity
of 12, and is powered by three 300 H.P. motors. It was built
by Greer students under the supervision of Govt., licensed Pilots
and Mechanics.
Your financial success a year from now depends on what
you are TODAY — Begin your career in the world’s most fas-
cinating profession NOW . . . while it is uncrowded and
beckons with open^rms. Thousands of dollars are paid
monthly to skilled Pilots and Mechanics — .A. share is waiting
for .YOU !
Take advantage of the greatest opportunity of your life —
Act Quick — ■
MAIL THE COUPON AT ONCE!
I GREER COLLEGE
I Aviation, Division REM 1129
I 2024 S. Wabash Avenue,
I Chicago, Illinois.
I Without obligation, please RUSS me a copy of your new book
j "WINNING YOUR WINGS!" I am interested in the training marked
I below,
■ □ No. 1. Pilot’s Ground Course
I □ No. 2. Complete Mechanic’s Course
I □ No. 3. Private Pilot’s Flying
I □ No. 4. Limited Commercial Pilot’s Flying Course
I □ No. 5. Transport Pilot’s Flying Course
I □ No. 6. Private Pilot Flying Course
I Name Age
j Address
! City State
< Employment service is offered FREE to Greer students. Please state
f whether you would be interested in a full or part-time position while
J training. YES NO
AIR WONDER STORIES
385
“What? learn Music
by Mail ?’ they lauyhed
- ..w fc,ui ^uuiiin I snore
a teacher, and couldn't think of spending years ii
practice. I described how I had read the U S
bchool of Music ad. and how Fred bet me J
couldn t learn to play by mail.
“Folks,” I untinued, "it was the biggest sue-
prise of my life when I got the first lesson. I|
was fun rigM from the start, everything as simpit
as A-B-L. There were no scales or tiresome ex-
? ** required was part of my spare
* short time I was playing jazz, das-
W. "L, anyiliing I wanted. Be-
rnal ;ith Frod." ’
Play Any Instrument
You, too can now ieach yourself to be an ac-
complished musician— right at home— in half the
with ‘his simple
'nethod which has already shown over half a
million ^ple how to play their favorite instru-
old-fashioned idet
that you need special "talent.” Just read the list
decide which one you
”0 ntatter which instru-
ment you choose, the cost in each case will be the
® day. No mat-
® "’"■o beginner or already a
interested in learn-
ing about this new and wonderful method.
Send for Our Free Booklet and
Demonstration Lesson
Thousands of successful students never dream-
possessed musical ability until it was re-
a remarkable “Musical Ability
lest which we send entirely without cost with
our interesting free booklet.
If you are in earnest about wanting to play
your favorite instrument— if you really want fo
gain happiness and increase your popularity — send
at once for the Free Booklet and Free Demon-
mlfhlSl" Vi!'*'’? ^1'“''' .“idcins this remarkable
method. The booklet will also tell you all about
the amazing new Automatic Finger Control, No
cost— no obligation. Sign and send the conven-
ient coupon now. Instruments supplied when
?nn*R .y- School of Music.
5011 Brunswick Bldg., N. Y. C.
U. 8. School of Music.
oOll Brunswick Bldg., Now York City,
Please send me your free book. "Music Lossoai In
Your Own Home. ’ with Introdurtlon by Dr. Frank Crane
Free Domonalratlon Lesson and particulars of your easy
payment plan. I am Interested In the following course;
Hare You
— .Instr. f
Name —
Address
City a.
""yes, I cried, land III bet
money lean do it,r
I T all started one day after lunch. The
office crowd was in the recreation-room,
smoking and talking, while I thumbed
through a magazine.
‘‘Why so quiet, Joe?” some one called to
me.
‘‘Just reading an ad,” I replied, ‘‘all
about a new way to learn music by mail.
Says here any one can learn to play in a
few months at home, without a teacher.
Sounds easy, the way they tell about it.”
‘‘Ha, ha,” laughed Fred Lawrence, ‘‘do
you suppose they would say it was hard?"
‘‘Perhaps not,” I came back, a bit peeved,
“but it sounds so reasonable I thought I’d
write them for their booklet.”
Well, maybe I didn’t get a razzing then !
Finally Fred Lawrence sneered; “Why
it’s absurd. The poor fellow really believes
he can learn music by mail I”
To this day I don’t know what made me
come back at him. Perhaps it was because
I really was ambitioifs to learn to play the
piano. Anyhow, before I knew it I’d cried,
“Yes, and I’ll bet money I can do it.” But
the crowd only laughed harder than ever.
Suppose I Was Wrong—
As I walked upstairs to my desk I began
to reget my haste. Suppose
that music course wasn’t
what the ad said. Suppose it
was too difficult for me. And
how did I know I had even
the least bit of talent to help
me out. If I fell down, the
boys in the office would have
the laugh on me for life. But
just as I was beginning to
weaken, my lifelong ambition
to play and my real love of
music came to the rescue.
And I decided to go tlirough
with the whole thing.
During the few months
that followed, Fred Lawrence
never missed a chance to give me a sly dig about
my bet. And the boys always got a good laugh,
too. But I never said a word. I was waiting
patiently for a chance to get the last laugh myseif.
My Chance Arrives
Things began coming my way during the office
outing at Pine Grove. After lunch it rained, and
we all sat around inside looking at each other.
Suddenly some one spied a piano in the corner.
“Who can play?" every one began asking. Natu*
rally, Fred Lawrence saw a fine chance to have
some fun at my expense, and he got right up.
“Ladies and gentlemen," be began, “our friend
Joe, the music master, has consented to give us a
recital."
That gave the hoys a good laugh. And some
of them got on either side of me and with mock
dignity started to escort me to the piano. I could
hear a girl say, “Oh, let the Mor fellow alone;
can’t you see he's mortified to death?"
The Last Laugh
I smiled to myself. This was certainly a won-
derful setting for my little surprise party. Assum-
ing a scared look, I stumbled over to the piano
while the crowd tittered.
“Play 'The Varsity Drag*," shouted Fred,
thinking to embarrass me further.
I began fingering the keys and then . . . with a
wonderful feeling of cool confidence ... I broke
right into the very selection that Fred asked for.
There was a sudden hush in the room as I made
that old piano talk. But in a few minutes I
heard a fellow jump to his feet and shout, “Be*
lieve me, the boy is there f Let's dance 1"
Table and chairs were pushed aside, and soon
the whole crowd was shuffling around having a
whale of a time. Nobody would hear of my stop-
ping, least of all the four fellows
who were singing in harmony
right at my elbow. So I played
one peppy selection after another
until I finished with “Crazy
Rhythm" and the crowd stopped
dancing and singing to applaud
me. As I turned around to
thank them, there was Fred hold-
ing a ten-spot right under m:^
nose.
“Folks," he said, addressing
the crowd again, “I want to
apologize publicly to joe. I bet
him he couldn’t learn to play by
mail, and believe me, he sure
deserves to win the money!”
“Learn to play by mailP' ex-
claimed a dozen people. “That
sounds impossible! T'ell ua hour
you did itl"
1 was only too glad to tell them
What Instrument
for
You?
Plane
Guitar
Organ
Piccolo
violin
Hawaiian Steel
Banjo
Guitar
(Plectriini,
Drums and
3*6trinQ or
Traps
Tenor)
Mandolin
Clarinet
’Cello
Flute
Ukulele
Haro
Trombone
Cornet
Saxophone
Sight
Singing
Voice and
Speech Culture
Harmony and Compos *^ion
Automatic
Finger Control
Piano
Accordion
Italian and German Accordion
Volume 1 — No. 5
Nfo 5 Publicatioa Office, 404 North Wesley Avenoe, Mt. Mocri^ llUnots Nnv
Editorial and General Offices, 96-98 Park Place, New Yoric Gty
Published bf
STELLAR PUBUSHING CORPORATION
H. GERNSBACK, Pres. 1. S. MANHEIMER, Sec’y. S. GERNSBACK, Tress.
November, 1929
Table of Contents
November
CITIES IN THE AIR
(A story in 2 parts) (Part 1)
By Edmond Hamilton 390
WriEN SPACE RIPPED OPEN
By Ralph W. Wilkins 412
SUITCASE AIRPLANES
By E. D. Skinner 424
BEYOND THE AURORA
By Ed Earl Repp 430
THE SECOND SHELL
By Jack Williamson 442
THE CRYSTAL RAY
By Raymond Gallun . 452
WHAT IS YOUR AVIATION
KNOWLEDGE?
Aviation Questionnaire 458
AVIATION NEWS 462
AVIATION FORUM 465
THE READER AIRS HIS VIEWS
Letters From Our Readers .467
On the Cover This Month
is illustrated Edmond Hamilton’s wonderful
story QTIES IN THE AIR. Here we see 'he
future air city of New York suspended high in
the ait kept aloft by the cosmic rays and made
mobile by the mysterious propeller tubes. The
city can rise above storms and, if necessary, above
clouds to escape rains and snow. In the center
we see the electrostatic tower which gathers the
energy for the city’s operation.
NEXT MONTH
THE FUGHT OF THE EASTERN STAR, by Ed Earl Repp. A
story of the year 2000. Mr. Repp’s star continues to rise in his latest
offering of aviation fiction. He hu looked into the future of air trans-
portation very deeply, and out of it he evolved this most thrilling ad-
venture. Finely conceived science, human adventures and thrilling
dimaxes race side by side in this stanling story. To those of you who
remember the thrilling rescues of ships at sea that featured the news-
papiers not long ago there will be offered in THE FLIGHT OF THE
EASTERN STAR a still more thrilling parallel.
FREEDOM OF THE SKIES, by Edsel Newton. At present the
highways of the sky ate free from many of the limitations that are as-
sociated with the land and the sea, but as air travel increases and be-
comes more and more a part of every day life this may not be true.
There will undoubtedly come pirates of the air just as there have been
pirates of the sea and highwaymen on land. Attempts undoubtedly will
be made to control the air for selfish purposes, and, when this comes,
the forces on the side of liberty will wage a great fight against the
pirates. In this astounding adventure, Mr. Newton takes us into the
future of air travel and gives us a swift moving story.
THE PHANTOM OF GALON, by J. W. Ruff. This story will
serve to introduce the talent of one of our new writers. Strange things
happen in the story when great nations find themselves at the mercy of
a man possessed of uncommon scientific power. Many new instrument-
alities of science and thrilling incidents are used by Mr. Ruff to weave
them together into a masterpiece of aviation fiction. The action of the
story becomes more and more intense and then it ends suddenly with
a revelation that leaves us breathless. We are sure you will all agree
with us that Mr. Ruff is one of the most promising of our new authors.
CITIES IN THE AIR, by Edmond Hamilton. This marvelous story
of the future comes in this issue, to its startling culmination. The
whole world shakes with war with vast aggregations of Powers massing
their forces against each other in a death grip. You will get in this
concluding instalment the most marvelous prophetic pictures of the
future. It is in short a most stanling conception that you must not miss.
AND OTHERS
AIR WONDER STORIES is published on ihc 10th of the preceding month.
12 numbers per year, subscription price is |2.J0 a year in United States and
its possessions. In Canada and foreign countries, $3.00 a year. Single
copies 25c, Address all communications for publication to Editor, AIR
WONDER STORIES, 96*9B Park Place, New York. Publishers arc not
responsible for lost Mss. Contributions cannot be returned unless authors
remit full postage.
AIR WONDER STORIES — Monthly — Entered as second-class matter June
1 , 1929, at the post office at Mount Morris, Illinois, under the Act of
March 3, 1079. Title registered U. S. Patent Office. Trademarks and
copyrights by permission of Gernsback Publications, Inc., 98 Park Place,
New York City, Owner of all trademark rights. Copyright 1929, by G. P.,
Inc. Text and illustrations of this magazine are copyright and must not
be reproduced without permission of the copyright owners.
AIR WONDER STORIES is for sale at principal newsstands in the United
States and Canada. European agents: Brentano's, London and Paris. Print-
ed in U. S. A.
IF YOU WISH TO SUBSCRIBE to AIR WONDER STORIES, make out all
remittances to the Stellar Publishing Corp. Be sure to mention the name
of the magazine you wish to subscribe for, as we are also agents for the
following magazines: RADIO-CRAFT and SCIENCE WONDER STORIES,
subscription price of which is the same as AIR WONDER STORIES.
SCIENCE WONDER ST 9 RIES QUARTERLY. $1.75 a year. Subscriptions
can be made in combination with the above publications at a reduced club
rate. Ask for information.
Subscriptions start with current issues. WHEN YOUR SUBSCRIPTION
EXPIRES, we enclose a renewal blank in the last number. No subscrip-
tions continued unless renewal remittance received.
Change of Address. Always give us old as well as new address and
notify us as far in advance as possible.
STELLAR PUBLISHING CORPORATION
Publication Office, AOA North Wealey Ave., Mt. Morris, Illinois. Editorial and General Offices, 96-98 Park Place, New York City.
AIR WONDER STORIES
387
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The Future of Aviation Springs from the Imagination
Hugo Gernsback, Editor~in-Ch:e{
DAVID LASSER, Literary Editor FRANK R. PAUL, Art Director
Associate Aviation Editors
MAJOR WILUAM A. BEVAN, B.S., M.S., M.E., PROFESSOR GEORGE J. HIGGINS, B.S. Aero. Eng.
Air Corps^ Reserve Associate Professor Aeronautical Engineering, Univ. of Detroit
Professor Aeronautical Engineering, Iowa State College
PROFESSOR EARL D. HAY, B.S., M.S., M.E. PROFESSOR FEUX W. PAWLOWSKI, M. & E.E., M.S.
Head Department Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and Department of Aeronautical Engineering,
Professor of Aeronautics, University of Kansas University of Michigan
PROFESSOR JOHN E. YOUNGER, B.S., M.S., Ph.D.
Dept, Mechanical Engineering, University of California
These aeronautical experts pass upon the scientific principles of all stories
Airplanes MUST Have Radio
By HUGO GERNSBACK
recent loss of the transcontinental airplane
Francisco demonstrates how far
gwB mBW commercial aviation lags behind scientific ad-
pyS gfESiq lll vancement. So far as we can learn, none of
our transcontinental air lines use complete radio
sending and receiving sets as standard equip-
ment on their passenger planes.
There is, of course, nothing novel about radio equipment
on airplanes; because it has long proved successful when-
ever installed on aircraft. For some reason, however (based
mainly on the extra weight which is thereby necessitated)
the air-transport companies are reluctant to carry a radio
operator and his apparatus. There is, however, no valid
reason why automatic or semi-automatic radio equipment
should not be installed on every passenger plane.
When radio was young, it was speedily recognized by the
authorities everywhere as being essential to the safety of
ships at seas ; and laws were passed making it compulsory
for all passenger vessels to carry radio equipment and
licensed operators. The wisdom of this legislation has been
so often demonstrated that it requires no discussion today.
We have today exactly the same condition with regard
to aerial passenger traffic; and we hope for the passage in
the United States (as in other countries) of laws to compel
the installation Of complete radio sets on every plane which
carries passengers. Since we have just witnessed the tragedy
of the City of San Francisco — which remained a mystery
for six days and aroused the entire country because of the
mysterious disappearance of the plane and its passengers — it
is not necessary to advance much argument to prove the
proposition that radio sending and receiving apparatus must
be carried on all existing and future aircraft.
The recent round-the-world trip of the dirigible Graf
Zeppelin has shown what tremendous service radio equip-
ment gives during flight, by keeping the aircraft in touch with
land at, practically, all times.
In the case of the City of San Francisco, the value of
carrying radio equipment is likely to be questioned by some.
Aviation experts might offer the argument that, even though
the T.A.T. airplane had been equipped with radio, no purpose
would have been served, because it is doubtful that there was
an opportunity to use it. The crash came when the airplane
flew against the side of a mountain ; and it is most probable
that the pilot did not realize how close he was to the
mountain until one or two seconds before the crash. What
good, then, they might ask, would the best radio set have
been, if there was no time to use it? Yet this is no argument
at all; for the following reasons:
Every airplane should be equipped with a semi-automatic
radio set which requires no operator to use it. There are
already in existence and use, radio transmitters which by
means of automatic machinery can send out certain signals;
or if necessary, the pilot himself can use a short-wave radio
telephone set, which need not have a range greater than 2$
or 50 miles. This, then, would be the procedure:
On the ground along the airlane, every 25 or miles,
there would be located a radio receiving set to pick up the
sigpials as the planes pass overhead; this would be similar
to the block signals of the railroad. If there were such
ground stations then, if an airplane came to a sudden crash
— as did the City of San Francisco — the location of the plane
could have been easily determined as being between two
points; that is, the ground station last spoken to and the
one immediately ahead which had not yet been reached.
The search therefore would narrow itself down to a com-
paratively small area.
Not all planes, however, when in trouble will come to such
an untimely end as the unlucky T.A.T. plane; but many air-
craft in the future will have to make forced landings. Then
the radio set will become of even greater importance ; be-
cause the location can be given immediately and assistance
can be quickly brought to the wrecked plane. This will be of
great importance in night flying and during the winter, when
snow covers the ground and it is necessary to reach a dis-
abled plane speedily in order to rescue passengers and crew.
Most of the arguments against radio on planes heretofore
advanced are based on the necessity of having a radio oper-
ator, and the additional weight of the radio set. This no
longer need worry us; because there are nowadays avail-
able very compact and light radio sets which complete, weigh
less than 75 pounds. If regulations are made that the pilots
of passenger planes must have a training in radio, the argu-
ment about the additional radio operator also falls away. It
is comparatively simple to understand a radio-telephone set
and, if such is not desired, it is possible to use a semi
automatic set which is operated by merely pressing a button
and which will send out automatic signals as the plane flies
over its respective ground-control stations.
Incidentally, if the ground-control stations are also utilized
to send out weather reports, warning of storms lying ahead
directly in the path of the airplanes, many accidents can
thus be prevented. No extra operator is required, because
this information can be given by radio telephone; and all the
air operator or attendant need do after reporting his pro-
gress is to listen to the ground station for a reply.
If this system had been used with the City of San Fran-
cisco, the plane might have been warned ; and thus it might
have taken a different course or come down to earth, instead
of flying on an unknown course.
389
Our guoncrs, following die orders of the First Air Chief, were
concentrating their fire on the European column’s bead, tfaeie
in the ocean’s green depths.
AP^AIN Martin Brant, of American Fed
eration Air-Cruiser 3885 !”
As the high clear voice rang through
the bridge-room of my racing cruiser, I
turned toward the distance-phone from
which it issued. Pressing a stud beneath the instrument
I answered into it.
X i t- (' ■
“Captain Brant speaking.”
“Order of the First Air Chief to Captain Brant: You
are informed that the European and Asiatic Federa-
tions have combined in alliance to launch a great and
unexpected attack upon the American Federation. The
European Federation fleet of five thousand air-cruisers
is now racing over the Atlantic toward NewYork and
other eastern cities, while the Asiatic Federation fleet
of the same size is heading over the Pacific toward our
western coasts. All American cruisers patrolling east
of the Mississippi, including your own, are ordered to
head at full speed toward New York, where our east-
ern squadrons are assembling to meet the European
Federation fleet. Upon arriving there yourself and all
other squadron commanders will report at once to the
First Air Chief.”
The clear voice ceased, and I turned from the dis-
tance-phone to meet the startled eyes of Macklin, my
first officer, who stood at the cruiser’s wheel beside me.
“Head eastward — full speed, Macklin!” I cried to
him. “It’s war at last — war with the European and
Asiatic Federations 1”
Instantly Macklin swung over the wheel in his hands,
and as he did so the whole long bulk of our cruiser
swung likewise in mid-air, curving up and backward to
race eastward above the green plains, the descending
sun at our backs. A moment more and the cruiser’s long
torpedo shape, gleaming and unbroken metal save for
the rows of portholes and the raised, transparent-walled
bridge-room in which we stood, was splitting the air
eastward at a speed that mounted with each moment. I
reached for the order-phone, and as Hilliard, my young
second-officer, answered from the motor-rooms beneath,
I informed him briefly of what had just been told me.
Then there was a muffled cheer from the hundred-odd
members of our crew, beneath, and a few minutes
later the drone of the great motors had reached to an
even higher pitch, and we were racing through the sun-
light high above the earth at more than a thousand
miles an hour.
Standing there with Macklin in the bridge-room as
we shot eastward, though, my thoughts were grave
enough despite the exciting quality of the news we had
just heard. War! — the war that we of the American
390
CITIES IN THE AIR
By the Author of ''The Hidden World’’
Federation had expected, had feared for decades. It
had not been more than thirty years since the third Air
War of 2039. Three mighty nations alone now shared
the world between them ; the American Federation, com-
prising the whole North and South American continents,
with New York as its capital; the European Federation,
which included all Europe west of
Caucasus and all Africa, its center at
Berlin; and the Asiatic Federation,
which held all Asia and Australasia
for the brown and yellow races, with
Peking as its capital.
And though for three decades
now there had been peace between
them, it had been an uneasy peace dic-
tated by the fact that each feared to
attack another lest he be attacked by
the third. The great navies of afr-
cruisers of the three mighty Federa-
tions had patrolled the air in ceaseless
vigilance, their air-forts ever watch-
ful. Lately, however, it had become
apparent to all that a rapprochement
had taken place between tbe European
and Asiatic Federations, and such an
alliance could only mean an attack up-
on our own, the American. So we
had stood even more vigilantly upon the watch, and how
that for which we had waited had come at last, and the
two great Federations had launched their two mighty
fleets upon us.
Gazing ahead, as our cruiser drove onward, I was as
silent as Macklin, at the wheel beside me, and as young
Hilliard, who had come
up into the bridge-room
from beneath. Far be-
neath us the green plains
were rolling swiftly
backward, as our motors
hummed their unceasing
song of power. Those
great electric motors
drew their current in
limitless quantities from
the electrostatic o r at-
mospheric electricity
surrounding the earth, by
means of great trans-
formers that changed it
from electrostatic to cur-
rent electricity to give
us a power that could
hurl us forward with al-
most unlimited endurance
and speed. Connected as
they were to our great
horizontal tube - propel-
ers, which were set in the
cruiser’s walls and which
moved it forward by
drawing immense vol-
umes of air at vast speed
through themselves from
ahead, those motors could
fling us on at more than
a thousand miles an hour.
This utmost force, as our
indicators told us, was shooting us eastward now.
Beneath us the green plains had given way to the
great tumbled folds and peaks of the Alleghanies.
Somewhere to the south lay Pittsburgh, and to the
north Cleveland and Buffalo, but being headed directly
to New York, we therefore did not see them. Beneath
us we could make out in swift flashes
of vision masses of the air-traffic be-
tween those cities, great passenger-
liners and bulky freight-carriers and
slender private craft, but in our own
military-craft level there moved only
a few cruisers like our own racing
eastward toward New York in answer
to the alarm. With these, however,
there was small danger of collision.
Now the Alleghanies had dropped
behind and we were rocketing over
the rolling, pleasant countryside that
lies between them and the eastern Ap-
palachians. As we shot on I gazed
downward, over the green and silent
and empty landscape rushing beneath
us, and wondered momentarily what a
citizen of fifty years ago would have
thought to see this once-ipopulous land
over which we were speeding lying
as lifeless and deserted beneath us as it was now. Then
it had given way to the greater folds and ridges of the
Appalachians, and then, as we shot on and over their
tumbled masses, Macklin lifted his hand from the wheel
to point ahead.
“The air-forts!” he said.
On to New York
S WIFTLY they were
looming before us as
we rushed on toward
them, giant domed cubes
of dull metal, each five
hundred feet in width,
that hung in a great,
curving line in mid-air
before us, five miles
above the green land. At
intervals of five miles
they hung, floating mo-
tionless there in a great
grim chain or ring, the
metal sides and dome of
each bristling with great
heat-guns like those of
our own cruisers, and
with narrow openings
from which the oc-
cupants could gaze forth.
Each of these great air-
forts, we knew, was sus-
pended thus high above
the ground by the gra-
vity repelling effect of
the cosmic rays. It had
been but fifty years
since the machinery had
been discovered which
directed the great power
of the cosmic rays to
EDMOND HAMILTON
is one of the most extraordinary stories ^
that it has been our good fortune to read. ||
For sheer audacity in construction, excellence in
science and breath-taking adventure, this story
undoubtedly ' stands in the foreground of science
air-fiction stories of the year.
The recent advances in aeronautics where air-
planes have been in the air for weeks at a time
without coming down to the ground, point the way
for tremendous achievements in the generations
to come.
City life today is a conglomeration of structures
close together. W e have buildings now that house
as many as 40,000 people at one time and soon
we will have single business buildings that will
house 100,000 and more individuals at the same
time. Furthermore, every doctor will tell you
that living at the surface of the earth is usually
unhealthy because of the dust and the high density
of the air, which gives rise to most pulmonary
diseases, particularly consumption, colds and the
like. At high altitudes such diseases tend to dis-
appear. Therefore physicians usually send their
afflicted patients to the higher altitudes.
You may be sure that conditions such as are
described by the author of this marvelous story
will come about sooner or later.
We also know that this story will arouse a great
storm of discussion among our readers, due par-
ticularly to the audacity of the author in picturing
his ideas as to futttre aviation — which by the zvay
will not seem so fantastic two hundred years ,m
"Whence as they might seem now. ^
391
392
AIR WONDER STORIES
overcome the force of gravity. It had been found that
the rays could be collected and their power concentrated
in the structures that they were to support. Dynamic
towers were used for the collection of this great limit-
less energy.
In a great ring they hung before us, the line of
them curving away vastly to right and left, a great
ring that encircled and defended New York, as air-
forts hang in rings about all air-cities for defence.
Then as we drove toward the nearest of these great
fortresses of the air, there came from the distance-
phone before me its sharp challenge.
Swiftly I replied to that challenge and then we were
driving past the air-fort, past the openings in, its walls
through which we could see those inside standing ready
at the great heat-guns. We heard faintly their cheers
as we flashed past them toward the east ; we cheered
ourselves somewhat by the sight of the air-forts. They
could maneuver in space in any direction, though at
only a fraction of the speed of the air-cruisers. They
would form a stubborn defence for New York, we
knew, though incapable of meeting alone a swift in-
vading fleet. But now far ahead, as we rushed within
the mighty ring of the air-forts, we glimpsed the gray
gleam of the Atlantic’s vast expanse, stretching away
to the east, the green, irregular coastline, the narrow
little island, between a larger island and that coast, that
had been the site of the New York of fifty years be-
fore. Green and deserted as all the countryside be-
hind us it lay now, but I glanced at it only, looking up
as there came a low exclamation from Hilliard, beside
me.
“New York I”
Full before us lay the mighty city, now, waxing with
each moment greater as we raced on toward it. The
air about and beneath us was filled with the great
swarms of cruisers like our own and of merchant-traf-
fic that was converging from north and west and
south upon it. For the moment we three gazed to-
ward it, forgetful of the peril that had brought us to
it. We were caught and entranced as always by the
splendid and superb beauty of this New York. For
it was a New York immeasurably different from that
city upon the earth, that decades ago had born its
name. It was a city, not of the earth, but of the
air.
It was a city whose close-clustered spires and towers
and pyramids had been gathered together upon a vast
metal disk-like base, and hung suspended five miles
above the green earth! It was circular in form and
of five miles diameter, the colossal metal base or disk
upon which it rested more than a thousand feet in
thickness, the metal buildings and towers that rose
from that base and were integral with it soaring for
five thousand feet farther upward! A colossal city
floating there in the air, with its streets and buildings
swarming with activity, with thronging hordes, and
with ppreat masses of fear-driven craft speeding through
the air toward it from all directions.
A city of the air ! Suspended by huge batteries of
great electrostatic motors in its base, motors that drew
the exhaustless energy of earth’s atmospheric elec-
tricity from countless slender pinnacles that soared from
the central plaza; whence the current was conducted
along cables within the pinnacles to the giant motors be-
neath. The cities too were suspended by the gravity-
repelling quality of the collected cosmic rays. To this
had mankind come, at last. The flimsy airplanes of a
good century before, with their little endurance records
of weeks a:nd months in the air, had given way to the
great electric-driven cruisers which drew their power
from the static about them, and which could stay aloft
indefinitely. And then had come the great air-forts, held
aloft in the same way, and finally, when the great air-
wars had made life upon the ground so unsafe as to
approach suicide, then had come the construction of
giant metal cities, on huge metal bases, that contained
enough great motors and tube-propellers to hold them-
selves in any direction at moderate speed.
The Great Conference
S UCH now were all the cities of earth ; Chicago, San
Francisco, Buenos Aires, Berlin and Tokio. Great
cities that hung always in mid-air, usually near the
sites of those viiished cities of earth from which they
had gained their names. But the air cities could move
from place to place now and then for better climate
or defence. These great cities held within them all
the world’s population; the earth beneath being used
only for the mining of metallic ores and the minerals
used in the creation of the s)mthetic foods and fabrics
now universal.
The great cities were each protected by a ring of air-
forts, and also by great batteries of heat-guns set with-
in their own walls. A hundred of such huge air-cities
there were in the American Federation, holding in
their colossal masses of clustered sky-flung towers an
average of five million inhabitants each. And in the
European and Asiatic Federations combined, I knew,
there were more than two hundred mighty cities of the
air.
Now, though, it was the huge air-city of New York
that held all our attention, and as we rushed closer
toward it I saw that above it, above the panic-driven
masses of aircraft that were swirling down to take
refuge within it, there hung squadron upon squadron
of cruisers like our own, over two thousand in number,
hanging there in grim, motionless ranks, as though
unconscious of the swarming, fear-driven activity in
the huge city beneath them. From every quarter other
cruisers were arriving to join those squadrons, cruisers
that came like our own from patrols over the green
inland plains, from above the icy Labrador wastes, from
over the jungle-bordered Caribbean coasts, all rush-
ing to answer the call to arms. As our own ship neared
the city, we headed down toward the central plaza.
“Straight down to the central plaza, Macklin,” I
said. “The First Air Chief will be there and orders
are to report to him first.”
Macklin had already slowed our ship’s speed, and
now as we drove to a position beside the aspiring cen-
tral pinnacle, with its clustered points, the city’s static-
tower, he turned the power of our motors completely
from our horizontal tube-propellers, into our vertical
ones, which held us motionless in mid-air. Then, as
he slowly decreased that power, we sank smoothly down
until in a moment more we had come to rest upon the
smooth central plaza among a score or more of other
cruisers. These rested in a great ring about the plaza’s
edge, their crews waiting within them, but at the center
of that ring, beside the mighty static-tower’s base, stood
a little group of men, the First Air Chief, Yarnall, and
his squadron-commanders.
As our cruiser came to rest I opened the door be-
neath the bridge-room, and stepped onto the metal
plaza and across it toward that group. Around the
great plaza, T noted, were vast, seething crowds, thou-
sands upon thousands of the mighty air-city’s inhabi-
CITIES IN THE AIR
393
tants. Other thousands were gazing down toward us
from the towers that soared around us into the golden
afternoon sunlight. These people, watching us and
the mighty fleet hanging grimly far above, were silent,
but from beyond them there came to my ears from
far across the air-city’s mighty mass, the dull roar of
millions of blended voices, in unceasing, excited shouts.
Then I reached the First Air Chief and the group be-
fore him, my hand snapped to a salute, which Yamall
silently returned. And then, gazing for a moment in
silence from one to another of us, his strong face and
gray eyes grave, he began to speak to us.
"You, the squadron-commanders of our eastern
forces,” he said, “know why you have been summoned
here, why I, under the orders of the Federation’s Cen-
tral Council, have summoned here you and all the
cruisers that wait above us. The great European Fed-
eration fleet, twice as large as our forces, is rushing
westward over the Atlantic toward us, and within the
hour we must meet that fleet in battle.”
He paused, and in the silence that ensued the dull,
dim roar of the great city about us seemed suddenly
infinitely remote from our ears. Then the First Air
'Chief went on.
“Within the hour we must meet that fleet in battle
and as we go out to mert it our western forces will
be going out from San Francisco, under the command
of the Second Air Chief, to meet the Asiatic Federa-
tion fleet racing eastward toward it. And upon those
two battles rests now the fate of our nation. If they
are lost, if either of thiem is lost, within days our nation
will be but a memory, our cities annihilated. If the
two approaching fleets are defeated and beaten back,
then we shall have won for ourselves a respite in which
we can prepare to meet the great enemies that crowd
now upon us. So I say to you, the Central Council
says to you, that this battle must not be lost I
“The fleet that we must meet has twice the number
of cruisers of our own, and there have been rumors of
some new method being prepared by them with which
to attack us, now or later. We have to aid us only the
air-forts about this city, which have been equipped
with a new device. I have ordered them to move east
of the city to lie between it and the enemy. This great
air-city itself, when we go out from it, will move inland
at its highest speed away from the battle, just as Bos-
ton and Charleston and Miami and San Francisco
and Los Angeles and all our great air-cities, north and
south. There will be, therefore, none but our cruisers
gathered above and our air-forts massing eastward to
fight this battle upon which the Central Council has
staked our fate.
"But great as these odds are against us, this battle
must not be lost! We are the sons of the Americans
who fought through the First and Second and Third
Air Wars, who reared this nation out of the blood of
a thousand air battles until now its hundred air-cities
hold in their power a third of all the world. And now
that the rest of that world comes against us, the Last
Air War begins. My word to you is this: Fight only
as those men before you fought, and before tomorrow
the European Federation fleet shall have been beaten
back — or the last of our cruisers and our air-forts and
ourselves will have perished I”
There was silence as the First Air Chief ceased, and
then from us assembled commanders there broke a
great cheer, a cheer that was taken up by the massed
thousands around the plaza and that spread like fire
over all the great air-city about us. Then we all
returned toward our waiting cruisers, the First Air
Chief toward his own, and a moment later his cruiser,
with its three parallel stripes of silver running from
stem to stern distinguishing it from all others, was
rising smoothly upward, followed by our own. Up-
ward we shot, a vast roar coming up to us from the
mighty floating city beneath us. Then our score or
more of ships were taking their places each at the
head of its squadron of a hundred ships, while the
First Air Chief in his silver-striped flagship rushed to
a position at the head of all. There we hung, the
dull, great roar coming unceasingly up to us from the
city below, and then as an order sounded from the
distance-phones of all the fleet we were moving for-
ward, eastward, out from over the great air-city, from
over the green coastline, out over the gray expanse of
the Atlantic.
With Macklin and Hilliard again beside me as our
own cruiser moved forward at its squadron’s head, we
three turned to glance back. We saw New York, its
mighty towers splendid against the descending sun,
moving also, but slowly westward and away from us,
away from the coming battle, dwindling to a dark spot
and vanishing as we raced on outward over the gray
Atlantic. Now we were racing above the great air-
forts that had massed in a great double line a score
of miles out from the coast, high above the waters.
Over these too we sped, at steadily mounting speed,
until with great motors droning, crews shouting as they
ran our heat-guns out from tops and sides and keels,
winds whining shrill about us, our great fleet reached
its maximum speed toward that great oncoming bat-
tle by which our Federation was to stand or fall.
CHAPTER II
The Battle Over the Atlantic
G azing ahead, MacWin and Hilliard and I stood
together in the bridge-room of our cruiser. The
squadron which we headed was at the lead of
one of our fleet’s great columns. Far behind us
stretched its ships, flashing forward at uniform speed.
Then from the dstance-phone before us came the First
Air Chief’s voice.
“Squadrons 1 to 6 take up scouting positions!” he
ordered.
Instantly the first six squadrons of the two columns,
our own one of the first, leapt forward and out from
the two great lines of the main fleet. Our own and
another squadron moved straight ahead, past the silver-
striped flagship of the First Air Chief, until our two
hundred sWps had spread out into a great, thin fringe
that was flying forward miles before the main body
of our fleet. Two of the other four squadrons drove
to right and left of the fleet, spreading their in the
same way, the remaining two taking up positions high
above and far beneath our two ^eat columns. Thus,
with its great lines of scouts fringing it and protect-
ing it from surprise on all sides, our great fleet drove
on toward the east over the gray and endless plain of
the Atlantic, holding at Yamall’s orders a speed of
eight hundred miles an hour.
The crimson descending sun flaming in the heavens
behind us, the great gray ocean stretching endlessly be-
neath us, we rushed on through empty sea and sky.
By then Hilliard had gone down to take up his posi-
tion with the crew breath, but Macklin and I still
stared into the great empty vista before us. With the
drone of our great motors and those of the scouts
394
AIR WONDER STORIES
flying beside us, we seemed like a great flight of bees.
Beneath there was no sound now from the crew, a
silence that told of the tenseless, of 'expectancy. But
still before us was no sign of the great fleet that we
had come out to meet, and almost it seemed that in spite
of our certain information as to its course we had
missed it, since already we were some hundreds of
miles out to sea. Then suddenly, as I gazed ahead, I
caught my breath, and the next moment had turned
swiftly to the distance-phone.
“Squadron 1 reporting,” I said rapidly. “The scouts
of the European Federation fleet are in sight and are
heading toward us!”
For there ahead a great line of dark dots had ap-
peared suddenly in the empty sky, a great fringe of
dark dots that were rushing toward us and that were
becoming quickly larger I With each moment that they
raced toward us they became larger, until they had
come plain to our eyes as long torpedo-shaped cruisers
like our own. They differed from our own only in
that their bridge-rooms, instead of being raised like
our own, were sunk flush with their upper-surfaces,
only their transparent forward-windows showing. They
were the scouts of the European fleet, and at the same
time I saw them they must have seen us, for they
changed their course slightly. So racing straight to-
ward us were five hundred cruisers opposing the two
hundred of our far-flung line. On and on they came,
and I saw momentarily far behind them a great cloud
of other cruisers, the mighty main body of the Euro-
pean fleet. I shouted the information into the distance-
phone. Then the next moment the speeding line of
cruisers before us had rushed straight into our own
onrushing line!
The next moment all the air about us seemed filled
with whirling, striking cruisers, as the two scouting
lines met and crashed. In that first moment a score
of our cruisers crumpled and collapsed in headlong
collisions with European cruisers. And then as Mack-
lin threw the wheel up at my hoarse cry, our own ship
heeled over with sickening speed to avoid two Euro-
pean cruisers hurtling straight toward us. Then as
we rushed by them there came the swift sharp detona-
tions of their great heat-guns and a storm of shining
cylindrical heat-shells rushed from them toward us.
At that moment Macklin swung our cruiser back up-
ward and over the two rushing European ships, and
as there came a word from Hilliard to the crew, our
own keel heat-guns rained down a score of heat-shells
upon the two ships. One of those ships the heat-
shells missed, but the. other was struck squarely by
three of them.
Instantly there was a blinding flare of white light
as the striking heat-shells burst, releasing upon the
luckless European ship all the terrific heat contained
within them, the vast vibrations of radiant heat. For
this was the most deadly weapon of modern air-war-
fare, these shining shells in which, by special processes,
the vibrations of intense radiant heat could be con-
centrated. And as those shells struck and burst upon
the luckless ship below we saw the ship hang motion-
less for a moment in the midst of that blinding flare,
its metal sides glowing and fusing. Then we saw it
plunge downward like a great meteor toward the
gray Atlantic!
' But now our own cruisers "were whirling up and
backward, back toward the struggling ships that hung
now in a mighty, struggling line. Like swooping
hawks our own craft flashed, diving down upon that
battling line with bow and keel guns raining heat-
shells upon the European ships below, racing down
at a giddy angle into that wild melee of struggling ships
and heat-shells that the combat there had become. So
wild and fierce had been the combat in the few moments
since we had met the European scouts that already
scores of ships had plunged down’in white-hot destruc-
tion toward the ocean. But we had, I saw, well ac-
counted for ourselves in those moments, since almost
twice as many of the .European cruisers had fallen as
our own, and they seemed staggered. Then as our
ships leapt like angry birds of prey after them, there
came a quick order from the distance-phone that abrupt-
ly halted us.
“Main body of European forces approaching! All
front and side scout-squadrons rejoin our fleet!”
Trapped!
I NSTANTLY Macklin whirled our cruiser again up
and back, and as the rest of our scout squadrons
turned and leaped back through the air after us, we
saw that the battered European scout-lines were re-
ceding also, racing back toward their own main fleet.
That mighty fleet was in full sight to the eastward
now, its five thousand great cruisers advancing majesti-
cally toward us in the familiar battle-formation of the
European Federation — ^a great ring or hollow circle of
ships. On they came, the scouts taking their place
within that circle with the rest. Then we, too, had
fallen back into place at the head of our own two great
columns, the silver-striped flagship of the First Air
Chief before us, and slowly now, with ten miles
more of clear air between them, the two giant armadas
were advancing toward each other.
Standing there with Macklin, heart pounding, I
gazed watchfully ahead as our fleet and the European
one swept nearer toward each other. We came each
withholding our fire for the moment, since the heat-
guns have but a short effective range. Although out-
numbered two to one, we were moving steadily toward
the oncoming giant circle of the enemy. Then sud-
denly the ships of the great European fleet, still holding
its circular formation, had leapt steeply upward with
sudden tremendous speed, to slant above us!
As they did so, a quick order rang from the distance-
phone and the two great columns of our fleet had
leapt upward also, up to the level of the other until a
split-second more would have seen us crashing head-
long into that oncoming circular fleet. I saw the air
before me filled with gleaming ships rushing lightning-
like towards us, heard another order ring out, and then
Macklin had swung our cruiser to the right and our
whole great fleet had divided, one column flashing like
light to the right of the oncoming European fleet and
the other column to the left of it. Before they could
change formation or slant down to escape that swift
maneuver of ours, we were flashing past them on both
sides, and then to right and left of them our heat-
guns were thundering and loosing a storm of swift
heat-shells.
As those shells struck, as our passing column loosed
a hail of them upon the European cruisers, the air
about us seemed filled completely with blinding bursts
of light and heat. Scores, hundreds, of the enemy ships
were withered by that deadly fire from right and left,
glowing and melting and plunging downward like char-
iots of white fire.
Surprised as they were by our swift maneuver com-
paratively few fired upon us as we raced past them.
CITIES IN THE AIR
395
but even those few sh^ found their marks among
the cruisers of our ruling column. Cruisers of my
own squadron were struck and hanging there glowing
and fusing from the terrifk heat released upon them,
unable to avoid the fast-speeding ships behind them
which raced headlong into the white-hot wrecks. Then
our columns were past them and as behind us their
ships fell thick in white-hot melting ruin, I turned
toward Macklin, exultant.
“We're beating them 1“ I cried. “Another blow like
that one and "
A cry from the second officer cut me abruptly short,
and quickly I gazed back to where he was pointing,
toward the mighty ring of the European fleet. Our
two columns had converged inward toward each other
after that deadly blow, when the great ring-shaped
formation of cruisers behind us had halted abruptly its
own forward flight, and had shot back a great double
file of its cruisers between our own two racing ccJ-
umns! And then, before we could see and forestall
its menace, before we had time to obey the swift com-
mand that the First Air Chief shout^ from the dis-
tance-phone, that double tongue of ships had split, each
line moving sidewise with terrific force and speed to-
ward our own two lines, pressing them outward from
each other, separating them, rolling them sidewise and
backward in two great enveloping motions.
In that moment I felt our cruiser reel madly as a
European cruiser shot against it, saw Macklin cling-
ing madly to the wheel as I was thrown down airf
backward, while about us in that mad moment the heat-
shells were speeding forth from ship to ship to burst in
flaring destructicm about us. Then as Macklin swung
our cruiser up to a level keel, our heat-guns beneath
detonating now as out gunners worked them like
mad beings, we were fighting the remorseless lines of
the enemy that swept us back and- 1 was aware that
our fleet’s two columns had been swept hopelesdy
apart, that our forces had been fatally divided and
that each division of them was now completely encircled
by the outnumbering masses of cruisers of the Euro-
pean fleet!
Cruisers on all sides of us now seemed to fill the
air, enemy cruisers that tossed about us in a great
sea of ships and that made our own ships the target
now of their unceasing volleys. Our column, rolled
together by that irresistible maneuver, had massed into
a solid group, the silver-striped flagship of the First
Air Chief just beside our own. The air around us
was livid with flares of blinding light as the heat-
shells broke and burst in unceasing destruction, as
the thunder of our detonating guns seemed to drown
all other sounds in the universe.
Not for long could we thus remain the target of these
masses of cruisers that swarmed about and above and
beneath us. Our other column had been swept back and
that was surrounded by enemy cruisers and fighting
desperately even as we were. Unless we could join
them, and reunite our shattered fleet, we must in-
evitably be destroyed. At that moment the voice of
the First Air Chief rang from the distance-phone be-
fore me in a high command.
“Triangle formation!” he shouted. “North at full
speed !”
Instantly the ships behind and about us, reforming
swiftly and smoothly even under the rain of shells
shifted into a great wedge-shaped formation, a great
triangle of solid ships whose apex was the Eirst Air
Chief’s cruiser, and which pointed north, toward the
other isolated and struggling half of our fleet Then
the next moment our great triangle had leaped for-
ward straight toward the north at full speed, into the
swarming masses of European ships that surrounded
us. Our own cruiser hung just behind the First Air
Chief’s, just behind the triangle’s apex. Then with a
terrific crash we had anashed into the solid wall of
ships before us.
Our cruiser rocked and reeled beneath me as its
sharp stem rammed at full speed into a European
cruiser that had swung broadside in an attempt to
escape us. Its side crumpled beneath that awful blow
and I saw it reel back and downward, I felt other
rending crashes that shook our ship wildly as our
triangle crashed through the European fleet. Then
suddenly we were through it, had smashed our way by
sheer force through its sea of ships and had reached
the second half of our fleet, joining with it once more.
Scores, hundreds even, of our own cruisers and of the
enemy’s were tumbling and twisting downward toward
the sea, battered wrecks of metal that had been all but
annihilated in our mad crash through the enemy ar-
mada!
Now swiftly our re-united fleet, still almost two
thousand stroi^, were massing together in a single long
rectangle, our fl^ship speeding to its head, and as we
moved toward the scattered swarms of European ships
about us, that numbered almost four thousand still,
they had formed into a similar formation. Then as
our own long rectangle or adumn ru^ed toward them
they were racing sidewise at the same speed as our-
selves, so that ride by ride now our two great fleets sped
through the air, our heat-guns detonating again as we
held still to the awful struggle. Our cruiser seemed
to bear a charmed life, since as we drove headkn^
through that hail of shining death, behind the First Air
Chief’s cruiser, we were sometimes missed by inches
only. And now as Maddin, his eyes steady but burn-
ing, held our ship onward with those about us in this
mad running fight of the two great fleets, I was aware
that in that %ht they were both slanting steadily
dowtavord, down toward the gray Atlantic far beneath !
Fleet hanging to fleet, the air between them thick
with shining heat-shells, down we rushed until we were
within )rards and then feet of the ocean’s tossing sur-
face ! But, still firing at each other steadily, they were
swooping downward still until we were plunging
straight down into the ocean’s depths. For these great
air-cruisers could move beneath water as well as
through the air. Each caning in them sealed
tight during flight, their air-supplies always auto-
matically furnished by great tanks of liquid-air, their
great tube-propellers sucking water through them at
immense speed even as they did air, and hurling the
cruiser on at a speed which while far less than that
in the air was still great — with these features our
cruisers were now down into the great waters of the
Atlantic.
“Hold steady!” I cried to Macklin as we swooped
downward, and the waters rushed up toward us. “Keep
in line with the First Air Chief’s ship!”
I saw his hands clench upon the wheel, and then the
waters were just beneath us, were rushing nearer and
nearer, while even then our ships and those about us
were loosing their heat-shells upon the European fleet
whose great column was plunging downward like our
own. Down — down — and then with a shock our
cruiser had plunged into the great waters, had rush-
ed beneath the waves, and instantly the light of sun-
396
AIR WONDER STORIES
set all about us had vanished, had given way to the
green translucence of the waters. Through that green
obscurity there shot yellow shafts of revealing light,
the under-water searchlights in the walls of our cruiser
which I had snapped on. From all the ships before and
behind us came other brilliant shafts. Our great fleet
still grappled with the European fleet rushing down to
our right, our heat-guns loosing their deadly shells
still through the green waters toward each other’s fleet !
The great battle over the Atlantic was to be carried on
in the great ocean’s very depths!
CHAPTER III
Under the Sea
G reen depths that swirled about us, shafts of
yellow' light that swung and stabbed through
them, rushing cruisers and detonating guns and
drone of motors and wild shouts — all these merged and
mingled in one great phantasmagoria of strange im-
pressions in those first moments. I had shot under the
ocean’s surface in my cruiser many a time before, but
never in battle. And now, with our two great fleets
plunging down into those peaceful depths, all about
me seemed for a moment a strange dream. Then I
saw before us, the cruisers of the First Air Chief and
those about him, dark long bulks that gleamed there in
the depths beneath us as the yellow shafts of light
struck and crossed them.
Peering downward, figure tensed over the wheel,
Macklin was holding the cruiser behind those rushing
ones ahead, and now, looking away to the right, I could
make out the dark, long bulks of the European
cruisers also. And across the gap from fleet to fleet
were hurtling storms of the heat-shells still, shot forth
by our great heat-guns whose valve-breeches made
them capable of underwater operation. And as they
burst there broke from them the same great flare of
light and heat as in the air above, little affected for the
moment by the waters about them, destroying in that
moment the ships they struck and making the waters
about those fusing ships boil terribly with their terrific
released heat.
But straight downward through those boiling waters
swirled and swept the following cruisers of the two
great fleets. As our guns thundered there in the great
deep, as heat-shells raced and broke and flared about
us, I saw schools of fish and strange sea-creatures and
denizens, for a moment in the glow of the yellow
searchlights or the flares of bursting heat-shells. The
fish were all striving desperately to escape from this
hell of battle and death that we men had carried
down with us. And still downward — our two great
columns were racing, hanging to , each other with
fierce, resistless tenacity, raking each other still with
the great heat-guns as we shot lower into the mighty
depths I
Finally Hilliard dashed up into the bridge-room
from below.
“This can’t keep on much longer!” he cried. “The
cruiser’s walls can’t stand this heat and speed I”
“It’ll have to keep on as long as the First Air Chief
keeps on!” I shouted to him, over the drone of motors
and thunder of guns. “If the battle is to end for
both fleets here — -let it!”
But I saw even in that moment that Hilliard was
right, and that the walls about us, the transparent metal
of the windows, had become searing to the touch. Not
only had we raced through areas of water boiling at
terrific temperatures from heat-shells that had burst
in ships there, but our own immense speed was pro-
ducing by its friction with the waters a heat that was
almost softening the cruiser’s walls. Yet I saw that
still the First Air Chief’s cruiser was rushing deeper
and deeper before us, and that still the great column of
our own fleet and that of the European fleet were fol-
lowing locked in that colossal death-grip, their heat-
guns thundering still toward each other.
I could see too that the cruisers of the European
fleet were suffering far more than our own in this
awful undersea battle, since there in the green depths,
only able to half see each other and to aim their heat-
guns by the uncertain light of their searchlights, their
greater numbers were of but small advantage to them.
And our gunners, following the former orders of the
First Air Chief, were concentrating their fire upon the
European column’s head, so that when ships were
struck there by heat-shells, changed to motionless white-
hot wrecks in the waters, those behind were unable in
the green depths to see them in time to swerve aside,
and so crashed into the fusing wrecks and were them-
selves destroyed. It was a maneuver that the First
Air Chief had long before explained to us for use in
undersea warfare, and now it was proving of the high-
est effectiveness and score after score of the Euro-
pean ships were flaring and crashing in their opposing
column.
For only a moment more, though, did the two great
columns continue thus, for then the European fleet,
feeling the great losses which it was experiencing in
this terrific underwater combat, responded suddenly to
some order, curving sharply upward again. Instantly
the First Air Chief snapped an order from the distance-
phone, and instantly our own great column of ships
had turned upward too, had curved upward through
the waters after the racing European fleet like wheel-
ing sharks after prey, their guns and ours still beating
a tattoo of thundering death there in the great depths.
Now as we rushed upward again at undiminished speed
the waters were becoming green and translucent once
more. 'Then as we flashed up through those green
depths, heat-guns sounding still from fleet to fleet, the
cruisers ahead and above us, and then our own, burst
suddenly up from the waters into the sunlit air once
more!
Into the Clouds
S URELY some battle out of a nightmare was this, in
which our two great masses of cruisers hung still
with deadly purpose upon each other. Macklin and
Hilliard and I aware of ourselves now only as infinites-
imal and unreasoning parts of this mighty fleet about
us, moved upward, miles again above the waves. The
two rushing fleets slowed, halted, as though by mutual
purposes. Slowed and halted there in two great masses
of cruisers in mid-air, our own to the west and the
European one to the east, and then, with every heat-
gun detonating and with the air between them seem-
ingly filled with shining, hurtling shells, they were hang-
ing motionless in a mighty death-grip!
The great struggle for its sheer intensity was ap-
palling, as the two giant fleets hung there unmoving,
high in the air, each unheeding its own danger, intent
only upon annihilating the other. I was aware, as
though I were a spectator, that I was shouting hoarse
commands into the order-phone, that in obedience to
those commands our gun-crews beneath were work-
ing the great heat-guns like madmen, loosing an un-
iroLiirjiud]
ceasing hail of shining shells toward the
fleet opposite, shouting as they did so
even as Macklin and Hilliard were shout-
ing wildly beside me. I was aware of
heat-shells that seemed exploding all
around us, of brilliant and unceasing flares
of blinding heat and light that burst in dozens each
second amid either fleet, their cruisers whirling down-
ward now in score of hundreds.
I know now that that motionless battle there in mid-
air could not have exceeded a few minutes, yet then
it seemed an eternity. I was aware dimly that our
ships were falling faster than the Europeans, that their
greater numbers were telling upon us once more here
in the open air, and that but few more than a thousand
ships were left to us, no more than half of our orig-
inal number. Yet more than twice that number of
European cruisers remained, smothering us with shin-
ing shells! Then suddenly the silver-striped ship of
the First Air Qiief, that had swayed beside our own,
turned westward, and at the same moment Yarnall’s
voice came sharply from the distance-phone.
"Retreat-formation !” he was shouting, “All ships
retreat westward at full speed!”
“Retreat !” My cry was one of incredulity, of mad
anger. Retreat — we were beaten, then, our great bat-
tle lost — I was aware of Macklin hovering in irreso-
lutely over the wheel, of Hilliard almost sobbing in his
rage.
Then despite our fury the sense of discipline was
reasserting itself, and with the First Air Chief’s ship
at its head, our great mass of ships was turning, was
forming swiftly into a great T, the longer column or
stem of it pointing westward, moving westward at
V ///f / A m stem of it pointing westward, moving westward al
/W / ^ m
And now above us the European ships, whirling about aimlessly in the terrific fire diat raked them from either side, were fall-
ing faster still. And even as they massed together to escape that great death trap, we were slanting up after them.
39:
398
AIR WCWJ^DER STORIES
swiftly mounting speed with the flagship act its head,
while the shorter column or head of the T lay across
its rear at right-angles. This protected tB somewhat
from the European fleet that now was leaping swiftly
after us, triumphcuit, exultant at our flight. Our stem
guns still firing toward them as they leapt upon our
track, we raced westward, on until at full speed. And
now, even as the thunder of guns still came to our
ears from behind, a dull, dead silence reigned over
our own ship, and those about us, Macklin and Hilliard
as silent beside me as myself, a silence of the apathy
of utter dismay and despair. For never, surely, had
any American fleet ever thus fled homeward, before,
pursued by a conquering enemy.
On to the westward though we raced still, our rear-
guard line of cruisers now the targets of numberless
heat-guns. Still cruisers among them were being de-
stroyed by the heat-shdls, and still, too, they were
striking savagely back to find their marks here and
there among the mass of our pursuers. On and on we
rushed, the European fleet closing gradually toward us,
and now we were but a score or so of miles from the
coast, I knew, and should be sighting the great double-
line of our air-forts that were hanging far out to sea.
It was the one chance of escape for our outnumbered
fleet, I knew, to gain the shelter of those great forts.
And now it was clear that it was with this object that
the First Air Chief was leading our fleet in full re-
treat westward. But as we gazed ahead, we saw that
though we should have been within sight of them the
great air-forts were nowhere to be seen! Save for a
great, long bank of floating white clouds ahead the
sky vras completely empty, and of the air-forts there
was no trace!
“The air-forts gone!” I cried. “Our last chance
gone !”
“But our fleet’s'going on!” exclaimed Macklin. “The
First Air Chief’s leading us into those clouds !”
The Ambush
G azing ahead, incredulous, I saw in a moment
that it was so, that the First Air Chief’s cruiser
was flying straight on toward the great long bank of
clouds ahead, leading our whole fleet into their fleecy
white masses. Even as I stared imbelievingly, I saw
his silver-striped ship rush into those clouds and vanish
from view, and after it were rushing our own ship and
all those about us, all the long mass of our fleet ! Un-
able to credit my eyes, almost, I stared, for it was a
suicidal maneuver, to attempt to elude our pursuers in
those fleecy masses. They needed only to surround the
cloud-bank and then wait and destroy us one by one
as we emerged again. Yet even as I gazed forward
our ships were speeding into the white masses of vapor,
after our flagship, our rear cruisers still returning the
fire of our pursuers. Then as our own cruiser flashed
into them, all things vanished from about us save the
thick masses of cloud-vapor that hemmed us in, that
seemed to press against our windows, curtaining all
things else from sight !
I stared forth tensely with Macklin and Hilliard
in a vain attempt to see through those masses, heard
the thunder of guns still going off blindly somewhere
in the great cloud-mass behind us, knew that in the
wild heat of pursuit the European fleet had rushed
after us into that great cloud-bank. Then came a
swift order of “All ships halt!” from the distance-
phone, and as we came swiftly to a halt there in the
blinding, fleecy masses, motors droning still, we heard
the crash of ship on ship behind us in tiie cloud-bank
as the foremost cruisers of the European fleet drove
blindly into our own, then halted fearfully themselves,
milling confusedly about in fear of farther collisions
and with neither fleet firing now in the absolute blind-
ness that held each ship. Thus the two mighty fleets
hung there for the moment blind and helpless in the
huge cloud-bank, and in that moment there came again
the First Air Chief’s voice from before os in a swift,
shouted command.
“All American Federation ships — dropf^
Before the order had ceased to echo Macklin’s hand
had flashed to the power-stud, and as the great drone of
our motors suddenly lessened our cruiser dropped
downward like a falling stone, (dunged downward un-
til in a moment more it had ripped through the great
fleecy mass of the cloud-bank and into the open
clear air beneath it, leaving the great European fleet
for the moment still in it. And in that moment, even
as our cruisers halted their plunging downward fall,
there came a great hissing sound from above as of the
hissing of terrific jets of air, and at the same instant
we saw the mighty cloud-bank above breaking up, dis-
integrating, its great fleecy masses whirling suddenly
away in all directions, driven away in a moment as
though by mighty winds, breaking away in formless
flying vapors ! Breaking away to leave clear air where
they had been, to leave the European fleet hanging
there, ap()earing to our sight suddenly as a confusedly
milling mass of numberless ships above us! And
coming to ? on either side of that confused mass
of ships was the great double line of our giant air-
forts!
“The air-forts!” My cry was echoed in that mo-
ment by Macklin and Hilliard beside me, by all in our
cruiser, in our fleet.
The air-forts! On either side of the disorganized
European fleet they hung, in their mighty double line,
and as that fleet saw them now for the first time with
the sudden disappearance of the cloud-bank that had
hidden them, it seemed to hang motionless still as
though stunned with astonishment. Then the great
heat-guns of the air-forts had swung toward them,
were thundering in swift chorus, were loosing storm
upon storm of heat-shells upon the confused, astounded
ships that swung between them! Were pouring forth
in that awful moment all the concentrated fire of their
mighty batteries upon the European shiiB caught be-
tween them.
The air-forts! And it was between them, between
their two mighty lines, that the First Air Chief had
purposely led the European fleet, I saw now. For this,
then, was the new device of the air-forts of which he
had spoken to us before our start, this device which
enabled them to surround themselves with a great
cloud-bank that kept them hidden from all and un-
suspected by any enemy. Some device for projecting
forth great masses of water-vapor it must be, that had
enabled them to form that great artificial cloud-bank
about themselves. And when the First Air Chief,
staking all upon the device, had led the pursuing Euro-
pean fleet into that great cloud-bank, into that giant
ambush of the air-forts, then with our own fleet drop-
ping down out of it they had needed only to disperse
the artificial cloud-mass about them by means of great
air-jets of terrific power, to disperse the cloud-mass
and to turn all the fury of their great guns upon the
European fleet that hung still dazed there in the wither-
ing fire of those suddenly-unmasked batteries!
CITIES IN THE AIR
399
For now above us the European ships, whirling aim-
lessly about in that terrific fire that raked them from
either side, were falling faster still ! Their own shells
burst and flared along the sides of the great air-forts,
but were too few in number to cripple or destroy any
of those gigantic, heavily-armored edifices. And at
that moment, even as the European ships strove to
mass together to escape from that great death-trap of
the air, the First Air Chief’s ship was slanting up
toward them, and now we needed no orders to follow
as we raced up after him. Up until our great fleet
rushing upward in a single mass was pouring up before
us a third terrific fire of heat-shells which, added to
that of the air-forts on either side, sent blinding death-
flares dancing and leaping over all the mass of ships
above us.
“They’re turning!” cried Hilliard. "They’re flee-
ing I”
Homeward
F LEEING! Even as our fleet shot up toward them
the European ships, reduced now to hardly more
than two thousand in number, and unable to bear the
terrific fire concentrated upon them from three direc-
tions, were soaring frantically upward above the air-
forts, up and away to the eastward, massing together
in a close-bunchi, irregular formation. And our
fleet had shot up after them, sending a rain of shining
messengers of death among them as we shot after
them, pursuing them with bow-guns firing jirst as min-
utes before they had pursued us. Then, broken and
disorganized and incapable of further resistance for
the time being, the great European fleet was drawing
away from us as an order from the First Air Chief
halted our wild pursuit. Outnumbered still as we were
by two to one we could not carry the pursuit too far
from our supporting air-forts.
As we halted, we saw the European ships racing
on in a struggling mass, dwindling and vanishing from
us quickly against the gathering dusk eastward. Then
our own battered cruisers were turning, heading back
westward, back toward the brilliant, waning sunset, and
with our flagship at our head until we paused above
the air-forts. There, with the wild exultation of vic-
tory we three in the bridge-room, Macklin, Hilliard
and myself, and our crew and all the cruiser crews
about us, expressed ourselves in great roaring shouts.
And then, once more, there came from the distance-
phone before us the voice of the First Air Chief.
“Cruiser-captains and men of this fleet,” he said, "we
have beaten back the first attack of the European Fed-
eration fleet And I have received but now a distance-
phone message from the Second Air Chief, command-
ing the western fleet out of San Francisco. He reports
that his own fleet, meeting the oncoming Asiatic Fed-
eration fleet, was able after a battle as terrific as our
own to drive it back also, by using the same cloud-
ambush device in the air-forts as we used here. Thus
on this day to west and east we have accomplished
the impossible.”
He paused, and at his words, his news, a wilder cheer
went up from all our ships and air-forts, hanging
motionless there against the crimson of the dying sun-
set. But now, his voice solemn, the First Air Chief
went on.
“We have won today, in east and west, but what we
liave won is but a respite. The mighty European and
Asiatic Federations have gathered all their forces to
annihilate our American Federation. Their great fleets
have been cut in half by these two battles, but so have
ours. And they not only outnumber us still by far,
but they can build new cruisers faster than we. Un-
doubtedly within weeks, days perhaps, tiiere will come
another mighty onslaught from them, from west and
east, an cwislaught for which they have been prepar-
ing and are preparing some colossal and terrible plan
or weapon of which we know nothing. It is some un-
known device that it is rumored wul enable them to
move gigantic forces upon us. We must stand against
them, nor can we hope to surprise them with the cloud-
ambushes used by us today. Yet whatever forces they
bring against us, whatever giant new weapons or terrific
attars they loose upon us, whatever is the great end
of this Last Air War that today has started, you of
the American Federation fleet can be proud always of
the way this first battle was fought and won!”
There was silence a moment and then another shat-
tering cheer. And then, the First Air Chief’s cruiser
leading, our fleet was moving smoothly westward to-
ward the sunset, and toward New York. As we
moved on our w^hful patrols were already out from
the fleet’s main body to north and south, while bdiind
us the great air-forts, slowly and ponderously, were
following us, spreading into a long single line which
with the ceaseless patrols was to guard us from any
surprise attacks or raids. Already, by now, the dusk
was gathering behind an^ about us, ^e sunset’s light
waning in the west. And by the time that our fleet
came again in sight of New York the great air<ity’s
outline was visible only as a mass of brilliant lights
floating high in the gathering darkness. The mighty
city, as we learned, had be^n to move eastward to
meet us upon hearing of the results of the day’s bat-
tles, and now glimmered before us like a great mass
of brilliant gathered stars, the giant beams of its
searchlights sweeping the night
Onward and down toward the mighty city diot our
fleet, and as Macklin and Hilliard gazed ^wn with
me we saw the cruisers that landed upon the white-lit
plazas across the immense floating city surrounded at
once by joyful crowds, their weary crews carried high
on shoulders. The whole great city, indeed, was re-
joicing, though that rejoicing was not extravagant, be-
ing tempered by the knowledge that it was but the first
attacks of the European and Asiatic Federations and
that other and greater attacks might be expected to fol-
low soon. So although the great city blazed with lights
as our fleet slanted down toward it, its great towers
and pinnacles and pyramids seeming like magic palaces
of radiance floating there in the night of the upper
air, yet its great watchful searchlights stabbed and
circl^ still, and there came and went still high above
it and to north and east and south the humming patrols,
on guard now and challenging every craft that ap-
proached the city.
Then our cruiser was landing, and Macklin and Hil-
liard and I were emerging from it with our crew,
mindless of the shouting crowds that surrounded every
landing plaza, stumbling in our utter weariness through
those crowds to our barracks, to fall into a stupor-like
sleep of utter exhaustion . . .
The Respite Ended
I T WAS the middle of the afternoon when we awoke,
more than a score of hours later. Our quarters lay
in one of the uppermost levels of the great barracks-
tower, and as I rose and after dressing joined Macklin
400
AIR WONDER STORIES
and Hilliard at the window, we could see far out over
the air-city’s great expanse. Above us blazed the after-
noon sun shining on numberless patterned windows of
all the gigantic metal towers about us. Far overhead
there still hummed and flashed the ceaseless patrols,
still watchfully hovering above and around New York.
Beneath, on the city’s landing plazas, there rested still
the hundreds of cruisers of our returned fleet, and now,
we saw that upon the great central plaza where our
own ship lay there were gathered now some two hun-
dred and fifty of our twelve hundred and fifty ships,
and that about these central ships were swarming a
great horde of mechanics and attendants; caring for
and inspecting their great motors, filling the liquid-air
tanks that supplied constant breathable air, refilling
their magazines with shining masses of heat-shells.
I turned puzzled toward the other two. “Strange
that they should be giving such swift attention to those
two hundred and fifty cruisers,” I said.
Macklin nodded, frowning. “And our cruiser among
them,” he commented. “One would almost think that — ”
He stopped short as our door snapped open and an
attendant stepped inside, saluting.
“Captain Martin Brant to report at once to the
First Air Chief’s headquarters in the tower,” he said,
“and all cruiser officers and crews of Squadrons 1 to
4 to rejoin their ships at once!”
Again he saluted and disjmpeared, leaving us star-
ing blankly at each other. Then we were struggling
into the tight black jackets of our uniforms, were
striding out in a moment and down to the great
air-city’s “ground” level in one of the building’s electro-
static-motored cagelifts. Through the crowded streets
we strode, seeing now that in all those streets other
black-uniformed men of the squadrons named were
pressing toward their cruisers in the central plaza.
Then we three had reached that central plaza, from
whose center rose the mighty electric power-tower,
and around which the two hundred and fifty cruisers
rested, all of our first four squadrons that had survived
the battle.
Already, I saw, the crews of those cruisers were
taking their places within them, and as Macklin and
Hilliard took up their positions in our own I strode on
across the plaza toward the huge tower’s base, in which
were the headquarters of the First Air Chief. Passing
challenging guards at its door, I passed through a few
narrow, white-lit ante-rooms, and then had stepped into
the great circular room that was his innermost office.
The curving walls of that room were covered with
panel after panel of instruments and switches, which
controlled the vast electrical currents that rushed down
from the electric-tower’s tip and transformers to those
motors in the city’s base. Near the room’s center was
the battery of six great switches which controlled the
city’s direction of motion, moving it in any direction
at will at slow and ponderous speed, the speed-control’s
gleaming knob beside them. And beyond the controls
of the great air-city, there stood a great table-map of
the world, upon which a myriad of red circles auto-
matically showed the position of the world’s air-cities.
Behind this table-map, as behind a desk, the First
Air Qiief was sitting as I entered, while around the
panelled walls there moved a half-dozen black -jacketed
attendants constantly watching and controlling the flow
of current from the power-tower’s tip to its motors.
The First Air Qiief, as I entered, motioned me silently
to a metal seat before himself, at the great table-map’s
edge, and then for a moment contemplated me in
silence, as though considering his words before speak-
ing. Regarding me intently, he began.
“For a second time. Captain Brant,” he was saying,
“I have summoned you here to me, but this time alone,
and with the two hundred and fifty remaining cruisers
of our first four squadrons smnmoned also outside.
You are wondering, no doubt, why I have done so.
“The victory we have gained is, as I said, but a
respite. We know that the two great Federations,
though beaten back with great losses will soon be
launching another and a far greater attack upon us,
one against which I think we cannot stand. From the
European Federation to the east and from the Asiatic
Federation to the west that mighty second attack will
be loosed upon us, with some terrible new weapon
or plan whose nature we cannot guess. For though
hundreds of agents have been sent by us to all the
European and Asiatic air-cities, months before the
outbreak of this war even, they have been either cap-
tured and made away with, or have been able to report
only that immense preparations of some sort are going
in in those cities, in Berlin and Peking especially. And
the rumors which have reached us through them in-
dicate that whatever great new colossal weapon or
thing they are devising at Berlin and Peking, it is one
which, they boast, will enable them to sweep all our
cities from the air in a single mighty attack.
“You see, then, that to wait for them to develop their
great weapon or plan, to await this terrible attack with-
out action, is but to pave the way for our own doom.
We must strike out to halt them, to cripple or destroy
their great secret plans, must strike at the European
and Asiatic Federations both before they expect us.
And that is why I have called you here to me. For
it is my intention to launch a great raiding attack of
our own at both Berlin and Peking. If we can strike a
smashing blow at those two air-capitals, can damage or
destroy the great military preparations within their
arsenals, which must hold their great secret also, we
shall have crippled, for the time being, their plans and
shall have gained time for us to learn and counteract
those plans. Even now our two hundred and fifty
ships are ready and wait to start for Berlin, while
from San Francisco a similar number will raid west-
ward to Peking. And it is my order that you. Captain
Brant, shall command this great raid eastward, for
your conduct in the great battle of yesterday proves
you worthy of the command. So soon after that bat-
tle, our enemies will never dream of our lesser forces
attacking them, so now is your great chance to strike
back at them, to flash across the Atlantic in a great
surprise raid and strike down out of the night with
all your power at the great air-capital of Berlin!”
CHAPTER IV
A Desperate Plan
F or a moment, I think, I stood in stupefied silence
as the meaning of the First Air Chief’s breath-
taking plan sank into my brain. Then I had snap-
ped to sudden attention, saluting, my eyes shining.
Yarnall was smiling, too.
“The plan is bold enough,” he said, “but it means a
chance to strike a terrific blow at our enemies, to crip-
ple and perhaps destroy their great preparations that
mean doom for us. The two hundred and fifty cruisers
gathered here in the central plaza have been complete-
ly replenished with supplies and inspected while you
slept, their magazines filled with heat-shells, their bomb-
CITIES IN THE AIR
401
slots with mighty heat-bombs. You can thus start at
once, heading straight across the Atlantic toward the
air-city of Berlin. And if you can reach it with your
cruisers, under the cover of darkness and the unex-
pectedness of your coming, win through their great
patrols and chains of air-forts, and reach the great
air-capital, you will be able to strike a blow that may
yet save us. I know, and you know, Captain Brant,
what perils lie between your cruisers and their goal,
but I need not speak of those perils and need not tell
you what hopes depend ujwn your raid. I need only
give you now a single order — ^to start at oncel”
Five minutes later our two hundred and fifty cruisers,
humming like a great swarm of bees, were rising up
into the brilliance of the sky. My own cruiser lead-
ing, the familiar figures of Macklin and Hilliard again
in the bridge-room beside me, I wondered momentarily
if ever I was to return to New York. The mighty
city floating there beneath us, its crowds now watching
in wondering silence as we rose from it, its masses of
buildings suspended there between earth and sky like
a strange new galaxy of stars — it was home to me,
and it was somberly enough that I watched it dropping
now away from our ships.
Upward we rose, hovered, then shot toward the west,
driving smoothly until the great mass that was New
York had dropped out of sight behind us. Then as I
spoke an order into the distance-phone our ships turn-
ed, circling widely to the south, and then moved east-
ward, out of sight of New York. It was a necessary
maneuver, I knew, to make it appear that our cruisers
had gone westward. Necessary because in New York’s
millions there were certain to be European spies who
would have endeavored to warn their capital had they
suspected that we were in reality racing eastward.
And now as we shot out over the Atlantic again, I
gave another order and our two hundred and fifty
cruisers massed quickly into a compact triangle with
my own ship at its apex. It was the best formation for
a raiding party, and holding to it our little fleet shot
upward now and onward, onward until we were racing
above the great line of our air-forts hanging miles out
over the Atlantic in a great watchful chain. We had
answered their challenge and were rushing on above
and beyond them.
Within minutes they had vanished behind us, and our
cruisers were rocketing forward at swiftly-mounting
speed, racing onward and upward until at more than
a thousand miles an hour we were rushing eight miles
above the ocean’s surface.
As we were rushing toward the east, as fast as the
sun was rushing away from us, the night came upon us
swiftly. There came dusk and then the stars. We were
at an altitude at which we would be sighted by almost
no other craft, I knew, an altitude rarely used by any
ships. Though the modern closed-construction and air
and heat arrangements of aircraft made flying at that
height practicable enough, it was necessary by reason
of the greater tenuity of the air to use more of the
motors’ power to attain the same speed. As we hum-
med on at that great height, all sight of the ocean be-
neath was hidden from us by the great vapor-layer that
lay over it beneath us and only the pale stars above and
the triangle of gleaming cruisers behind were visible to
us. Yet as we shot on, it was not these, our immediate
surroundings, that held my thoughts, but the object of
our flight. Gazing beside into the night, with Macklin
silent at the wheel beside me and with all our long ships
rushing close behind, I could not but be aware in
those moments of the desperateness of this raiding at-
tack upon which we were engaged.
To flash across the sea with but little more than two
hundred cruisers, to attempt a raid upon the European
Federation’s mighty capital even while a similar raid
was made from westward upon the Asiatic Feder-
ation’s capital, seemed indeed so desperate as to ap-
proach insanity. Berlin was guarded by a great chain
of air-forts and patrols hanging over the eastern
Atlantic; which held within itself, without doubt, all
the great European battle-fleet of thousands of
cruisers; which bore upon itself countless mighty bat-
teries of giant heat-guns. Could we, in the face of
these, reach Berlin, and send our heat-bombs crash-
ing down upon its great arsenals?
Above the Enemy
T hese were the doubts that assailed me as our tri-
angle of cruisers throbbed on and on through the
upper night, but resolutely I thrust them away, remem-
bering what our attack, what the crippling of our ene-
mies’ great and mysterious preparations, would mean
to our American Federation. Then I turned as Mack-
lin pointed silently to the glowing-figured dial of our
distance-log, and saw by it that while I had brooded
there at the window we had swept far out over the
Atlantic at our tremendous speed. Within a short
time, I knew, the European coasts would be beneath
us, but during all the course of our flight so far we had
sighted no other ships whatever, all merchant-traffic
over the great ocean having been swept from the air
by the first alarms of war, while we were still too. far
to the west to be meeting the far-flung patrols of the
European Federation forces.
Soon, though, these would be coming into sight, I
knew, and the result of our daring expedition de-
pended upon our success in passing them unobserved.
If we were seen by them, a minute would suffice
for the patrols to give -the alarm by distance-phone,
and then from all the European air-cities sihead, from
Stockholm and London and Berlin and Marseilles and
a hundred others, numberless patrol-cruisers would be
swiftly converging upon us in answer to the alarm.
And the European battle-fleet itself, we knew, in Ber-
lin, the air<ity we had come to attack, would be swift
to answer also, so that never could we hope to win
through if we were but for a moment detected.
But still we were rushing westward through the
night, my cruiser in the lead, and still as Macklin and
I peered intently ahead and below, Hilliard having
taken up his station beneath, we could make out noth-
ing but the chill masses of the great vapor-layer far
beneath us, and the gleaming, rushing shapes of the
cruisers behind us. Then, I peered ahead and down
toward the right, with body tense, and in the next
moment had snapped out the green guiding light at our
craiser’s stern, and had uttered a quick order into the
distance-phone before me.
“European Federation patrols ahead and beneath!’’
I warned quickly. “All cruisers reduce to quarter-
speed!’’
Instantly in obedience to that order the triangle of
rushing ships behind was slowing, each cruiser swiftly
reducing speed, the great drone of their motors dying
to a steady hum. Moving forward thus, as slowly and
silently as possible, I pointed downward, Macklin ’s
eyes following my pointing finger.
“The patrols !’’ I whispered to him. “There beneath
us — amoving northward !’’
402
AIR WONDER STORIES
Far beneath us indeed they were, a little circle of
moving lights that hung just above the great vapor-
layer and that was moving steadily toward the north,
from our right to our left. Some twenty or more
of those white lights there were, moving smoothly
along in the same ring-like formation, and though we
could not see the shapes of the cruisers from which
those lights gleamed up through the night, we knew
that they could be only one of the enemy's westward
patrols, flying in the familiar European Federation cir-
cular formation. Watching them, Macklin and I un-
consciously held our breath, while from our ship and
from all the ships behind there came no sound other
than the low hum of the motors. Slowly beneath those
motors’ lessened power our cruisers were moving for-
ward through the upper darkness, while beneath the
little ring of lights were still holding toward the north.
Our presence far above them was apparently unsus-
pected by them.
I knew, though, that if they were to turn toward
us by any chance the great cone-shaped cruiser-finders
whidi are set in the sides of all war-cruisers and air-
forts and air-cities, that we would be detected soon
enough, since undoubtedly the patrol-ships beneath car-
ried them also. Those great cone-like instruments,
when turned in any direction can detect by means of
super-sensitive induction-balances the operation of any
electrostatic-motors. Fortune favored us, though, for
without dreaming of our existence there above them
the ring of patrol-cruisers, the circle of moving lights,
moved smoothly on to the north while we held, east-
ward until they had vanished behind us.
Now as I spoke a swift order we were picking up
speed again, our cruisers accelerating once more to
their former velocity. I knew that we must be very
near the southwestern coast of England. Our course
lay high above that coast, taking us along a line that
would li^ midway between the two mighty air-citieS of
London and Paris, avoiding both purposely on our great
flight toward the mightier air-city of Berlin. Soon, I
knew, the great air-fort chain that guarded the whole
western coasts of Europe would be drawing within
sight, and intently enough we were peering forth in
search of it, but though that must be passed still we
had won through apparently, the outer patrols, without
discovery.
“It’s hardly likely that they’d have a second line of
outer patrols out,’’ I said to Macklin, as we peered
together through the dim night from the bridge-room
of the rushing ship. “And once we get past the air-
forts we’ll have a good chance.”
He nodded. “They’ll never dream of us making a
raid upon them tonight, and if we aren’t picked up by
the air-forts’ cruiser-finders we can reach — ”
He broke off, suddenly, and at the same moment as
he, I gazed down toward the right. Another ring of
moving lights was there in the darkness beneath, north-
ward, too. But this one had" paused for a moment and
was slanting straight up toward us!
“Another patrol !” Macklin’s cry was echoed into the
distance-phone.
Another patrol — and it had seen us ! And then, even
as that patrol’s twenty cruisers slanted up toward us,
to challenge us, eighty of the cruisers of the lowest of
our great triangle of ships had whirled like light down
toward them, without command or formation, whirled
clown upon them massed together like a great striking
thunderbolt of gleaming metal! For they knew, with-
out need of command, that in an instant more the
patrol-cruisers beneath would see and recognize the
pui^se of all our racing ships, would instantly with
their distance-phones send the alarm spreading like
flame over all the European Federation. And so our
eighty down-rushing cruisers, massed solidly together,
fired no guns and dropped no bombs, but simply flashed
downward in a terrific ramming swoop and in an in-
stant more had crashed their great mass squarely into
the ring of the uprising European ships !
There was a rending crash of metal that seemed to
split the air beneath us, and then in a great shower
of wrecked and twisted cruisers the ships beneath were
falling, tumbling down and vanishing into the vapors
far beneath on their headlong fall toward the Atlantic I
All of the twenty enemy cruisers, and about twenty-five
of our own four-score that had crashed down into
them, fell thus, annihilated almost by that terrific col-
lision. It had been the one means, though, of instantly
destroying their patrols without using our heat-guns
whose detonations might give the alarm. And we Imew
that only that swift, unordered action on the part of
our lowest ships had saved us. 'Then the fifty-five
survivors had rushed up again among us, and then our
ships that had slowed there for the moment were rush-
ing still on eastward.
The Air-Forts
O NWARD we shot through the upper night, shaken
still by that sudden peril and escape, ancl then I
uttered a warning word into the distance-phone from
our cruiser leading. For now, far ahead, we could
make out great beams of white light that hung in a
great row extended from north to south as far as the
eye could reach, and that seemed like white fingers
of light whirling and reaching through the air as they
ceaselessly swung and circled. A full four miles above
the earth, and more than that beneath the level of our
own onrushing ships, hung this great line of restless
beams, and we knew it, at once, for the great line of
air-forts that guarded the western approaches of the
European Federation. For the beams we saw were
the great beams of the air-forts’ mighty searchlights,
and those swinging shafts of radiance were of such
intense brilliance ahd magnitude that even at our great-
est flying height we could not hope to pass over them
undetected.
It seemed, indeed, that to pass them was hopeless,
since the air-forts, hanging above the great layer of
misty vapor that stretched beneath, could instantly de-
tect with those mighty beams any cruisers passing above
them, at whatever height, and could blast them from
the air with their gigantic batteries of heat-guns. To
pass beneath the great vapor-layer was as impossible,
since the air-fort chain which the European Federa-
tion put forth here in war-time was a double one, and
its second line hung, farther eastward a little, beneath
the vapor area, watching with its own great beams
and guns for any ships passing there. There remained
but one alternative, to pass through the thick mists of
the vapor-layer itself, but that, though concealing us
from the guns of air-forts above and beneath, would
be in itself suicide, since such vapor-layers between the
forts were invariably filled in war-time with floating
air-mines, great cube-like metal containers held aloft
and motionless by their own electrostatic-motors and
tube-propellers and which contained a terrific heat-
charge which was instantly released upon any luckless
ship that touched them.
But now as our ships slowed at sight of the ominous
CITIES IN THE AIR
403
fingers of light far ahead I spoke quickly into the dis-
tance-phone. “Our one chance is to go through the
vapor-layer,” I said, “and use our cruiser-finders to
avoid the air-mines. By going through in a three-ship
column we may be able to make it."
At my order therefore our great triangle of cruisers
shifted its formation abruptly into one of a long slender
line, three ships in width, and then that line with my
own cruiser at its head was slanting sharply down-
ward toward the great mists beneath us. A moment
more and our cruisers had entered those mists, were
moving forward enveloped in them, the great vapor-
layer through which we moved hiding all things from
about us, hiding our cruisers even from each other.
But though we could not see them, we knew that the
great air-forts hovered ahead and above us, now, and
that the vapor-layer into which we were moving was
one sown thick with the deadly air-mines. So, with
Macklin at the cruiser’s wheel guiding it slowly for-
ward at the head of our column of ships, holding a
course eastward through the mists by the compass and
creeping forward now at the same low speed as the
ships behind, I ordered Hilliard, beneath, to swing out
the cone-like cruiser-finders from our ship’s sides, and
to report instantly any air-mines they detected be-
fore us.
Behind us, too, the cruisers that followed were using
their own cruiser-finders' as they crept through the
mists after us, at my order ; for though as leading ship
we could report to them all air-mines which we en-
countered before us, it was necessary for the cruisers
behind to feel their way forward independently, since
in the concealing mists they could not follow exactly
upon our own ship’s track. Now, though, listening in-
tently at the order-phone, I waited Hilliard’s reports.
And in moments more, as our cruiser-finders’ coils
picked up the hum of the enemy’s electrostatic-motors
a little ahead and to the right, he reported sharply and
I repeated the information swiftly to Macklin, who in-
stantly swung our ship a little to the left. And still
Hilliard remained with the cruiser-finders, whose super-
sensitive coils caught instantly the electrostatic-motors
of the air-mines before and about us.
Onward thus we crept, Hilliard reporting at inter-
vals of every few moments as an air-mine was ^ncdced
up ahead, while at my swift repetition of his report
Macklin would swerve our ship to avoid it. Behind
our own craft, we knew, all the scores of our cruisers
were creeping forward through the great vapor-layer
in the same manner. Now we could plainly hear the
great, unceasing drone of the mighty air-forts above,
as we crept through the vapor-layer beneath them, and
knew that were we to emerge into any chance opening
in the thick mists about us we would have but short
shrift enough from the giant guns of those forts over-
head. Yet still we crept on, praying that none of our
cruisers struck the deadly mines, since a single one
striking would loose a great flare of heat and light
from the bursting air-mine that would betray us all.
Even our own ship, as it swerved from an air-mine
that Hilliard had hastily reported, almost ran full onto
another one in the opposite direction, a great cube of
metal, holding within it a hell of condensed heat and
death and suspended by its power gained from the con-
centrated cosmic trap. And though Macklin whirled
our cruiser aside in time to graze by it it seemed im-
possible that all our ships could feel through this field
of death without disaster.
Yet still we were creeping onward, through the thick
mists, and now the great air-forts’ drone came from
behind and above us, as we passed on beneath them.
On and on, feeling blindly forward through that zone
of potential death we went, over the second chain of
air-forts whose motors’ sound came up to us muffled
through the mists, and then that too was dropping be-
hind us. For some moments, though, we* continued
to feel forward in the vapor-layer, and then I had
given the ships behind 'the order to rise and at once,
as carefully as ever, our cruisers were feeling their
way upward until they emerged at last into the open
air above the mists, a tight steel hand seeming to
unclose from about my heart as we came up from out
that terrible zone of death into the dim starlight of
the upper night, the white beams of the upper air-
forts now far behind us.
On to Berlin
♦KT^HROUGH at last!” I cried to Macklin, as we
JL drove upward. “It seems incredible that all our
ships could have won through that mine-field!”
Macklin nodded. “We’d not have made it had the
air-forts there been using their own cruiser-finders,”
he said. “But they never dreamed that any ships would
try to get through the mine-sown mists, evidently.”
Now I spoke into the distance-phone another order,
and our ships were swiftly forming into their triangle
formation, were racing forward again at rapidly mount-
ing speed to the east, air-forts and deadly mines and
questing outer patrols out of sight. And now, as with
Macklin and Hilliard, who had joined us from beneath
after his work with the cruiser-finders, I gazed forth,
I could see that the great layer of mists beneath us was
thinning somewhat as we raced on, knew from that
fact that we had raced from above the Atlantic and
now were moving far above land, since always these
mist-layers were far denser above the sea than above
land. That land over which we were now speeding
could only be that of southwestern England, I knew,
and even now our flashing triangle of cruisers was
veering further to the south to avoid the great air-city
of London. Then, as we hummed on eastward at the
same great height as before, we made out a great mass
of lights far to the north, a mass of white lights that
hung high above the earth and that glowed toward us
like a single soft light through the mists that lay be-
tween it and our eastward racing ships, smaller beams
stabbing and circling from it.
There were needed not the exclamations of Mack-
lin and Hilliard beside me to inform me of that great
light-mass’ identity, for an air-city of that size in this
region could be but London. The great city, I judged,
had moved eastward somewhat from its usual position
over the center of southern England and ^ further
away from the great chain of air-forts and mine-fields
that guarded it to the west. It was not London, though,
that was our flying force’s objective on this night, and
we raced onward with no backward glances toward it,
peering ahead with growing tenseness. Far below us
we could glimpse, now and then, occasional formations
of merchant-ships flying toward or away from London,
and convoyed usually by a half-dozen war-cruisers, but
these were far beneath and as we were showing no
lights and rushing on at tremendous speed they did not
glimpse us.
No patrols were in evidence now about us, the main
reliance of the European Federation air-chiefs^ having
apparently been put upon their great outer circle of
air-forts and patrols, through which we had managed
404
AIR WONDER STORIES
10,000 YEARS HENCE
A Prediction
This illustration reproduced from the magazine SCIESCE AND INVENTION of F^mar^, 1922, shows t city 10,000 years hence a*
conceived by Hugo Gerosback, and based on a prediction of Captain Lawson of aerial fame. The city the size of New York
will float several miles above the surface of the earth, where tho air is cleaner and purer and free from disease carrying baaeria^
Gravity-nullifying devices were pictured as the means of keeping these cities sus|^nded. Four gigantic generators will shoot earth-
ward electric rays which by reaaion on the earth produce the force to keep the city aloft. By increasing or decreasing the eleancal
energy the city may be raised or lowered as desirM. The city is roofed over by a substance which is transparent, strong and unbreak-
able. The atmospheric pressure within the city will probably be four or five pounds per square inch instead of 14.7, as it now is. Pos-
sibly, therefore, iucure men will have larger chests than we do. Furthermore, by rising above the clouds we will be freed from
rain, ssMw and thunder showers. We wTU have in face perpetual sunlight. The ciry will derive its energy from the sun, the solas
energy being converted into electrical energy.
CITIES IN THE AIR
405
to break. Nor, was it evident, did they dream that
the American Federation, depleted as its fleets were
despite their victories in the battles of the day before,
would attempt any such daring attack upon an enemy
so superior as we were rushing upon now.
As we fled onward, holding our three-sided forma-
tion, I wondered momentarily what that other Ameri-
can force was now doing that was heading in the same
way toward Peking, and then my wonder passed as
another great glow of white light showed itself ahead
and to the south. It was Paris, we knew, a great air-
city as large as London and outranked in size only by
the three colossal air-capitals of the world. But it was
not Paris, either, that was our goal, and we veered now
to the north somewhat to avoid it, flying on at such
a great height and distance from it as to pass far
beyond the reach of the great searchlight beams that
swung and circled from it as they had done from
London. Then it too had dropped behind to the south,
and regardless now of the other air-cities that we
glimpsed far off in the night, we were rushing east-
ward high above what had once been France, were
speeding forward at the same tremendous height on the
last lap of our daring journey.
Now other masses of air traffic were manifesting
themselves far beneath us, as squadrons of moving
lights, but neither Macklin nor Hilliard nor I, nor any
in our ships, were paying attention to these, all our
souls centered on the horizon ahead, on the dim dark-
ness of night that stretcjied before us. Gazing out
into that darkness, my two friends beside me, as tense as
I leaned, there at the bridge-room’s windows as our
droning flight of ships sp^ on. Nothing dispelled
that darkness but the dim starlight from above, but
now, as we gazed forth, we became aware of a faint
light coming feebly toward us from far ahead, a faint
light that seemed like a great, feebly-glowing cloud in
the darkness, and that was intensifying in radiance
with each moment that we rushed toward it. The
glowing cloud seemed to sink steadily as we sped on,
seeming to become lower until from our own ten-mile
height we saw at last that it was hanging at a height of
four miles from the earth. And swiftly it was grow-
ing in size, ahead and beneath us, until as we neared it
high above, it changed suddenly to our eyes from a
great glowing cloud of light to a colossal circle of up-
rushing white radiance, a mighty circular city floating
there in midair, that was as huge as New York itself,
and that blazed in the night before us as our own city
was wont to blaze.
“Berlin 1”
Our three exclamations came together in that mo-
ment, exclamations that must have been echoed then
from every watcher in our onrushing ships. Berlin!
In all its stupendous, radiant splendor it hung before
and beneath us, the mighty air-city that was the
European Federation’s capital and center, equalled in
size only by New York and Peking. There between
earth and stars it floated, its white-lit towers soaring up
from the mighty metal base, all out-topped by the
slender central pinnacle that was the great city’s electro-
static-tower which drew from earth’s charge its electric
power. Around the city’s edge there stabbed and
circled the giant white beams of its great searchlights,
sweeping to and fro over the still-thronged streets, in
which we knew there surged the crowding masses of the
great air-city’s population. And high above these,
moving restlessly to and fro, there came and went the
great network of patrols which guarded the great
metropolis of the air on all sides.
But our own ships, winging more slowly on at our
tremendous height, were never glimpsed by the patrols
so far beneath us, never caught at our great height by
the great white beams that came and went below, and
that only occasionally clove the night above. And as
my order brought our ships to a halt, we could make
out more details in the white-lit city floating far be-
neath us. Could make out, as we hung there motion-
less, the great batteries of pivoted heat-guns set at the
central plaza and all around the city’s encircling wall,
the great square metal buildings of the arsenals, m two
groups at the city’s east and western edges, the central
headquarters and arsenals of all the European Feder-
ation’s military forces. On the plazas around those
buildings rested long ranks of gleaming cruisers,
cruisers that numbered thousands and, we knew, were
those with whom we had battled so furiously over and
in the Atlantic a day before. And it was down toward
these buildings and these cruisers that we gazed now,
in that moment before the city’s cruiser-finders beneath
could detect us and spread the alarm.
“The cruisers and military buildings and arsenals be-
low will be our main objective,’’ I said into the -dis-
tance-phone as we hung there in that tense moment,
above the shining city. “The city’s electrostatic tower
is so closely defended by heat-gun batteries that we
could never get near it, and like all power-towers of
air-cities it’s of metal alloys that the heat of our shells
and bombs wouldn’t affect, so we can’t hope to destroy
it and thus crash the city to earth by cutting off its sus-
taining flow of power. Our goal must be the cruisers
and arsenals, and we’ll attack them in two great swoops,
the eastern ones first and then the western, and if all
goes well can then swiftly escape before the forces be-
low can gather and rise against usl’’
A Sudden Attack
N OW, poised there miles above the great air-city,
which was itself poised high over the earth, our
great triangle, of ships hung like so many birds of prey
for the moment. Beside me Macklin was gazing down-
ward as tensely as myself, Hilliard beneath with our
waiting gunners, while under my fingers lay the four
rows of white buttons the pressing of each of which
would release from our cruiser’s bomb-slots a portion
of the immense heat-bombs they held. Poising there
in that tense moment the whole scene was imprinted
unforgettably upon my brain — the gloom of night about
us, the vast radiant circle of the colossal air-city be-
neath, the patrols swarming over it, the throngs that
filled its streets, excited po doubt over the beginning of
the long-expected war that was to annihilate the Amer-
ican Federation. Then I spoke one sharp order into
the distance-phone and instantly with all our motors
droning suddenly loud our great triangle of cruisers
was diving straight downward upon the radiant air-
city beneath!
Down we shot with dizzying speed in that mighty
swoop, down with my own cruiser flashing foremost
and with all our others close behind it, down through
miles of space in a flashing moment, it seemed, until
our hurtling wedge of ships had crashed down into and
through the swarming patrols above the city, had
driven like light down through them toward the eastern
mass of military structures and cruisers that was our
goal! From all of our ships no single gun sounded
nor from the patrol-cruisers through which we dropped.
406
AIR WONDER STORIES
so stunned were they by our great crash downward
through them. It was as though for that moment a
tense silence had been enforced upon all the world, a
silence broken only by the drone of our motors as we
plunged. Then I was aware in a swift succession of
flashing impressions of the white-lit city’s towers and
buildings rushing like light up toward us, of the great
square military arsenals and buildings with the gleam-
ing ranks of cruisers about them, just beneath us.
Then as we plunged to within a half-mile of those
buildings and cruisers my own foremost-flashing cruiser
curved forward and, as our down-plunging ships level-
led out behind it, I pressed swiftly a row of the buttons
beneath my fingers. The next moment our cruiser was
swaying from side to side as it rushed on, and down
from it and from all the massed ships behind and about
us were plunging thousands of giant, cylindrical heat-
bombs !
Even before those heat-bombs struck, our onrushing
ships had curved like lightning upward again, but tlw
next moment were reeling and tossing even in the mad
upward rush as from breath came a titanic merged
flare of all the bursting heat-bombs, from which an
awful wave of super-heated air rushed up and over-
took us, and beneath whose terrific released heat dozens
of the huge military buildings beneath had fused and
melted. We could glimpse, too, that below a full half
thousand or more of the resting cruisers had perished
also in that giant flare, and that it was as though a
whole great area of the gigantic air-city beneath us
had been transformed suddenly by the released heat of
our mighty bombs into a huge crater of white-hot, melt-
ing metal near the floating city’s edge! And from all
across the mighty white-lit mass of Berlin, that had
reeled itself in mid-air from that terrific blow, there
rose a dull, roaring clamor of millions of voices that
came up to us even over the drone of our great motors
and the rush of winds about us !
Upward at utmost speed we were rushing, and just in
time for hardly had our heat-bombs struck when,
despite the utter unexpectedness of our attack, the great
batteries of heat-guns around the central electrostatic
tower that guarded it were wheeling toward us and
thundering as they shot a storm of heat-shells above the
white-lit city toward us. Even as I had said, those
vigilant watchers at the power-tower would have
blasted our fleet from the air before we could have
ever got near to the tower itself, but as it was we had
struck a terrific blow at the military arsenals and the
resting fleet, and had flashed upward again in time to
escape the blasting guns at the city’s center. But now,
through the night above the vast roaring city, the bat-
teries all around its rim were swinging their pivoted
guns toward us and sending a hail of shells after us
while, as all the city’s great searchlights wheeled their
beams madly through the air toward us, the swarming
patrols all around us had recovered from their stunned
astonishment and were leaping also toward us!
"One more attack!’’ over the uproar I was yelling
into our distance-phone as we shot upward through that
mad chaos of whirling beams and ships and shells.
“The city’s western arsenals this time — ^loose the other
half of our bombs on them!’’
Holding still to our triangular formation in that
wild melange of sight and sound, our ships levelled out
once more, high above the city again now, and with
only a scant dozen having been reached by the hail of
heat-shells that had rushed after us from beneath.
Then we were speeding westward over the tremendous
dty, high above it, scorning to stop for the swarms
of patrd-cruisers that were dashing toward us. Those
cruisers were rushing with suicidal fury toward us with
every heat-gun detonating, but our own gunners were
plying our batteries even as we dashed forward above
the air-city, and on all sides of us the patrol-craft were
flaring and fusing and crashing down toward the city
beneath! Here high over the city, though, the shells
of all the heat-guns that now were bocuning toward us
could not reach us, and through battling ships and
whirling beams and gloom of night we rushed west-
ward over the giant air-city tmtil in a moment more we
were pausing over the western arsenals, and the western
plaza where rested other massed cruisers of the great
European battle-fleet. And then as I gave another
order we were diving once more, down toward those
buildings and cruisers !
The Second Blow
T his time, though, all the colossal city beneath us
was roused and roaring with fury as we shot down-
ward, and from beneath there slanted up toward us a
terrific hail of shining heat-shells from all the city’s
great batteries. Eastward the cruisers that had escaped
our bombs there were rising and forming to attack us,
while, even as we shot down, the cruisers beneath were
rising and flinging themselves to one side for the mo-
ment to escape our swooping rush and bombs. But
through storming shells and blinding beams we shot
again on our terrific dive, until in another moment our
fleet was levelling again above them and as Maddin
drove our cruiser level before the rest I had pressed
the remaining buttons, had sent our remaining heat-
bombs whirling downward with those of all the ships
about me! And then as our ships curved upward
again, our terrific blow struck, the bombs were find-
ing their mark again, were flaring and fusing with
terrific heat and power into another giant mass of melt-
ing metal and awful heat there at the city’s western
edge.
And now, bombs gone, our cruisers were whirling
upward now to escape from the great city we had
struck such two awfiil blows, to head westward again
over the Atlantic. About us a wild hail of heat-shells
from the guns beneath were rushing upward and dozens
of our cruisers were flaring and falling before we could
gain a height again that put us beyond reach of the
batteries beneath. Then we paused a moment, massing
again to head westward, with only a few patrol-cruisers
dashing futilely toward us from about and above us,
now. Beneath us the giant air-city of Berlin lay with
two white-hot craters of fusing metal glowing near its
eastern and western edges amid the brilliance of its
myriad lights, the great city hanging still in mid-air
with the great motors in its base untouched by our two
awful blows. Through its streets were rushing panic-
mad crowds, and over it were rising the cruisers of its
battle-fleet, striving to form and follow us as the guns
thundered madly toward us and the searchlights wildly
stabbed and circled.
But as we hung there for that moment, massing
together again, a wild triumphant cheer was coming
from all in our cruiser and all the cruisers of our mass.
For we had lost but a few dozens of our ships and
had all but destroyed the mighty Berlin arsenals and
a thousand of the European Federation cruisers, had
struck a staggering blow at our enemy. And even as
we gathered now we knew that the cruisers rising from
beneath, striving to form their shattered and disorgan-
CITIES IN THE AIR
407
ized and stunned squadrons, would be too late to pursuel
us. Westward lights were gleaming in the upper air,
growing larger, and we knew them to be other patrol-
cruisers rushing in answer to the alarm from the city
beneath, knew that even at that moment the great air-
forts hanging in a chain westward would be rushing
back to defend Berlin, knew that easily we could evade
them and with their great chain broken could head
w^estward at full speed over the Atlantic and win back
to our own land. We had succeeded in our daring,
insane plan, and our cheers were rolling out still as we
began to move westward above the great, panic-roaring
air-city.
“We did it !" I cried to Macklin as our cruisers leapt
forward now. “We struck a blow this time that they
never dreamed we had the power to strike!”
“And we’ll win clear!” Macklin exclaimed, as he
sent our cruiser shooting forward at the head of the
others. And Hilliard, bursting up into the bridge-
room from beneath, was crying, “We made it, Brant-—
'we’ve destroyed their arsenals and a fourth of their
'fleet!”
“And now back westward!” I exclaimed as bur
cruiser shot ahead. “Now back — but look there above
lusr
My words had changed suddenly into that wild cry
of warning, and as the others glanced up they saw
above that which had brought that cry from me. Two
of the patrol-cruisers of the enemy that were dashing
about us still in futile attack as we started away had
drawn back and had circled upward high above us. And
now, without using heat-guns and for that reason not
detected by us until that last moment, they had joined
together and side by side were rushing straight down
upon us like a great single projectile of fl3dng metal!
Were rushing straight down toward our cruiser, that
sped in front of all the mass of our cruisers, identifying
it in that way as the ship of our expedition’s com-
mander, and sacrificing themselves to destroy us in a
headlong crash in revenge for our bombing of the city
beneath! Even as I lud glimpsed them, had cried
out, they were looming just above us, rushing down
toward us !
Even as that wild cry had left my lips and as the
others had looked up other cries had come from them,
from Macklin and Hilliard. "Over!” I screamed to
(Macklin as his hands shot to the wheel, and in the next
fnstant he was whirling the wheel over, to send our
cruiser whirling sidewise to escape that thunderbolt
of twin destruction from above. But in the next mo-
ment, before it could answer to the wheel, the down-
thundering ships above had crashed squarely down
into our own ! We reeled there with them for a single
instant, three twisted wrecks of metal iianging there
in mid-air in that instant, and then theirs and our own
wrecked cruiser were falling, were hurtling crazily
downward through the upper night toward the giant
radiant circle of the great air-city miles below 1
CHAPTER V
Captured
T hat mad whirl downward of our wrecked cruiser
is now to me more of a memory of some strange
and torturing dream than a memory of actual happen-
ings. Flung sidewise and downward against the bridge-
room’s floor as our cruiser whirled over with that
mighty crash from above, I glimpsed Macklin and Hil-
liard tossed about there with me, rolling over and over.
The black gloom of night about us, the mass of our
onrushing ships above, the colossal brilliant air-city
beneath, the two wrecked cruisers that were tumbling
downward with our own — ^all these things seemed to
whirl about us like some great wheel of swift-succeed-
ing impressions as we glimpsed them in that mad mo-
ment through the bridge-room’s whirling windows.
It seemed but a single brief moment before I
glimpsed the great mass of lights, the soaring towers,
of the air-city beneath rushing up toward us with un-
earthly speed. Even as I glimpsed it another turn
of the spinning ship had thrown Macklin and Hilliard
over again, and this time I clutched for a hold, found
one upon the cruiser’s wheel. Then, with the dron-
ing of the still-operating motors and the cries of my
two companions and of the crew beneath loud in my
ears, I reached with a great effort toward the control
of the motors, clinging to my hold with a supreme
eflfort. My fingers found that control, but at the mo-
ment they did so I heard a last hoarse cry from Mack-
lin, glimpsed but yards beneath us, it seemed, the
smooth surface of one of the city’s narrow streets, and
then flung over the control, shifting all the power of
the' motors from our horizontal tube-propellers to our
vertical ones. The next moment a blaze of light seemed
all about us, there was a terrific crash, and as I was
hurled back across the bridge-room by the impact, my
head met the metal wall of it and consciousness left me.
When I came to it was to the realization of some-
one’s hands endeavoring to revive me, I opened my
eyes to find myself lying on a long seat of metal, with
above me the metal ceiling of a white-lit room, and
with Macklin and Hilliard bending anxiously over me.
I strove to speak to them, desisted as my first move-
ment made apparent to me a painful swelling on the
side of my head. And then with their helping arms
behind my back I sat up, looked dazedly about me.
Then, the memory of what had happened rushed sud-
denly back upon me and I was filled with an abrupt
dismay.
For the white-lit room in which I sat, seeming an
ante-room to other chambers beyond, held beside us
three a half-dozen of men in the green, tight-fitting
uniforms of the European Federation’s forces, alike
save in colour to our own black uniforms. They were
ranged before us, watching us closely, and there swung
at the belt of each a shining, long-barrelled heat-pistol,
one of those hand-weapons that throw heat-cartridges
smaller than the great heat-shells and bombs, but as
destructive and deadly on a smaller scale. These six
European Federation soldiers had their heat-pistols
ready beneath their hands, and were contemplating us
intently. And as I saw that, and glimpsed also through
the open door to the right of us a great, smooth-floored
plaza and immense buildings towering up into the out-
side night, brilliant with lights, and heard the roar of
the crowds that seethed among those buildings, I re-
membered all that had befallen us, clutched Macklin’s
arm tightly.
“The cruiser fell!” I exclaimed. “I remember the
crash, now — ^then this is Berlin, Macklin, and we’re
captured !”
“Captured,” Macklin quietly said. “You and Hil-
liard and I were the only ones to survive our cruiser’s
crash, Brant — and we survived only because we were
in the ship’s bridge-room, its upmost part, when it
crashed. You had been stunned, and before Hilliard
and I could recover from that crash the European
guards had swarmed up over the wreck and captured
408
AIR WONDER STORIES
us, taking us here to the great central electrostatic
tower.”
“We three the only survivors?” I repeated. “Then
— then all our crew — ?”
Macklin did not answer, but as his eyes held mine
I read my answer in them, and as I did so something
hard seemed to form in my throat. Our crew — ^the
hundred cheery lads that had manned my cruiser for
long, and each of whom I had known by name — and
all annihilated in that great crash downward which we
three in the bridge-room h^d alone escaped. I felt
Macklin’s understanding grip on my shoulder, and
then we were suddenly recalled to r^ization of our
position as a door in the ante-room's left side clicked
open, another green-uniformed figure emerging from
within. He spoke a brief order to our guards in the
European tongue, that Latin-Teutonic combination of
languages which was universal throughout the Euro-
pean Federation and which I myself spoke and under-
stood to some extent. Instantly our guards motioned
us to the door from which the other had emerged,
and as we passed through that door before them we
found ourselves in a larger and circular room, white-
lit like the first.
It was, I saw instantly, the central control-room of
the great power-tower, of the whole great air-city of
Berlin. Lake the similar control-room in the power-
tower of New York it held on its walls panel upon
panel of dials and gleaming-knobbed switches, while
at the center of the room were also six great controls
that directed the great air-city’s movements through
the air in any direction, and the single power or speed
control. Beside these was another great raised table-
map, this one mounted upon a solid block of metal,
with upon it the red circles of the world’s air-cities.
And beside that map there sat now a dozen or more
men in the same green uniform as our guards, though
with metal wing-like insignia upon their sleeves. They
were, I knew without asking, the highest Air Chiefs
and officers of all the European Federation, gathered
here in the control-room of that Federation’s capital
city.
The Captors’ Threat
F )R a moment we three faced them in silence, our
guards watchful still behind us, and then the center-
most of the seated figures, a swarthy, black-haired of-
ficer with black, probing eyes, whose five metal wing-
insignia marked him as the First Air Chief of the
European forces, spoke to us, in our own tongue.
“You are Captain, First Officer and Second Officer
of the American Federation cruiser which crashed in
our streets just as the main body of your ships escaped,”
he said, and even at the words my heart raced with
sudden gladness. Our ships had escaped safely back
over the Atlantic, then, as I had known they would !
" and we desire to know,” the European First Air
Chief was continuing, “just what forces remain to the
Americans and which engaged in this attack.”
I faced him in utter silence, my own eyes meeting
his probing black ones calmly, and at my silence I saw
a contraction of the muscles about those eyes, a sudden
flush beneath his swarthy skin.
“I think it would be best for you to answer,” he
said quietly, “nor need you think tfiat silence will help
your countrymen in any way. For though your
cruisers sthick a great blow at us here in Berlin this
night, though word has reached me that as g^t a one
was struck by other American ships at Pwing, these
are but two of the two hundred great air-cities of our
two Federations, but a fraction of our great forces.
And we know that your fleets lost many ships in the
battles of yesterday despite, their victories, and desire
to know what forces are left them.”
Still in stony silence I stood, my eyes meeting square-
ly the eyes of the men before me, while beside me
Macklin and Hilliard stood in the same stiff silence.
I saw the European Commander’s flush of anger
deepen, saw him half-rise with hand clenched to hurl
an order at our guards, and then he had relaxed back
into his seat, was smiling grimly.
“A most unwise course to follow. Captain, you may
believe me. I take it that your officers are as mule-
headed? Well, there is no immediate hurry and a few
days of consideration, of meditation, may change your
minds. As a subject for your meditations, you may
take my promise to. you that unless you become more
communicative at the end of the fortnight I give you,
we shall be forced to use somewhat unpleasant pro-
cedures with you. An earnest consideration of that
fact will, I think, change your viewpoint somewhat.”
He turned, snapped an order in his own tongue to
the captain of the guards behind us. “A cell in the one
hundredth story for these three — ^put them with the
other American, and if after a fortnight they’re still
stubborn, we’ll deal with all four.”
Immediately our guards had marched us back to the
door through which we had entered, and across the
ante-room beyond through another door and into a
short, broad hall along the sides of which rested the
great tower’s lift-cages. We were ordered into one of
the cages, our guards holding their heat-pistols full
upon us now, and then as a stud was pressed and the
motors’ power was turned through the cage’s powerful
vertical tube-propellers, those tube-propellers drove us
up with a thin whistling of air up through the narrow
shaft the cages moved in, up until in a moment more
we had stopped and were emerging into a similar hall
on the great tower’s hundredth floor. From that hall
we moved into a short corridor that ran the width of
the great tower, which at this height was but a hundred
or more feet in diameter, its slender pinnacle tapering
as it rose to its tip, while much of that pinnacle’s space
was occupied by the great connections which carried
the city’s electrical power down from the mighty
tower’s tip.
Along that corridor we went, one lined with solid
metal doors on either side, and finally were halted be-
fore one of those doors. 'Then one of our guards drew
from a pocket a small instrument resembling an electric
torch, from which he flashed a tiny beam into a trans-
parent-fronted little opening in the wall beside the door.
At once there came a clicking of locks, and the door
swung open, its locks unbolted by the beam of light
or force, rather, whose vibratory rate was exactly tuned
to. affect a delicate receiver tuned to the same frequency,
set in the wall and controlling the lock. These vibra-
tion-locks, indeed, had long ago replaced the old,
clumsy keys, and were far safer in that they responded
only to one certain frequency vibration out of the
millions possible, and thus could be opened only by one
who knew the correct frequency. Now, as the door
swung open, our guards pointed inside with their heat-
pistols and perforce we Stepped within, the door snap-
ping shut behind us.
We found ourselves in a small, metal-walled cell
some ten feet in length and half that in width, furnish-
ed with but a few metal bunk-racks swung from the
CITIES IN THE AIR
walls. At its farther end from us was the only open-
ing beside the door, a small square window that was
quite open and unbarred, and that looked out over all
the colossal mass of the great air-city of Berlin, a giant
field of blazing lights stretching far around and be-
neath the great tower in which we were prisoned.
Then, as we gazed about the little cell with our eyes
becoming accustomed to its lack of light, we made out
suddenly a figure standing near its window, a dark,
erect figure who seemed watching us for the moment
and who then was striding across the cell toward us.
“Brant!” he exclaimed, as his eyes made out our
faces through the dusk, “Brant — and you were with
the ships that attacked the city but now — ^you were
captured in some way!”
But now my own eyes had penetrated the dusk
enough to recognize the features of the man who was
gripping my arms, the keen, daredevil countenance that
I remembered at once.
“Connell!” I cried. “You prisoned here! Then
you’re the other American the European First Air
Chief ordered us prisoned with. But I had thought
you dead !” \
“Dead I might be as well as here,” said Connell, sud-
denly somber. “For four weeks I have been here,
Brant — for weeks before the beginning of this war.
And now that this war has begun I, who alone might
save our American Federation from annihilation in it,
am prisoned here with only death awaiting me, and
that in a few days.”
I stared at him, astonished. Connell had. been one
of the cruiser captains of the American Federation
forces for several years, and had been a friend of my
own in those years. A year before he had withdrawn
from active duty, no one knew to where, and finally,
but a few weeks before the breaking forth of this war,
our First Air Chief had told us in answer to our queries
that Connell had been sent upon a special mission, but
that since he had not reported for several weeks he
had undoubtedly met death in the course of it. To
meet him here, in the heart of Berlin and prisoned with
ourselves, astounded me, and the more so since from
his first words we understood that he had been confin-
ed thus for weeks even before war had burst upon us.
But now, motioning us to seats on the bunk-racks be-
side us, Connell was questioning us eagerly as to the
course of the combat between the great Federations so
far, and his eyes shone when we described to him that
terrific battle over and in the Atlantic that we had
fought but a day before, and that daring attadc on
Berlin that he had himself witnessed from his window.
"I saw the European Federation’s fleet massing and
sailing westward yesterday,” he said, “and knew it was
launching its great attack, knew when it returned
disorganized and shattered that the American fleet had
beaten back that attack. But I did not expect this at-
tack you made on Berlin tonight, and was as astound-
ed as all in the city when you swooped down with
your great bombs. A great blow, Brant — a great and
successful blow against the whole European Federation,
yet such a blow done cannot halt the menace which it
and the Asiatic Federation are preparing to loose upon
our own nation. Such a blow, nor a hundred such
blows, would avail but little in the end against the
stupendous plans and forces that are preparing and
massing even now to roll out upon the Ametican
Federation in an avalanche of doom!”
A Strange Tale
H e PAUSED, and in the dusky cell Macklin and
Hilliard and I sat as silent as himself, gazing
toward him in sudden startled surprise. From far out
over the great air-city about us came the droning of
rushing ships and the dim roar of voices from beneath.
But Connell was speaking again —
“You, nor anyone else, knew where I went when I
left active service in our fleet, none but the first Air
Chief, who sent me. That was a year ago, and he told
me then that it was evident that the European and
Asiatic Federations were preparing to attack us, and
that rumors had been heard of some mighty new
weapon or plan with which, if their ordinary forces
faiM, they would completely crush us. Hundreds of
agents, said the First Air Chief, were being sent to
the European and Asiatic air-cities to try to learn the
nature of this new weapon, and I was one of those to
be sent to Berlin, as I knew the European tongue
thoroughly. I was to go in disguise, was to endeavor
to work myself into the European F^eration fleet, and
was then to risk everything in an effort to find out
what this great new plan or weapon was. And so in
disguise, a year ago, I came here.
“Eight months it took me to work my way into the
European fleet, eight months in which I was chiefly oc-
cupied in establishing my new false Identity as a
European citizen. Then I enlisted in the fleet, enter-
ing the motor-section. Of course, as a cruiser-captain
in our own fleet, all types of motors were perfectly
familiar to me, and I had no difficulty in swiftly rising
through various promotions to the status of under-of-
ficer in one of the European cruisers. Then came at
last the opportunity for which I had waited for months,
and which I had begun to despair of ever occurring.
I was ordered to report back from my cruiser to the
First Air Chief’s headquarters here in Berlin, and when
I did report I was questioned by a board of a half-
dozen European officers on my knowledge of motors
and tube-propellers. It must have seemed to them that
I had unusual ability and knowledge for a mere under-
officer, for they informed me that I had proved satis-
factory and that I had been selected to form one of
the workers on a great new work that was being car-
ried out secretly, and ordered me to report to a certain
compartment in the great air-city’s base.
“I reported there, eager now as I sensed myself on
Lie trail of that which I sought, and found that there
were whole vast compartments in the city’s great
base in which only selected men and certain high of-
ficers of the European fleet were permitted to venture.
These were the compartments in which were placed the
giant tube-propellers which are set horizontally in the
great air-city’s base, and which when the power of its
great motors is turned into them move the city in any
desired direction. Every air-dty in the world has, as
you know, these great tube-propellers that move it
about. But as you know too, so much of the motors’
power must be used in the life of the city, that the
horizontal tube-propeller can only move the great cities
through the air at an extremely slow rate of speed. It
is a predicament which cannot he altered, either, by
adding more motors, since to add them you must add to
the city’s size, and so the problem remains the same.
"But now, as I found when I first entered those
compartments, these European Federation officers and
inventors had solved that problem ! They had devised
a way that would enable them to send their gigantic
410
AIR WONDER STORIES
air-cities rushing through the air at almost the speed
of a cruiser itself ! They had done this by devising
a wholly new form of horizontal tube-propeller capable
of infinitely greater tractive effect on the air and rota-
ting at a much higher rate of speed. Thus the great air
cities, miles across and with all their towers upon them,
could rush through the air at hundreds of miles an hour,
needing only to use their vertical tubes when they were
hovering motionless in mid-air or were moving very
slowly.
“And this was the great weapon, the great plan, of
the Eurojjean and Asiatic Federations! For I saw
at once that it was a great weapon indeed, a terrific
weapon which would enable them to annihilate all the
air-cities and peoples of our own nation. You see what
it meant? It meant that they could gather together
all their scores of giant air-cities, outnumbering our
own one hundred cities by two to one, and could rush
over the oceans at awful speed toward our American
air-cities, could fall upon them with all the giant bat-
teries of heat-guns with which each colossal city is
equipped, like our own. And because our own would
not be able to move at that tremendous speed, because
our own air-cities could only move at a comparatively
creeping rate through the air, they would be able to
mass their outnumbering forces around our own cities
and blast them from the air, annihilating them and all
the millions of our people inside them, sending them
hurtling to earth in titanic fusing wrecks I
“To rush forth to battle, to the annihilation of our
own cities, in their great air-cities! To send those
gigantic cities of the air, Berlin and Peking and Tokio
and all the scores of others of the two great Federa-
tions, thundering through the air to battle, each with
its masses of towers on it. They have made provision
for all people who are not entirely engaged in battle,
to descend to the earth and remain there in specially
constructed buildings. This will help also to reduce
the weight of the cities. That was their great plan,
their great weapon, and I knew that with it, even as
they said, they could burst forth and annihilate our
own air-cities. But, holding still to my work there in
the lower compartments, I strove to penetrate the heart
of the secret, the design of the great new horizontal
tube-propellers which were to accomplish this, to send
the mighty cities rushing through the air at such im-
mense speed. Each of the great air-cities of the Euro-
pean and Asiatic Federations, as I learned, was being
secretly equipped with these new tube-propellers, and
I knew that if I could learn their secret, could take
that secret back with me, our own American air-cities
could be equipped with the new tubes likewise and
could meet the attacking cities at equal speed, on equal
terms, even though outnumbered.
The Great Danger
I endeavored in every way to penetrate the
secret of the new tubes, to ascertain their con-
struction, which was jealously guarded by the Euro-
pean and Asiatic Air Chiefs. And at last, hardly a
month ago, I did that, was able to make my way from
my own work to one of the great tube-propellers which
was being installed in another compartment, and by
taking a place among those working on it was able to
learn the details of its construction. That construction
was simple enough, I found, amounting in fact to
hardly more than a use of many smaller tubes within
the main tube-propeller, smaller tubes which drew air
from different directions upward and ahead, and thus
by their shaping and construction were able to fling
a great air-city supported by them onward through the
air at that tremendous speed. I had learned the great
secret for which hundreds of our agents had sought,
and needed only to escape with that secret,
“I needed only to escape, to race back to my own
land, and knew that it would take our own engineers
but a very short time to fit our own cities with similar
speed-tubes, since though the European and Asiatic
forces had been working with them for months that
work so far had been mostly experimentation. But it
was then, when I tried to escape, that my luck came
abruptly to an end. For I was captured by the fleet-
officers here in Berlin as I was on the very point of
leaving, captured when the false identity which I had
established at such pains was upset at the last moment
through the detection of one of the documents I had
forged. I was captured, and knowing that I had
within my brain that great secret of theirs which would
make their air-cities resistless, they would never, I
knew, release me. They took me at once before their
commander, the First Air Chief of the European fleet,
and then by him and by a number of the Asiatic Air
Chiefs also I was questioned exhaustively.
“They wanted most to know what other American
agents like myself were hidden within their air-cities.
They knew that those agents or the greater part of
them were known to me, and they knew that if I de-
scribed or named them they would be able to catch
them all and thus prevent the possibility of another
spy learning their great secret as I had done. I re-
fused utterly, though, to give them the information
they wished, to reveal to them my fellow-agents in the
various cities. At last they saw, after days of question-
ing and half-torture, that they could not as yet wring
from me that information, so confined me here in a
cell high in the central tower with the information
that only death awaited me within days unless I ac-
ceded to their demands. And, confined here, I saw
from the window that the whole European Federation
fleet had begun to mass here at the air-city of Berlin,
quietly and unobtrusively, and guessed then that they
meant to loose their attack upon the American Federa-
tion.
“The great tubes that were to move their cities
through the air at such terrific speed were not yet
finished, but they did not wait for these, launching out
their great fleet of cruisers which with the Asiatic fleet
outnumbered the American ships by two to one and
should be able to overwhelm them, they thought. I
think that their reason for starting that attack so soon,
before their greater preparations were completely fin-
ished, was that they feared lest another spy like myself
might discover their great secret and escape with it.
So they let loose their fleets upon the American Federa-
tion to begin the war and forestall that contingency
by beating do^TO the American forces in a first tre-
mendous attack. If that first great attack failed, they
could swiftly complete the preparations that would
make their air-cities of such immense speed and power,
and then could launch all those air-cities upon the
American ones in a second attack that nothing could
resist.
“And even now, despite that daring and deadly attack
which your ships made here upon Berlin tonight, and
upon Peking, as you say, the great preparations of the
European and Asiatic Federations are going swiftly on,
and soon now those preparations will be completed and
their great air-cities will be able to whirl through the
CITIES IN THE AIR
1411
air at that tremendous speed. And then will come the
end, for our American Federation. The two hundred
air-cities of the European and Asiatic Federations will
flash upon our own nation from east and west, with
all their millions of people and giant batteries of heat-
guns, and will send our own slow-moving air-cities
crashing to earth, will send all the scores of cities
and all the millions of people of the American Fed-
eration into destruction and death!”
“Destruction and death!” ConneH’s voice seemed
echoing still about us there in the silence when he had
ceased, seemed beating like great drum-notes of doom
in our ears. Macklin — Hilliard — they sat beside me
in the dark cell as silent as myself. And in that mo-
ment we heard again, from outside and far beneath,
the great throbbing roar of the life of all the mighty
air-city about us, the humming rush of cruisers to and
fro above it and the dull mingled voices of its great
crowds, coming dimly up to our silent little cell high
in the mighty electrostatic tower. Then suddenly I
had risen to my feet.
“Destruction and death — ^but there must be some
way in which we can prevent it!” I cried.
“What way is there?” Connell's tone was low, hope-
less. “We only know what looms above our nation,
know that these preparations are coming to their end,
that these air-cities plan to rush upon our own. We
cannot halt the preparations that are going on in every
air-city of the two great enemy Federations.”
“But if we could warn our own!” I said. "If we
could get what you have learned back to the American
Federation — could install in all our own air-cities
similar new tube-propellers — then our cities could at
least meet the attack of the enemy cities with equal
speed and power.”
“But how to get back?” asked Connell. “How to
escape from here? It could be done, if we could
escape, for the new tube-propellers could be put in our
own air-cities swiftly enough, yet to escape is impos-
sible. I have been here days, weeks, Brant, with the
one thought of escape uppermost, but the thing is
hopeless.”
{To be Continued)
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At the first volley the shells took effect and a great gap was blown in the mass of flying
monsters. They swarmed about looking for their enemy. Round and round them we circled,
all our guns trained to port, firing broadside after broadside.
412
WHEN SPACE RIPPED OPEN
WERE aJl seated cozily in my stateroom
on the Meteor while a heavy storm raged
outside. In spite of the nasty weather, the
great airship winged her way through the
air above the old continent of Europe with
a scarcely perceptible motion. We had been drawn
away from the promenade deck — not because of the
storm, for the deck was, of course, enclosed. But a
blaring, feverish dance was in full swing on that part of
the ship and we, anxious to escape
crowds and the rush of city life, gave
the .place a wide berth.
It seemed, in fact, as if the thou-
sand-odd passengers on the Meteor M
were engaged in a conspiracy to rob f
us of the peace and quiet that we had iy a
hoped to find aboard the great air- wm , ,i'
boat. A talking picture was being
screened in the drawing room; an
impromptu male chorus was roaring
out a repertoire of choice songs in
the smoking room; and the lounge
was filled with flitting, gabbling crea- vffW
tures who were constantly coming 3^
and going from the ball in progress
We were driven perforce into a
stateroom, and mine happened to be -c
the nearest. /There we sat in glum RALPH W
silence for a while, sipping the
drinks that the steward had brought us. Finally the
Philosopher spoke.
“After all,” he said, “where is there to be found a
better place to spend a blustering night like this ? Here
we are, snug, warm, and cozy while, far below on land
and sea, winds blow, rains lash, and cold bites. It is
just the sort of night for the Captain to say, ‘Antonio,
tell us a story.’ That is all we need to make this a
night of nights — a good story. And although it is not
RALPH W. WILKINS
with too little reflection the fact that man managed to
meet and overcome the great problems of that awful
time. We don’t like to remember that man was very
nearly swept from the face of this globe. The wilder-
ness below that covers what were once France, Ger-
many, England and Russia, stands as a mark of our
struggle for survival. And the windy wastes which
were once China and India bear ^so their silent
testimony.
"If we give the matter a thought
at all, we count it a matter of great
good luck that mankind kept a foot-
hold on the continent of North
America where our great civilization
now flourishes. As a matter of fact,
it did not seem to have been within
the plan at all (if there was a plan)
that man should survive. All the
forces of nature seemed working to-
gether to exterminate him. That he
survived at all was due to the genius
^ truly great man. Professor Abel-
ton. That he was able to keep the
flame of knowledge and culture from
being extinguished during those fate-
s' ful years was due to a single fortui-
tous fact. Without that single ad-
vantage, even the genius of Professor
WILKINS Abelton would have been impotent.
“Recently, in my researches, I
came across a document written by one who passed
through the events of that awful time. The man was
observant, intelligent, and evidently well-trained in the
science of his time; he illustrates in his writing the
splendid spirit which actuated the group of which he
was a part. Upon him and men like him rested the
fate of the world.
"Naturally, the great events through which he lived
left their impress upon him. Toward the end of his
his turn to do so, I more ^ life, he set these impres-
than _half^ suspect that never become too tired to shout from the^ sions upon paper, and it
the Historian has in his VV house tops vjarnings of the insect peril was my good fortune to
possession a yarn worth which faces humanity and now is, we believe, great- find them. He seemed
heanng. , . . er than at any previous time during the history of to realize — as I think
The ^Historian smiled: fhjj planet.. When wild animals roamed the earth, ypn will feel, if you hear
“I don’t know where the ^ comparatively simple matter to extermin- story — that the fate
Philosopher learns^ all he them, because they could be fought in the open ® f mankind depended
knows,” he said, “but it held in check. But against insects, humanity on how he and his com-
is true that I have re- is at a terrific disadvantage; because by the time rades played their parts
cently unearthed a very certain insects and their ravages become known to ^n those awful stirring
strange and vivid yam it is usually too late.. Witness, for instance, times. Would you like
(as our friend here calls the recent collapse of over twenty banks in Flo- to hear his story?”
it) concerning the Great rida caused directly by the ravages of the Medi- When we had heartily
Catastrophe’ which fell terranean fruit fly; which so damaged Florida assented, the Historian
upon the race near the crops that an enormous number of the fruit grow- took from his pocket a
end of the twentieth g^s of Florida were ruined. frayed and yellowed
century. It is very Modern transportation is one of the reasons for manuscript. He settled
startling to recall, is it the increasing insect peril. Years ago, it was com- himself in his chair, took
not, that at that time — paratively difficult for insects to emigrate from * long drink from his
only three hundred short pfig country to another. . Nowadays, our trans- erstwhile-neglected b e-
years ago — the wild Atlantic steamers, our railroads, and our airplanes yerage and began read-
waste which we knew as ^^g frequently infested with certain insect types, strange and
Europe was a very they are usually discovered too late, wonderful tale: And as
populous country? Asia, "When Space Ripped Open” deals with an in- we listened, we lost our
too, was peopled by mil- ^g^ pg^n gj ^ totally different type; yet the fund- awareness of our sur-
lions of human beings, amentals remain the same. Incidentally, you will roundings, of the peace
and so also were South (his a tremendous story from beginning to comfort of this age.
America and Africa. We I I 'The Historian transport-
accept too readily and "S ^ ed us to a stormier time.
'413
414
AIR WONDER STORIES
CHAPTER 11
THE MANUSCRIPT
The Coming of the Terror
W HEN the star that had so long flared had pass-
ed, and swung its green, baleful mass into the
cold, far, reaches of outer space, men smiled
again — ^but not for long. Those who had foretold a
fiery collision with the earth were proved wrong — but
not entirely. For, at the very moment when mathema-
ticians had predicted that the crash would come, the
earth did indeed seem to falter in its steady course. A
convulsive shudder seemed to run through the vitals of
the world and many seemed to hear at that moment a
sound like the twanging of gigantic bow strings. Then
they knew no more. For although no deaths occurred,
the whole world at that moment was plunged into un-
consciousness. A strange gas, coming apparently from
nowhere, swathed the earth in a mantle of involuntary
sleep.
When the world awoke again, it found great con-
flagrations sweeping through its cities, trains piled upon
one another in horrible confusion, and great ships sink-
ing and burning at sea. Had this been all, horrible
though it was, mankind would have closed up its ranks
and recuperated its losses. But this was not all!
The world seemed suddenly to have gone mad. News
editors at first refused to print or to believe the extra-
ordinary incredible evidence of their eyes as the para-
graphs came ticking in to their offices. “Great monsters
preying upon the world,” they read. “Coming ap-
parently from nowhere,” they saw further along on
the message: “Giant insects a hundred feet in length
sweeping across the sky.”
Frantically they ’phoned each other, all over the
United States, and found to their horror that the dis-
patches of the other papers but corroborated their own.
Somehow, in a manner nobody understood, great rap-
acious monsters had appeared upon the earth and in the
skies. It was unbelievable — but it was so ! Great wasps
far larger than any flying dragon of prehistoric times
were roaring through the air, said the dispatches,
coming from many diverse parts of the world.
The papers printed their impossible tales at last, and
were filled with pictures, sent by radio, of the monsters
that were invading the world. No one in North Amer-
ica knew what to believe. Many considered it to be a
gigantic hoax; for how could it be possible that these
monsters should appear thus suddenly from nowhere?
And further, if they had indeed come, why were they
not to be seen in North America? Anxious ^es peer-
ed fearfully at the sky, however, to assure their own-
ers all was well. And the skies remained as calm,
serene and familiar as ever before.
The newspapers began sending airplanes to the
places where the monsters had been seen. Of the
hundreds sent, not one returned to report. Then an-
other sinister thing occurred: one by one, the news
stations in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America
became silent, like lights in the darkness blinking out,
one by one !
Try as they might, the authorities could get no sane
story of what was happening to the world. Such in-
formation as did inde^ come in was like the wild
imaginings of mad men — the hallucinations of delirium
— or the wild frightfulness of a nightmare.
Soon no information came at all. America was cut
off from the rest of the world. No ships from abroad
entered our ports, no mail from foreign shores went
through our post offices, and the wires and the air
formerly busy with news of the world were ominously
cold and silent.
In the midst of this wild confusion, there was one
man who moved and directed others with a definite
purpose, while the rest of the world either fought death
with the frantic-impotence of despair, or — ^as in North
America — amoved about in fearf^ uncertainty. This
man was Professor Abelton. It was natural that he,
through his great corps of workers scattered through-
out the world, should be the first to know the true
stage of affairs.
Of the two thousand men and women who, at the
time of the “Great Catastrophe,” were working for the
professor in various parts of the world, only five re-
turned. These five came in high-powered airplanes
from as many parts of the globe — but each one was
agog and breathless with the same weird story.
Professor Abelton, you should know, was at this
time widely known throughout the world; but had the
great crisis of which I am writing not come, he might
never have become the universal leader of mankind.
In the country then known as the United States of
America, where the professor resided, he employed a
force of over a thousand scientific workers; enabled
to do so by the great wealth accruing to him from his
many inventions. These men and women employed by
the professor represented the flower of Airorican
science; for the fabulous wealth of Professor Abelton
enabled him to pay salaries which attracted the very
best. It was his dream to give science in this manner
an impetus which would cause it to leap ahead as never
before in the history of the world. The “Great
Catastrophe” prevented his doing that; but it was this
group of men and women who, working under his
guidance, saved mankind from utter extinction.
Space Ripped Open
O N a vast tract of land owned by Professor Abelton,
he had built a model town to accommodate his
corps of men and women. This town and the offices
and laboratories were situated upon a wide, high plateau
in the western part of America, far away from any
cities. Here a busy, happy community worked and
played until the day when the five airplanes arrived
from afar, bearing the news that the end of the world
was near.
The professor called us together in the amphitheatre
which was used for our convocations. When we were
seated he walked quietly upon the rostrum and began
speaking, his voice being reproduced by loud speakers
at every point of the vast auditorium.
“Men and women,” he said, “we are met here in a
solemn and awful moment. It is our misfortune, as
it is our privilege, to be living in a time when man is
to be weighed in the balances of nature to see if he
shall longer encumber the earth. I am speaking, as
you are well aware, of the strange things that are hap-
pening in all parts of the world today.
“Every one is passing through a hell of doubt and
uncertainty as to what has happened, and what is go-
ing to happen. The facts are these: some buckling in
space prevented the wandering star from colliding with
us; but the stress and strain on the superstructure of
our universe was so great that in some way fissures
have occurred in space, as we know it. The wrench-
ing and pulling of the passing star as it swung back
into the infinite has opened up some limbo in four-
WHEN SPACE RIPPED OPEN
415
dimensional space. Great apertures have been ripped
open, and throngh them is pourii^ a horde — a mighty
torrent of gigantic insects.”
He paus^ and looked at us. “Am I making myself
plain?” he asked: “You know that it has long been
known that the possible number of dimensions, like
the possible number of anything else that can be num-
bered, is unlimited. For most practical purposes the
particular universe in which we are situated may be
regarded as having its being in a space of three recti-
linear dimensions, and as undergoing translation ; which
translation is in fact, duration through a fourth dimen-
sion — ^time. By great and sustained analysis, we are
able to realize that this universe in which we live, is
slightly bent or contorted as it were, into a number of
other long unsuspected dimensions. It extends beyond
the three chief spatial dimensions into these others, just
as a thin sheet of paper — which is practically two-
dimensional— extends not only by virtue of its thick-
ness, but also of its crinkles and curvatures, into a third
dimension. Do you see?
“Now, just as it is possible for any number of sheets
of paper to lie in a pile in three-dimensional space, so
it is possible for any number of three-dimensional
universes to lie side by side in four-dimensional space,
and to undergo a rough parallel in time. It is evident
that our universe, by reason of its crinkles and curva-
tures, extends into the fourth dimension, and close
beside us, 'nearer to us than breathing’ swings an-
other universe, inhabited by giant insects. It is too
weird to be true; yet true it is. At this moment the
gateways have been opened between two worlds ! Some
great cataclysm has occurred to rip space wide open!
Evidently, for some reason we do not understand, the
shock of the charging star which we so much feared
was felt by this other world, and these horrible deni-
zens, finding a way to escape open, are pouring into
this world of ours!
“In South America, in Africa, in Europe and in
Asia these great rips have occurr^ and through them
the fantastic creatures of the other world are madly
tumbling to safety. The world from which they are
coming is apparently much larger than this one; for
the number of giant insects entering our world seems
infinite. In some places the sun has been darkened by
the myriads of winged horrors in the sky, and the
earth is literally covered with monsters whose habitat
is the land.
“At present, they are mad with fear. Presently,
when they find themselves safe, they will begin to hunt.
Man, in adapting the earth for his own use, has near-
ly cleared it of all animals which these monsters might
eat. In consequence, these creatures will hunt man !
“Armies of ants have been observed, and each ant in
those armies is ten feet long. Wasps weighing five
hundred pounds at least have been seen by the hun-
dreds, roaring across the sky. Dragonflies which are
not flies, but real dragons, have already swept down and
made gruesome meals of helpless human beings.
“It may be thought by some that Nature is preparing
to give over the earth to this new form of life; that
this terrible thing that has come upon us is part of
nature’s plan. Be that as it may, I can not sit by and
supinely submit. I think I can see the turn events will
take. If I read the signs aright, we must do two
things : first, we must build a town into which no hunt-
ing insect can come. Then, when we have caught our
breath, we must build an airship big enough to sweep
our enemies from the sky. Nothing that we now have
will do, for many of the terrors that have entered our
world are larger than our largest planes. But, even in
these, we can fly higher and more swiftly than our
new enemies of the air ; and the others which we shall
build will enable us to return and fight another day.
“Perhaps there are those among you who listen to my
voice who would urge that we bow to Nature in this
matter — that having seen Nature’s plan, we should put
the lives she has given us into her hands to do with as
she will. But I say to you, no ! I am not one of those
who fondly see in Nature a doting mother, watching
over her children. I see in her, rather, a vain, self-
willed old beldame, having her own way regardless of
what harm or go^ comes to others. If you insist
upon a metaphor for Nature take this. Nature is our
cruel fruitful mother. We are her children — ^born out
of wedlock, and hated by her who bore us. Now in
her wantonness she had conceived again — and would
drive us out to make home for her latest spawn. Sub-
mit? Never! We, the old beldame’s first born, are
coming of age. If we could but rid ourselves of the
curse of hate that she bequeathed us, all would be
well. She will oust us, will she? Not by a damned
sight ! I call upon you, my friends, to aid me in resist-
ing this outrage, this insult — ^and to show the cfld wan-
ton that though she gave us life, we will live it as we
chose, and abdicate it never!
“Men and women, this is a turning point in the
history of man. If there be a God, he is on our side in
this fight! Men and women, what is your answer to
me?”
Our answer was an exultant shout that rose from a
thousand throats and mounted and rang in the round
blue vault of heaven. The fight was on!
CHAPTER III
The Last Refuge
H ad some Rip Van Winkle slept but ten years at
this time, he would have been a thousand times
more amazed at the changes in the world about
him, at the end of his nap thaii his ancient predecessor.
For, in the short space of ten years, the face of the
world was changed. Nearly ninety per cent of the pop-
ulation of the globe had been swept away to death in
that short space of time. For, in the first onset, those
who came in contact with the hordes of gigantic insects
were afflicted with a mysterious malady which brought
death in a few hours. This plague killed millions ; and
other plagues, resulting from the unburied dead, killed
millions more. Of those who remained, hundreds of
thousands met a horrible fate in the dripping maws of
the great terrors who now infested the world. Had it
not been for Professor Abelton and the great corps of
men and women who worked with him, the world would
rapidly have plunged into a darkness more gross and
deep than that which covered Europe at the fall of the
Roman Empire.
The wilderness once more conquered the world ; and
now the wilderness and the sky above it were filled with
monsters more fierce and more terrible than even those
of Mesozoic times. The dominion of man was con-
fined to one strange walled and roofed city in which
we lived and Professor Abelton ruled. In all other
places those men who had survived became furtive,
hunted creatures, cowering in caves or in the deserted
skyscrapers of their once-proud cities.
In the first few months of the invasion of the great
monster insects, the rural reaches of the world were
416
AIR WONDER STORIES
cleaned of their last shrieking human food. The great
hordes of insects driven by ravenous hunger, picked the
countryside bare. Men fled to the cities in countless
thousands, so that the roads in every direction were
crowded with pitiful fleeting figures. Into this maggot-
heap of human life plunged the rapacious dragons
which now ruled the air. The roarings and boomings
of the monsters drowned the cries of the dying. Fol-
lowing these throngs, the monsters of both the land and
the air found the cities. And then the cities ceased to be
the abiding place of man and became the abiding place
of Death and nameless horror.
Heroic attemps to stand against these creatures were
made; but the ordinary weapons of the fighters made no
impression ujMn the monsters. Their massive, tough
armor of chitin, shed rifle and machine-gun bullets like
drops of water ; and, even when a missile did by chance
penetrate a crevice in the armor or puncture a wing,
the great size of the insects made the wound negligible.
Only heavy artillery and high-explosive shells were
of avail against them, and these, did indeed work great
havoc among the creeping creatures ; but the flying in-
sects learned to keep to the air when the guns began
firing. Anti-aircraft guns were of little avail ; for the
world was unprepared for any such attack from the air,
and the comparatively few anti-aircraft guns were im-
potent against the swarms of giant beetles, dragon-flies,
great wasps, flying ants and other winged horrors which
now darkened the sun.
The situation was made more hopeless by the mil-
lions of deaths caused by the plagues. A regiment of
a thousand men would be decimated before a shot had
been fired. Soldiers would drop dead in the very act
of aiming a great gun. All transportation had ceased,
and, when a community ran short of ammunition, the
fighting ceased and the hiding and fleeing began.
The continent of North America was the only great
land-mass on which the insects had not made their im-
mediate appearance. But the four-dimensional world
from which they had come was evidently so large that it
was only a question of time before they began entering
Mexico by way of the isthmus, and then the United
States and Canada, in their constant search for food.
Every moment of every hour the giant invaders were
moving over the plains and through the skies of South
America, leaving behind them a waste and a shambles.
But every minute of this precious respite was used to
the best advantage by the Professor. His vision, fore-
sight, energy and resource was like a cloud by day and
a pillar of fire by night. At a moment when all earth-
ly governments were breaking down, he enlisted the
resources of the United States government in his cause ;
since without it, even with his own great wealth and
scientific ability, he would have been helpless.
On the plateau where the professor’s great research
plant stood, a strange and wonderful town began to
rise. A concrete wall, two hundred and fifty feet high
and ten miles square, arose at an unbelievable speed. A
mould or frame of metal and wood was set up, and the
fluid concrete poured in and left to harden. Within
the enclosure there were vast storehouses erected, and
filled with an amazing variety of things from seeds to
huge explosive shells. Large-calibre guns were mount-
ed upon the walls by officers of the United States army,
who were among the thousands who begged to be al-
lowed to become members of the new community.
Areas were laid out for cultivation ; and small but ef-
ficient shops were built for the manufacture of such
things as the foresight of the Professor told him that
we should need. The trim, ship-shape factory in which
the professor planned to build airplanes was a delight to
my heart.
Stretching from wall to wall, and supported by strong
metal posts, was a roof of great steel bars; and, when
we saw the great hunting wasps drop from the sky
upon their prey, we thanked whatever gods may be for
the genius of our leader who could foresee such things
and provide against them. For this grating could be
electrified, and then woe to the flying dragon who alight-
ed there! About the wall too, at a distance of one
hundred feet, we erected a fence of these iron bars.
This, like the gridiron roof, was connected with our
great dynamos and, in the days that followed, thousands
of monsters met their deaths there.
The First Encounter
T his incredible feat was the only purposeful activity
going on upon the face of the world at that time.
Even in America, our leader was the only soul with the
faith, energy, and resources necessary to carry out such
a project. Truly, in all the world, and throughout all
time, there was never a stranger city than that which we
built at the command of the Professor, and called
“Endurance”.
Thousands, hearing that this ark of safety was be-
ing erected, asked that they, too, might be allowed to
join the ranks of those who were doing the work.
Thousands called, but few were chosen. The professor
sadly, but firmly, sent away all those who could not
demonstrate their fitness to join our ranks. Each ap-
plicant must show great training and ability in some
branch of man’s knowledge in order to be admitted;
and so it was that there came into our community ex-
perts in nearly every field of man’s far-flung empire
of science. Artisans, as well, were chosen, and truly,
there was never a better-manned town than ours.
Once we were Interrupted by an attack of fear-crazed
men who thought to take from us by force the town
which they themselves had been too lazy or short-sight-
ed to build. The ranks of the attackers were filled with
those who had been refused admittance, and led by
thugs and desperadoes who were far better dead. The
attack came; but it had been foreseen, and a rain of
machine-gun bullets and shrapnel took the heart from,
the cowardly rabble, and taught all others that the men
of Endurance could give and take hard knocks, and that
the city to which we had pledged our lives, we would
defend with the last drop of our blood.
All earthly governments were breaking down, being
unable to cope with the situation. In the areas where
the insects had already come, the only government that
man now possessed were new despotisms. For on the
sites of once great cities, at the tops of mountains or
great crags, on islands and some other easily defensible
spots, there sprang up communities of furtive hunted
men who lived under the rule of one or more strong
self-willed individuals. This happened in America as
well when the insects began to arrive. But, not having
had the foresight to prepare for the contingency as had
our leader, they faced two terrible futures. Either they
would be wiped out by starvation, privations, and the
raids of the hunting monsters, or being slightly more
fortunate, they might survive in a state of semi-barbar-
ism.
The horde of giant insects swept as harmlessly about
our citadel, as the waves of the flood about the ark of
Noah. All over the countryside, death and horror
WHEN SPACE RIPPED OPEN
417
reigned ; but within our ark of safety, there was life and
security.
I well remember the day on which we saw the first
of the monsters. Airplane scouts who had volunteered
for the service ranged far and wide seeking the first
signs of the enemy. Day after day their radioed as-
surances of safety reached us — and then, early one
morning, the watchers on duty at the radio were start-
led by the announcement that a flock of flying monsters
had been sighted. “Stand by to receive us,” the mes-
sage ended.
The news spread like flame through ripe hay-fields,
within our walled city, and thousands of eager eyes
watched the far horizons. Suddenly, one — two — three
— planes came speeding over the low hills which rose
where sky and earth met. On, on, they winged their
way, and soon were circling down to a safe landing. A
section of our barred roof had been arranged to open
and close automatically. From the opening thus made,
an inclined plane ran down to the ground within. The
planes having landed safely on our roof, taxied over to
the aperture and slid slowly down the long incline to
safety.
They had hardly accomplished this, when the radio
began shrieking the distress call, and we discerned our
two remaining planes on the far horizon, pursued by
what appeared at first to be great dirigibles. Nearer
and nearer they approached, and we discerned that the
pursuers were a kind of gigantic beetle, horrible to be-
hold, and well over a hundred and fifty feet long (as
we later discovered.) There were five of them, and the
terrific roaring of their wings filled the heavens with
their noise.
Our planes could not help each other, for they were
outnumbered more than two to one. They were spitting
lead from their machine guns at a terrific rate — but
were learning that such missiles had little effect upon
these monsters. The nearer plane shook off its pursuer
for a moment and in that respite the pilot coolly brought
his machine down upon our roof ; but before our men
could open the aperture again the air monster had
dropped upon his prey and begun tearing him with its
great jaws and claws. The spectacle was horrifying!
But, since we saw that our friend was assuredly dead,
the professor gave word for the great electric current
to be turned on. The moment the great switch closed,
the dragon on our roof began to writhe and roll. The
relentless current did its work well and, for the first
time we had killed one of our enemies.
The second plane was not more fortunate. Three
of the monsters hemmed it about, and one hovered
above it. They followed its twistings and turnings with
the tenacity of death and, suddenly, two of them closed
in upon it. Down, down they swung in dizzying spirals.
Then the three hurtling bodies seemed to poise them-
selves in the air for a moment, while a hot scroll of
flame wrapped its blazing folds about them. Three
blazing forms crashed to the ground while we watched
spellbound, our hearts drenched with inward tears.
A series of sharp detonations indicated that the gun-
ners on the walls had not lost sight of their new
enemies ; but at this strange sound the two surviving
insects took themselves away. The first battle had
ended.
But the struggle was not won ; indeed, it had bare-
ly begun. From that day forward, each rising sun
looked ujwn new monsters which had flown, crept, or
crawled, into the surrounding country. All day long
the sound of cannon reverberated from the walls ; as
the fighters on the watch for enemies warded off a new
attack, or carried on a long deadly battle.
Gradually, however, the monsters learned that there
was little to be gotten near our walls but hard knocks
and sudden death — ^and the hordes passed on to less
fortunate communities. But the country round about
was filled with the creeping insects, and the skies were
always black with those that ruled the air.
Punishment for Traitors
*^HE human mind is infinitely adaptable — and what
had been a horror and a nightmare became merely a
grim fact of existence. We came to accept these mons-
ters as a part of our daily lives. A danger and a menace
we knew them to be it is true, but within our walled
and sheltered city, we felt ourselves to be safe. To see
a thousand-pound, diabolical hunting wasp, or a score
of them for that matter, go roaring across the sky,
caused no more terror to us, after a time, than a veteran
soldier feels concerning a flying shell which he knows
to be passing well over and beyond him. I have seen
as many as forty fifty-foot centipedes, digging about
among the decaying bodies of the monsters which had
fallen to the skill of our gunners or been electrocuted by
the current in the great iron fence about our walls.
This horrible sight attracted no attention, from the
scores of men and women who were busy on the walls ;
yet, a few weeks earlier, the very sight of the monsters
caused women to faint and men to lose the blood from
their faces.
As the years passed, by dint of steady, willing work,
and splendid leadership, our position was made secure.
Only once had internal dissension threatened our sec-
urity. Certain base fellows, feeling that the danger
from without was over, sought to put themselves into
power over us, by force of arms. For a time a fearful
battle raged within our walls; but those who were on
the side of right far outnumbered those who would
have enslaved us to their greed, lust, and craving for
power.
In the end, we conquered our traitorous enemies,
and with these the professor dealt ruthlessly. He
judged them, and sentenced them to a just death. One
by one (there were nearly a thousand of them) they
were forced to leave the safe enclosure whose shelter
they had violated. They wept and wailed — but the pro-
fessor was implacable. “I cannot jeopardize this last
outpost of Man to your conspiracies,” he said: “You
sought to enslave your brothers at a time when all were
working for the public good. How can you expect
mercy? Mercy! I would sooner give mercy to one
of those monsters who await you out there. They, at
least, only follow their instincts; you have followed
the dictates of your black, hard hearts!” And he
signalled his men to go on with the eviction.
Dusk was coming on and, before darkness had long
settled, cries and screams — such as I hope never to hear
again — told us that the wretched beings who would not
live with us as brothers had met a fitting end. The
giant insects that roam at night had found them; and
the end of those men was as terrible a thing as has yet
happened in this world.
After this, nothing within disturbed the even tenor
of our ways. The life of man went on. There was
marriage and giving in marriage ; there was birth and
there was death. We loved, quarreled, made friends
and enemies as men have done since the world was
young. But, because of the great fight which was
claiming our best from each one of us, there grew up
418
AIR WONDER STORIES
among us a splendid spirit of co-operation. Men came
easily to see m those hard days that, if the individual
were to survive, he must work hard with others for the
common good. Rivalry and dislike, there sometimes
was; but, underlying all, was a steady current of good
will and comradeship that was to make of the world,
some day, a nobler and sweeter place.
CHAPTER III
The Expedition
S HORTLY after the events narrated above, our
leader called his lieutenants tc^ether for a great
cotmcil. “Our position here is secure,” he said : "We
have held this post inviolate for over ten years, and
we are stronger than we were at the outset. We pro-
duce all that we need, and we are equipped to manu-
facture those things which our development demands.
We have all manner of engineers and artisans in our
ranks to man them.
“The material and munitions which the bounty of
the United States government enabled us to store up
is hardly beginning to show signs of being used; and,
by the time it does begin to diminish, we shall have
obtained more from sources which our gallant airmen
have already marked for us.
“It is time that we thought of spreading the light of
civilization which we have kept burning here. In any
other age, the work we are doing here would be like a
dim, flickering candle precariously burning in a desolate
storm-swept waste. We should be utterly cut off from
all other men. Already the roads have fallen into dis-
repair, and each succeeding year will see them worse.
Railroads are, of course, just as bad, even for foot
travel, and even if the engines are not already rusted
beyond repair, the tracks will not bear them. In any
other age, we could not travel a hundred miles without
the greatest difficulty. But thanks to man’s great
friend, the airplane, we are not so situated. We can
fly swiftly and far across the trackless sky to every
point of the earth.
“I have said that the task that now lies before us is
that of spreading to our surviving brethren in all parts
of this continent, and then to all parts of this stricken
world, the civilization that we have kept alight here.
This will not be an easy task. All men and women who
volunteer for this service will be taking their lives in
their hands. You have seen, all of you, the fate that
lies in wait for those who in these days go up into the
air in ships. It will not always be so. I am now
designing an airship which will, I hope, begin for us the
great task of ridding the skies of our loathsome
enemies. But the press and pressure of immediate
duties hinders my progress, and that ship can not be
built for some time. Should we not, therefore, while
waiting for the completion of this great ship, bestir
ourselves to succor those wretched survivors of the
catastrophe who must, here and there about us, be liv-
ing in utter barbarism ?
“Those of you who go on this journey may never
return ; for the dragons of the sky are many and fierce,
and we have nothing as yet to combat them. Therefore
you must prove yourselves as wise as serpents, but you
need not be, perforce, as harmless as doves. A^en fly-
ing, you may escape by rising to great altitudes; but
eventually you must land — and that landing wfll be
fraught with danger.
“■1^0 volunteers,” he cried: "Who volunteers for
a service that will be remembered as long as man
remains on this planet?”
We had all risen during the concluding sentences of
our leader, and were standing in military formation
before him, in two long lines. In those days, our
life was one of continual battle; and we had adopted
a military way of life by common, and practically un-
conscious assent. It was so natural and right in those
rough days to fight, that one came to look upon him-
self as primarily a fighter.
The professor repeated his question. “Who volun-
teers? Let those who will step four paces to the left.”
There was a ripple of lively movement in our ranks ;
but there was no little group of men standing oflF to the
left when the ripple was over.
The Professor — a, picture of amazement — asked in-
credulously, “What, not one?”
And in answer, our ranks cried in chorus, “No, not
one, but all of us! We have all moved to the left!”
There was a far larger number of volunteers than
could be used for the first expedition, because of both
the limited number of planes, and the comparatively
small area to be covered.
The Professor was not a man to bite off more than
he could chew — and he had laid out an circular area a
thousand miles in diameter as the scene of our first at-
tempts to save those miserable survivors who were left
struggling about us, sinking further every day into
barbarism.
It was my good fortune to be among those who drew
lots deciding that they were to be flyers in the expedi-
tion. Two voyagers were to fly in each plane — to relieve
each other at the controls — ^to provide an observer dur-
ing flight — and a machine gun operator and bomb
thrower, if necessary.
Each of us received simple, concise instructions. We
were to cover a triangular sector of the circle allotted to
us; searching carefully for the habitations of men.
We were also to keep an open eye for any stores that
might prove valuable — such as tanks of gasoline, ware-
houses, arsenals, etc. We had large maps of the country
round about and a definite sector marked the field of our
operations. Crosses in red ink, and other symbols,
marked the locations of arsenals, hardware, ammunition,
arms, and other kinds of stores and warehouses which
had once been in the locations indicated, and which
might possibly still contain munitions which were of
value.
We loaded many days’ food supply for, although the
journey on which we were starting was a short one for
our plane, yet the way was fraught with danger and
we knew not what awaited us before we returned. We
mounted machine guns, packed rifles and bombs — for,
although as yet we had found them of little avail against
our great enemies, we yet hoped that by a lucky fluke,
they might save lives. Furthermore, we were not sure
of a friendly reception from those to whom we were
travelling; and we meant to teach them, if necessary,
that the men of our settlement were not to be trifled
with. To this end also, we took gas bombs and, when
our eyes alighted upon the first of those to whom we
.had been sent, were glad of our equipment; for they
were a hard and sorry-looking lot.
I should like to describe all the voyages that were
made by the intrepid souls who went on that first cru-
sade into the wild places of the North American Con-
tinent. Women as well as men played their parts — for
the challenging conditions of that time had broken down
WHEN SPACE RIPPED OPEN
419
the age-old superstitions of woman’s unfitness for the
high adventures of life.
Adventure With Nana
T he telling of all those tales would be but second-
hand, however; and so I will tell you of the one I
know, the one on which I was fortunate enough to go.
It so happened, and I suspect that the Professor had
more than a little to do with it, that the charming and
lovely Nana was assigned to the machine with me. It
often happened that men and women who loved or were
friends, worked together in those days. We — who had
seen the manners and customs of a civilization crumble
in less than a year^we, under the leadership of the Pro-
fessor, had worked out a new and saner relationship
between men and women. In our new way of life,
woman was man’s full equal — ^no longer bound and
restricted by idiotic laws and customs.
To go upon this expedition was thrilling enough —
but to be accompanied by Nana — that was heaven itself.
As I contemplated the adventures before me and my
beloved, I thought, perhaps absurdly, of Gareth with
Lynette, and of all the other Arthurian heroes who had
sought high adventure and good deeds, in company with
the damsels of their hearts.
The day of our departure arrived. About the great
level area beyond our western wall was stationed our
fleet of tanks and armored cars — fifty in all — in which
we went forth to hunt and kill the giant land-abiding
monsters. They had been sent to their present positions
to protect the aviators as they went to their planes.
We had used these tanks to such good advantage,
that the country round about us was nearly freed of the
curse of giant crawlers which burdened the rest of the
world. But the insolent winged insects, those horrible
dragons of the air, had as yet little to fear from us.
They came and went as they would ; and only our strong
walls and steel-barred roof kept us safe from their lust
for blood. Some indeed were brought down by shrap-
nel and anti-aircraft guns ; but the success of this kind
of attack was small and, in the end, of little avail against
the myriads of wasps, beetles, dragon-flies, flying ants,
and other winged horrors, whose very names we did
not know.
Hasty good-byes were said within our safe enclosures,
and then we hurried swiftly to our planes and, one by
one, rose up and winged our separate ways to the des-
tinations allotted us. No firing from the tanks or the
wall batteries was necessary; perhaps the great noise
occasioned by the assembled fleet of tanks made the in-
sects cautious. At any rate, for some reason our flight
from the city started auspiciously, without a dishearten-
ing attack from the monsters who ruled the sky.
As we rose heavenward, I gave one glance behind,
and saw man’s only citadel in the world, growing smaller
and smaller. A wave of nostalgia swept over me, and
a feeling of awe gripped me as I became acutely aware
that security and peace lay behind — and that uncertainty
and perhaps death lay before. Nana and I were sailing
over a world that had been swept nearly clean of human
life by pitiless forces; how could we, by any chance,
stand to win?
Then I heard the steady beat and swing of my motor
— ^and the throbbing voice of my machine seemed to say,
“Win, of course we will ! Beings who could make me
are bound to win. And there shall be greater than I
who will one day sweep the dragons of the sky before
them in utter defeat ! By my very aid now, you and the
woman you have chosen are sailing over the earth at
the rate of over three hundred miles an hour. In any
other age, you would have been helpless. But men have
given me life. And I, in turn, will give them life.”
How I loved these planes, and particularly this, my
own ! It was as friendly and as knowing as a good dog,
and a thousand times more helpful.
Although the danger of doing so was very great —
it was best to fly as low as possible, lest we miss some
village or squatting-[dace of mankind, or fail to see some
important store of supplies. Giant moths, with a wing
spread far greater than any plane of ours, fluttered
below us and about us. In the fields below we saw
great caterpillars, over one hundred feet long and ten
feet wide, humping along over the imeven ground. We
saw one of them attacked by a giant creature half as
long, but armored, and equipped with horrible jaws.
The caterpillar pulled and writhed, knocking down
great trees in its struggles to get away. But its ad-
versary hung grimly on, gripping and biting until the
scene of the struggle was covered with green and yel-
low slimy matter as the life of the great caterpillar
oozed out. Centipedes of gigantic size ran with in-
credible speed over the earth; and on that trip I saw
one fully one hundred and fifty feet in length — an
incredibly horrible monster ! I wondered fleetingly
what bloody battles had been fought between lions,
tigers, elephants and other great mammals, and these
monsters, in the tropic jungles. There could have been
but one outcome to such struggles — for these horrors
were armored and armed like battleships.
In some places the roads seemed good beneath us,
but for the most part they had fallen badly into dis-
repair. Floods had washed them away, bridges were
fallen down, and great trees, abandoned vehicles and
other wreckage blocked the way. The railroads seemed
to be in better shape, although we were not dose
enough to make a detailed inspection. Once we passed
a long train of cars stopped at a wayside station, for all
the wfirld as if about to take on passengers. Out of
curiosity, I circled about it — and rose quickly as the
snout of a great hunting wasp was push^ through the
door of the rear car.
Survivors
N ear this spot we came upon a good-sized town ;
this we explored but found no men there. Some-
thing else, however we found. As we stood in the
street, a hideous form came hurtling from a dark old
ruinous house that faced the road. Whether it was
a spider, a scorpion or a giant ant, we shall never
know; for as it rushed toward us, both Nana and I
hurled high explosive-bombs into its slavering jaws and
ran as if pursued by worse than a thousand devils — as
indeed we were. With shaking hands, I twisted the
propeller and, with equally shaking hands, Nana work-
ed the controls. In a moment two badly-scared mor-
tals were sailing over the town which nearly had claim-
ed them as permanent inhabitants. It was appalling to
think of what would have occurred, had our bombs not
blown our attacker to pieces.
We flew on in silence for a long while my nervous
eye raked the heavens for another assailant. It was
well that I did so, for with a roar that filled the heavens
and drowned out our motor, a great hunting wasp
came shooting across the sky. I seized another bomb,
in the vain hope of making an effective throw before
our new enemy should land. A second glance showed
me that he was not heading for our plane. Nana
pointed and I saw, unmistakably, a man running for
420
AIR WONDER STORIES
his life across the fields below. The great wasp drop-
ped like a shot upon his prey — and I was violently sick
as I saw him carrying the man away with him, like
a fly writhing in his jaws.
Nana sent the plane climbing upward until we were
higher than any of the monsters ever flew — and circled
about until we had recovered our equanimity. Then
she brought the plane down again in wide spirals. We
both felt sure that the man we had seen was no isolated
individual, living a solitary life away from his fellows.
On the contrary we felt sure that we had at last reached
a settlement of men.
As the plane glided to earth I felt, more keenly than
ever before, how dangerous our mission was. The
great insects lurked in wait at every turn, and we
were only two weak human beings, far from help or
assistance. By the time Nana had brought the plane
safely to the land, there were fifty air monsters swoop-
ing down upon us. But all our planes were entirely
enclosed in strong metal, and the danger of being seized
was slight. The real danger had l^en averted when
Nana had eluded the attack in the air. I let the machine
gun rip away at them, but with no effect. Then, open-
ing a port hole, I threw bombs, but these caused no
deaths among the dragons who attacked us. Finally,
however, the great detonations sent the monsters scur-
rying skyward, and in that respite we gripped our
packs and weapons and hastened out of our plane.
We walked warily, in the center of the street, when
we reached it (for this was the outskirts of a great
city), our nerves a-tingle and alert for the slightest
sound or sight that indicated danger. As we walked on,
however, our confidence increased; for we met no
enemies. Evidently the human prey of this place had
been exhausted. We gazed with interest at the deserted
houses, the lifeless shops, and the advertisements. On
one hoarding there was advertised a moving picture
entitled, “Metropolis, A Tale of Tomorrow;” and I
wondered if the inhabitants, seeing the tale, had felt
the slightest premonition of the amazing things, the
horrible things in store for them “tomorrow”. We
walked like visitors from another planet — or archeo-
logists of another age — through the streets of this
town, through which we might well have motored in
days gone by.
We saw a furtive figure slink behind an old red
brick church — and a second later a wailing cry quaver-
ed upon the still afternoon air. A chill ran over me,
making my flesh creep; but this was no time to be
fearful of strange sights and sounds, and we continued
on. We turned the corner, past the old church, down
a long street filled with great houses. Bounding this
street at one end was another, filled with great shops,
and office buildings. A double car-track ran along this
thoroughfare, and it was easy to see that in other days
it had been a busy street. We followed it for a short
way, and came upon a great wide park, at the end of
which was situat^ a large yellow brick building, built
in. Gothic style. It looked for all the world like an
old English castle — but its original purpose was made
clear by the inscription over its doors, “State Armory”.
CHAPTER IV
The Settlement
I N FRONT of this building was a group of the
dirtiest ragamuffins I had ever seen. Old dirty
garments were worn by some ; others less fortunate
seemed to be clad in sacking, and others still more un-
fortunate were nearly naked. Thin, hungry, furtive,
and suspicious, they r^rded us sullenly as we moved
toward them. To this, then, men had fallen. A hunt-
ed, furtive beast !
I noticed that all the men were armed. Some
carried swords, many had rifles; but I noticed that
these all had fixed bayonets, and I concluded
that the rifles were used as spears and clubs, there being
no ammunition.
We walked resolutely across the park until we were
within hailing distance of them. I am frank to con-
fess that I gripped my repeating rifle tightly — and made
ready to use it if it should prove necessary.
“Who are you — what do you want ?” came the gruff
question as we neared the group.
“We are friends,” I cried: “We have come to bring
you help.”
“Where do you come from ?”
“We are messengers from a settlement three hundred
miles from here where there are fifty thousand people.
We have food, clothes, and safety to. offer you — and a
way of living that is human and brave.”
The big questioner, who seemed to be the leader, con-
ferred with his men a moment, and then said simply
“Come in.”
He ushered us through the door way of the great
armory, into the great drill hall within which now
served as the assembling place of these poor wretches.
There were settees and chairs, arranged in a semi-
circular fashion, probably for such powwows as now
took place. The men shambled into their places, the
leader sat in a large arm-chair in front of them. These
chairs were on a platform at one end of the hall ; while
we were directed to sit in chairs arranged below on the
floor of the hall. Around the great place ran a large
balcony, and we saw the heads of women peering over
it — and heard the prattle of children, the poor little
children whose lot it had been to be born here.
“You came three hundred miles, you say,” began the
leader: “That is a long way in these days — and the
earth is full of terrible monsters. How is it that you
were able to come ? There are no good roads — no safe
ways, and yet you look as fresh as if you had under-
gone no hardships in coming here. Do you wonder that
we find it hard to believe you? If it were not for your
fine weapons, and splendid clothing, we should call you
liars or fools.
“How is it also, that in this day when all men’s hands
are red with blood of those they have robbed, you come
with offers of help and food and safety? Can you
wonder that we are not quick to answer you? We
have seen terrible things done to man by the insects;
but they are not so terrible as the things I have seen
done by the cruel and ruthless bands who have from
time to time attacked us. We have tried to live here
with some decency, to keep what we could of civiliza-
tion. But there are other bands who rape and kill and
take from others by force the things they need to keep
life within them.”
Rapidly, I began to tell him the story of our settle-
ment and, aided by Nana, I made them believe. They
were a hard and bitter crew ; but, as I painted for them
pictures of our life at Endurance and contrasted it
with the mean fear-ridden life of poverty that they and
their children lived here, tears shone in the eyes of
some of them.
They called in their women and discussed the matter.
“I will come with you,” said the leader at length;
“You have made us believe. I heard what was going
WHEN SPACE RIPPED OPEN
421
on over there at your city, just before the world broke
down; but I had forgotten it until you told me again
of the things that had been done."
“Come now then,” I urged: “It is but a short hour
away!” And I could not but laugh at the look of
incredulous amazement on his face. “I told you that
we had airplanes, did I not?” I said. “We came in
one. How else could the journey have been made?”
This decided him. If we had an airplane, then
indeed all our story was true; and we clinched the
mattter by taking ten men with us and loading them
down with the food supplies that we had taken with
us. This concrete evidence of good will overwhelmed
the poor hungry creatures and they sent us away with
their blessings following us.
The leader gave instructions to his subordinates, and
went with us back to the plane.
The sky Was filled with the great monsters, and it
was only after the most heart-freezing dangers and
narrow escapes that we reached our plane in safety.
We ducked, stooped, crawled and finally made the end
of the journey in a burst of speed, safe and sound.
As the plane roared up into the high heavens, the
new friend with us shouted to me, “I was an army
officer in the old days. Airplanes are not new to me,
but I never thought to see one again!”
The myriads of winged monsters who were awaken-
ed to flight by our rise into the air amazed me. I had
been used to flocks of them; but the sky was literally
black with them now. We climbed up and up in an
erratic course and, finally reached the upper layers of
the atmosphere where the cold and thin air made going
difficult for our enemies.
Below, the air was filled with roaring, diving, winging
baffled forms.
Civilization Spreads
N OW being safe, I set my course with all possible
speed for Endurance, It was dusk when we ar-
rived, and I thanked my stars that we had not been
longer delayed — for we did not show beacons at night
at Endurance, to avoid drawing the giant insects. As
we came circling down, an horrible form came speeding
out of nowhere — its jaws agape and its eyes aflame with
insane rage. I opened wide my throttle and shot my
plane upwards again. The hellish monster seemed to
know just what was in my mind. He was not ten
yards behind me, when something struck him. He
swelled, and then exploded in a million fragments. One
of the anti-aircraft guns on the walls had seen the
monster, and had made a perfect hit. I landed safely,
Nana and I were the heroes of the hour, for ours was
the first plane to bring back news of the other survivors
of the catastrophe.
As a result of a long conference between the profes-
sor and the leader of the people we had found, ten
planes went back the next morning loaded with the
food, clothes, and other things these hapless bodies
needed. This was the beginning of a constant going to
and fro between the two groups. Out of the abundance
of our storehouses, we sent load after load of material
and supplies to our new friends; not in simple, silly
free-heartedness, but in wise, good-fellowship. For
each service we rendered, the recipient group pledged
us a definite service of labor in return, and the pledges
were faithfully kept. The men of our new town, long
the hunted prey of the giant insects, took with joy and
fervor to the task of hunting their former hunters.
Their arduous labors in this direction, soon rid the
country near them of the great terrors who had once
held §way there. They worked like Trojans too, at the
building of a walled and roofed town, smaller but
similar to ours ; and in a few short years were living a
comfortable and civilized life such as we had founded
and maintained.
Other groups were foimd and helped as the years
passed ; and in helping others, we aided ourselves. For
from each town, in payment of our aid, we required
a definite number of young men and women to aid us
in producing the arms, planes, chemicals and tools
necessary to our continued prosperity.
The busy years sped by hardly reckoned by us, so
busy were we. And, imperceptibly, the country round
about, for a radius of five hundred miles from Endur-
ance, was dotted with smaller or larger towns, all
built on the model that we had demonstrated to be suc-
cessful. A quaint and beautiful state had sprung up,
amazingly modern and scientific in some ways; amaz-
ingly mellow and picturesque in others. The nation of
which Professor Abelton was the ruler was in no wise
crude or inefficient. There were no idle hands in our
community, and no privilege of position or wealth.
One for all, and all for one, was the motto of En-
durance and its daughter towns.
The catastrophe was in the end a splendid thing for
man, I think. For in the great cataclysm, stifling
customs and obsolete laws were cast aside — and a
great leader of mankind organized a society upon the
basis of scientific law.
The world, aside from the menace of the insects of
the air, was a very beautiful place, at that time. Little
towns throve in every hamlet. The songs of our hap-
py, busy people filled the air and mingled with the songs
of our airplanes as they winged their ways from town
to town bearing peace and good will.
Our airplanes were as quaint and yet as efficient as
the life we lived. They were as much a part of our
lives — ^more a part of our lives — than dogs, horses, or
any other animal had ever been to early man. Our
planes were not built in great shops, and turned out by
the thousand like so many wooden boxes ; they were not
built by men who saw them only as items in a profit-
and-loss statement. Our planes were built by artists
— ^by artists with a sense of flight. And we who built
them knew that they were far more faithful and far
more intelligent than any animal. Thought shone in
them, and the loving skill of the artist was clear in
every part. They were far more sensitive than the
most highly-strung horse, and quick to detect roughness
or gentleness in the hands of those who flew them.
Their moods were legion, and they surprised, delighted
— ^yes, and irritated — ^like any close friend. They could
be coaxed, and they loved to obey one whose orders
were firmly given. But they could be cruel and treach-
erous to the weak or lubberly, and to those who per-
sistently maltreated them.
Yet were we not content. For these planes, beauti-
ful and bright, and brave though they were, could not
conquer the enemies of the air, as our tanks had done
the monsters of the land.
Our tanks and tractor guns, slowly but surely had
rid the earth of the brutal hulking terrors who cumber-
ed it. Every day these tanks, looking themselves like
great insects, lumbered out to their assigned areas, and
patiently hunted for their prey. Having found the
creatures, they blew them to pieces. Each evening the
hunters returned with a record of their kills. It was
dangerous, exciting work ; but the going and going of
422
AIR WONDER STORIES
the tanks and their attendant guns was so familiar a
spectacle that busy people, at the end of the day, often
failed to notice their passing. This persistent hunting,
however, had its effect and soon in the areas patrolled
by our tanks there was little to fear from the
monsters.
The Professor’s Plan
T he greater number of insects, however, lived for
the most part in the air. These, because of our
inability to carry great guns in our planes, we were
powerless to kill. As the reconquest of the land round
about us became more complete, the number of our
enemies in the air increased. This was because the
land monsters had taken a deadly toll from the larvae
of the air dragons — the larvae being left unprotected
from the other devilish monsters who attacked them.
Our tanks, indeed, destroyed these giant larvae when
ever they could find them; but this was very rarely.
The great flying insects made their homes in the great
swamps which had come into existence and there they
laid their eggs and there their larvae were hatched.
Our tanks could not penetrate these great bogs, and
now that their natural enemies were gone, the skies
grew literally black with the winged legions who sailed
through the air. It is impossible to describe the con-
ditions of that time. For a time we had been able to
cultivate fields beyond our enclosure. Now that was
again impossible. Taking off and landing in our planes
became a most dangerous operation, and scores of pilots
were killed week after week.
Twenty years after the first invasion of monsters,
we were again faced with a problem which tried the
hearts and minds of men. And, as in the former time
the Professor’s great mind had solved the problem, so
now he came to our aid with a weapon that vanquished
the terrors of the air.
The announcement came about in this manner. The
Professor called a great conference of ail those who
held administrative positions in our now far-flung
confederation. When we were seated, he spoke:
“So far, we have done well. Our great confeder-
ation of cities holds undisputed sway over the country-
side for miles about. But it is not consistent with the
glory and dignity of man that he should cower in wall-
ed and roofed cities, or flee to the upper reaches of
the air when his enemies pursue him. We must have
some weapon in the air, which will do the work that the
tanks have accomplished on the land. But it may not
be a lumbering, slow-moving machine. It must be
strong enough to carry heavy guns, but it must be
also as swift as a bird in flight. ‘Can it be done?’ you
ask. Gentlemen, it must be done. Our future and the
future of mankind depends upon it!
“Long, long ago, I told you that our deliverance de-
pended upon two things : the building of safe cities, and
the building of great airplanes. The first of these
steps, you have nobly completed. The second lies be-
fore us. During the last five years my mind has been
constantly busy with this problem, and I am happy to
be able to lay before you a plan for the craft that we
need."
He spread a little pile of plans and blue prints upon
the table. “The airplane itself,” he said, “cannot be-
come very much larger than the largest machines we
now possess; because the support of much greater
weights on the landing wheels is impossible. Not much
more than six tons per wheel — ^the loads carried now —
can be carried. If we built an airplane of the size we
wish, the problems of supporting the weight, maneuver-
ing on the ground, taking off and landing would be im-
possible of solution.”
We looked at him enquiringly. If the airplane could
not be made much larger, what then was in the profes-
sor’s mind ?
“These problems are, however, easy to solve,” con-
tinued the professor, “in the hydroplane.
“A year ago we dammed up the river that runs
through the valley and now we have converted the
gorge that surrounds this plateau into a great lake. I
told you that the project was for defence, and so it
was; but it is for defence on a greater scale that you
ever dreamed. It does indeed furnish a barrier to any
land monster that might come near us ; but its real pur-
pose is that of a landing place for the great hydro-
plane which we shall build to sweep the skies clear of
our enemies. No matter how great we build our hydro-
plane, it will be easy to land it in the water. Here are
the plans. Yours is the task of building it 1”
* * #
Within six months, on the professor’s birthday, we
presented him with the Conqueror, the first of the fleet
which was to win back for man the heritage he had so
nearly lost to the terrible, giant insects.
I have said that we who made airplanes were actuated
by a love for the beings that we created. Need I say,
then, that this new giant plane commanded the best
that we had in us? Into it we put the best work of our
lives. Five thousand of us worked upon the actual as-
sembly of the great plane.
Ah, what a ship she was! Each part of her was a
part of the soul of the man who had worked it. She
was a poem of shining metal, the flowering genius of a
people who knew and loved aircraft as no other people
had.
The entire machine was made of metal — even the
wing covering. The huge conical hull was entirely en-
closed in metal on the upper and lower decks. The
middle deck, however, was wide open — for here we
mounted our great guns.
The Flight of the Conqueror
T he ship was nine hundred feet long, which gave
us plenty of room for a battery of eight eight-inch
guns, and twenty five-inch guns. The eight-inch guns
were mounted in turrets, so that they could be trained
in any direction ; and the five-inch guns were placed at
interval along each side of the deck.
To lift this terrific mass, we gave the Conqueror a
wing spread of nine hundred feet. These wings, each
four hundred and fifty feet long, swung from the hull
at a sharp dihedral angle, and then curved down until
they were horizontal.
We could never have flown her, however, had not the
genius of the professor applied itself to the engineering
problem. He had delved into the records made of gas
engines ; and he had seen that it was necessary to pos-
sess an engine more powerful and more efficient than
any we now possessd in order to fly his great new
machine.
No one will ever know how many sleepless nights our
leader spent on his problem. But in the end he had
perfected a rotary gas engine which we tested with
tremendous success in our smaller planes.
The Conqueror was driven by twenty of these eva-
porative cooled-gas turbines which we placed in the
WHEN SPACE RIPPED OPEN
423
wings; ten on the starboard side and ten on the port
side, to drive twenty propellers.
When we launched the Conqueror, a cry of great joy
arose from the assembled thousands who had not until
then seen the great ship. She slid down the ways —
and into the great lake which now washed about the
eminence on which our city stood. The finishing touches
were made, ammunition and supplies were taken aboard,
and I — to my great surprise and delight — was given
command of her.
We were anxious to try our machine against the
enemies of our race, and preparations were made to
insure a successful battle. Although we could but ill
afford the sacrifice, a hundred cows, pigs and sheep
were taken from our flocks, and each was put in a steel
cage. These cages were attached to captive balloons, the
ropes of which were wound about winches, each of
which was attached to a tank.
On the morning set for the battle, our tanks craw-
led out across the causeway which led from our city
across the lake to the further shore. This was a dis-
tance of two miles; but the tanks crawled yet another
three miles before they unwound their winches and let
their captive balloons and their captive decoys rise into
the air. It was fortunate for the occupants of the tanks
that the winches operated from within, for the great
dragons, scanting meat from afar, were now filling the
sky. Already some were tearing at the cages with their
hideous claws and jaws; and one or two balloons had
sunk to earth under the weight of monsters who had
seized the cages.
Incredible as it must seem to a world in which such
creatures are but exhibits in a museum, there were fully
two or three thousand of these chimeras in the sky.
Then the Conqueror rose. I was within her, and so
could not see her flight from below ; but the professor
was so impressed that he wrote down his experiences,
and I quote his words here:
“Four of the propellers began to spin, and the great
boat moved imperceptibly forward to the accompani-
ment of an increasing hum. Two by two, the other air
screws b^an to revolve, and the Conqueror, having
reached the center of the lake, swung about in the direc-
tion of the enemy. For a moment, her movement ceased,
and she seemed to crouch as if for a mighty leap. The
engines and the airscrews roared together in a gather-
ing crescendo as if they knew what lay before them
and were bellowing a challenge. Then the Conqueror
leaped forward, plowing through the water and spurt-
ing fountains of snowy spray. With a sudden spring,
like a living thing, the great metal mass cleared the
water. She sniffed the wind and rose until she was
lightly skimming the lake’s blue surface. Then, giving
the lake’s bosom a farewell caress, she rocketed up into
her element — the air! Straight toward her frightful
foes she flew, her guns already spurting death !’’
At the first volley, the shells took effect, and a great
gap was blown in the mass of fljdng monsters. They
swarmed about looking for their enemy. Round and
round them we circled — all our guns trained to port.
Broadside after broadside we fired, until the sky was
full of flame and the earth below was a shambles.”
Within the plane, there was no cheering. To us, this
was a dirty job to be quickly and thoroughly done. Gun
crews, naked except for their trunks, loaded and fired
with an efficiency that was more than human, learned
through long hours of fighting on the walls and in the
tanks. The ship, steady as a rock, made a perfect base
for gun-fire.
The monsters, after a long battle, were reduced to a
mere handful, and were seeking to flee. We gave chase,
our great speed making this easy ; ever and anon a bat-
tery would fire and one of our erstwhile terrors would
fall to earth in shattered fragments.
We had demonstrated our superiority. No longer
need we watch the sky with terror. A decisive battle
had been, won over the enemy, with the aid of the
Conqueror.
The next day, flushed with victory, we flew to the
nearest of the great swamps where the monsters had
their refuge. There circling about, we saw wonders
which we had not dreamed of before. Wasp nests a
thousand feet long and half as high were built in groves
of great trees. Holes we saw, ten feet in d’ameter,
marking the dens of other wasps. Caves in the sides
of hills marked the dwelling places of great beetles, and
ant-hills that were actually hills rose among the gigantic
trees.
Here we fought another battle, and hither for many
days we returned, to rid the place of the horrors who
abided there. Thousands of pounds of shot and shell
were fired into the abiding place of death before it was
purged of its hellish spawn.
We bombed and shelled the nests, hills, and caves,
until no vestige of them was left, and when the rage-
maddened survivors came roaring up to attack us, we
served them a meal of dynamite and steel.
This swamp was the base from which the greater part
of the insects in our locality conducted their operations,
and the reducing it to impotence was a tremendous job.
One day, however, we returned in the level rays of
a setting sun to tell our people that the great swamp no
longer hid a living monster. We had plowed it over
and over with high-explosive shells. We had mowed
down trees and swept away undergrowth, and finally
set fire to the whole area. Few of the dragons who had
lived there escaped, and those who did flew far away
from the awful attack that had been launched upon
them.
Man, with the aid of his new friend, the airplane, had
once demonstrated his superiority over his brute foes,
and had persuaded nature, indeed, to yield to him the
inheritance of which she had tried to defraud him.
*
The Historian stopped reading, and we noted for the
first time, so great had been our interest in the story —
that the throbbing and pulsing of the dance orchestra
had ceased.
No word had been spoken, so moved were we by the
stark, simple grandeur of that tale. We could not speak.
We stood in awe and wonder before the quiet courage
and devotion to mankind that shone from every word
of the simple story.
Silently we went out upon the deserted deck.
Through the casement above, we saw the eastern stars
hanging low, like great lamps in the purple sky. On
the dim horizon, a yellow band was brightened in the
east, and suddenly a bank of clouds flamed red as they
caught the rays of the coming sun. Then, with terrify-
ing speed, the sun leaped over the rim of the world,
and spread beneath our feet a golden carpet, a magic
mat from the mysterious East.
Nature smiled at us.
But I did not smile with her. The story I had just
heard made me fear her. I shuddered, and turned away.
THE END
I
lanes
loy E.D. Skinner
Ten minutes later, he was explaining to Lidj Tassari Makonnen and a select few of his Rases,
the dimin utive, collapsible two-passenger biplane which be insisted would prove their salvatioa
424
SUITCASE AIRPLANES
Samuel Vandusenberry von Browne de
Smythe, euphemistically known as plain
“Sam Brown” to his more intimate asso-
ciates, stumbled dazedly into his luxurious
office and steadied himself for a moment
with his hand upon his desk, while he stared around
him with bleary eyes in a maudlin attempt to make
sure that he was in the right place.
Quite evidently this was the “morning after.” His
silk hat was flattened down on the top of his head —
a hopeless wreck. His full-dress suit was wrinkled and
mussed and covered with mud — ^as were also his patent-
leather shoes. His tie was flopping on a loose end,
and his collar was unbuttoned with one side sticking
straight out. He looked as if he had slept in the gutter.
After a momentary effort to gather
himself together, he straightened up
with a grim determination and stalked
majestically across the room — with
his feet wide apart to keep from fall-
ing. There he paused and gazed with
a profound gravity at a huge “Astro-
nomical” clock. The clock, he knew,
was regulated each day exactly at
noon by the direct action of solar
rays upon a disk which was located
upon the roof of the 157-story office
building — the disk being connected
with the clock by a fine copper wire.
Also he knew that the daily variation
of the clock had been averaging in
the neighborhood of .0016 of a sec-
ond. Therefore he reasoned that, for
all practical purposes, the clock could
be relied upon. In the course of time
he arrived at the conclusion that, ac-
cording to the clock, the time was exactly 10:32:14
A. M. of Wednesday, May 31, A. D. 2029. With a
solemn importance, he addressed the clock as though
delivering a judicial decision to a human. “You’re
dead right. Old Top,” he said. “This’s May 31 all
right. Yesterday was Decoration Day. I know, for
I got decorated ! Hie !”
Then, finally, he became aware of a shuffling of feet
on the floor behind him, which he knew from experi-
ence to be a deferential attempt to attract his attention.
Wheeling about, he confronted a grinning negro boy,
who deftly dodged his maudlin attempt to hit him.
‘Boss want to see you
E. D. SKINNER
want to see you mighty bad. He’s been stewin’ ’round
like mad ever since nine o’clock, when you all should’ve
been here. It must be someffiin’ mighty important.
He said as how nobody but the chief of the sales de-
partment could handle it.”
Sam “sobered” on the instant !
“Here you Imp of Satan!” he snapped addressing
the negro. “You get my best business suit out and
everything r^dy quick. Savvy?”
And then, as the negro obeyed orders with an in-
tuitive alacrity, he himself marched back to his desk
with the gleam of a definite purpose in his eye — though
he still kept his feet wide apart to steady himself.
Once arrived at his desk, he flopped down into his
swivel chair, snapped the bracelets of an “Electric
Regenerator” upon his wrists, set its
regulator at “2 Seconds,” turned on
the current, and relapsed into a mo-
mentary unconsciousness. Awaking
at the expiration of this two-second
equivalent for two nights of natural
sleep, he appeared somewhat re-
freshed.
With a clear-headed precision, but
with a groan of physical pain as he
muttered : “My God I What a head-
ache!” he wheeled around to a small
silver urn bearing a gold-inlaid in-
scription describing it as a receptacle
for “Pasteurized Water” — which
made the thing conform outwardly to
the ’steenth constitutional amendment
which had been enacted at the behest
of the powerful “Anti-Impure Water
League,” and which forbade the
drinking by anybody of any water
which had not been scientifically treated for the elimi-
nation of all impurities. With the aid of a diminutive
microscope with a flexible glass lens, which he took
from his vest pocket, he picked out an all-but-invisible
needle-point in the filigree ornamentation of the faucet
of this urn, pressed this point with his thumb-nail, ex-
tracted a coffee cup from a secret drawer, held it under
the faucet, pushed the button which was intended to
be visible, and, defying the law which had been passed
long before the “Anti-Impure Water” prohibition was
ever thought of, drew a cupful of steaming hot essence
of real coffee.
right away, Mistah Sam-
uel,” the boy announced.
“Tell the boss to go to
hell !” Sam exploded
with another ineffectual
attempt to hit the elusive
negro.
“Get me ’nother job,
an’ I will,” the boy
grinned.
Then, suddenly, his
face sobered.
“But honest, Mistah
Samuel,” he said, “Mis-
tah Albert Edward Reg-
inald Gordo n-Cum-
mings, the President o’
this here United States
Amalgamated Aviation
Consolidated, him do
^ Y' OU of course remember the first airplanes,
II the big cumbersome ungainly things of the II
early days that make you smile when you see
them today. You remember how we had bi-
planes and even tri-planes and how slow they
flew and how cumbersome they were.
The care fid observers are saying that planes of
all types will tend to become smaller and there are
those that foresee the time when individual planes
will not be larger than the small automobile and
will weigh much less.
Consequently, the idea which our new author
sets forth in this story, while of course humorous
and supposedly a burlesque on all things scientific,
is really not as far-fetched as it might seem. And
while we may not have suitcase airplanes in the
near future, you will find that this story is a
welcome relief in its subtle humor, particularly
in the way the author pokes fun at scientific things
genered.
N’
Sam
Regenerates Himself
rEXT he pressed a
spring on a highly
ornamented fob attached
to his watch chain, which
caused it to fly open.
This disclosed two com-
partments filled with
small pills, with one lot
much smaller than the
other. Extracting one
of the smaller pills, he
dropped it into the cup
of coffee. The pill itself
actually was a recently
discovered chemical com-
pound called Formine,
and it had been' decided
by the supreme court to
425
426
AIR WONDER STORIES
be a successful evasion of all the prohibition laws so far
enacted. It was said, however, that the central com-
mittee controlling all the various “Anti” societies was
trying to do something to justify their high salaries by
devising a new law that would remedy this defect.
Others claimed that this committee was letting these
rumors out in the hopes of scaring a worth-while bribe
out of the people it would affect. Be this as it may,
this little pill when mixed with coffee actually did prod-
uce a powerful drug which was most distinctly forbid-
den, though it was a superlative corrective for the after-
effects of intoxication.
Having hastily swallowed this cup of coffee, Sam
promptly drew a second one, dropped another tiny
pill into it which he took from a receptacle in the secret
drawer and which was stamped “Essence of Sugar,”
followed this with another which was marked “Essence
of Cream,” stirred the mixture up with a spoon, ex-
tracted two of the larger pills, which were stamped
“Equivalent — 1 Meal,” from his fob, deliberated for a
moment as to how many meals he had missed and
decided that this would sufficiently readjust the gas-
tronomic deficiencies in his system, and, finally, hastily
swallowed the two pills and washed this his double
meal down with the one cup of coffee.
Then he sprang energetically to his feet, stripped
himself of his clothing — which he scattered broadcast
over the office for the dutiful negro boy to pick up —
and walked quickly back to the rear of the room. Here
he pressed a button in the side-wall which caused a
panel to slide to one side. This revealed a marble-lined
recess divided into two compartments, one of them
apparently empty and the other containing what
looked like an ancient suit of armor lined with Turkish
towelling. Going into the empty compartment, he
pushed one button and was promptly sprayed on all
sides with hot water. Then he pushed another button,
and was sprayed with a highly perfumed essence of
soap which quickly lathered. Then he sprayed the soap
off with the hot water again, and finished with a dash
of cold. In conclusion, he stepped over into the other
compartment and stepped into the suit of armor,
snapped it shut about him by touching a spring, pushed
a button and was given a brisk rub-down by the violent
agitation that resulted in the framework of the device.
At the last, he finished by hastily combing and brush-
ing his hair by hand.
A moment later, arrayed in the neat business suit
the negro boy had laid out for him, he stepped briskly
over to another panel in the wall over w'hich was a
sign reading “President’s Private Office,” and pushed
a button which caused that panel to slide to one side.
This revealed a deep recess ending in a large tube.
Upon the floor of this reeess lay what looked like a
huge cartridge shell, seven feet long. But this shell
was divided into two sections longitudinally, and the
top half was swung back on hinges revealing the in-
terior. The interior was heavily cushioned to make
a comfortable bed for one person, and, . between the
cushioning and the exterior shell, there was an elab-
orate system of shock-absorbers.
Without hesitating, Sam hastily threw himself into
this shell, touched a spring which caused it to snap
shut, listened to the rattling of the machinery which
he knew automatically enclosed him in an air-tight ex-
tension of the pneumatic tube at the end of the recess,
felt a violent jerk in spite of the shock-absorbers as
the compressed air shot him through the tube — and, a
fraction of a second later, stepped debonairly into the
presence of his boss.
Mr. Albert Edward Reginald Gordon-Cummings,
President of the United States Amalgamated Aviation
Consolidated, glared at the intruder in a fury, glanced
hastily at the huge “Astronomical” clock on the wall,
and exploded.
A Case of Suicide
♦♦■KJICE time to be showing up for work, young
JLN man!” he snorted “Do you know what time
it is? It’s exactly 10:47:18 A. M. of Wednesday,
May 31, A. D. 2029, right now! And you are sup-
posed to be here at precisely 9 :00 A. M. every work-
ing day. This little splurge will cost you one-half day’s
pay to teach you a lesson this time. Next time I’ll
fire you. What have you been up to anyhow?”
“Thought you wanted to see me about something
important,” Sam parried with an injured air.
“Yes, damned important!” Mr. Gordon-Cummings
raved back at him. “I’ve been hunting for you ever
since six o’clock this morning. If you took any inter-
est in this business at all, you’d at least be somewhere
where you could be found at any time. I’m on the
job twenty-four hours straight every day, Sundays and
all. I never sleep when the welfare of this business
needs me. If I looked at my job, timing it by the
clock and then not showing up on time unless I hap-
pened to feel like it as you do, the' whole thing would
go to smash in no time.”
“All of which get us a long ways towards solving
the important problem you imagine the success- of this
business depends upon — I don’t think !” Sam retorted
testily. “If you’ve got anything of real importance
on your mind, open up and let’s have it! You can do
your rag-chewing afterwards.”
“I got a private message at exactly six o’clock this
morning, which may or may not be correct as it came
through a spy who is none too trustworthy,” Mr.
Gordon-Cummings answered impatiently with a some-
what crestfallen air. “Anyway, the information is that
the Abyssinians have definitely determined to fight the
English-French-Italian combine which has their coun-
try completely surrounded, and which has been strang-
ling the life out of them by stopping all shipments of
goods into and out of the country, excepting what
they choose to let go through.
“Any war like that, under the present conditions, is
nothing but plain suicide for them. But if we could
get a supply of our new airplanes through to them,
with sufficient light machine guns and ammunition and
somebody to handle the planes for them, they might
possibly pull the trick even at that. Give them the
things to do with, and they’re the un-Godliest fighters
on earth. Of course ^they haven’t got the money to
pay for the stuff, and, the way things are now, they
never could get it. But they’ve got mineral wealth in
those mountains of theirs, which is something enor-
mous. So far, they’ve persistently refused to let any
foreign concessions to work these mineral deposits,
preferring, with a heroism you can’t help but admire,
to fight it out in the face of impossible odds and try
to save their own country for themselves.
“But they’re actually face-to-face with certain ex-
tinction right now. You’ve got a glib tongue, and you
might be able to persuade them to save themselves by
granting us these concessions covering all minerals in
their mountains, if we made it possible for them to
SUITCASE AIRPLANES
427
win. It’s life or death for them, and the concessions
would be worth a thousand times the cost to us.”
With a bounce, Sam was oyer to a blank space on
the wall.
Then he hesitated a moment, scratched his head, and
turned to his boss.
“What’s the air-line distance from New York City
to Addis Abeba, the capital of Abyssinia?” he added
with a puzzled frown on his face.
"How the hell do I know ?” Mr. Gordon-Cummings
answered testily. “I haven’t looked in a geography
since I was a kid.”
With another bounce, Sam bounded over to a large
globe suspended on a stand in one comer of the crffice.
With nervous haste, he revolved the globe around until
he found New York City. Into this he stuck a deli-
cate needle he extracted from a receptacle in the frame-
work which supported the globe. Then he again re-
volved the globe until he found Addis Abeba. Into
this he stuck another needle. Then he slammed an
exterior attachment down over the globe, and sent the
globe itself spinning with his hand. A dial at the bot-
tom recorded the distance as being “7061.29 miles.”
Then he bounced back to the blank space on the wall,
turned the pointer into the “7060” mile circuit, turned
the pointer of another regulator to “14” degrees north
of southeast, pulled a lever which connected a huge
“Electro-Visional” apparatus, and a faint picture of
Addis Abeba, the capital of Abyssinia, appeared in the
left-hand corner of the blank space on the wall. Tak-
ing his flexible-glass microscope out of his pocket, he
soon found the Gebi, or royal palace, of Lidj Tassari
Makonnen the Negus Negixsti, or king of kings, of
Abyssinia. The “palace” actually was a smudge of
low buildings slightly to the northwest of the center
of the forest which all but hid the entire city. Sticking
one of two needles attached to a fine copper wire into
the gelatine surface of the wall at the point where the
Gebi showed, he stuck the other needle into a point
at the base marked “Local” — and the general picture
of Addis Abeba faded, and a minutely exact repro-
duction of the royal palace itself replaced it.
“What’s the big idea?” Mr. Gordon-Cummings
snapped testily. “I could have done that myself. But
what’s the use? They’re not in conference now.”
“Got something under my hat !” Sam answered hast-
ily. And then, with a malicious grin, he added : “I’ve
been working on this thing a long time. Got it per-
fected two days ago. Couldn’t find you anywhere —
you must’ve been sleeping on the job or something —
so I never got the chance to show it to you. Have
Degiac Kassa here when I get back. I’m going to
my office to get my new invention which will show
you something. I’ll be back in a second.”
Sam Reconstructs the Past
A MOMENT later, he returned carrying a small
metallic box in his hand. Standing awe-struck,
with his eyes bulging out, there was Degiac Kassa the
Abyssinian staring dazedly at the picture on the wall
of the holy-of-holies of his native land.
With nervous haste .Sam walked hurriedly over to
the “Electro-Visional” apparatus, opened his box and
set it on the floor and attached the interior works to
the large apparatus with two fine copper wires, evi-
dently designed for that purpose. Almost immediately,
I’.ie larger picture of the royal palace faded from thfe
wall, and a still more detailed reproduction of one of
the interior rooms took its place. Then, slowly, he
turned a pointer of a dial on the box, and, as he did
so, one after another of the other rooms of the ram-
bling collection of buildings appeared in turn. Finally
an exclamation from the swarthy Abyssinian who had
watched every move with a gasping wonder, stopped
him. Upon the wall was the picture of the royal con-
ference room, in which Lidj Tassari Makonnen always
deliberated with his more important rases, or chiefs,
upon all matters of state that required a consultation.
Then Sam turned with a lordly air, and faced his
boss.
“When was this conference held at which the Abys-
sinians made their determination to fight?” he de-
manded.
“My information is that it started at eleven o’clock
by their time yesterday morning, and that it lasted
until six o’clock in the evening,” Mr. Gordon-Cum-
mings responded meekly. “I imderstand that the final
decision was made at about five in the evening.”
“Five in the evening by their time, would be 9:28
in the morning by our sun time, wouldn’t it?” Sam
remarked.
Then he turned on the Abyssinian like a savage fury.
“Listen you!” he cried. “Your masters will show
up in that picture presently, and they will talk. You
see that you keep your head, and you listen to what
they say, and you interpret what they say to us so that
we can understand. Savvy! If you make any mis-
takes, yom people will be no more.”
Then Sam glanced hastily at the big “Astronomical”
clock to see what time it was, and then quickly set a
small clock in his box at “10:56:12 A. M.” of “Wed-
nesday” in the year “A. D. 2029.” 'Then he connected
the clock with the interior works. Then he turned
the clock back to “9 :28 :00 A. M.” of the previous day.
In another moment, a score of wild-looking figures
appeared seated around the conference table in the
conference room. Prominently in the foreground, was
Lidj Tassari Makonnen himself. The fact that they
were all talking excitedly at once, was plainly audible
— ^but what they were saying, was to Sam and Mr.
Gordon-Cummings merely a jiamble of noise.
The Abyssinian, at the first sight of the apparition,
had prostrated himself in an attitude of adoration!
But a swift kick on his posterior from Sam, quickly
aroused him to his duties.
“Listen, you fool, and tell us what they say!” he
shouted.
“Him say,” the Abyssinian finally mumbled inco-
herently as he trembled so violently that he could
hardly talk. “Him say — him what is the king of kings
— ^him say: ‘We die fighting, or we die slaves! As
for me, I die fighting!’ That what him say. And the
rest, they shout ‘Us too !’ That what they say.”
With the lordly gesture of a world-conqueror, Sam
turned and faced his boss.
“That’s the little invention I wanted to show you
two days ago when you were sleeping or something
on the job and couldn’t be found,” he snapped. “If
you had had this little instrument in working order
yesterday, you would not have had to guess at things
from the unreliable reports of unreliable spies. Wher-
ever there’s electric wires into the interior of any
building, this little instrument, in connection with a
regular “Electro-Visional” apparatus, steps right in
and reveals everything that is there. If you want to
428
AIR WONDER STORIES
know what has transpired at some time previously, you
can, if you know the exact time at which it happened
and are fortunate enough to catch the visional air-
waves before they have escaped from the room, recon-
struct the past. In this case we were particularly
lucky. The Abyssinians are habitually averse to fresh
air in their domiciles, and so the visional air-waves
had had little chance to -escape. However, this is all
beside the point now. You know the truth of the
situation at last, so what is it that you want done?”
The Proposition
M r. GORDON-CUMMINGS squared himself de-
liberately in his chair, extended his left hand
palm upwards with a motion that was peculiar to him
whenever he wished to particularly emphasize some-
thing explicit he was saying, and punctuated his re-
marks by repeatedly jabbing the fore-finger of his
right hand into the palm of his left.
“The proposition is very simple,” he said with a
deliberate emphasis. “Give the Abyssinians a million
of our new two-passenger airplanes, together with such
equipment in light machine guns and ammunition as
they are short of, and with you handling the planes
with a battery and assisting with our new ‘Electric
Flash,' they should wipe out all three armies of the
English, French and Italians on all three of their fronts
in two or three days after you get everything prepared.
The total cost of planes and equipment should be
under eleven billions. We will accept Abyssinian bonds
for the bill (the bonds to bear ten per cent interest,
which is the best we can do considering the risk) if
they will give us a blanket concession on all mineral
we^th in their mountains, outside of the few mines
their own people are already working. They will get
credit for a ten per cent royalty on all mineral taken
out, which should take care of the interest on their
debt. Besides, we will build all roads necessary to
get to the mines, which alone will be worth the cost
of the whole thing to that roadless country.”
“What is your idea of the general plan that should
be pursued in the final battles, after we get everything
ready?” Sam asked with a puzzled frown on his
face. “You know their military experts don’t know
anything about our planes, so I’ll have to use my own
wits in everything.”
For a moment Mr. Gordon-Cummings stared at Sarti
in surprise at the question.
“Well, you are dumb this morning 1” he snorted at
last. “Haven’t you got the cobwebs out of your head
yet? That bootleg stuff will get you yet. Mind what
I tell you!” And then, as ail afterthought, he added:
“But I suppose you are thinking of that fact that
England, France and Italy have taken advantage of the
present international situation, and, not being afraid
of complications, they have concentrated more soldiers
on the three fronts against Abyssinia than there are
men, women and children all told in the whole country.
And they are pretty well supplied with airplanes and
everything else, too. But you get those papers all
signed up in proper shape and the stuff all over there,
and you will find the rest as simple as pie.”
“I’ll have the papers all signed and everything
straight inside of an hour,” Sam retorted airily. “I’ll
just turn the clock on this box of mine — ^what are we
going to call this new invention of mine, an)nvay? —
I’ll turn the clock ahead again to the present time, and
you can watch the whole proceedings. I’ll also attach
your ‘Radio-Photo-Dictograph’ so that you can catch
and preserve an authentic record of the whole trans-
action, so that you will have it if you ever need it.
And I’ll have all the stuff over there before daylight
tomorrow morning, if you get it together here so that
I can get it.”
Mr. Gordon-Cummings gave Sam one sharp look
out of the comer of his eye.
“You go ahead and get those papers signed,” he
said, “and I’ll have your battle plan typed out for you
by the time you get back.”
“All right, but shoot a thousand planes up onto the
roof for me to take along with me,” Sam demanded.
“I want to go to my office for a few things, but I’ll
be up there all ready to hop off in about two minutes.”
Exactly two minutes later, Sam bounced out onto
the roof carrying an ornate suit case in his hand.
Upon the roof a thousand suit cases of a similar size,
but absolutely plain in design, were already stacked.
Around the suit cases, a small army of rough-looking
working men were gathered, ready to make quick work
of the handling of them.
With a single glance to see that: everything was
ready, Sam stepped briskly over to the largest of the
various hangars that dotted the roof, pushed a button,
and the front doors flew open and a huge gleaming
copper monstrosity frundled heavily out on a truck.
It actually was of solid copper which had first been
tempered by the recently re-discovered process of the
ancients, and then had been repeatedly “Electro-retem-
pered” by an entirely new process. Otherwise, it could
never have withstood the violent test for which it was
designed. In shape it looked like the old Biblical Ark
of the Covenant, but it had a heavy prow like a batter-
ing ram. Upon either side of the prow, the name
“Electric Flash No. 1” was emblazoned.
Off to Abyssinia
■^TCAR the center of the side of this IHonsfrosity,
Sam pushed a button and a large door flew open
with a “pop,” showing that it had been released by
springs from an air-tight fitting. Entering the passage-
way into the interior of the thing which was thus re-
vealed, he switched on the electric lights and found
l^mself in a large compartment of flexible glass — the
glass having been likewise “Electro-retempered” so
that it was absolutely unbreakable — ^which had been
“blown-into” the other copper shell in such a way as
to practically surround itself with an absolute vacuum.
'The comparatively few necessary contacts with the ex-
terior shell were elaborately insulated.
The job of storing the one thousand suitcases within
this “Electro-retempered” glass compartment was soon
disposed of, and then Sam set the indicator of an
“Oxygen Supply” apparatus at “One Person,” yanked
the lever which started it to going, and pushed a button
which closed the door with a bang.
Next a turned pointer on the indicator of an “In-
terior Temperature Regulator,” and a pulled lever,
started that apparatus going at a 65-degree adjustment,
another lever started the “Electro-Visional” to operat-
ing, and a third connected a small dynamo with the
“Atomic-energy Reservoir” and started it to 3uppl)ring
the comparatively trifling electrical needs, while a
fourth completed a similar direct connection with the
rest of the intricate mechanisms and a fifth released
electrons of atomic energy from the basic atoms into
the “Atomic-energy Reservoir” to maintain the parity
of the supply.
Seating himself in an upholsfer^ chair, he then pre-
SUITCASE AIRPLANES
429
pared himself for quick and decisive action. With
one hand he pulled down the “Helicopter” lever, and,
through the “Electro-Visional,” saw a huge “Electro-
retempered” solid steel corkscrew-like device, which
had a flange that was fifty feet deep in the groove,
shoot into the air. Setting its regulator at "Half-
speed,” he touched a button and began to ascend slowly.
When the “Altitude Indicator” registered “1000 Feet,”
he turned the regulator into “Full-speed” and finished
with a rush. When the “Altitude Regulator” regis-
tered “20,000 Feet,” he shut the helicopter down to
“Maintenance of Altitude” speed, pulled another lever
which released another corkscrew-like device from an
underneath pocket, untelescoped it and shot it down
to its full length going at full speed “In Reverse” —
which acted as a drag upon his upward flight and
finally brought him to a full stop at “22,000 Feet,”
when he snapped it back into its pocket where it roared
noisily but harmlessly.
Turning now to the “Electro-Visional” dial, he threw
its clutch into the “7060 Mile” circuit, picked out with
his microscope the eucalyptus forest upon the southern
slope of the Entotto hills which all but hid the city
of Addis Abeba, stuck one of two fine needles attached
to a delicate copper wire into this point and stuck
the other into “Local” — which last he knew was per-
manently adjusted to a radio connection with the gigan-
tic dynamos at Niagara Falls. Then he set the regu-
lator of the “Electric Flash” at “.037 Seconds,”
switched on a connection between it and the regulator
of the helicopter, shut his eyes and pulled the lever
which collapsed the latter back into its pocket — ^and,
as the heavy copper plates banged shut over it, the
whole thing was seemingly enveloped in a vivid flash
of lightning, and, in spite of the intricate system of
“Shock Absorbers,” he was nearly yanked in two as
he was suddenly projected through space at the rate
of 6,000 miles a second.
And then, as if it had been a reflex of the original
“yank,” there came a violent “tug” as a third cork-
screw-like device automatically shot out of its pocket
in the rear going “In Reverse” at full speed. Just as
the “Speedometer” slowed down to “300 Miles per
Hour,” Addis Abeba itself showed up in the “Electro-
Visional” as being directly underneath, and, with fran-
tic energy, he yanked down the “Plane-wing” lever
which untelescoped the “Electro-retempered” steel bi-
plane wings from their pockets on each side, and shot
them out to their full “spread” of 150 feet and snapped
them rigidly into place. Then he yanked another lever
which started him to spiraling straight down. At five
hundred feet from the ground, he set the helicopter
going at “Landing” speed, yanked the plane wings in
with one hand and shot the helicopter aloft with the
other, and settled easily upon the ground within the
court enclosure of the Gebi, or royal palace, itself.
Ten minutes later, he was explaining to Lidj Tassari
Makonnen and a select few of his Rases, the details
of the diminutive, collapsible, two-passenger biplane
which he insisted would prove their salvation. Placing
the ornate suitcase he had brought with him in the
middle of the floor, he opened it and took out a com-
pact mass of glistening steel. Then he proceeded in
a rapid, concise, business-like manner with his demon-
stration.
“The best way to give you a complete idea of the
whole thing, is to imagine that I am actually
making a flight with it, and then to go through with
the regular routine that I would go through with if
that was the case,” he said with a professional brevity.
“This is a two-passenger plane. We make a one-pas-
senger plane which is smaller, but the two-passenger
size is the more popular one. You will notice that
it is folded and telescoped into a compact mass which
fits the suitcase nicely. The whole thing weighs less
than ten pounds. It is constructed throughout of the
latest improved ‘Electro-retempered’ steel. The ten-
sile strength of this new metal is so great that, although
the wings have been rolled to the thinness of gold
plate, they have withstood a factory test of one million
pounds to the square inch. Therefore, the other gossa-
mer-like parts, some of which are so delicate that it
requires a powerful microscope to detect them, are
amply sufficient in actual strength.
Suitcase Airplanes
♦♦XTOW, if I am to make a flight, the first thing I
J-N do is pull this little lever ; it releases all catches
throughout the entire machine, and the wings promptly
unfold and untelescope and snap rigidly into place,
while the body also unfolds and untelescopes into its
proper shape — and, as you see, we are now ready for
the actual flight. Next I take the aviator’s seat over
here, and push this little button. That connects the
machinery with the electrons of atomic energy which
operate the whole works. Then I pull this little lever
marked ‘Helicopter’ which connects that contrivance
with the basic power, and starts it to revolving, tele-
scoped and folded up as it is, within its enclosed pocket
on the top. Then I push the ‘Half-speed’ button in
its bracket, and the helicopter promptly shoots aloft
going at slow speed and I start to rise from the ground.
I can develop any speed I wish in my ascension up to
five hundred miles an hour. This is made possible by
the peculiar, corkscrew-like shape of the thing, which
is in fact a simple ten-fold multiplication of the basic
principle of the original propeller. All the other pro-
pellers are also of a similar design. When I have
attained the desired altitude, I punch the ‘Flying Speed’
button of the forward propeller, pull its little lever
which shoots it out in front, and, when I have actually
attained the flying speed, the helicopter automatically
collapses into its pocket and I go on about my business
at any speed I choose up to five hundred miles an
hour. If I want to stop anywhere, I shoot the rear
propeller out behind going ‘In Reverse’ at full speed
which acts as a brake, and the moment that I lose
actual flying speed the helicopter again automatically
shoots aloft going at ‘Maintenance of Altitude’ speed.
If I wish to remain where I am, I merely leave the
thing alone and stay suspended in the air. If I wish
o land on the ground, I reduce to ‘Landing Speed’.
“Within the works, there is a radio attachment which
enables anybody within one hundred miles to send up
the plane and control its flight as if they were actually
in the plane itself, by using this small battery which
goes with each machine. For our particular purpose,
however, I propose to use a much larger and more
complicated battery which I have in my ‘Electric Flash’
machine. With this I can handle a million planes, and
by using different wave-lengths in different sections
of the battery corresponding to similar adjustments
that have previously been made in different divisions
of these million planes, I can send the different divi-
sions in different directions at the same time and
handle them Independently of each other. We propose
{Continued on Paeje 459)
The great ship heeled under the sudden pressure, like a huge bird in graceful flight. The
Tobias Wollack plunged downward at an abrupt angle to get out of the path of the oncoming
meteor cluster.
430
BEYOND THE AURORA
By A&c Author of "The Badium Pool" "B^ond Gravity" **The Invisible Raiders?*
lLL, Captain Wollack, I suppose you are
going to resign now and devote your time
to the pleasant leisure of a man of wealth
and position. Is that it, sir?”
Colonel Brigham, grizzled chief execu-
tive of the Federal Aero-Police, chewed savagely, the
end of a cigar and glared across his desk at the smiling,
clean-cut features of Captain Milton Wollack, youth-
ful commander of the famous Mid-West Division.
"But tell me, Wollack,” the executive continued,
“how you came to inherit that $60,000,000. That’s a
lot of money for a youngster like you to play around
with !”
“To make a long story short,
Colonel,” the captain said after a
moment, “I’m not going to resign
from the Federal. No, not by a
damn sight! As for my inheritance
— ^you have probably read the news-
papers concerning it. You see, there
are documents in the family telling
of an eccentric ancestor of mine who
invested $20,00 i n securities i n
1851. His will had a proviso in it
that the money was not to be dis-
tributed for exactly one hundred
years. That investment has grown
to the staggering sum of $50,000,-
000. Now the time is up and I am
the lucky descendant to fall heir to
it. No, Colonel, I’m going to stick
to the Aero-Police ! I have no desire
to become a gentleman of leisure.
There might be another gang of invisible raiders to dean
up, some time or other, and I need the excitement !”
“Well, you certainly deaned up that nest of in-
visible pirates* two years ago!” the executive said,
abstractedly.
“I’ll never forget the fight we had with them” the
captain replied with enthusiasm: “That was a peach
and no mistake! Thanks to Professor Standish for
making it possible for us to detect them through his
invention of the ‘Radio Eye’ I”
“It was a good bit of strategy on your part too, to
hide above the noctiluminous clouds until the raiders
got right below you !”
ED EARL REPP
was playing square with him by giving him only a ten-
year rap in exchange for the formula for making
aircraft invisible. He got leniency alright, but Sharkey
is the sort of a man who cannot be kept behind bars.”
“It’s hardly likely that he’ll try to escape,” Captain
Wollack said, leaning forward: “According to reports
he’s been a model prisoner during his first two years.”
“Model prisoner, yes,” the Colond nodded, scowling,
‘but I’ll wager that he’s just biding his time. Fooling
everybody with his contented attitude. By the way,
what do you intend to do with all that inheritance
money ?”
The Captain grinned and drew
from his pockets a sheaf of papers
which he laid flat on the desk. He
eyed his superior speculatively.
“It may sound funny to you.
Colonel,” he said, “but I’m going to
build an airship that will fly higher,
farther and faster than an3rthing on
this earth has ever gone — with the
exception, of course, of light and
electric current!”
The colonel’s brows arched and
then lowered in a scowl.
"What do you know about build-
ing aircraft?” he asked: "You’re a
man-hunter, Wollack, not an expert
on aerodynamics 1 You’d better stick
to that!”
“All the same,” replied the captain,
“here’s what I’m going to do first
of all !”
The executive leaned forward to regard the set of
plans which Captain Wollack spread open. With a
finger the younger official traced the outlines of an air-
craft in blue print, explaining as he went along, the
various features of the ship. The Colonel grunted
when he explained the specifications of four huge, bul-
let-shaped bodies evenly spaced, for greater equilibrium,
in the central section of the plane’s expansive aerofoils.
The latter stretched for a considerable distance beyond
the streamlined bodies, and the tails were joined to-
gether by an enclosed passageway.
A feature of the ship’s surface structure that as-
tonished the executive
the colonel warmed.
Captain Wollack hum-
med softly to himself
and surveyed his chief
affectionately.
“Strategy and victory
go together, Colonel,” he
said, “but I was damn
glad when the gang
leader was behind the
bars ! He was too tricky
for me — ^too shrewd a
crook to be left loose!”
“Yes,” replied the
Colonel, nodding, “he
should have received a
heavier sentence. The
government thought i t
*{*'Tbe Invisible Raiders,’* in
October Aie Wonder Stories.)
I F the money were forthcoming, we could al-
ready construct a rocket plane that would give
us speeds far beyond anything we now have. The
thing no longer is a theory or one of these fan-
tastic dreams of a decade ago.
In the present story, our versatile author has
tackled the problem of the rocket plane in earnest,
indeed with a vengeance. Incidentally, there is no
reason why the things that have been pictured
here so vividly cannot come about to pass sooner
than perhaps we all suspect.
And while the science-aviation is of a high type
in this story, the author, as is usual with him, has
packed the story chuck-full of action and adven-
ture that makes you follow the developments
breathlessly.
This story we warmly recommend to all.
was thirty-six tube-like
objects protruding from
beneath the aerofoils.
The tubes were arranged
along almost the entire
length of the ship’s
monoplane - type wings.
The peculiar absence of
air-screws anywhere in
the plans caused Colonel
Brigham to survey his
subordinate questioning-
"You’ve designed a
trim looking airliner here,
Wollack,” h e said, “but
how the devil do you in-
tend to make her fly ?
You’ve overlooked her
propulsion mediums !”
431
432
AIR WONDER STORIES
“Not a bit of it, sir!” the captain said: “I’ll explain
it to you. Professor Standish designed the propulsion
system. I’ve seen his models and they operate per-
fectly I”
“Oh, Standish had a hand in this, eh?’’ the Colonel
said with sudden interest: “I’ve a lot of respect for
science since he designed the 'Radio Eye’ to help us
detect those invisible raiders!’’
“To start with. Colonel,’’ Captain Wollack began
seriously: “We are going to introduce the age of
rocket aircraft that wUl cause the rapid banishment of
present-day methods of aerial repulsion. In the future
it’s going to be done by explosive gases shot through
tubular driving exhausts, such as you see protruding
from under the aerofoils of my ship. The ship, by the
way, I have already christened the Tobias Wollatk in
honor of the man who made it possible for me to fall
heir to a fortune.
“Of course, as you know, the rocket idea is not
entirely new. As far back as 1912, Professor Goddard
of Clark University proved that i t w a s technically
feasible to shoot to the moon a rocket propelled by
explosives. Now Professor Standish has evolved a new
explosive driving gas, capable of accelerating either
rockets or ships propelled by them to a velocity of
10,000 feet per second. This is a velocity greater by
far than any form of older explosive could create; it
is greater than the speed of rifle projectiles!’’
“That’s interesting, Wollack!’’ Colonel Brigham en-
thused.
“Thank you, sir,’’ his subordinate replied. “We be-
lieve that with such a powerful driving gas, we can
fly the Tobias Wollack from Washington to Paris in
less than an hour.’’
Wollack’s Dream
T he colonel’s enthusiasm seemed to wane suddenly.
He laughed aloud.
“Don’t as^c me to believe that tommyrot, Wollack!’’
he said : “Paris in less than an hour ? That’s ridiculous,
sir !’’
“All right, I won’t ask you to believe it now,’’ the
Captain retorted: “Wait until the ship is built! I tell
you, sir, that the Tobias Wollack will do better than
4500 miles per hour !’’
“At that speed, if you reached it, it would vibrate to
pieces, you idiot !’’ the Colonel argued. “It would burn
up' in mid-air from friction !’’
“But, Colonel, the ship will not travel at that ve-
locity until she gets up in the regions of rarefied air
in outer space,’’ Captain Wollack said: “She will do
most of her travelling outside the earth’s atmospheric
envelope where no resistance will be encountered. All
existing motors depend upon air for their operation,
and present-day propellers screw their way through
that air. A rocket ship, with the driving-exhaust prin-
ciple to propel it, would not vibrate because it has no
pounding motors. It is the only method yet discover-
ed for navigating space at high altitudes where there is
no heavy air. And since the Tobias Wollack will have
no motors, it cannot vibrate. Neither can it burn up
from friction, because science says there is not sufficient
resistance in the regions of rarefied air to heat it.
“One hundred seconds will be required for the ship
to get underway from the earth. During that time she
will travel at only a fraction of her regular cruising
speed. She will take off at an angle of seventy degrees
in order to reach the rarefied-air regions as quickly
as possible. In exactly one minute and five seconds
after she leaves the earth, we calculate, the ship would
be fifteen miles above the earth and nearly twenty
miles from the starting point. She would have then
attained a velocity of more than 4500 miles per hour.
I could take the ship off at New York and be in Los
Angeles in thirty-seven minutes. In the regions of
rarefied air, where the earth’s gravitational pull is
somewhat less than nearer the globe, a rocket ship
could travel with almost unlimited velocity. By
travelling so high,' there is neither resistance nor the
vagaries of weather to contend with. The only ob-
jects of threatening nature there are fireball meteors
of that altitude. Yet they are not so numerous as to
cause any apprehension among passengers of such
craft. Means can be found to keep them away.’’
Colonel Brigham sat like an image of stone while
Captain Wollack talked. As the Captain well knew,
the executive was a hard man to convince, even when
concrete proof was brought into play. He scowled
across the desk dubiously.
“Why not tell me that your marvelous Tobias Wol-
lack could fly to the moon and be done with it?’’ the
executive put in, contemptuously.
“It is even possible that she could fly to the moon, my
dear Colonel!” the captain returned stoically: “And it
is possible that she may visit that satellite sometime!”
“Bah!” the Colonel exploded. “There’s a brain
specialist across the hall ! Better see him on your way
out!”
“All the same. Colonel,” the Captain said evenly, “1
want a month’s leave of absence to work with Professor
Standish and a crew on her construction.”
With a sudden change of aspect that was character-
istic of Colonel Brigham he reached across the desk and
grasped his subordinate’s hand.
“I wish you luck, Wollack!” he said. “Go to it!
You’ll need a month to straighten out your new estate.
Take two months if you like !”
Captain Wollack picked up his plans. He saluted
and walked swiftly toward the door.
The Dream 0>ming True
E vents were not long in shaping themselves for
Captain Wollack and Professor Standish. In a
rented shop, housing all the necessary equipment for
building aircraft, the two worked ceaselesdy on the
construction of the giant rocket ship, the Tobias Wol-
lack. Every single beryllium bolt and nut, stud and
pin, was turned out by expert mechanics under the
noted scientist’s watchful eyes.
As he worked on the installation of the port ailerons.
Captain Wollack’s thoughts raced over the final episode
in the apprehension of Sharkey and his invisible
raiders. In his mind he relived the terrific battle be-
tween the outlaw forces and his own, high in the air.
He winced when he pictured the pirate tumbling craft
to the ground miles below.
“Sharkey was mighty fortunate to have had that
invisibility formula to trade for leniency I” he said to
himself as he tugged at a wrench.
“What’s that you said, boss?” asked a sweating
mechanic working near him.
“Just talking to myself, Wilson,” he replied: “How
are you coming along on the beryllium casing? If
you notice the slightest trace of any defect in the plates,
throw them off. This ship is going to be rigid through-
out and I don't want any roll faults in the surface
structure.”
“Okay, boss!” answered the mechanic: “I just un-
BEYOND THE AURORA
433
loaded about a thousand dollars’ worth of faulty beryl-
lium. Had air bubbles in the plates. Didn’t think
you’d want it.”
It was Captain Wollack’s pride that he knew each
of his men personally, and he took effort to hold the
open friendship of each and every single man. Despite
his high position in the ranks of the Aero-Police, and
the possession of the great wealth which had suddenly
come to him, he accepted even the shop roustabouts on
even terms. As a result he was admired and respected
by them all. ‘
Behind locked and guarded doors the T obias W ollack
grew with astonishing rapidity. After the first beryl-
lium central braces were laid, the construction progress-
ed even more rapidly than Captain Wollack or Profes-
sor Standish had hoped for. Happy and contented
mechanics, experts every one in building aircraft, work-
ed hard and sweated, knowing well that bonuses awaited
them at the end of the mammoth job.
Two freight car loads of corrugated beryllium plating,
rolled to accurate specifications had been used up by
the metal workers on the surfaces of the giant rocket
ship. The four bullet-shaped bodies of the craft took
shape at an early stage and her aerofoils gradually ex-
panded toward completion. Streamlined beyond com-
parison with any other craft, the Tobias Wollack seem-
ed to have done away entirely with the age-old curse of
aviation — the “parasitic drag.” The ship’s trim, pointed
noses, her razor-edged aerofoils and the joining com-
panionway at the tails were so constructed as to offer
not the slightest resistance more than necessary to even
the rarefied air of the higher altitudes, much less the
heavier atmosphere of the earth’s protective envelope.
Captain Wollack, in charge of the craft’s surface
structure, congratulated himself and his men when he
stood off and studied the huge Tobias Wollack. “Here
is a tremendous advance in aviation indeed,” he said
aloud, walking the entire length of the ship’s aerofoils.
The ship seemed cramped for space, in even the ex-
pansive shop-hangar.
The installation of the ship’s propelling forces and
mechanisms had been left entirely to Professor Stand-
ish, whose knowledge and achievements in physics and
engineering were second to none in the entire world.
Captain Wollack was elated to see that the scientist had
progressed even more rapidly with his charge than had
the surface crew. With pride the Captain regarded the
row of thirty-six projecting tubes of the driving-ex-
haust system. Like burnished gold the tubes glittered
under the aerofoils.
He had actually seen little of Professor StandiSh
during the earlier stages of construction. The scientist,
like Captain Wollack, was too wrapped in his work
to have much time for meaningless palaver. Each
understood what was required of him, and each set to
work with a vim that brought the Tobias Wollack to
completion in record time.
Eventually Wilson sought out the Captain and in-
formed him that the welders were making permanent
the final surface plates. Rather reluctantly the mech-
anic stated that his work was done, half -expecting to be
laid off. Captain Wollack at once instructed him to re-
main on the job at full pay. Wilson thanked him pro-
fusely and strode away whistling softly. Captain Wol-
lack walked under the towering aileron laterals on a
tour of inspection. The scraping of wrenches and other
tools on the beryllium inner structure of the craft told
him that men were still working there, although the
outer surface was deserted except for two arc welders
hovering over the plates on the starboard aerofoil.
On a cot, nestling under the collapsible landing gear
that could be drawn into the port and starboard hulls
after the take-off. Captain Wollack found his
friend Professor Standish. The scientist seemed lost
in deep slumber, but the sound of Captain Wollack’s
footsteps awakened him. He rubbed his eyes sleepily.
“Just had to lie down for a few minutes. Captain,”
the scientist said apologetically: “I’m not quite so spry
as I was a few years ago. We worked all last night on
the installation of the reserve fuel tanks. The boys are
putting the finishing touches to the two reserve control-
ling systems — we’ll fuel her shortly.”
“That’s fine. Professor 1” said Captain Wollack warm-
ly: “But it wasn’t necessary for you to work so hard.
Better take it easy now. We’ve still fifteen days to
finish her and try her out.”
Professor Standish shook his head.
“I’ve got to make a few changes in the main control
units,” he said: “The automatic lateral-control system
doesn’t respond as perfectly as I want it to operate.
At the terrific velocity of the ship, a powerful control
will be required to operate the laterals. Even the
slightest fault with the systems may cause disaster.
That’s why 1 insisted on the two reserve-control units.”
“How about the oxygen-compression units?” the
Captain inquired.
“No need to worry about that. I’ve insulated the
interior of each cabin and the tail companionways
doubly, so that they are all airtight except for the dis-
charging vents,” the scientist declared: "You’ll have
plenty of fresh air and breathing space.”
“I’d hate to die from lack of air a couple of hundred
miles above the earth.” Captain Wollack laughed.
“The oxygen-compression units will give you all the
protection you need in that line,” the professor said:
“But there’s one thing that I’d like to add to the Tobias
Wollack."
“What’s that?”
“A velocity-reducing valve to check speed in landing.
The work will take but an hour and I’ve already pre-
pared for the attachment of a forward projecting tube-
exhaust to the central explosive manifold. All I need
is a 33-foot tube, elbowed at one end and flanged.
The manifold is ready to accommodate it. Control
valves and all other accessories are installed. The tube
will give you a better velocity-ratio than now ; because
you can fly the ship within ten miles of a landing at
regular cruising speed and then ' drop down to earth
slowly under the forward resistance of a reducing ex-
haust.”
“Well, suppose you knock off and have dinner with
me,” said the Captain.
The scientist yawned, stood erect and flexed his
biceps.
“I’d like to very much. Captain,” he said, "but I’d
rather stay and get the T obias ready for her first flight
tomorrow. You run along! If you’re coming back
this way you might bring us some .sandwiches, will
you ?”
Tired and worn as he was. Professor Standish
returned to work at once. The Captain discard-
ed his overalls and quit the shop, glad indeed, to
get out in the open again; for the interior of the
hangar was a virtual hothouse. It was stifling, even
after the sun had set.
Captain Wollack marvelled at the seemingly unfail-
ing ener^ of his friend. Professor Standish who,
altho fatigued, elected to remain in the stifling shop
434
AIR WONDER STORIES
with three selected mechanics, to finish up the last
shreds of work that would m^e the Tobias Wollack
ready for the morrow’s strenuous test program.
Breathing deeply of the fresh air, the Captain jumped
into his roadster parked near the hangar. For half an
hour he drove the speedy little machine over open
highways; and then, finally, sought out a cool-looking
restaurant nestling under gently swaying poplars, some
twenty miles from the stuffy shop.
CHAPTER II
What Wollack Overheard
T he restaurant was well-filled at that hour but Cap-
tain Wollack soon found himself seated at a table
near a group of boisterous men. As he seated him-
self at the table, the men became quiet and talked in low,
subdued tones.
A white-coated waiter glided noiselessly to his table.
He laid down a newspaper and set a glass of water be-
fore the official who gave his order without hesitation.
Quickly he glanced over the front page of the Post and
opened it. What he saw there caused him to emit a
smothered oath. The whole second page was devoted
to the Tobias Wollack ! As he read in the bold type the
various details of the construction of the ship and its
readiness for flight he wondered why Professor Stand-
ish had given out these statements. Or was it the
scientist who had informed the press? Captain Wol-
lack was incredulous. He was aware that Professor
Standish had never made statements publicly until his
theories were actually proved by successful demons-
trations. But there were his words in black and white !
The Captain fumed as he read a paragraph.
“Professor Martin Standish of the Department of
Physics, Washington University, is reported as stating
that the Tobias Wollack will be capable of flying at the
unbelievable speed of more than 4500 miles per hour.
Considering the past achievements of the Professor in
physics, many experts believe that he will actually suc-
ceed in driving Ae craft at that tremendous vdocity.
The great ship, it was annoimced early today, is to be
fueled with twenty tons of propulsion gases composed
of chemicals known only to Professor Standish. At a
velocity of 4600 miles per hour, twenty tons of the
gas is calculated to be more than enough fuel to carry
the craft on a roimd trip to the moon, should the
builders decide upon such an awe-inspiring attempt.”
In the center of the page. Captain Wollack re-
cognized a four-column photograph of the Tobias Wol-
lack, Over either aerofoil were inserted small vignette
pictures of himself and Professor Standish. He swore
at the thought that someone employed in the hangar
had permitted newspaper photographers to picture the
great rocket ship, and at the looseness of some tongue
which had broken the secret of the ship’s construction.
Captain Wollack had jealously guarded the secret for
more than a month, for reasons which he knew only
too well. He decided suddenly, that someone had
literally sold him out for a price.
He shot a rapid glance at the group nearby. They
had their heads together to have a conversation in low
tones. Although he was certain that he had not been
recognized he buried his head in the paper again to
hide the rage that sent hot blood rushing to his features.
One of the men passed a remark to another. The
Captain distinctly heard it and winced inwardly.
“Sharkey’s got a head on him, brothers!” the man
yrhispered : “He ought to be near here by now I”
“Sharkey!” Did the man mean the “Sharkey,” the
cunning outlaw whom he. Captain Wollack, had person-
ally captured after the mid-air raid on the air freighter
Jupiter two years before? Was this “Sharkey” the
ringleader of the band of pirates flying invisible ships,
>vhich the Mid-West Division had broken up? Captain
Wollack wondered. He recalled Colonel Brigham’s
warning concerning a possible escape from prison. The
time was ripe for that escape, the official regretted, if
the famous air-pirate actually planned it ! At any rate.
Captain Wollack refused to get excited over what still
seemed an impossibility. Yet he decided to keep on the
alert for further remarks of any in the group. He
laid the newspaper on the table and to make it appear
accidental he upset his half-emptied water glass on it.
The water seeped through and he stuck a thumb into
the dampened pulp. M^ing believe that he was read-
ing the paper intently, he stared through the hole and
studied the features arrayed around the table near him.
All were dressed in the height of fashion; although
one rather handsome young fellow wore regulation fly-
ing breeches and boots, as though he had just dropped
down out of the sky in a plane. There were oval rings
around his eyes, proving that he had worn tight-fitting
goggles very recently. The Captain speculated upon
this fact.
Through the impromptu hole he had made in the
newspaper, the official r^;arded them with the keen
scrutiny that made him expert in remembering faces.
But he failed to recognize a single one of the group.
With the mention of the name “Sharkey,” the Captain
began to ponder. Had the aero-police actually suc-
ceeded in breaking up the g^g of air pirates two years
before ; or had they failed to apprehend them all, as
had been believed ?
A man leaned forward and whispered to his com-
panions. Captain Wollack observed the move and
attuned his ears to the words that followed.
“Wilson says that the ship’ll be ready tonight,” the
man hissed in low undertones. “Smart feller, Wilson !”
“Shark don’t think he’s so good!” said another.
“No? Why?”
“Hard feller to depend on in a pinch,” replied the
second : “But he’s been doing pretty good work for us
lately, though!”
Captain Wollack startled at the mention of his
mechanic’s name.
The man leaned forward again. He was high-strung
and nervous.
“Well — if Sharkey don't appreciate anybody’s work
more than that, I’d better get off the wagon,” he
sneered.
“Don’t be a damn fool, Wick !” said a heavy-jowled
companion: “It’s every man for himself in Shark’s
game and them with the most guts gets the most spoils.
You’ll get yours, don’t worry !”
“Do you think you could pilot Tobias, Wick?” asked
the pompous man, cocking an eye at the man in flying
raiment.
“What do you think I am ? An Angel ?” the aviator
replied: “I thought the boss was a master pilot with
any kind of aircraft!”
“He is !” the other said, “but he wants a relief man.”
“But I thought ”
“You’re always thinking, Wick!” the other interrupt-
ed. “But don’t think so damned loud that everybody’ll
hear your thoughts! Of course we’ll take them two
BEYOND THE AURORA
435
with us! You don’t think that Shark’s gonna let
’em stay behind and build another ship to take after
him, do yuh?” Captain Wollack did not hear the latter.
His waiter had arrived with his order, and in the
clatter of dishes the official had failed to catch the words
that would have been of great importance to him. He
began to eat with seeming great gusto, appearing to
pay not the slightest attention to the group. Never,
however, would he forget the faces surrounding that
table! They were stamped indelibly with those of
countless other rogues in die memory of the official I
Eventually Captain Wollack lifted his eyes from his
plate and tipped a coffee cup. A waiter was handing a
note to the heavy-jowled man at the other table. With-
out glancing around the man opened and read it, then
motioned to his companions to follow him out of the
cafe. Captain Wollack drained his cup and motioned
for his check. He handed a bill to the waiter, donned
his hat and sauntered slowly toward the door. Flashes
of lightning pierced the heavens as he stepped out. A
large sedan pulled away from the cafe and rapidly
disappeared Into the night.
A Little Acting
W HEN Captain Wollack arrived at the shop on his
return from dinner he found Colonel Brigham
pacing the floor and cursing roundly. It was ten min-
utes before eight o’clock when he arrived and it
took exactly ten minutes for the tempestuous executive
to say just what he thought of him in no uncertain
terms. Professor Standish and his three mechanics
stood off under the port aerofoil tip of the Tobias IVol-
lack and watched the scene with apparent amusement.
“You told me that I could get in touch with you at
any time, Wollack!’’ the Colonel raged: “I’ve been
looking for you everywhere! Explain yourself, sir!’’
Captain Wollack grinned sheepishly.
“I left at six o’clock for dinner, and a little fresh
air, Colonel,’’ he replied : “Is there any harm in a man
wanting fresh air and something to eat?’’
“There is, sir!” Colonel Brigham fumed, “when you
are supposed to be at my beck and call !”
“Why, what’s happened?”
“Do you mean to tell me that you are not aware that
Sharkey fomented a wholesale jailbreak and escaped?”
“Well, what’s that got to do with me now?” Captain
Wollack said nonchalantly, but winking guardedly at
the raging executive. “I’m off duty on leave of absence,
sir !”
Captain Wollack hadn’t dared to hope that the
Colonel would grasp the significance of his winking eye
and he was surprised when the executive paused with
upraised fist and nodded queerly. He let his arm
fall in a manner that the Captain accepted at once as
mimicry, and spat out an oath.
“Why — ^you — ^you!” the executive shouted. “I
thought you told me that your money would make no
change in you ! Do you dare to stand there and tell me
that you refuse to return to duty?”
“I shall return as soon as my leave is up. Colonel !”
he said. “Not before!”
With that Colonel Brigham pulled his hat low over
his eyes and strode swiftly out of the building. Cap-
tain Wollack hung his head for an instant.
“Maybe I’ve been a little hasty!” he said to himself
aloud, so that the others could hear : “Colonel ! Just a
moment, sir!”
He raced to the door and disapp^red. 'The Colonel
was waiting in an official machine.
“I had a lot to say. Colonel,” he said, leaning through
an open car window, “but I wanted to keep mum for
the benefit of one of my mechanics whom I’ve learned
is in cahoots with Sharkey.”
“I thought so, Wollack, when you didn’t make a
comeback at me,” the executive growled : “What do you
know ?”
Captain Wollack recounted the words he had heard
from the group in the cafe.
“Good work, Wollack!” the Colonel said warmly.
“I’ll learn someday to recognize your resourcefulness!
Sharkey dropped from sight in the melee at the prison.
It’s another feather in your hat to get him before the
ground men have a chance to cuff him. Give the
Federal all the credit. I’ll have a dozen men here in
an hour!”
“Oh — we’ll get him, alright. Colonel!” the captain
said grimly.
Colonel Brigham gave an order to his chauffeur and
the machine raced down the dimly-lighted thoroughfare
away from the isolated hangar. The Captain returned
to the shop, appearing dejected. Professor Standish
came up to him.
“Catch him in time. Captain?” he asked.
“He has gone. Professor!” Captain Wollack said,
forlornly. “I guess this means the end of my commis-
sion with the Federal Aero-Police! Oh, well! I’m
tired of it anyhow. I’d like a long rest.”
“The Federal won’t be the same without you. Cap-
tain. Better think twice!” admonished the scientist.
“It’ll get along. Never fear for that!” replied the
Captain: “Your nephew Jack is in command of the
Mid-West during my leave.”
Suddenly he remembered that he had forgotten, in
his haste, to return with the sandwiches the scientist
had asked for. He looked up.
“Hell !” he said, “I’ve forgotten your lunch. Pro-
fessor!” Turning to Wilson, he continued, “Here,
Wilson! Run up the street and get something to eat
for all of you ! Hurry back, though !”
The mechanic accepted a proffered bill and went out.
Captain Wollack motioned the others close to him.
Professor Standish’s face displayed his wonderment.
The captain studied the faces of the mechanics for an
instant before he addressed them. Convinced of their
honesty, he explained in detail just how things stood.
They stared, open-mouthed. The scientist grunted in
alarm.
“I’ll grab Wilson when he comes back,” the captain
told them: “I Ijelieve Sharkey plans to steal the Tobias
Wollack tonight to make his getaway. If I can make
Wilson talk we may be able to fight the gang off. I’ll
arm the three of you and swear you in as Aero-Police
reserves.”
Scarcely had Captain Wollack passed out sidearms to
the two mechanics and to Professor Standish than Wil-
son swung open the shop door. He deposited a bag
of sandwiches on a bench and walked toward the Cap-
tain to return the change. As he reached out there
came the sound of a metallic snap and Wilson found
himself firmly handcuffed. He stiffened and his face
paled; He jerked back, sending the silver flying.
“What’s the joke, boss?” he asked, controlling him-
self.
Captain Wollack jerked the handcuffs and Wilson
groaned as the steel bit into the skin of his wrist.
“No joking about it, Wilson !” the Captain said, ac-
cusingly: “I’ve got you just where I want all the rest
of Sharkey’s gang! Don’t try to stall!”
436
AIR WONDER STORIES
“Why — why — ^you ain’t got anything on me, Cap-
tain,” faltered the mechanic: “What’s the idea?”
"Oh, haven’t I, Wilson?” the Captain followed him
up: “So it was you who allowed newspaper men to
photograph my ship and announce its completion to
tip Sharkey off that his time for escape had arrived,
eh? Yeah, Mr. Sharkey’s man, Wick, told me all
about it today!”
“Wick? Who the hell is Wick?” Wilson managed to
hide his amazement behind a blank stare.
Captain Wollack frowned. He suddenly found him-
self thinking that perhaps this was not the right Wilson
after all. But he decided at once his plans to force the
mechanic into betraying his alliance with Sharkey’s
gang.
The Fight in the Hangar
T hough hardened as he was, to the ways of
criminals, the captain did not feel justified in putting
the mechanic through a third degree. Yet with a sud-
den rage swelling in his throat he twisted the hand-
cuffs cruelly. Wilson cringed and sank to the floor,
face blanched at the pain of the biting steel.
Coherently he bubbled his innocence, avoiding blank-
ly a string of questions which Captain Wollack shot at
him in hopes of catching the mechanic off his guard.
But try as he might, the captain failed to wring from
the lips of the man any information of value. Eventual-
ly he lifted him to his feet and pushed him none too
gently toward the bench. Wilson sat down sullenly,
casting significant glances at the Aero-Police officid.
Handcuffed, the mechanic sat on the bench with Cap-
tain Wollack, Professor Standish and the other two
men, but refused to partake of any of the sandwiches
which the captain offered him. He confessed that
events had caused his hunger to flee. Captain Wollack
did not doubt it, but he had a feeling that the man
was not as sincere in his loyalty to him as he had
babbled. He would bear watching at any rate, the
Captain decided, reaching over to unlock the cuffs.
After all he did not want to burden himself with hold-
ing a man on mere suspicion. Perhaps Wilson would
yet betray his hand. Time enough then, to jail him.
“Well . . Wilson,” the Captain said, taking off the
cuffs and pocketing them. “If I’ve made a mistake
in identification I’m sorry. But you can either remain
or take your pay check and quit. Either way suits me.”
Wilson eyed the Captain shiftily.
“I — guess I’ll stay, boss,” he said, his lips curling
into a sneer.
If Captain Wollack had seen the curling lips of Wil-
son, he did not show it. He turned toward Professor
Standish for a word. The scientist and the other two
mechanics were munching the sandwiches with relish.
Rapidly they vanished. Captain Wollack looking on
while the others consumed them. After the heavy
dinner he had taken at the cafe, the Captain had no
further desire to eat; he ignored Wilson, leaving him
to his own thoughts.
Then suddenly, as the professor opened his mouth to
say something, his face whitened. He sat rigidly for
an instant and abruptly slumped forward off the bench.
Captain Wollack stared after him, then switched his
eyes to the two mechanics. Almost simultaneously
they whitened around the mouth and topped over with-
out a word. It did not take long for the Captain to
understand the reason. With a bound he swung away
from the bench and faced Wilson.
The mechanic ^lad arose from the bench while the
Captain spent a few brief seconds regarding his fallen
fellows. He stood crouched.
With a roar of rage Captain Wollack leaped at the
mechanic, his hands closed into fists of bone and muscle.
Wilson sneered and met the rush with an impact that
sent them both sprawling, the mechanic’s powerful legs
encircling the Captain’s waist. The official heaved with
all his might, but Wilson clung to him with the tenacity
of a boa. His powerful paws sought a hold on the
throat of the Captain. The official struggled to prevent
it; but gradually the huge hands of the mechanic over-
came his resistance and clutched at his jugular.
During the next few minutes. Captain Wollack re-
ceived the throttling of his life. Wilson’s legs, encircled
around his mid-section, pinned him to the floor, while
claw-like fingers bit deep into his throat. He tried to
cry out but his voice seemed to have been shoved back
into his lungs under the pressure of the claws that
threatened to choke him into unconsciousness. Great,
spinning balls of fire seemed to whirl before his eyes
and he shook his head from side to side as though to
prevent them from striking him in the face. He lifted a
feeble foot in an attempt to strike his antagonist. Wil-
son’s fingers sank deeper and, after a few spasmodic
twitches, the Captain lay still.
Wilson shook himself loose from his perch on the
captain’s inert frame and stood erect. He chafed his
hands to renew circulation after the cramp of prolonged
muscular tension had all but deadened them. He bent
over his victim. Captain Wollack was breathing faint-
ly, but breathing nevertheless. Wilson smiled grimly,
and looked down.
“Well — Captain,” he thought, shaking a finger scorn-
fully at the death-like figure on the floor: "You gave
me a swell chance to put you out. But I figured on you
eating one of those sandwiches. It’s amazin’ what a
few drops of dope will do to a feller. You had me
guessin’ for a while how I was gonna lay you out, until
I decided to pep up your drinkin’ water. This job
ought to bring a fat reward from Shark ! All we have
to do now is to put you aboard old Tobie and fly away
with you at the controls to a place where you can’t pinch
us or build another ship to take you after us. When
Shark and the gang arrives we’ll bring you to and make
you drive the ship away. Maybe to the moon! That
all depends on how Shark feels tonight!”
He walked over to the professor and removed a
sheaf of documents from his pocket. Searching through
them he found the one he wanted and cast the rest
away. One of the parchments contained the almost un-
intelligible scrawling of a scientist. He recognized the
professor’s heavy handwriting, and identified the paper
sufficiently to tell him that it contained the formula of
ingredients for manufacturing the driving gases that
were to thrust the Tobias Wollack through space at
4500 miles per hour or better. Without the formula
the craft would have been useless to Sharkey’s plans.
And there was no telling how soon Professor Standish
might pass out of the picture of life, with Sharkey hold-
ing the whip-hand.
CHAPTER III
Captured!
W HEN Captain Wollack returned to conscious-
ness he felt a cool breeze blowing on him
from some open door. He lay on his back on
a hard, metallic floor and stared into an inky black-
ness overhead. Gradually it dawned upon him that he
was lying prone in one of the cabins of the Tobias
BEYOND THE AURORA
437
Wollack. He sat up with a jerk and his head swam at
the effort. He closed his eyes to control a whirling
dizziness that was sweeping over him. Then he heard a
groan beside him. Reaching out, his hand encountered
a warm form.
“Is that you, Professor?” he asked tensely.
There was a long pause.
“Wollack, I’ve been dreaming that you were killed,”
came the scientist’s voice, shaking: “What happened?
Lord, what a headache I’ve got!”
“You were drugged, Standish,” the Captain said,
peering into the darkness. “I should have had better
sense than to send Wilson after those sandwiches.
The—”
The captain paused at the sound of sneering laughter
coming from the darkness.
“Be more careful next time, Cap!” came Wilson’s
voice : “I might get nervous and dish out bigger doses.
And, boy, what I didn’t do to you was a joke !”
“And you’ll hang one of these days, Wilson!” the
Aero-Police official swore coldly.
“They don’t hang men where you’re goin’, Capl”
Wilson laughed.
Captain Wollack lifted a leg for a sudden spring at
the sound. It scraped loudly on the floor.
“No you don’t, Cap!” Wilson hissed menacingly:
“Shark says to drill jrou if you make a single false
move! He can fly this ship just as well without your
help! And I’ve got two of the biggest guns in forty-
eight states aimed right at your glassy eyes!”
“Shut your damned mouth, Wilson !” A high-pitched
voice suddenly came from without: “Turn on the
lights!”
Instantly the interior of the cabin was bathed in a
brilliant white glow that emanated from a system in-
stalled by the professor. It embodied a cold-light
principle ; so that there was little chance of accidentally
setting off the reserve fuel supplies by faulty electrical
wiring. At the same time, it was possible for the
bulbs to operate perfectly for several years without re-
quiring the attention that an electrical system might
demand. The brilliant cold rays penetrated every nook
of the cabin.
Captain Wollack shot a glance at the open door. In
the white glow Sharkey’s features appeared like those
of a green ghost. The pallor of prison gave him the
color of radium green. He leered through the door.
Captain Wollack met his stare coldly.
“Well — ^this is indeed a pleasure, Captain!” the fa-
mous scientific-criminal sneered: “I really hadn’t ex-
pected to meet you again so soon, and under such
favorable conditions! Thanks to the genius of your-
self and Professor Standish whom I have the great
pleasure of meeting for the first time. How are you.
Professor ?”
“You’ll regret this meeting, Sharkey!” the scientist
growled, sitting up.
“And how, my dear Professor, may I ask ?” Sharkey
inquired sarcastically.
“If I’m to operate this ship, Sharkey,” said the scien-
tist significantly, “I’ll blow the whole bunch of us to
hell before I’ll permit you to get away with her !”
Sharkey was silent for a moment.
“Even scientists fear death under certain conditions,
sir!” he rasped, turning away.
“No more than a filthy dog like you, Sharkey!” Pro-
fessor Standish shot after him.
But Professor Standish was not yet ready to die;
especially at the hands of Sharkey. Nor was Captain
Wollack.
Surrounded by grim-faced outlaws, they offered little
resistance when Sharkey ordered them to assume posi-
tions at the controlling and operating systems of the
Tobias Wollack.
Seating himself comfortably in a cushioned chair in
front of the controls in the main cabin. Captain
Wollack wondered what had become of the colonel’s
detail. He looked at his wrist-chronometer and was
amazed to find that it was only 8:45 o’clock. He
concluded that the police had not yet arrived, and that
Sharkey was losing no time in making good his escape
in the rocket ship. And he presumed that his two
mechanics were left lying where they had fallen. He
had not seen them since Wilson had throttled him so
mercilessly.
Resigned to the situation, he twisted the lateral con-
trols for the feel of them. Likewise he tested the aero-
foil ailerons. They responded perfectly. He set them
at an angle of seventy degrees for the upward take-
off and then looked up at a sound. Two of Sharkey’s
henchmen had entered the cabin and seated themselves
at the right of the Captain to maintain guard over him.
Wilson displayed two large Atherton pistols as he sat
down and grinned. Captain Wollack presumed cor-
rectly that Professor Standish was likewise to be guard-
ed constantly at his station in the operating chamber of
the rocket plane. He toyed with the aileron-control
wheel, waiting for the signal to inform him that the
Tobias Wollack was ready for flight.
It came all too soon. A buzzer hummed softly on
the instrument board. Captain Wollack gripped the
control wheel tensely and rested his toes on controlling
pedals under him. He shot a quick glance at his
guards. They were white-faced. The Captain him-
self felt a trifle nervous.
Then suddenly there came a terrific roar from the
outside. He glanced through an observation window
at his side. The Tobias Wollack seemed enveloped in
fire! The roar suddenly became an ominous hiss and
with a tremendous recoil the rocket ship shot upward
with such velocity that it sent the two guards hurtling
to a far corner of the cabin. The soft back of the
captain’s seat broke the concussion for him. He
smiled grimly, his eyes glued on the instrument board.
Into the Air
I N THE compartment which contained the apparatus
for forcing the driving gases into the combustion
cylinders and out through the exhaust vents. Professor
Standish was beginning to enjoy the ordeal despite the
presence of Sharkey and the guards.
The outlaw chief seemed bent on learning every de-
tail in operating the Tobias Wollack at that end and
plied the scientist with many questions which the lat-
ter at first openly avoided. Gradually he began to
answer them through sheer pride in the machinery
which his keen scientific brain had created. Forgetting
temporarily that the outlaws were his deadly enemies,
his interest in the rocket ship’s maiden flight grew in
leaps and bounds. And he talked ; for after all Shar-
key’s knowledge of scientific matters was really inter-
esting if not astonishing for one engaged in outlawry.
And Sharkey could be as affable and pleasant as he
could be cruel and ruthless.
Almost at a glance the outlaw understood the prin-
ciple of the craft’s mechanism. But altho there seemed
to be nothing complicated about it, yet he felt that, if
438
AIR WONDER STORIES
he were left to his own resourcefulness at present with
such a powerful ship, an eventual crack-up would be
inevitable. Therefore he plied the scientist with ques-
tions to learn every detail of her workings. He already
understood the formula for manufacturing the fuel
which propelled the ship at the terrific velocity at which
she was now flying. Wilson had handed over the im-
portant document without hesitation. And Sharkey
took time to study it, storing the information in his
brain for future use. He literally memorized the
chemical ingredients and the proper mixtures as a pre-
caution against the loss of the paper itself. He smiled
to himself at the simplicity of the formula.
He had been amazed at first to find that the driving
fuel of the rocket ship was not a liquid, as he had pre-
viously speculated. At some period in his life he had
learned a good deal about chemicals, and it was not
difficult for him to see that the gas in even small
quantities contained astonishingly great power. He
wondered how Professor Standish had achieved the
medium for generating the gas and driving it through
the propulsion exhausts with such terrific force, and
he inspected the ship’s mechanism again.
The general system for distributing the explosives
from the storage tanks, he soon discovered, was by cen-
trifugal action. Before the generated gases reached
the main manifold artery, which ran from a combus-
tion cylinder to the left and to the right under the
aerofoils, they underwent a series of explosions. Sev-
eral cylinders in a perfect row gave the outlaw the
knowledge that the gases were discharged intermit-
tently before they reached the driving chamber. In the
latter they exploded again, forcing the gas into the
manifold and out through the driving exhausts.
At first the criminal had disbelieved the touted
capabilities of the craft. Now he stood staring at the
instruments arrayed conveniently on a panel. He start-
ed perceptibly when his e3res fdl on the altimeter, the
needle of which pointed to the ship’s elevation in lu-
minous type; it hovered gently at the 100-mile mark.
He calculated then that the Tobias WoUack was wdl
above the earth’s envelope of atmosphere and must
therefore be travdling at a terrific velocity. His eyes
wandered to the velodty indicator. The point had
passed the 4500 mark and was nearing a mark far
beyond his conception of speed. It paused at 6000
and then moved slowly to higher figures.
He walked over to the row of observation windows
and stared out. Instead of seeing a sheet of flame behind
the driving exhausts he saw merely eighteen jets of
blue, spitting with hissing sound from the vents. Far
below lay a huge, dull mass that he recognized as the
earth, swiftly left behind as the ship shot upward. He
chuckled oddly and gazed upward.
Overhead the planets gleamed like large, polished
gems. Never on earth had he seen stars so bright or
defined so clearly as they were now. Mars lay like an
opal in an emerald setting. Great Jupiter, Venus and
Sirius nestled in the deathless heavens like jewels in
Urania’s crown. Here and there in the higher altitudes
of the rarefied air, in the region of fire-balls, clusters of
meteors were visible. They shot through the heavens
at terrific velocity to pass into the beyond, leaving long
trails of fire behind them. And Sharkey’s eyes took on
a queer light arf he saw them. His lips curled and he
laughed aloud like one suddenly possessed with in-
sanity.
On to the Moon
I T WAS uncomfortably warm within the Tobias Wol-
lack. Professor Standish mopped drops of perspira-
tion from his brow as he watched the gauges. He
twisted a valve-control and the rocket ship shot ahead
with a sudden jerk. His eyes wandered to the altimeter.
The indicator was hovering over the 350 mark and the
interior of the ship began to cool ; for she was now far
within the regions of rarefied air and was rapidly as-
cending to greater heights.
The scientist was elated. But his elation fell per-
ceptibly when he beheld Sharkey and his henchmen
staring out of the observation windows. His brows
cloud^ and he stiffened in his seat. He had almost
forgotten the threatening presence of the outlaws while
he revelled in the success of the rocket craft. Here,
he thought, was the greatest achievement in aviation
since aircraft first fluttered from the creative nests of
man’s brain. And that achievement had to go first to
further the aims of a ruthless gang headed by a crazed
leader! He vented a muffled oath and clenched his
fists until the nails bit into his palms. But he was
powerless to change the situation.
As Sharkey peered out of the window he noticed
that the earth’s dull surface was beginning to assume
a cloak of pale luminosity. He scanned the heavens.
Far to the eastward, just beyond the rim of. the earth,
the upper tip of the moon was visible. Almost sud-
denly it shot into the sky from behind the great sphere
below and then the outlaw looked downward. The
earth was aj^ow with a phosphorescent light. Its great
bodies of water scintillated like tremendous pools of
opalescent fire. Like a thing of menace, the moon
raced to meet the advance of the Tobias Wollack whose
driving exhausts were thrusting her forward at a ter-
rific velocity.
It is a known fact that the moon not only controls
the tides and affects seasons of the earth, but it is also
believed to have an uncanny effect on the instincts of the
comparatively infinitesimal human. Whatever tendencies
toward insanity that Sharkey possessed in his power-
ful, but warped brain suddenly asserted themselves to
their fullest. He laughed again in a high-pitch, cackling
voice. The sound caused Professor Standish to regard
him curiously. Had "moon-madness” taken a firm
grip on the man ? The scientist pondered thoughtfully.
But he was destined to find out the truth soon enough,
for Sharkey suddenly strode to his side, his lips curled
into a sneer, teeth bared like the fangs of a mad beast.
“Standish!” he cackled: “Get hold of Wollack and
tell him to keep this ship headed direct for the moon !
iWe’re going to visit her !”
The scientist stood aghast.
“Don’t be a fool, Sharkey!” he said, lips tightening
grimly: “This ship will never make it! Besides, the
moon is absolutely unfit for human habitation even for
the shortest period! Don’t sign your own death war-
rant !”
The crazed outlaw poked an automatic into the
scientist’s ribs. Professor Standish heard the click of
the pistol’s depressed safety catch. At once he swung
to the instrument board and lifted a small disc from a
hook over a projecting mouthpiece. He placed the
disc to his ear and pressed a tiny button on the panel.
Instantly a small screen above the mouthpiece glowed
with the grim, set features of Captain Wollack. It
was the scientist’s first opportunity to test the miniature
BEYOND THE AURORA
439
television system which connected each chamber of tiie
ship with the combustion compartment.
“Hello, Wollackl” the scientific said into the mouth
piece: “Sharkey says to keep a course direct for the
moon. Better do it! He threatens to shoot me if
you don’t!”
The outlaw chief cackled, his eyes gleaming mali-
ciously.
“I’ve always wanted to visit the moon, Standish!”
he hissed villainously as the scientist hung up the disc.
“I tell you, Sharkey,” he growled, “you are com-
mitting suicide!”
He turned his head to look at the other men. White-
faced and frightened, they stood grouped together in
the offing. The scientist could hear an unintelligible
mumble of words coming from them. Then one of the
men stepped toward Sharkey.
“You’re not serious, are you, Shark?” the man ask-
ed, his hands and lips trembling: “None of us want to
take such a risk. Better change your mind and head
somewhere else!”
Sharkey’s lips curled significantly.
“Who’s running things here, Saxon?” he shot.
“You are, of course, boss,” Saxon replied, bel-
ligerently. He crouched tensely as though he expected
Sharkey to spring at his throat. “But we ought to have
some say about goin’ to the moon or anywhere else!
You must be crazy!”
Sharkey emitted the peculiar cackle again.
“You might as well decide that you’re going wherever
I go!” he sneered.
Saxon lunged forward suddenly. “And you’re going
to hell right now. Shark!” he bellowed.
If Saxon had noticed that Sharkey still held the
automatic in his hand, he did not 'consider the fact.
The bandit leader swung the pistol upward with a
twist of his wrist. It spat sharply and Saxon slumped
forward on his face.
“You — ^you devil !” Professor Standish burst out.
CHAPTER IV
"You’ll Never See It Again”
S AXON’S inert frame was forthwith dumped
through an outward-swinging double floor hatch.
As the body disappeared, the scientist muttered a
prayer. Sharkey shook with insane mirth as he
pictured it tumbling into the depths below.
The supply of oxygen in the cabin almost instantly
wafted through the opening. Sharkey stood up strug-
gling for breath. The others coughed spasmodically
with strangulation gripping their throats. The scientist
held his breath and snapped the hatch to a close. He
touched a valve and the hissing sound of air was
audible. Rapidly the oxygen tanks refilled the cabin.
The compression motors labored for an instant and then
hummed softly.
Presently Sharkey accosted the scientist again.
“Standish !” he said, rather seriously, “how long will
it take this craft to span the distance between the
earth and the moon ?”
“About eighteen hours, Sharkey 1” Professor Standish
replied.
“That’s what I calculated,” the outlaw acknowledged.
“How did you figure it out?” asked the scientist,
wondering how the man had accumulated his knowledge
of science.
“Well ...” Sharkey said, “the distance between
the earth and the moon is 340,000 miles, is it not? At
the speed of 5000 miles per hour, forty-eight hours
would be required for this ship to traverse that distance
at regular cruising speed. But, the farther we get away
from the earth’s gravitational pull, the faster she will
travel. And, the nearer to the moon we get, the more
assistance we shall get from her gravitational attrac-
tion; which, combined with other facts, ought to in-
crease our velocity ultimately to some 30,000 miles per
hour. The distance between us is being rapidly de-
creased also by the motion of the satellite in our direc-
tion as she revolves eastward around the earth. So we
may even do it in less than eighteen hours!”
Professor Standish smiled, his lips drawn tight
across his teeth. He was amazed at the coolness of the
outlaw’s circulation.
“We might reach the moon, Sharkey!” he said,
“but it’s a certainty that you’ll never return to earth !”
That much for its effect on Sharkey’s henchmen ;
but they made no further attempt to stay Sharkey’s
plans.
“But I understand you made statements that the
ship could fly a round trip to the moon, Standish!”
Jhe outlaw chief insisted.
The scientist remained silent. It was useless to argue
a warped brain out of any plan that had become firmly
set within it!
Unarmed and under constant guard as they were.
Professor Standish and Captain Wollack had little
chance to resist the forces that held them subdued.
To all outward appearances they had resigned them-
selves to whatever the future held in store for them.
Yet in each seethed a smoulding flame of resentment
which needed but one opportunity to fan it into an un-
controllable blaze.
Sharkey with half of his men had long since retired
to one of the other cabins to hold council and to rest.
Wilson remained on guard over Captain Wollack, and
several bandits were stationed to watch over the scientist
to make certain that he did not slacken the Tobias Wol-
lack’s terrific velocity. It was easy to mark the course
of the ship merely by watching her noses. They point-
ed directly at the moon, a trifle to the north, now, from
the center.
The satellite loomed up in the heavens like a huge
ball. Her mountainous surface was becoming more
clearly defined. Long shadows Jay to the right of her
towering peaks. Her pock-marks, now like yawning
pits, seemed to challenge the advance of the rocket ship
as though waiting to swallow it up. The planet was
brilliant in the glare of the invisible sun. The seeth-
ing sphere was well down behind the world that created
the ship’s passengers.
In Captain Wollack’s control cabin, Wilson peered
tensely at the satellite. It had become decidedly colder
and the erstwhile mechanic shivered. He allowed his
gaze to wander to the left. In the northern part of the
earth hung a vast, wavering curtain lighted brilliantly
with the vari-hued shades of the spectrum. It was the
aurora borealis. It seemed alive — like a great, flat,
headless dragon, weaving in long, determined sweeps
above the earth’s arctic regions.
As the minutes passed swiftly, Wilson’s cool nerve
seemed to crumble. Captain Wollack regarded him
curiously and his guardmate suddenly got up and left
the cabin. Frequently he cast longing glances down-
ward. The earth, like a distant satellite, lay aglow
under the spell of the moon’s phosphorescence. Often
he sent side glances at the captain sitting in the pilot’s
seat. That the man was on the verge of collapse. Cap-
tain Wollack could see easily enough, and he decided to
440
AIR WONDER STORIES
help break down the outlaw’s nerve by well-directed
conversation.
“Don’t take it so hard, Wilson!’’ he said suddenly:
“But take another good look at the earth! You’ll
never see it again !’’
For long minutes Wilson stared downward before
replying. Then he seemed to relax. His hands, which
had held two large Atherton pistols aimed in the
direction of the Captain, dropped to his sides, muzzles
pointing at the floor. His lips quivered and he mum-
bled to himself.
Captain Wollack’s blood rushed to his head when
he realized that at last an opportunity for him to as-
sert himself had arrived. But Wilson was not to be
taken unawares. As the Captain pressed a button lock-
ing the Tobias Wollack to a straight, rocket-like course
and turned in his chair, Wilson faced him.
“Don’t try it. Cap!’’ he snarled.
The Captain grinned and nodded.
“Was just getting comfortable, Wilson,” he lied, in-
nocently.
“Don’t you think we’ll ever get back?” Wilson asked,
satisfied that the Captain had meant nothing by his
move.
“I’m perfectly certain we won’t!” the Captain said,
shaking his head with significance: "Better look long
and hard, Wilson! You haven’t long to live!”
The Spell of the Aurora
C APTAIN Wollack turned again to the controls to
permit what he had said to soak in. He peered up-
ward through an overhead observation window. What
he saw there caused him to grasp the wheel tensely.
Midway between the Tobias Wollack and the lunar
body had suddenly appeared a cluster of brilliant fire-
balls! Even at their great distance, the Captain could
distinctly see the rushing meteors. He glanced at
an instrument. Its indicator hand jumped to the right
and hovered at a glowing word. The official started.
“Fire-ball meteors!” he whistled sharply. “A whole
cluster of them heading right for our noses!”
Wilson sat bolt upright. His Athertons clattered to
the floor. He peered toward the advancing spheres of
flame.
“My God !” he groaned, hiding his face in his arms.
“We’re right in their path !”
Captain Wollack snapped the lock from the controls
and twisted the wheel sharply. The great ship heeled
under the sudden pressure like a huge bird in grace-
ful flight. The Tobias Wollack plunged downward at
an abrupt angle to get out of the path of the on-
coming meteor cluster. Hardly had she hurtled from
the level when a terrifying roar vibrated through the
ship. The Captain looked up. A sheet of vivid flame
seemed to hover just beyond the rocket plane. It van-
ished gradually and he sighed with relief. The dimin-
ishing uproar was passing into nothingness almost as
rapidly as it had come. Wilson slumped and sobbed,
inert. His nerve had snapped entirely.
'The Captain’s eyes fell on the two pistols lying on
the floor. His hopes raced. Here at last, he decided,
was the opportunity for which he had been waiting.
Wilson’s arms were still covering his face.
Crouching, Captain Wollack leaped. As he left the
chair his left knee bumped the control-locking system.
In a moment of speculation on his intended leap at his
guard, he had snapped on the lock. Now his knee some-
how released it and the Tobias Wollack seemed to side-
slip sharply. But, midway between his deserted seat
and his human objective. Captain Wollack did not dare
return to the controls. Despite the sharp angle of
the cabin floor, he thrust himself at the man. Wilson,
suddenly feeling the slip of the craft, looked up, but he
was too late for once in his life, for Captain Wollack’s
hand had closed on an Atherton. As Wilson’s heavy
frame hurled toward him. Captain Wollack snapped up
the pistol and fired point-blank. Instantly there came
a muffied explosion. The erstwhile mechanic straight-
ened and then fell heavily, blood streaming from a
gaping hole in his chest.
Her controlling ailerons and laterals left to the mercy
of chance, the Tobias Wollack suddenly nosed down-
ward at a precarious angle. Captain Wollack was
thrown heavily to the floor and skidded along it to the
forward tip of the cabin, where he braced himself. He
shoved the heavy Atherton into his waistband and tried
to pull himself to the pilot’s chair. Suddenly the rocket
ship pointed the aerofoil downward so sharply that he
was thrown into the space between the seat and the con-
trols. Wilson’s inert body hurtled after him and wed-
ged him in. Almost as abruptly as she had side-slipped,
the craft righted herself again on an even keel, and
then seemed to swing to the left in a great circle.
Captain Wollack gave a mighty heave and pushed the
dead outlaw’s heavy body from him. He grasped the
spinning wheel with wet, greasy hands. The craft
heeled upward and he was hurled to the floor again,
his head striking heavily.
As he lay stunned the Tobias Wollack plunged and
dipped madly, like a cork on an angry sea. The two
bodies in the control cabin were dashed hither and
on along the floor. The driving exhausts had shot the
rocket ship .headlong out of control ; minutes passed
swiftly but her velocity did not lessen.
And, when Captain Wollack finally regained cons-
ciousness and managed to pull himself into the pilot’s
chair, he discovered that the moon was no longer in
front of him. The ship had swung from her course.
Straight ahead of him lay the weaving scroll of the
Aurora Borealis. He swung the wheel a trifle north-
ward, so that the ship would traverse a wide, circular
area, and locked the controls. He started at the sound
of a scraping boot behind him. He looked up.
Sharkey, flanked by one of his henchmen, stood leer-
ing down at him from the cabin passageway. The
Captain’s heart skipped as he saw that the outlaw aim-
ed an automatic at his head. 'The other man was staring
at the ghastly form of Wilson, lying near him on the
floor.
“I’m going to kill you for this, Wollack!” Sharkey
cursed: “You’ve had it coming to you for a long
time now! Thought you could pull the ship off her
course without knowing it, eh? And you thought to
kill us by your maneuvers ! I’m going to pump you full
of holes, Wollack!”
The Captain sat rigid. Apparently Sharkey had not
seen the meteor cluster and believed that the ship had
been deliberately thrown out of control in hopes of
dashing the outlaw’s brains out against the structural
frames. Well, what matter how Sharkey thought now?
He would surely blow his victim’s head off without
hesitation.
“Go ahead and shoot, Sharkey !” Captain Wollack
said, “and have it over with ! But remember. I’ve got
you covered too. I can get you with this Atherton be-
fore I pass out. You’ll go like Wilson went!”
The outlaw shot a glance at the prone figure. That
was all Captain Wollack needed to permit him to lift
BEYOND THE AURORA
441
the Atherton’s muzzle over the back of the seat. Shar-
key saw the move instantly and dropped to the floor.
The other man shot a hand to a coat pcxdcet, as Captain
Wollack fire<f at him, and screamed horribly when the
bursting high explosives ripped an arm and shoulder
from his torso. He dropped and lay lifeless.
Sharkey’s automatic spat spitefully. Captain Wol-
lack dropped down behind the chair again, completely
hidden from view; but as he dropped Sharkey’s slug
had creased his shoulder and ploughed a little furrow
along his neck. He groaned slightly and shook his head
to shake off a dizziness that grasped at him from the
stinging pain. He crouched. Sharkey was silent ex-
cept for an occasional insane chuckle that rattled in his
throat.
A Fight to the Death
C APTAIN Wollack wanted to make certain that
when he fired his Atherton at Sharkey, the ex-
plosive missile would take effect. Should he miss, and
the pellet imbed itself in the wall of the cabin, there
was a chance that the explosion might in some way
ignite the reserve fuel in the next compartment and
blow the ship to fragments.
He held his fire until such a time as Sharkey should
expose himself. The outlaw lay on the floor, playing
a game of waiting. But Captain Wollack desired im-
mediate action and, with the suddenness that was char-
acteristic of the man in action, darted his head and
pistol around the chair. Apparently without aim he
pressed the trigger ; to his utmost astonishment the
hammer clicked as it fell on an empty cylinder ! Shar-
key cackled and brought up his automatic. The sec-
ond slug whined past the Captain’s head and smashed
an instrument. With a snap of his wrist the official a
second time brought up the Atherton and pulled the
trigger. With a curse he crouched and examined the
gun. It had contained but two shells, both of which he
had already fired !
He looked around for the other Atherton pistol.
Just beyond his reach it lay in a pool of vermillion
liquid. To get at it he must expose himself to the
outlaw’s fire, and he hesitated before making the move.
Abruptly he lifted the cushion of the pilot’s seat, and
took from beneath a kit of emergency tools. He sorted
them for something with which he might reach out and
draw the pi.stol to, without endangering himself. His
eyes fell on a jointed rule, and his blood raced ; then
he found a spindle of steel wire. Quickly he cut a
piece from the spool and attached it to the end of the
rule in the shape of a hook. As he opened the joints
of the rule, he heard Sharkey’s body scraping on the
floor as the outlaw wiggled closer.
"Don’t show your head, Sharkey!’’ the Captain said
by way of subterfuge, trying to frighten the outlaw
into thinking that the Atherton still contained a few
cartridges: "I’ll blow it off if you do!”
Sharkey lay quiet apparently accepting the threat as
genuine. Captain Wollack cautiously slid the rule
with its anchoring hook toward the pistol. He held it
in nervous hands and the end of it bent down and
trembled; he pushed it out a trifle further. The
weighted end of the rule touched the metal floor and
scraped loudly. Sharkey heard it and leaped erect with
a bellow of rage.
Instantly Captain Wollack hurled himself upward,
arm outstretch^ to encircle the outlaw’s frame. Shar-
key reached the Atherton and with a kick sent it into a
comer out of the official’s reach. He swung on the
Captain and then attempted to leap backward as the
official’s arms closed around his waist. He clung tight-
ly to his automatic but could not bring it into play.
Captain Wollack held his arms locked in a terrific
embrace.
As they swayed to and fro from one end of the cabin
to the other, the interior became bathed in the rare
colors of the spectrum. But neither of the two noticed
it; the Tobias Wollack passed gracefully through the
Aurora and rocketed beyond its brilliant curtain!
With the strength of a maid beast, Sharkey bent his
adversary over the back of the pilot’s chair and raised
a vicious knee. Captain Wollack lifted a leg and par-
ried the thrust ; he gave a mighty heave and they both
went crashing to the floor. Sharkey attempted to bring
his automatic into play, but the official held to his wrist
with such a grip that the outlaw’s face worked in agony.
In an ordinary fight. Captain Wollack would have
been no match for the insane outlaw. But forced
against the wall as he now was, the official fought like
a jungle cat. Holding Sharkey’s wrist with his left
hand, he clawed and gouged at the madman’s eye with
his right. The outlaw’s face was torn ; there was a
livid gash running downward from his left eye to his
lower lip. From it flowed a thin stream of red.
Sharkey sent blow after blow into his adversary’s
grim, determined features, but failed to remove the
tight-lipped grin that held the Captain’s mouth rigid.
Presently, the official jerked himself loose from the
outlaw’s embrace and grabbed Sharkey’s right wrist
again. As he jerked away and felt his hand take a
firm grip on his antagonist’s wrist, he swung his back
around. With a sudden swing of his right arm, he
brought it over and under Sharkey’s right, using it as
a lever-block. He pressed down on the outlaw’s arm.
Sharkey screamed as his elbow snapped and his auto-
matic dropped from paralyzed fingers.
Despite his broken and shattered arm, the outlaw
rushed again. Captain Wollack stepped aside and de-
livered a blow behind Sharkey’s ear as he went by.
The outlaw was sent sprawling. Without waiting for
him to rise, the Captain leaped after him and clutched
at his throat, his brain crying out with the lust to kill.
His fingers tightened on the foe’s throat, gradually
tightening.
For seemingly long minutes, Sharkey struggled under
the iron grip that clutched his throat and was slowly,
but surely throttling out his life. Try as he might he
could not break it. The Captain’s fingers sank deeper,
nails ripping the flesh. Before his eyes floated a cur-
tain of red. Through it he could see nothing more than
the lifeless body of the outlaw. He shook the man’s
head savagely and cast it aside, limp. Sharkey writhed
spasmodically once or twice and then Jay still.
Quickly Captain Wollack picked up the second Ather-
ton and looked to its cylinder; it was loaded, every
chamber filled. As an extra precaution he piAed up
Sharkey’s automatic and thrust it into a pocket. He
glanced out of the window; the Tobias Wollack had
passed beyond the brilliancy of the Aurora and was
heading back into it in a wide circle.
Cautiously he picked his way toward the tail of the
ship. He peered around a corner before exposing him-
self in the companionway ; it was deserted and he
almost ran toward the central cabin housing the driving
apparatus.^ He heard the sound of voices coming from
the scientist’s station. Making his way to the cabin
swiftly, he stepped in.
{Continued on Page 460)
But in a few minutes the vicinity of the mine was dotted with the coiling hills of purple gas.
I saw railway cars and engines, guns and tanks, and even the railroad rails and the mining
machinery, tom from their places and plunging into the air.
442
THE SECOND SHJbLL
By the Author of**The Alien Intelligence/' "The Girl from Mars"
T WAS two o'clock in the morning of "The i
September 5, 1939. For a year and a half fifty mil
I had been at work on the San Francisco And the
Times. I had come there immediately mountain
after finishing my year’s course at the "Ellen
army officers’ flying school at San Antonio, on the with. S
chance that my work would lead me into enough tong we could
wars and exciting murder mysteries to make life inter- don’t so
esting. chirps ai
The morning edition had just been "put to bed’’ and tional se
I was starting out of the office when the night editor Mocolyn;
called me to meet a visitor who had just come in. The "The i
stranger came forward quickly. Roughly clad in blue to watch
shirt and overalls, boots, aqd Stetson, he had the bronze have beei
skin, clear eyes, and smooth movements of one who has with she
spent his life out-of-doors. the west.
He stopped before me and held out his hand with a that a lii
pleasant smile. I saw that his hair was
gray; he was a little older than I had
diou^t at first — fifty, perhaps. I liked
the fellow instinctively.
"Robert Barrett?’’ he questioned in
a pleasant drawl. I nodded.
"I’m Bill Johnson,” he said briefly.
"I want to see you. Secret Service
business. Sabef" He let me glimpse a
badge; and we walked out into the
night. As we started down the silent
street it occurred to me that I had
head of this man before.
“Are you the William Johnson who
unearthed the radio station of the re-
volutionaries in Mexico in 1917?”
"I guess so. I’ve been in Mexico
thirty years, and I’ve helped Uncle Sam
out a time or two. It’s a case like that UCK WILLIAMSON
one, or worse, that I m up here to see
"The mine is in an old corner of the desert, ahoui
fifty miles south of Mocolynatal — the big mountain.
And there’s something queer going on about that
mountain 1
"Ellen got herself a radio set to pass away the time
with. She got to picking up strange stuff. Sounds
we couldn’t make out ! Not just a strange lingo. They
don’t sound like the hiunan voice at all I Strange
chirps and squeaks! Doc and I rigged up a direc-
tional set, and found that the calls were sent from
Mocolynatal.
"The mountain’s in sight, to the north of us. I got
to watching it, and found out something else. There
have been airplanes flying about it — queer red machines
with short stubby wings! They flew off mostly to
the west. I did a little more investigation, and found
that a line of run-down Jap tramp steamers has been
hauling cargoes of the-lord-knows-
what, and unloading somewhere along
the Pacific coast of Mexico— evidently
making connections with the red ma-
chines.
"Now, the Doc has his machine
where he thinks it will be the end of
the world if anybody gets hold of it.
We’ve seen one or two of the red
{Janes over the mine, and he is afraid
they have found out about it, some-
how. He got nervous, and sent me up
to see Unde Sam. It is all news to
the State Department, and we are go-
ing to investigate.
"One of the Jap tramps is leaving
here tomorrow, and there will be a
couple of destroyers on the trail, to
see what they tmload, and where. I’ve
AAMSON i c • ,
got hold of a new airplane — 3. queer
about now. I need a partner. I’ve been told about little machine called the Camel-back, that I’m t^ng
you. Are you game for a little adventure?”
“You’ve found your man.”
"They call you "Tiger Bob Barrett,’ don't they?”
he said irrelevantly.
“I used to play football.”
He laughed. I have always been sensible about that
nickname.
"Well, here’s the situation. I’ve been at yemon’s
mine in Durango, Mex- .
ico. Called El Tigre. J JERE the well-kttov
Gold and thorium. X JL Intelligettce^’ and
There’s a little mys- presents his latest sym
T • T\ aerial fiction.
Vernon. Is it Doc authors have Jai
Vernon’ t h e scientist
His daug ter in eri e with so much imaginati'i
^ r. - T-ii be fantastic today, t,
" Si, Sen or. Ellen
lad'^^’*’*^ some young scientists for deca
^ “Iknew them at Texas mysterwus He
University. IwasinVer- e^neers know of the
non’s cheiiistry class be- f
fore he went daft on his ^
death ray machine, and f.f. distance c
left to work on that.” *^1 we have p.
“TV.O Ti/v- io etJII at what lies above it.
work on the machine. In know you will ,
fact, that is a part of the |k w/itc/t easily bears re-rei
mystery.
H ere the well-known author of “The Alien
Intelligence'" and other thrilling stories
presents his latest symphony, a fine piece of
aerial fiction.
Few authors have Jack Williamson’s knack to
pack their stories with so much adventure and
with so much imaginative science. And while it
may be fantastic today, most of it we know, soon-
er or later, will have become reality.
All scientists for decades have been wondering
what the mysterious Heaviside Layer is. Radio
engineers know of the Heaviside Layer from
its effect on radio waves. It is very much of a
fact, yet no one has ever been able to get near
it, due to its distance above the surface of the
earth, and till we have penetrated it, we cannot be
sure what lies above it.
We know you will enjoy the present story,
which easily bears re-reading from time to time.
along on board. A jewel for mountain work — ^you
could land it on a handkerchief. I needed a partner,
and the Doc told me about you. Want to go along?”
"You bet I do! I’ve been longing for something to
turn up.”
"Well, be at the landing field at nine tomorrow —
this morning, rather, ready for anything. This may be
interesting before we’re through. Buenos Noches.”
.1 , A. Raid
and a Mystery
T he old fellow left
me, and I walked
on toward my apartment,
thinking over what I
had heard. Dr. Ver-
non’s invention a suc-
cess at last! I remem-
ed very clearly my days
with the nervous, stam-
mering little scientist, al-
ways sure that tomorrow
would bring the great
secret. And I thought of
Ellen — i n d e e d , I had
often done so in the two
years since I had heard
from her. I wondered why
she and her father had
left Austin so suddenly.
444
AIR WONDER STORIES
and why their destination had been kept a secret from
all their friends.
As for the matter of the red planes, I could suppose
nothing but that the outs in Mexican politics were
preparing a little militaiy surprise for the ins. There
have been too many military forces raised secretly in
Mexico for one of them to be much of a novelty. Then
I thought of the queer radio messages. They did not
fit in very well. But my mind returned to Ellen again.
I thought no more of the red machines. I had no
thought — no one on earth had warning — of the ter-
rible force that was rising to menace the world.
In the morning, when I came down to the lobby,
I found a curious clamor going. There was a hum of
conversation, and people were passing around red-
paper “extras”. It was five minutes before I could
get one to read the screaming headlines:
RED PLANES RAID FACTORYj
THREE HUNDRED DEAD
MILLION DOLLAR STOCK OF,
V THORIUM TAKEN
The account went on to describe the raid, at four
o’clock that morning, of a fleet of red airplanes upon
the Rogers Gas Mantle Factory, at St. Louis. It was
stated that three hundred people had been killed, and
that the entire stock of thorium nitrate on hand, worth
over a million dollars, had been carried off.
Much of a mystery was made of it. Police had
failed to identify three of the four red-uniformed
corpses left behind. Fingerprints identified the other
as a noted criminal recently out of Leavenworth.
No one seemed to have any idea why the thorium
had been taken, since the chief use of that radioactive
metal, which is similar to radium, but far less active, is
in the manufacture of gas mantles.
It was farther stated that the raiders had released
“clouds of a luminous purple gas,” which had caused
most of the fatalities, and which seemed to have des-
troyed the gravity of metallic objects about. It was
said that the factory building was curiously wrecked,
as if the heavy machinery had gone up through the
roof.
At first it struck me that this must be simply a
newspaper canard. Then I remembered what Bill
Johnson had told me of the strange red airplanes in
Durango, and of the mystery of the secret radio station.
Then I was not so sure. I ate a little breakfast and
hurried out to the landing field. I found Bill with a
copy of the paper in his hand. His wrinkled face had
a look of eager concentration on it.
“Howdy, Bob,” he drawled. “This looks interest-
ing. Have you seen it?” I nodded. “It must be
the same red planes. Let’s get off.”
We walked out on the field, where the “Camel-back”
plane was waiting. It was the first one I had seen;
one of the first models built, I believe. It was based
on Cierva’s Autogiro, or “windmill plane”. But there
was an arrangement by which the rotating mast could
be drawn into the fuselage, the rotation stopped, and
the vanes folded to the side, so that the machine, in
the air, could be transformed into an ordinary mono-
plane, capable of a much higher flying speed than the
Autogiro. When the pilot desired, a touch of a but-
ton would release the mast and vanes, and the machine
became an Autogiro, which could spiral slowly or drop
almost perpendicularly to a safe landing on a small spot
of ground.
The machine had a further innovation in the shape
of a Wright turbine motor. This had but a single
important moving part, the shaft which bore the rotors,
the flanged wheel that drew the mixture into the com-
bustion chamber, and the propeller. Because of its
extreme light weight and high efficiency, the internal
combustion turbine engine now promises to come into
general use.
The name of the machine, “the Camel-back,” was
due to the peculiar hump to the rear of the mast, cover-
ing the levers for raising and lowering the rotating
“windmiU.”
The plane carried a .60 calibre machine gun in the
forward cockpit.
“Get aboard. Bob, and we’re off,” Bill said as we
got on our parachutes. “The tramp weighed anchor
at four this morning, and the destroyers left an hour
later. We’ll be able to pick them up.”
Five minutes later our trim little machine was roll-
ing forward with the “windmill” spinning. It swept
smoothly upward. Bill moved into gear the device that
brought down the mast, and soon we were over the
cold gray Pacific, with the city fading into the haze of
the blue northern horizon.
Bill was flying the ship, and my thoughts turned back
to Dr. Vernon and his daughter. The Doctor was a
pudgy, explosive little man, who thought, ate, and
breathed science. His short, restless figure always
bore the marks of laboratory cataclysms, and his life
had been marred by the earlier lack of success in per-
fecting the terrible machine to which he was devoting
his life. I had always thought it strange that a man
so mild and tender-hearted should toil so to build a
death-dealing instrument, and I wondered what he
would do with it now if he had it completed.
It was five years since I had seen Ellen. She had
been but a spritely, elfin girl. I remembered her chief-
ly as having been instrumental, one day at a party, in
getting me to drop myself into a supposed easy chair,
which turned out to be a tub of ice water.
CHAPTER II
The Menace of the Mist
T he little Camel-back plane was a wonder. The
soft whispering hum of the turbine engine belied
its tremendous power. The slender, white metal
wings cut the air at the rate of two and a half miles per
minute. Presently we saw a smudge of smoke where
the blue sea met the bluer sky ahead, and soon the little
machine had dropped on the deck of a destroyer.
The sister vessel was four or five miles to starboard.
The two ships were plowing deliberately along, at
about ten knots, keeping some twenty-five miles be-
hind the tramp steamer they were shadowing. One of
the officers took us up on the little bridge, and we learn-
ed that the little ships were keeping track of the tramp
with their radio equipment.
The radio man took us in and let us listen to the
calls between the tramp and some point far ahead.
Those were the strangest sounds I have ever heard.
Thin, stuttering, stridulating squeaks and squeals !
Even allowing for distortion in transmission, it was
hard to imagine what might make them.
THE SECOND SHELL
445
"That’s something ialking,” Bill said. "And human
beings don’t make noises like that.”
“It may be,” the operator said, “that what we hear
is just an ordinary conversation, ‘scrambled’ to keep
us from understanding it, and ‘unscrambled’ by the
receiver. Such devices have been in use for years.”
But there was no conviction in his voice. And cer-
tainly, those strange noises sounded to me like the
communication of some alien beings. But what might
they be?
Later in the day. Bill and I took turns in going up
with the Camel-back to keep tab on the movements of
the tramp, since the radio calls had ceased. The day
passed, and the white sun sank back of the glittering
western waves. During the hot, moonless night, the
ether was still, and we could do nothing but steam on
in the same direction. I went up twice, but the tramp
was showing no lights, and I failed to locate her. At
midnight Bill came on deck, and I went below to a
bunk.
It was just after dawn that the alarm was sounded.
I was awakened by the roar of the little ship’s forward
gun. It was firing steadily as I went on deck, and I
heard a confusion of sounds — the siren was blowing,
and there was a medley of shouts, orders, and curses,
punctuated with the reports of small arms.
I saw that the Camel-back was gone from the deck.
Bill was. up again.
As I stepped on deck there was a great clanging
roar from below. The propellers had been lifted from
the water! The engines raced madly for a minute,
and then were stopped. I ran to the trail to see what
had happened to throw the organization of the crew
into such confusion. And indeed it was an amazing
sight that met my eyes !
The ship was floating in the air, a hundred feet
above the waves! The air was still, the sea was
smooth and black . . . The eastern sky was lit by the
silver curtain of the dawn, with the old moon hanging
in it. Before us, and below, two hundred yards away,
was a queer luminous hill — a shining cloud of red-
purple vapor that rolled spread heavily upon the black
water. I saw two similar twisting mounds of gas
astern, gleaming with a painful radiance.
And the ship was rising into the air!
It was drifting swiftly up, through the still air, so
that a wind seemed to blow down upon us. I saw
a rifle hanging in the air ten feet above me, and a steel
boat rising a dozen feet over the mast. Suddenly it
came to me that something had negated the gravity of
the metal parts of the ship. I thought of the story of
the gravity-destroying bombs used in the raid of the
night before upon the thorium stores.
The forward gun was still firing steadily, though
the terrorized men had deserted the others. I saw a
man point above us, and looked. A red airplane,
with thick fuselage and short wings, was flying
silently and swiftly across our bows. As it passed,
something fell from it. It was a dark object that fell
and exploded just above us, bursting into a thick,
roily cloud of shining purple mist. The light of it
hurt my eyes. And the ship plunged upward faster.
In view of what happened later, there can be no
doubt that the luminous gas was a radioactive element
derived by the forced acceleration of the decomposition
of thorium. It was similar to the inert radioactive gas
niton, or “radium emanation,” which is formed by the
expulsibn of an alpha particle from the radium atom.
And there can be no doubt that its emanations affected
the magnetic elements, iron, nickel, cobalt, and oxygen
in such a manner as to reverse the pull of gravity.
With the invention of permalloy and other similar
substances in the past decade, such a thing is much
less incredible than it might have seemed ten years
ago.
In a few moments the red ship had passed out of
sight. Looking dazedly to the west, I saw a number
of bright points of purple, fire against the deep blue of
the sky — radioactive clouds sending out the gravity-
nullifying radiations. The dark shape of the other des-
troyer, upside down, was floating up among them. It
must have been almost a mile up, already.
As I stood there astounded, the officers seemed to
be making a furious attempt to restore order. Then
men were running about, babbling and cursing in utter
confusion. I saw one man don a life belt and jump
insanely over the rail — to plunge like a plummet to the
water five hundred yards below. A dozen more poor
fellows followed him before the mate could stop the
rush. And perhaps their fate is as good as that of the
others.
Suddenly a wild-eyed seaman sprang at my throat.
In spite of my amazement, I was able to stop him with
a punch at the jaw. In a moment I realized what he
was after. The parachute that I had worn on my last
flight in the Camel-back was strapped to me. As
the fellow got up to charge again, the deck tilted
(probably the ship was upset by the recoil of the gun).
Presently I found the rip-cord and jerked it. The
white silk bellowsed out behind me, while my un-
fortunate shipmates fell, dwindling dark specks, to
make white splashes in the sea below. The ill-fated
ship must have been half a mile high then. I glimpsed
it once or twice, a vanishing black dot — driven out into
space !
By the time I had struck the chill water I almost
wished that I had fallen with the others. I contrived
to cut the harness loose, and to get rid of my coat and
shoes; and set myself to the task of keeping afloat as
long as possible.
On to the Mine
TT must have been an hour later that I heard the hum
of the Camel-back’s propeller, and saw the little
machine skimming low over the waves. Bill leaned
out and waved a hand in greeting. In a few minutes
he had brought the machine down lightly in the water
beside me, and hauled me aboard.
“I went up at three o’clock,” he said, "to see if I
could locate the Jap. I was coming down when the
red machines began to let loose their shining clouds.
The plane went up. I stopped the engine, and still
it went up. Its weight was gone. I almost froze be-
fore it started falling.”
“Those ships may go on to the moon! They may
become minor satellites themselves!”
“You saw the red machines dealing out the dope?”
"One of them. Who could it — ”
"It’s our job to find out. We better head back for
the mine, to see what’s happened there.”
The trim little machine skimmed smoothly over the
level sea, and easily took the air. We flew southwest.
446
AIR WONDER STORIES
It was not many hours before we sighted land that
must have been the lower tip of Lower California.
In an hour more we were flying over Mexico, the most
ancient, and paradoxically, the least known country on
the continent.
We flew over a broad plain checkered with the
bright green of fields, over ancient cities and mean
adobe villages, and over the vast forests of pine, cut
with twisting canyons, that cover the slopes of the
mighty mountains that rose before us. As we went on,
the green valleys of the rushing mountain streams
grew narrower; and the grim wild peaks that rim-
med them, higher and more frequent. Sheer jagged
summits rose above steep, forest-covered slopes. We
were reaching the heart of the Sierra Madre range.
At last the vast bare conical mountain loomed up to
the north of us, that Bill told me was Mocolynatal —
the place of the hidden radio station. Its sheer black
slopes tower fifteen thousand feet above the sea. From
its appearance, it was not hard to guess that it had a
crater of considerable dimensions. *
The mountain crept around to our left, as we fiew
on toward the mine. Suddenly Bill shouted and
pointed toward the peak. I looked. Above the dark
outline of the cone, a huge globe of blue light was
rising, flaming with an intense brilliance that gave a
ghastly tint of blue to all that desert wilderness of
peaks ! Like a great moon of blue fire, it rose swift-
ly into the sky! It dwindled, faded, was gone!
I felt the hair rise on my neck. I was glad that our
plane was swift and far away. If it was a human
power with which we had to deal, I thought, it must
have made strange advances. And then I remember-
ed the strange noises upon the ether — sounds more
like the stridulations of great insects than the voices
of men!
“That has happened twice before,” Bill said. “But
I didn’t tell anybody about it in the States. It’s too
damned unbelievable.”
At the Thotium Mine
I N half an hour we were fifty miles south of Moco-
lynatal, circling over the mine. El Tigre Mine is
near the center of a rocky, triangular plateau. North-
west and southwest, the Sierra Madre rises. On the
east side of the triangle is the river, a tributary of the
Nazas, in a canyon deep enough to hold the stream a
hundred times. Perhaps a dozen square miles are so
enclosed. It is a desert of sand and rocks, cut up with
dry arroyos, scantily covered with yucca, mesquite, and
cactus.
The mine buildings stand on the little stream that
cuts a track of vivid green across the neutral gray of
the waste to the canyon below. Sitting there on the
dull-hued plain, with the Cordillerras rising so abrupt-
ly a few miles back, the buildings looked very tiny and
insignificant. Across the stream from the shaft-
house, the shops, and the quarters of the men is a
square, fortress-like two story residence of rough gray
stone . . . The narrow-gauge railroad track runs from
it down toward the canyon like thin black threads.
As we flew over the buildings, a trim white figure
appeared on the roof of the residence, and waved a
slender arm. I knew that it must be Ellen, and I felt
oddly excited at the thought of seeing her again.
Bill touched the button that released the rotor, and
the machine settled lightly to earth near the main
building. A short waddling person and a slender ac-
tive one — the Doctor and Ellen — came out of the
house and hurried toward tis.
“Why h-h-h-h-hello. Bob, I’m s-sur-surprised to see
you,” the Doctor rattled off. I have always had the
opinion that he wouldn’t stammer if he would take
time to talk, but he is always in a hurry. “You’re w-
w-w-weleome, though. Looks like a new m-ma-ma-
machine you have. Bill. The red ship c-c-c-came again
while you were gone. I’ve got something to t-t-t-t-tell
you. But get out and come in to the shade.”
He hurried us toward the house. He was just as I
remembered him — a. short man, a little stout, with a
perpetual grin on his moon-face, and movements as
short and jerky as his speech. He was panting with
excitement, and very glad to see us.
Ellen Vernon was, if possible, even more beautiful
than she had been to my boyish eyes. Her dark eyes
still held the flame of restless mischief that had brought
me the icy plunge. I believe a recollection of the in-
cident passed through her mind as she saw me, for
her eyes suddenly met mine engagingly, and then were
briefly turned away, while a quick soft flush spread
over her glowing, sun-colored cheek. I got a subtle
intoxication even out of watching the smooth grace of
her movements.
We shook hands with the Doctor, and Ellen offered
me her strong cool hand.
“I’m glad to see you. Bob,” she said simply. “I’ve
often thought of you. And you’ve come in at an inter-
esting time. Dad turned loose his ray yesterday, and
brought down one of the red machines. I guess Bill
has told you — ”
“Yes,” the Doctor interrupted, “the th-th-th-thing
had come sneaking around here once too often. I
tried the tube on it and it fell about a mile up the
creek. Funny thing about it. The red ship struck the
ground, and then something left it and went b-b-b-b-
back into the air !”
“Something like a bright blue balloon carried the
thing up in the air,” Ellen added. “It saved itself with
that, just like a man wrecked in the air uses a para-
chute. But it was not a man that sailed up under
that ball of blue light ! It was a queer twisting purple
thing! I used the field glasses — ”
“It’s not m-m-m-men, that fly the red ships,” the
Doctor said. “It’s c-cre-cre-creatures of the upper
air!”
We stepped up on the broad, shady verandah, and
Bill and the Doctor stopped by the steps, comparing
notes. Ellen gave me a welcome drink of icy water
from the wind-cooled earthen olla hanging from the
roof. Straight, and tanned, she looked very beautiful
against the desert background. She was the same girl
she had always been — ^bright, daring, and alluring.
Neither she nor the Doctor seemed unduly excited over
the astounding news they had just delivered.
The desert lay away to the eastward, undulating in
the heat like a windswept lake. Gray or dully green
with the yucca and manzanita upon it, it was sharply
cut by the rich green mark of the wandering stream.
Its vastness tired the eyes, like a limitless weird dead
sea. North and south the mountains rose, gripping
the plain in a grim and ancient grasp. The hills were
still tinted with the blues and purples of the morning
shades, save where some higher peak caught the sun-
light and reflected it in a fiercer, redder gleam. Far in
the north, above the nearer peaks, I made out the
THE SECOND SHELL
447
distantly mysterious, dull blue outline of Mocolynatal —
the mountain of the hidden menace.
In such a wild and primitive setting, human civil-
ization seemed a distant, unimportant issue. The
menace of the desert, of naked nature, alone seemed
real. No wild tale was incredible there.
And the wonderful girl before me, smil'jig, cool and
resourceful, seemed to fit in with that rjugh scenery,
seemed almost a part of it. Ellen waj the kind of
woman who can master her environment.
“Coming down here was a pretty severe change for
a campus queen, wasn’t it?’’ I asked her.
“The royal blood never flowed too freely in my
veins,’’ she said. “I rather like it here. The ore
train from Durango brings the mail twice a week, and
I read a lot. Then, I’m beginning to love the desert
and the mountains. Sometimes I feel almost like
worshipping old Mocolynatal. They say the Indians
did.’’
“I wonder if it’s ever been climbed?’’
“I think not. Unless by the owners of the red air-
planes. Dad thinks they are things that have come
down out of the upper air to attack the earth. I’ve
always been sorry I wasn’t here when the tiger was
killed, but this promises a bigger adventure yet ! And
I’ll be right in the middl j of it!’’ She laughed.
The Death Ray
♦*T HADN’T heard of the tiger’s misfortune,” I said,
JL a little amused at her eagerness for adventure.
"You know Uncle Jake had a ranch down on the
Nazas. Once he trailed a tiger up here with his
hounds. He killed him right here, and happened to see
the glitter of gold in the blood-stained quartz. He
named the mine El Tigre — The Tiger. Along with
the gold ore are deposits of monasite — thorium ore.
Dad began to work them when we came to get thorium
to use in his experiments.”
“Say, Bob,” the Doctor called, “I want to sh-sh-sh-
show you something. Come on in the lab.” The little
man took my arm and hurried me down the long cool
hall, and up a flight of steps to a great room on the
second floor. It suggested an astronomical observ-
atory; it was circular, and the roof was a great glass
dome. In the center and projecting through the dome
was a huge device that resembled a telescope. About
the walls a variety of scientific equipment.
“That’s my r-r-r-ray machine,” he said. “Modified
adaptation of the old Coolidge tube, with an electrode
of molten Vernonite. Vernonite is my invention — an
alloy of thorium with some of the alkaline earth metals.
When the alloy is melted there is a comparatively rapid
atomic disintegration of the radioactive thorium, and
the radiation is modified by passages through a power-
ful magnetic field, and by polarization with quartz
prisms. The Vernon Ray has characteristics controll-
able by the adjustment of the apparatus, generally re-
sembling those of the ultra-violet or actinic rays of
sunlight, but intensified to an extreme degree.
“The chemical effects are marvelous. The Vernon
Ray will bleach indigo, or the green of plant leaves.
It stimulates oxidation, and has a tendency to break
up the proteins and other complex molecules.
“This tube has a range of five miles, and will pene-
trate a foot of lead. I have killed animals with it by
breaking up the haemoglobin in the blood. By special
adjustment, its effects would be fatal at even greater
range. It might be set to break the body proteins into
the split protein poisons — there are a thousand ways
it might kill a man, quickly or by hideous lingering
death.
“Used in war, the Vernon Ray would not only kill
men, but destroy or ignite such useful chemicds as
fuels and explosives. It would destroy vegetation and
food supplies. In fact, it would make war impossible,
and it is my hope that it will end war altogether!”
“But what if the wrong fellow gets hold of it?”
He nodded to a safe at the wall. “Plans locked up
there. And nobody knows about it. Even if some-
one had the plans, he could hardly secure the large
quantities of thorium required without attracting at-
tention.” I thought of the raid on the gas mantle
factory.
“I mean to turn it over to the American government
pretty soon, but I hope to make another development.
Ordinary heat and light waves set up molecular dis-
turbances in matter; in fact, heat is merely molecular
vibration. I hope to discover a frequency in the spec-
tnun that will stimulate atomic vibration to such an
extent as to break down the electronic system. Ob-
jects upon which such a ray is directed will explode
with incredible violence. In my earlier experiments
with Vernonite, the molten alloy in the tube, I almost
had a catastrophe from the atomic explosion of the
electrode. It would have blown El Tigre off the map!
The radioactivity of thorium is slight; I must increase
it vastly. The adjustment is delicate.”
He let me look into the apparatus. It was plainly
electrical. There were motors, generators, coils, trans-
formers, mirrors and lenses in a lead housing, vast con-
densers, and a huge vacuum tube which seemed to have
a little crucible of glowing liquid for the anode. Back
of it was a great parabolic reflector which must have
sent out the beam of destruction.
“The idea of atomic force as a d-d-d-d-destructive
agency is not new,” he went on, again almost too en-
thusiastic to talk. “The sun is thought to ob-ob-db-
obtain its boundless energy from the process of atomic
disintegration, and m-m-m-m-m-men of science long
since agree that any instrument using intra-atomic en-
ergy would be a t-t-t-t-terrible weapon !”
CHAPTER HI
Qouds of Doom
S UDDENLY a red shajje flashed over the great
^ glass dome above us. In a moment I heard Bill
^ call out, "Hey, Doc, comp’ny’s come!”
Dr. Vernon and I hurried out of the room. He paused
to double lock the door behind him, and we down to
the hall. We found Bill and Ellen both waiting at the
front door, each holding a 30-30 carbine.
“There’s one of the red ships out there!” the girl
cried. Eager and flushed with excitement, she was
very beautiful.
The Doctor unbuttoned his shirt and pulled out a
slender tube of glass. It had a bulb at one end, with a
metal shield behind it, and a pistol grip and trigger
at the other. He examined it critically and turned a
little dial. The tube lit up with a soft, beautiful scarlet
glow. He pointed it at a vase of wild flowers, that
Ellen must have gathered, on a side table. Their
brilliant colors faded until leaf and petal were white.
“P-p-p-p-pocket edition of the Vernon Ray ma-
chine,” he said.
He slipped it out of sight in his pocket, and Bill
448
AIR WONDER STORIES
swung open the door. A strange red airplane was
stopped twenty yards away. The fuselage was a thick,
tapering, closed compartment, with dark circular win-
dows. The wings were curiously short and thick, as
if they were somehow folded up, and I thought the
propeller very large.
An oval door in the side swung out, and a little,
weazened man sprang out on the ground. An astound-
ing person 1 He wore a uniform of brilliant red, dec-
orated with a few miles of gold braid and several
pounds of glittering medals. He had leathery black
skin, sleek black hair,- and furtively darting black eyes.
A deep, livid red scar across his forehead and cheek
gave his face a queer demoniac twist that was accented
by his short black moustache.
“Vars! Herman Vars! After us again!" the
Doctor muttered in evident amazement.
The dark little man walked briskly up to the door,
and saluted the Doctor, with his medals rattling.
“Good morning. Dr. Vernon,” he said in a queer dry
voice. “I trust that you are well — ^you and your beau-
tiful daughter. I need not ask how work is progressing
on your- remarkable invention, for I know that it is
completed,” he laughed, or rather cackled, insanely.
"Yes, Doctor, you have given the world a great weapon,
one that it will never forget !”
He was laughing oddly again when the Doctor asked
gruffly, "What do you want?”
“Why, a friend of yours and mine, who has been
of service to us both, informs me that you have in this
building quite a large supply of the rare radioactive
metal, thorium, of which I think I have a greater need
than you — ”
“What ? You mean Pablo — ” Dr. Vernon cried, his
face turning white.
“Pablo Ysan, your servant. Exactly. But I must
have the thorium. I need a huge quantity. I am com-
ing for it tomorrow. You need fear nothing for your-
self or your daughter — I came to warn you so that
you might feel no alarm. In fact, it would flatter me to
have you as my guests. But remember that I am
coming — in force!”
“You damn lu-lu-lu-lunatic !” the Doctor choked.
“No. Not a madman, begging your pardon. The
future king of the world! Of two worlds, to be
exact! But I must leave you. Remember! And
hasta luego, as our friend Pablo would say.”
Laughing strangely again, the little man hurried back
and got in the machine. It left the ground at once,
with the great propellers whirling slowly. The motors
were oddly silent. I thought the red wings were some-
how unfolded, or lengthened out a little.
As it rose, I glimpsed the pilot of the machine.
It was not a man !
It was a queer, gleaming purple shape, with many
tentacles !
With strange horror grasping at my heart, I looked
quickly at the others, but it seemed that they had not
seen it. Then I remembered the Doctor’s words of
“creatures of the upper air” and I thought of what
Ellen had said of the thing that had risen from the
wrecked ship.
“That was Herman Vars,” Ellen whispered to me.
“We met him at the University. He had a warped
mind — ^tinkered with radio and claimed he was getting
in touch with beings of a plane above the earth. Then
—once — ” she paused, flushing a little,” — ^well, he came
to me and told me that he was going to conquer the
earth, and that he wanted me to — to go with him.
That was why we left Austin. I thought he was only
insane — ^but this!”
“And he must have been t-t-t-t-telling the t-t-t-t-
truth!” the Doctor said. “And he is coming after my
thorium! I wonder — Pablo — the blueprints — ” Sud-
denly he left us and ran down the hall.
“Pablo Ysan was a Mexican who helped him some-
times in his experiments,” Ellen told me. “He went
away a month ago. He must have carried Dad’s plans
to Vars.”
The Doctor came back with a grim look on his
face. “They’re g-g-g-g-gone I” he said. “That’s why
they want thorium. And I’ve got enough here to wipe
out the earth, if they can use it — if they can use it,”
and a grim half-smile flickered over his face.
“I’ll run down to Durango on the rail car,” Bill said.
"I can have a train load of troops up here by night.
Mendoza is one of my amigos — once I did him a good
turn — ” The Doctor nodded. “And if anything hap-
pens while I’m gone, you have your ray, and Bob can
take up the Camel-back.”
The Battle
XJE WENT out. In a few minutes I heard the
sputter of a gasoline engine, and the ringing of
the little car’s wheels on the rails, as it sped down the
narrow track. The machine dwindled to a black speck
on the desert’s rim, and dropped out of sight.
Dr. Vernon spent the evening tinkering with his
tube. I went over with Ellen, to look at the mine. The
men had been frightened by the red ships, a few days
before, and had left on the train. The place was
deserted. We peered down the silent black shaft, and
went back. But most of the time I spent watching
the sky for a sight of the red planes, ready to warn
the Doctor and to go up to meet them.
Four trains pulled in before midnight, carrying one
of those mobile military units with which the Montoya
government so effectively nipped in the bud the revo-
lutionary movements of 1933 and 1935. There was a
battery of eight French seventy-fives and a heavier
railway gun, four light tanks, a dozen battle planes
and two bombing planes, and about four hundred
infantry.
Before dawn, El Tigre looked like a military en-
campment. In the glare of great searchlights, men
were digging trenches, leveling a landing field for the
planes, and planting the battery. The Doctor had his
ray machine ready for use.
I was much surprised at the discipline and efficiency
of the well-trained Mexican troops.
With the rising of the sun, a sentry’s hail proclaimed
the appearance of a score of dark specks above the
grim outline of Mocolynatal — a. fleet of red planes,
coming to the attack!
In a moment the camp was alive. The gun crews
got to their posts, airplane engines were started, in-
fantry were lined up in the freshly dug trenches, with
machine guns and rifles ready. I saw the gleaming tip
of the Doctor’s great tube projecting above the huge
glass dome.
In a few minutes the planes were taking the air,
flying to meet the coming ships. I was with them, in
the Camel-back.
I had often dreamed of the thrills of war in the air,
and I was eager enough for the encounter. But, as
it turned out, I was to play no noble part.
THE SECOND SHELL
449
The red machines flew toward us with astonishing
speed. In a few minutes they were upon us. Because
of the greater speed of my ship, I was flying a little
ahead of the formation of Mexican planes. That cir-
cumstance probably saved my life, as things turned out,
I was firing a burst to warm up my gun when there
was a puff of smoke from the foremost machine of
the red ships. I watched the tiny black projectile that'
came toward us, saw it pass far below me and burst
into a thick cloud of gleaming purple vapor that rolled
and coiled like a strange creature of the air.
And the wings of my machine no longer caught the
air! The controls were useless. I was drifting up.
The radiation of that shining cloud had negated the
gravity of the machine!
Half a dozen more of the strange bombs burst
behind me, and I saw the other ships drifting up, even
more rapidly than mine, for they had been nearer the
clouds. I kept firing for a minute, but I believe I
hit none of the red ships. Soon they had passed
beneath, in the direction of the mine.
Helpless, I drifted on into the sky !
I had a clear view of the battle at the mine. As
the red machines came within range, the railway gun
and the camouflaged seventy-fives began firing. One
of the red ships suddenly went down in flames, and
then two more. Whether they were hit, or were vic-
tims of the Vernon Ray, I do not know.
But in a few minutes the vicinity of the mine was
dotted with the coiling hills of purple gas from the
gravity-destroying bombs. I saw railway cars and en-
gines, guns and tanks, and even the railroad rails and
the mining machinery, torn from their places and
plunging into the air. Suddenly the huge glass dome
was shattered, and a great object shot up through it —
Dr. Vernon’s terrible instrument!
What can men do against instruments that hurl
them off the earth?
By that time I was so high that the whole plain
about the mine was but a tiny brownish patch, and
soon that was veiled in the mists of distance. I grew
very cold, and beat my arms against my sides to warm
them. My breath grew short, and presently my nose
began to bleed. The blue sky grew darker until a few
stars broke into view, and then many. The flaming
sun seemed to give no heat. Intense cold crept over
my limbs.
As I was floating upward to my doom, I thought
of the impending fate of the earth. The red fleets
might sweep over the world, sending armies, battle-
ships, cities and factories into the frozen night of
space. That madman, Vars, with his incredible allies
that we had glimpsed, with the negative gravity bombs
and Dr. Vernon’s ray machine, could realize his mad
dream of world dominion. Humanity would be help-
less against his insane power.
Amid those speculations of the horror to come, my
consciousness faded.
The Camp in the Crater
T he next I knew, it was late in the evening. The
sun was low over the black hills in the west. My
machine was still perhaps two miles high, and floating
slowly down. I started the motor, and got the machine
under control.
I found that I had drifted far to the east of the
mine. By the time the red sun set, I was back over
it. I landed in a terrible scene of wreckage. All
objects of iron — machines and weapons — were gone.
Trenches, shelters, and buildings were stripped ruins.
Here and there were dead men, singly and in piles.
They showed no wounds; either they had been killed
by the intense radioactivity of the gravity bombs, or
by a Vernon Ray machine carried on the red planes.
I landed by the ruined residence, near two dead men
in uniform. In fearful anticipation, I hurried through
the silent rooms. The doors were broken down and
the walls were bullet-splintered — there had been fight-
ing in the hall. I searched the empty rooms in which
the precious thorium had been stored. Three more
cold bodies I found, but they were of the Mexican
soldiery. I found no trace of Ellen, Bill, or the Doc-
tor.
Had they been swept away into space? Or had the
triumphant lunatic, Vars, taken them captive and car-
ried them to his stronghold in the crater of Mocoly-
natal?
I did not find the Doctor, but in his laboratoiy, in
the inside pocket of a coat carelessly thrown aside, I
found the compact little ray tube with which he had
bleached the flowers on the day before. I examined
it curiously, and put it in my pocket.
Darkness had fallen when I went out to the Camel-
back, got in, and started the turbine motor. I rose
into the night and flew northward over the starlit
mountain wilderness. At last I made out the shape
of Mocolynatal ahead, and climbed far above it. I
sailed over, and came upon a strange scene.
Indeed, the mountain had a crater! Below me
was a great bowl, perhaps two miles across, brilliantly
lit by rows of electric lights. I made out long lines
of buildings — ^huge structures of sheet iron, gleaming
in the light. Toward the south rim seemed to be a
landing field, with broad beams of intense light pouring
out over the hundreds of red planes lined up across it.
North of that was a lake, and I saw scores of red
seaplanes moored by brightly lit docks at the edge.
'ITiere was movement below me. I saw the head-
lights of moving trucks upon smooth gravel roads
about the lake, and there were men at work on the
docks and at the landing field. Dense smoke, a lumi-
nous white in the glare of the lights, was rising from
some of the buildings that must have been factories.
The lunatic had indeed made thorough preparation
for his planned attack against the world !
I cut off the engine of my machine, set the motor
to whirling, and dropped silently toward the circle of
darkness alx>ut the rim of the crater. In fifteen min-
utes more I had landed it on a bare, rocky slope. I
waited a moment, but there was no sign that my com-
ing had been observed, so presently I left the plane,
with my automatic in my hand, wishing I knew how
to operate the strange weapon in my pocket.
I spent several hours slipping about in the shadows
among the fallen boulders on the bank of talus about
the rim, looking down into the brightly lit crater. At
last, I came down in the shadow of an isolated build-
ing of gray concrete, with slender masts rising above
it — the hidden radio station.
In an open space before it, flooded with light, I
saw a strange machine. It was like one of the red
airplanes, but the closed fuselage was so large that it
looked almost like a small dirigible balloon, while
the short wings were no larger than those of the
ordinary machines. It occurred to me that' the “nega-
tive-gravity” gas was probably used to lift it.
450
AIR WONDER STORIES
As I stood watdiing it, I saw a party coming aboard.
There were a dozen soldiers, in red uniform. Among
them I recognized the short figure of Vars, the maniac,
if he was a maniac. And behind him were three closely
guarded figures, one of them evidently a woman. Were
they my three lost friends? I had every reason to
think they were. Vars had promised not to injure
Ellen or the Doctor, had implied that he wished to
take them with him.
I was still watching when I heard a light footstep
behind me. I whirled quickly, only to receive the sharp
point of a bayonet against my chest.
“Drop it!” a sharp voice commanded 2 is I tried to
raise my automatic. The pressure back of the keen
blade was somewhat increased, and I obeyed.
“Where did you come from, anyway?” the voice
inquired.
I said nothing.
“Then I’ll give you a chance to tell somebody else,
Pard.”
A dark-faced man in red uniform stepped out of
the shadow of the building. He searched me, and
discovered the Doctor’s little weapon. “What’s this,
Pard?” he asked quickly.
Desperately I cudgeled my brain. “It’s — er — a pat-
ent radium cigarette lighter. Inventor gave it to me.
I broke it the other day.”
He looked at me sharply. I tried to assume in-
difference; and he handed it back. “Forward march,
and no tricks,” he ordered, and prodded me with the
bayonet until I would have given a good deal to know
the secret of the little weapon he had returned to me.
Presently we reached a low concrete building. He
put me past a barred door, and locked it. I was left
alone in the dark. Presently I struck the few matches
I had, to examine the little weapon. I set the dial by
guess, and found the tiny lever that lit the tube with
3ie soft crimson light, but I could not test it.
Toward morning I had an incredible visitor!
A pale violet light was suddenly thrown through the
bars of the door. I looked up to see the amazing
Thing before it, regarding me. It was octopus-like,
with a central body upheld on a dozen whip-like ten-
tacles ! But it was luminous, purple, semi-transparent !
The shapeless glowing purple body had a nudeus of
red — a little sphere of intense red light embedded in
the shining form. It seemed like a terrible eye, watch-
ing me.
For a moment the awful thing was there, and then
it moved silently away, drawing itself upon the slender
gleaming tentacles. It left me weak and trembling.
I hardly dared believe my eyes. Was this one of the
“beings from another plane” with which Vars had
allied himself in his insane attack against the earth?
CHAPTER IV
The City Above the Air
A t LAST the light of day, filtering through my
prison bars, aroused me from a terrible dream
of a gleaming purple octopus that was crushing
and strangling me in its coils. Little did I realize how
soon that dream was to become a reality!
The red-uniformed sentry came and brought me a
little breakfast. I tried to engage him in conversation
as I ate, but all I could get out of him was “Aw, shut
your trap, Pard !”
He ordered me out of the cell. As I stood outside,
blinking in the blaze of morning sunshine, I saw
that the crater had been deserted since I had entered.
The rows of great sheds were empty, with doors ajar.
The long lines of red planes were gone. Even the
great ship into which I thought Ellen and the others
taken was not to be seen. The radio station appeared
to have been dismantled. There were no more than a
dozen airplanes left in the pit; and even as I looked,
some of these took off and spiraled up into the sky.
Had the maniac finished his preparations for an at-
tack upon the earth? Had his dreadful army gone
forth to begin the ruin of the world?
The guard motidhed with his bayonet toward one
of the red ships near us on the ground. “Hustle!” he
said. “Get aboard. You are going up to see the
Master.”
From what I later learned, there must have been
several hundred white men in the conspiracy with Vars.
In exchange for their services, he had offered freedom
from the law (which was a great inducement to the
class of men he gathered) and a chance to share in the
spoils of world conquest. His recruits had numbered
bandits and desperadoes of all descriptions, and even
a few unscrupulous men of finely trained minds.
In a few minutes we were in the fuselage compart-
ment of the red machine. It was closed and made
air-tight. We were seated upon comfortable chairs,
and had a good view through circular windows in the
sides. The pilot was forward, out of sight, and there
was another closed space to the rear, but our compart-
ment took up most of the hull.
The guard refused to answer my questions concern-
ing the ship’s propulsion, but I later learned that it was
lifted by the negative gravity gas. The motors utilized
intra-atomic energy derived by the forced decomposi-
tion of thorium, and at high altitudes the propellers
were supplemented by rocket guns.
Besides my taciturn guard, there were two other
men in the ship. One, a fat, red-faced fellow, who
looked as if he had been drinking too much tnescale,
was boasting of his close association with Vars, “the
Master,” and of his promised part in the spoil of the
earth conquest.
The other was a lean, shrunken man, with red eyes.
He stared apprehensively at the pilot’s room forward,
muttering to himself. I caught a few of his words,
“The shining horrors ! 'The shining horrors. Devils
from the sky!”
The machine left the crater floor and flew rapidly
up on a steep spiral course. In a few minutes the
rugged mountain panorama was spread out like a relief
map below us. Presently the stars were visible, and
still we climbed, comfortable enough in the heated,
air-tight compartment. The propellers had been
stopped, but the gravity-neutralizing gas continued to
lift the vessel straight up.
Then I noticed a faint purple veil coming over the
stars above. Suddenly it seemed that we were plung-
ing through a bank of thin purple mist. Abruptly we
shot above a landscape weirder than the wildest dream !
We had climbed above a vast plain !
A flat purple desert stretched inimitably away below
us. Far in the west rose a colossal range of sheer pur-
ple mountains. The weird plain was covered with
strange and stunted violet plants. In the south was a
patch of blazing blue that looked like a lake of heavy
mist. Beyond rose a forest of fem-like violet plants.
It was a new land above the air!
The sky was utterly black, above that desolate pur-
THE SECOND SHELL
451
pie world. The stars were blazing with strange splen-
dor, like a mist of sunlit diamond dust. They were
brighter than they ever are on earth, for we were above
the atmosphere. I turned toward the east, to look at
the morning sun. Its light was blinding. The solar
corona spread out like great wings from a sphere of
livid white.
And on the purple desert, below the blazing sun, was
a city!
Great spires and towers and domes rose above the
dull flat expanse of purple and blue and violet. The
strange buildings were scarlet. They gleamed with a
metallic luster, as if they were made of the same metal
as the red airplanes.
This was the land of the madman’s allies, the home
of the purple, gleaming creatures!
In all that strange world, save for the intense red
of the weird city, there was no bright color. The smooth
plains, th» towering mountains, the great lakes, were
dull purple or blue or violet. And all were semi-
transparent ! I could see the Sierra Madre like a little
gray ridge, scores of miles below. And in the west,
below those purple moimtains, was the broad blue
Pacific, gleaming like steel.
I cried out in wonder to the guard.
“Huh,” he muttered. “It’s nothin’. I’ve been up
here a dozen times. Nothin’ solid. Just mist. Even
the — ^Things — cut like butter.”
The Second Shell
^ERTAINLY our machine had risen easily enough
^ through the purple rocks below us. The scien-
tific aspects of that second crust about the earth have
been considered very carefully, and the best scientific
opinions have been sought
Mankind dwells upon a comparatively thin crust
about the molten or plastic interior of the earth. It
would seem there is a similar crust about the air.
Science long ago had evidence of it in the reflection of
radio waves by the so-called Heaviside Layer.
The volume of the gases in the atmosphere depends
upon temperature and pressure. As one leaves the
surface of the earth, the air grows thinner, because
the pressure is less. But interplanetary space is nearly
at absolute zero, where molecular motion cecises. It
follows that the molecular motion of the outside of
the atmosphere is not sufficient to keep it in the gaseous
state at all.
The top of the air is literally frozen into a solid
layer !
Scientists suspected as much when they suggested
that the Heaviside Layer effect was caused by the
reflection of Hertzian waves by solid particles of
frozen nitrogen in the air. But it seems that the many
frozen gases (for the air contains hydrogen, helium,
krypton, neon, xenon, and carbon dioxide, as well as
nitrogen, oxygen, and carrying quantities of water
vapor) possess chemical characteristics lacking at ordi-
nary temperatures. They seem to have formed a rela-
tively substantial crust, and to have formed an entirely
new series of chemical compounds, to make life pos-
sible upon that crust. (The rare gases of the air are
monatomic, and consequently inert, at ordinary tem-
peratures.)
It would appear that intelligence had been growing
up upon that transparent and unsuspected world above,
through all the ages that man had been fighting for
survival below. Vars had been the first to suspect it.
He had got into radio communication with the denizens
of that second crust, had enlisted their aid in a war
upon his fellow men!
We flew on toward the crimson city.
“The armies from there wil! conquer the world.
Those purple things fight like demons,” the fat man
boasted complacently, waving his half-empty flask to-
ward the gleaming crimson battlements.
“Demons! Yes. Devils! Hell in the sky!” the
shrunken man whispered through chattering teeth,
never taking his red eyes from the door to the pilot’s
cabin.
We were over that strange city of red metal. It
was a mile across, circular, with a metal pavement and
a wall of red metal about the edge. Scattered along
the rim were a dozen great gleaming domes of purple.
“Gas in the domes supports the city,” my guard said
briefly. “The ground is mist. Won’t hold up any-
thing solid.”
I suppose that a dollar would have fallen through
those purple rocks as a similar disc of neutronic sub-
stance, weighing eight thousand tons to the cubic inch,
would fall through the crust of our own earth. Strength
and weight are relative terms. The strange crust must
have seemed solid enough to the weird beings that
trod upon it, until they acquired the use of metals and
of the negative gravity gas. (Their “mines” may have
been the meteorites of space.)
In the center of the city was a huge transparent
dome, with a slender tube projecting through it. I
was struck at once with the semblance of it to Dr.
Vernon’s ray tube. Had a duplicate already bigen in-
stalled here ?
The fat man answered my question. “Old Vernon
is some prize fool. We have his weapon as well as
those already possessed by the Things. A ray tube in
that city, and one in every plane. The Master has
promised me a little model, to carry in my pocket.
He is going to give me Italy and — ”
Poison in Their Blood
T LISTENED no more, for we were dropping
^ swiftly to a broad platform of the red metal. Upon
it were long lines of the thick-bodied red airplanes.
And at one side was the larger ship into which I had
seen three prisoners taken.
“ — the army, ready to start,” I heard the red-faced
man again. “I’ll be over New York tomorrow.” He
raised his bottle unsteadily.
Our machine was dropped lightly to the top 'of the
great ship. Two red-clad mechanics moved through
our compartment, toward the rear. In the next little
room we found them waiting, when my guard had
made me follow. They held a round metal door, above
a dark opening in the floor. It seems that the ma-
chines were placed with openings opposite, and were
clamped together to prevent loss of air.
“Crawl through. Pronto T said the guard, giving
me another prod with his bayonet and pointing to the
hole.
I put my hands on the edge of the opening, dropped
through, and found myself in a dark chamber — for
a second, alone. It was the opportunity I had been
awaiting. I slipped out the little tube of the Doctor’s.
On the night before, I had set the little dial. Now I
pushed over the little lever that lit the tube, and jJayed
the invisible beam through the opening.
(Continued on Page 461)
From the bow of one of America’s ships a beam of bluish light stabbed out and strode an
enemy craft. It passed thru the vessel as tho it had been made of glass instead of thousands
of tons of steel.
452
THE CRYSTAL RAY
By the Author of ''The Space Dweller^'
MID-AFTERNOON sun of the stirring
war year 2141 A.D. shone upon a small
battle flier which was speeding southward
at an altitude of fifteen miles. It was a
two-seated outfit, cigar-shaped and made of
an aluminum alloy. On the shining metal of its body
were painted several red, white and blue stars — the in-
signia of the United States ; mounted on its prow were
two dangerous looking automatic guns. Beneath the
body of the machine was a convex, hollow sheet of
metal containing a substance which neutralized gravity
when acted upon by the electromagnetic waves sent out
by the power stations throughout the western hemis-
phere ; this device, the Whitley gravitational screen, sup-
ported the craft in the air. Hissing jets of gas ejected
at the stern were driving the machine
through the thin atmosphere at a
velocity of nearly a thousand miles
an hour. A faint wake of bluish
vapor trailed behind like the tail of
a comet.
In the flier were two men wearing
the oxygen masks and metal armor
necessary at extreme altitudes; at-
tired in this fantastic garb they look-
ed for all the world like a pair of
goblins from some distant planet.
As members of the U. S. Scout
Squadron Number Five, both had
done their bit in the seemingly hope-
less battle of Caucasian nations
against the yellow men of Asia.
Holding the controls was George
Calhoun, the ace who had to his
credit more than sixty aerial vic-
tories, including the bombing of two
great battleships of the skies. Joseph Pelton, his com-
panion, who in peace time had devoted all his spare
moments to science, was not so successful a fighter;
but he had participated in many hazardous struggles.
These men were now on a three days’ leave of ab-
sence. The United States — the only formidable power
of the Occident that had so far escaped being wiped out
by the air fleets of Asia, could ill spare either; but
science had not yet found a way to relieve the fatigue
that comes with constant war.
Above them the avia-
tors could see the deep
blue-black sky, sprinkled
with stars bemuse of the
rarity of the atmosphere.
Beneath rolled an ever-
changing panorama of
earth, seemingly turned
up at the edges like an
enormous saucer. Now
they were over the Gulf
of Mexico veiled in its
gray-blue mist; now
above the verdant agri-
cultural districts of Cen-
tral America, long ago
occupied by the invaders.
A little more than
three hours after they
had set out from Chi-
cago, the young men
hung over the snow-capped pinnacles of the Andes,
which looked like mere ash heaps far beneath. Here
was one of the few spots on earth that did not yet re-
sound with the din of war; it was such a place they
sought.
Presently the airboat began to descend in a long
spiral ; a few minutes later it settled gently at the edge
of a little adobe village on the eastern slope of the
mountains.
The Legend of the Mountain
A FLIER was an unusual sight here and the in-
quisitive inhabitants, men, women and children,
crowded around to get a glimpse at the wonderful
machine.
There was nothing resembling a
hostelry in the village ; but, when the
worthy Senor Hernando Diaz, its
richest citizen, learned that these
young men were soldiers like his own
three sons who were fighting against
the Asiatics in Argentina, he offered
his hospitality.
After the evening meal Senor Diaz
and his guests repaired to a broad
veranda which fac^ west. For quite
a time the three men remained silent.
Pelton and Calhoun were absorbed in
the grandeur of the mountains over
which dusk was settling, and Her-
nando Diaz knew too well the power
of silence and the spell of that ma-
jestic sight, to break it with words.
A t length Calhoun murmured
musingly : “God is up there — God and
Peace. Even war couldn’t disturb the eternal serenity
of those Andes.’’
He spoke in Spanish. Both Calhoun and Pelton had
a fairly complete mastery of that language.
Diaz leaned far forward in his chair: “God in those
mountains, Senor ? Ah, yes, perhaps in the great peaks
far off; but do you see that one which is quite near?
It is less than two thousand meters high and at its
summit there is a small depression or crater. Madre
de Dios — ^there indeed is the lair of Satan!”
A quizzical smile came
over Calhoun’s lips. He
turned toward the Ecua-
dorian: “I’m afraid the
gentleman you mention
has gone north to help
with the big row up
there. But let’s hear the
rest of what you were
going to say. I’m in-
tensely interested and I
think that Joe is perfect-
ly willing to listen too.”
“There is a legend
about ‘The Devil’s Nest’
which says that in an-
cient times the Indians
made human sacrifices to
the sun there,” Diaz be-
gan in a low voice, while
he toyed nervously with
RAYMOND GALLON
* I '‘HE greatest advances in science will come
A during the next hundred years, when our
understanding of the different forms of rays emit-
ted by various strange materials is better develop-
ed. The past century witnessed the discovery
of X-rays, as well as the emanation rays of
radium and others. Only very recently a new
ray, the cosmic ray, has been announced as a very
potent factor in our lives. That many more ma-
terials found to emit powerful rays will be dis-
covered, some of them with deadly and altogether
unexpected qualities, is a foregone conclusion.
The present story deals with such instrument-
alities and, incidentally, the author has built a
marvelous stirring story which cannot fail to
impress you.
^53
454
AIR WONDER STORIES
the ends of his curling mustache: “Certainly there is
something dreadful about the place still, but no one
knows what. In the memory of living men, only two
have ventured into it. That was ten years ago. A
certain youth named Pedro Menendez was driven by
the spirit of adventure, which is the inherent possession
of most boys, to scale the heights of ‘The Devil’s Nest.’
He failed to return. Three days later his father ventur-
ed up the walls of the extinct volcano in search of him.
No human eye has seen either of them since. Truly, it
was as though Satan had swallowed up both.”
"Men have gone up into mountains before, and fail-
ed to return,” said Pelton: "There are places where
footing is precarious, and crevices in which it would be
almost impossible to find a human body. However, we
have a little mystery here to solve — George, what do
you say if we take a trip to "The Devil’s Nest’ to-
morrow ?”
"Bully enough, old egg,” returned Calhoun laugh-
ingly: "We’ve faced devils before, haven’t we? They
were real devils hurtling at us from out of the sky and
shooting streams of poisoned lead dangerously close to
our gills. They will probably get us anyway in a week
or two and, if we get killed in the mountains, we will
at least have the satisfaction of cheating them.”
Seeing that argument was usdess against such reck-
less hot-heads, their host merely muttered softly to him-
self : “They are rash — these soldiers of the United
States.”
The last pale light had faded from above the peaks
of the Andes, a faint wind soughed through the trees.
The ccmversation drifted to other topics.
The Devil’s Nest
TT l^EN the early morning sun of another day had
VV mounted up into a cloudless firmament, the two
aviators were preparing for their adventure. Believing
that the vigorous exercise of climbing would do their
little-used muscles good, they decided to leave the flier
behind. Since this was so, they realized that it might
be necessary to camp on top of the mountain that night ;
consequently they packed up a light tent, a couple of
blankets and some extra provisions.
Senor Diaz did not urge them to desist from their
venture but, when be wished them good luck, Pelton
noticed that there was something strangely solemn
about his voice and eyes. His attitude was not at all
that of a friend bidding him good luck at the outset of
a holiday of sport; it resembled, instead, the attitude of
a certain fatherly old captain speaking kindly to him
when he was about to risk his life in an aerial combat.
When all was ready, Calhoun and Pelton started out
up the slopes of the Andes. For a couple of miles the
going was easy; but, as they approached closer to the
sinister bulk of “The Devil’s Nest,” the ground grew
steep and sterile and the trail more and more difficult.
Calhoun was outwardly in a carefree mood and he
scoffed often about the story. “Just imagine, Joe,” he
would say, "demons and what-not in these mountains
that are nearer to God than anything on earth — beneath
this blue sky that is the very symbol of peace and
beauty ! What a superstitious lot the Senor and all his
kind are 1”
Pelton said very little. Somehow he felt that his
friend’s lightheartedness was forced, and over his own
mind there was coming a sense of depression that in-
creased as the mountain grew more rugged. Was there
really some horror in the ancient, extinct crater far""
above? "No!” he told himself emphatically. The idea
was ridiculous; he was a fool even to think of it.
The two men paused to eat their noonday meal at a
small level space nearly three thousand feet above the
village. The stillness of the place and his own gloomy
mood inspired strange thoughts in the mind of Pelton.
Finally he turned to Calhoun who was vigorously
chewing the last fragment of a ham sandwich (yes —
this ancient food still delighted palates of the twenty-
second century.)
“Do you think often of Death, George?” he asked.
The other swallowed hard and then smiling slightly,
answered : "Death? Well rather. I couldn’t help think-
ing of him now and then, because you see I play hide-
and-seek with him pretty nearly every day. He’s come
to be about my most intimate playfellow, and he’s a
real sport. He’s always ‘it’ and he never gets sore. So
far he hasn’t found me, and I will continue to keep out
of his way if I can. However, if it’s necessary. I’ll
take my hat off to Death and admit I’m beaten. I’d
rather do that than become a slave to those Asiatics.”
“I don’t fear death in the physical sense any more
than you do, George,” said Pelton, "but. Lord! How
I hate to be forgotten ! I’d like to survive this war and
live long enough to work out some of my scientific
theories. Since I was just a kid I have dreamed of
doing something really big and that idea has grown to
be almost an obsession with me. You are lucky ; even
our enemies will remember you as one of the cleverest
aerial duelists that ever fought.”
"Pshaw!” returned Calhoun; “If there isn’t anybody
left (HI earth to remember me but those disgusting
Asiatics, I’d rather not be remembered. But listen here,
old fellow, I don’t think it is the least bit nice of you
to make this holiday disagreeable with your glum talk.
Just forget it and stow some food and then le't’s be on
our way. The top of the mountain is still about three
thousand feet above us, and if we want to reach it be-
fore sunset we had better get a move on.”
A few minutes later the adventurers continued with
their ascent. Now they began to encounter real dif-
ficulties ; there were rugged, almost perpendicular crags,
offering but the barest hand- and foot-holds. These
almost baffled the amateur climbers. Here and there
were narrow shelves where they could stop to get their
breath.
The Blue Crystals
I T was during one of these rests that Pelton noticed
crystals of a bluish, semi-opaque mineral clinging to
the rocks about him. 'These crystals appeared to become
more and more plentiful as they neared the summit of
the volcano. Pelton knew something of mineralogy,
but never in his considerable experience had he en-
countered such a substance. Curious to know its na-
ture, he thrust several pieces into his pack; hoping that
some day, if luck was with him, he might analyze them.
Just as the two Americans were starting on the last
hundred feet of climbing that lay between them and
their goal a large cloud came over the declining sun and
an ominous gloom settled over the world.
And now the youths peered eagerly over the rim of
the crater into “The Devil’s Nest.” Five minutes later
they had descended fifty feet to its floor.
'They found themselves ip a small, circular valley
about a thousand feet across. Everywhere, topping the
walls of multi-colored stone that surrounded it, were
pinnacles of the strange blue mineral, pointing toward
the sky like the thin minarets of a city of goblins. On
the summit of the rocky barrier at the western side of
THE CRYSTAL RAY
455
the crater was a huge mass of the crystal that gleamed
darkly under the shadow of the obscuring cloud which
hung persistently before the sun.
‘‘This place has more weird beauty than ‘The Island
of Death’,” said Calhoun. "It would make a fine paint-
ing. Somehow, there’s something about it that gives me
a creepy feeling.”
There were a few patches of hardy grass and several
bushes scattered here and there over the floor of the
crater. Suddenly Felton’s searching eyes fell upon a
circular spot of bleached earth, not more than ten feet
across, lying thirty paces away at the center of the val-
ley. For a moment he scrutinized it intently and then
he grasped his companion violently by the arm. “Look,
George !” he cried.
A moment later the two youths were bending over a
pair of human skeletons whitened by years of exposure.
With them there lay several coins, two tarnished brass
buckles and the rusted remnants of a few metal buttons.
The owners of those bones had obviously been dead for
a very long time.
“These are evidently the men that Diaz spoke of,”
said Felton, “but what in the name of Heaven could
have killed them, George?” There was a look almost
expressive of fear in his face.
“Volcanic gases, probably,” essayed Calhoun.
“Impossible, man!” returned Felton; “This volcano
has certainly been extinct for ages.”
Calhoun knelt down beside the skeletons and began to
examine them. “Let’s see if there are any marks of
violence, fractured skulls, broken ribs, or anything,”
he said.
Felton stepped back from the ghastly patch of earth.
Never afterward was he able to tell exactly why.
And then a miracle happened — a miracle and a tra-
gedy. The setting sun at last escaped from the cloud
that covered it and its ruddy rays, coming over the
summit of a nearby Andean peak, fell upon the mass of
crystal at the western edge of the valley. A beam of
bluish light, like the reflection from the glossy scales of
a black serpent and more evilly gorgeous than the
slumbering fires of a thousand opals, leaped from it.
The ray struck Calhoun squarely. He staggered to his
feet, uttered a choking cry, and crumpled lifeless to the
earth! A few moments later the sun dropped behind
the mountains and ‘“rhe Devil’s Nest” was again in
shadow.
Read^ for Battle
S IX more weeks rolled by and, now the Asiatic Air
Fleet advancing up the Mississippi Valley was only
five hundred miles from Chicago. Should this last big
city of the Occident be destroyed, all hope for further
resistance would immediately crumble; for here were
situated the munition factories and here was the govern-
ment that kept the dwindling energies of the United
States organized.
Surrender was useless to the Americans. The blood
lust of their foes had grown to such proportions that
they had proclaimed that only the complete extermina-
tion of Occidentals would satisfy them. In a few more
days, when the needed reinforcements had arrived from
China, there would be a battle surpassing in magnitude
and horrors all previous struggles. Then the men from
the East would dump tons of chemicals upon the Amer-
ican metropolis; her twenty million inhabitants would
suffer a moment of intense agony and, in a few minutes,
she would be left silent and empty. So, at least, thought
Tsu Tsin Ho, “The Wizard of the East,” and many
another wise head among the invaders ; for the air fleet
of the United States was outnumbered three to one.
But there was one thing that the brilliant Orientals
did not know of. In Whitley Fark, Chicago’s most im-
portant pleasure ground, an unusual engineering oper-
ation was in progress. Four slender, two-thousand-
foot towers of steel, seemingly as frail as spider web,
were rising as if by magic. They were arranged in a
square and between them skillful workmen were fasten-
ing a maze of fine wires.
In the center of the rectangle formed by the towers
two enigmatic machines were being assembled. One
was a huge apparatus, very similar in appearance to a
gas engine of the twentieth century. Fully a hundred
feet its eight bulky cylinders reared, gleaming with a
glossy black sheen. There was something sinister and
awesome about it — a suggestion that within its slumber-
ing frame there lurked sufficient power to send the
earth hurtling from its orbit. Beside the engine a great
drum-like contrivance was slowly taking form beneath
the hammers and riveters of the construction crew. It
was a generator that would soon supply energy to the
mass of wires overhead.
What was the sinister purpose of this gigantic wire-
less power plant? Only a few men knew, and these
often smiled grimly.
With feverish haste Chicago’s factories were turning
out new and strange devices by the thousand — things the
purpose of which even their builders did not know.
They were tubes of varying sizes, from one foot in
length to twelve, made of Mack enameled steel.
The report that the impending battle was very near
came sooner than was expected. In the midst of a
glorious June day, the sunny serenity of which was
mocked by the awful contest that was going on, a lone
air scout raced over the city from the south. He
brought news that the enemy was preparing every avail-
able ship, evidently for the final struggle.
Ten minutes after the arrival of the messenger, a hun-
dred and fifty battleships, America’s only reserve force,
arose majestically from the landing stage to join the
main fleet.
What appeared to be Chicago’s last day of life was
drawing to a close when they reached their destination.
With this reinforcement the American fleet numbered
about 2,000 large battlecraft. They hung statiomry,
supported high above the earth by their gravitational
screens, awaiting the attack.
To the south of them, at a distance of perhaps twenty
miles, the ships of the enemy were being arranged in
battle formation. From deck, port and bridge, keen
eyes watched their movements, through powerful
glasses. There were at least five thousand of them —
all first-class fighting machines of the largest size. Ac-
companying, them was a countless hoard of small fliers.
Now the Orientals began to advance in a great V-
shaped arrangement. A thousand feet above them, the
one-man craft moved like a swarm of hornets.
Suddenly the position of the Asiatic fleet seemed to
change from south to a little west by south in a way
that would have made a man of the twentieth century
doubt the evidence of his senses. But these latter-day
Americans knew well what was happening. It was
merely a weird illusion — ^another creation of Thomas
Whitley’s master mind. Soon after he invented the
gravitational screen, he had found that, under the in-
fluence of certain electromagnetic waves produced by a
special generator, air could be made to refract light
enormously. This discovery was of tremendous ad-
456
AIR WONDER STORIES
vantage in war. Both the Caucasians and the Mongol-
ians used it to prevent each other from knowing the
exact position of their forces. It practically eliminated
battles at long range since, without knowing exactly
where the enemy is, a gun crew cannot fire with any
degree of accuracy. At a range of less than five miles
the Whitley “mirafractor,” as the device was called,
was useless; and consequently within these limits the
great contests were fought. At such close quarters the
guns shooting projectiles filled with the new radioactive
explosive, terrorium,, could be used with dreadful effect
The Last Stand
T he Asiatic fleet was quite close now. In order to
meet their onslaught the Americans had arranged
their ships into three vast rings, one above the other.
Suddenly a light puff of smoke broke from the side
of one of the Mongolian aircraft. For a fraction of a
second a high, plaintive whine was heard above the
roar of rocket-motors. Then, with a report that sound-
ed like the crack of doom, the forward end of an Amer-
ican greyhound of the air was bent into a twisted mass
of scrap. Upon the wreckage was spattered a greenish
slimy fluid that gave off a gas which turned the shatter-
ed flesh of men black, the instant it touched them, and
ate into bright metal like a powerful acid, covering it
with half an inch of grayish compound.
The titanic struggle had begun — a thundering, hissing
maelstrom of destruction. Again and again the Asiatics
rushed upon their intended victims and, as often as
they did so, they were beaten back by the revolving
rings of American aircraft that poured broadside after
broadside into their midst.
Losses to both contestants were awful, but among the
invaders they were greatest. Time and again a monster
dreadnaught gaudily painted with orange suns would
crumple up under well-directed terrorium shells and
take the ten-mile dive to earth, almost completely bury-
ing itself in the soft soil. Gradually, however, the
Asiatics were getting the upper hand by force of
numbers.
After night had fallen the scene of battle was bril-
liantly illuminated with searchlights and magnesium
flares.
In the purple sky the stars glittered as calmly as
ever. Though the fates of the human races of the
world hung in the balance, nature’s serenity was un-
ruffled.
And now the slow retreat of the Americans toward
Chicago had begun. Every mile of the way was con-
tested with dogged courage. Time was what the Unit-
ed States needed, and the commander of the fleet meant
to gain time if it were humanly possible. “Hang on,
men — for God’s sake — hang on!” were his constant
orders, “If we can delay long enough, victory is ours!”
Set in the revolving turrets at the bow and stern of
each American dreadnaught were strange thick cylin-
ders ; at the end of each was a mass of glassy cryst^line
substance, looking like a staring ray. What was the
purpose of these queer devices ? Many Asiatics wond-
ered. Why was it that they did not flash forth some
new kind of dreadful death? Their silence was enig-
matic.
Now the contending fleets were a hundred and fifty
miles from Chicago, now a hundred, and now only
twenty-five. “How much longer must we hold them ?*'
the American commander queried anxiously by radio.
"Fifteen minutes,” was the reply. “By then we think
that we can be ready. There has been some unforeseen
delay of operations at Whitley Park.”
And so the Americans continued to fight for time
with all the reckless pluck they had to offer.
Chicago stood as dead and silent as though the
Asiatics had already dumped their poisonous vapors
upon her. Her unlighted skyscrapers loomed up wan-
ly under the blinking stars and her streets were gorges
of Stygian shadow. Scarcely a speck of radiance was
left to betray her location to the enemy. The inhabit-
ants had shut themselves indoors. A few wept quietly,
but otherwise there was no inordinate display of emo-
tion. These people had lost much of their terror of
war by constant contact with it.
The Crystal Ray
I N the glow of floodlights, a thousand workmCT were
, laboring like demons on some giant machine that
gleamed dimly in the faint radiance. Far, far aloft,
supported by four slender towers, was a vast network
of wires.
Plainly the finishing touches to the ragine were in
progress. A hundred men were fastening cables to a
two-hundred ton cylinder-head which would in a mom-
ent be hoisted into place by an electric CTane. Other
workers were inspecting and oiling the giant machine.
At one end of the strange titan w^ a control board
bearing many levers, switches and dials; and before it
stood the gaunt figure of a man who shouted orders
through an amplifier system. It was Pelton; but how
greatly changed from the plump young aviator of two
months before! His hair was wildly disheveled, and
sweat streamed down his shrunken face which, in the
iwan light, looked almost like a parchment mask hiding
the visage of a skull. Lack of sleep and endless hours
Of labor had wrought this startling change. In spite of
his worn condition, there was something magnetic
about him that could not help but inspire confidence.
“Crew One, see to the lubrication of the cylinder
valves and other parts,” he cried ; “use the L. F. liquid.
Crew Two, examine all the connections of the Z wires.
Crew Three, fill the main fuel tanks with the liquid
terrorium preparation ; Crews Four and Five will take
care of the cylinder-head. Are all the cables securely
fastened? We can’t afford another mishap, you know.
Go^ ! Now start the crane.”
Every man realized that it was vitally im^rtant that
he should perform his task to the best of his ability in
the shortest possible time; and every man responded to
the will of his chief with the promptness of a well-oil-
ed machine. In a moment the mass of aluminum alloy
soared upward and settled into position.
To the south, and high in the air, a vast oval patch
of white light, looking like the head of some enormous
comet, had appeared. It had drifted ominously near,
and from it there came a subdued roar. In it thousand
of insect-like specks flitted, and from them tiny points
of radiance leaped as though they were fireflies. It
was the battle. _ « - . . .
As they fought the two contesting fleets had done
their best to get above each other, to gain the advantage
of position. As a result thdr altitude was prodigious.
They must have been fully twenty miles above the
eartn.
“See! They are almost upon us,” shouted Pelton.
“Hurry! Ten minutes more of delay and we will be
too late! Doubtless they arc already bombing the out-
skirts of the city.”
THE CRYSTAL RAY
457
With all the speed they could muster the workmen
bolted the cylinder-head into place.
“Is everything ready?” cried Pelton.
“Everything is ready,” echoed Jerry Armstrong, his
chief subordinate.
“Then, stand back, out of danger!” Pelton twirled a
few dials on the control board ; and then, grasping the
big black switch at its center, he pulled it far down.
There was a series of ponderous throbs that rapidly
grew into an easy humming. The engine and the gen-
erator to which it was connected, were in operatiotL
Leaping in the network of wires far above were many
bright flashes like the lightning of a violent thunder-
storm.
And now all eyes in Chicago had turned fearfully
and expectantly toward the monstrous sea of light
that was dropping plummet-like from the sky upon the
city. The ships were only four or five miles above the
ground now, and they could be seen quite plainly in
the glow of their searchlights and magnesium flares.
The American formation had been broken up and scat-
tered. Apparently there was nothing that could pre-
vent the Asiatics from completely -crushing them within
the next few minutes. Then they would destroy the
city. Already an occasional bomb was falling, like the
big raindrops that herald a summer thundershower.
Th^ contained the green chemical that gave off the gas
which ate into human flesh like sulphuric acid.
With mingled doubt, fear, and hope gnawing at his
very soul, Pelton stared at the sky. Had he calculated
correctly ? For a few seconds nothing happened ; then
his heart leaped with a mighty exultation! From the
Iww of one of America’s ships a faint beam of bluish
light stabbed out and struck an enemy craft, sweeping it
from stem to stem! It passed through the vessel as
though she had been made of glass, instead of thou-
sands of tons of metal. Immediately the dreadnaught
b^n to blunder oddly as though completely out of
control. What had happened to her occupants? A
grim smile passed over Pelton’s lips, for he knew !
Presently, other beams of blue light awoke — ^hun-
dreds of them ! — thousands of them ! And other
Oriental craft mshed about crazily, crashing into each
other or hurtling earthward. At the very threshold of
complete success, the alchemy of fate was changing
Asia’s victory into crushing defeat.
Pelton Explains
N OW Pelton felt a hand upon his shoulder. Turn-
ing he saw that Jerry was standing beside him.
The man’s face was pale with awe and when he spoke
his voice was husky: “Ojngratulations, Capt. Pelton —
here, shake! When it looks black as night, along you
come and put those invaders in their proper place. I
can’t see through this at all. What wonder is it that
you have creat^?”
The fulfillment of his ambition beyond the wildest
dreams of his school days had wrought the young
scientist up to a pitch of exdtement more intense than
ever before, “It is the thing that killed (^houn, the
ace,” he almost shrieked; “The crystal ray!”
“You mean that your weapon inflicts death with jusi
a beam of light? iTiat sounds impossible.”
“But it isn’t 1 I’ll tell you about it.” Peltbn's eyes
were glittering and his face was flushed; “Not more
than a month and a half ago I was in Ecuador with
Calhoun on leave of absence. We explored an extinct
Andean volcano of particularly ghasdy reputation.
There I found a peculiar crystal, which, on analysis
proved to be a complex compound of silicon, iron and
the hitherto supposedly inert gas, krypton — I call it
andite.
“It was just by chance that I discovered what ter-
rible things andite could do. There was a big block of
the material at the crater’s western edge. The sun had
been obscured by a cloud and, when it came out, its
light struck the block, passed through it, and came out
as a bluish beam. It hit my old friend and sent him on
the long journey west. Thank God, it was not in vain !
"After a lot of effort I learned more about the wond-
erful properties of the crystal. YouTcnow that light is
the vibration of an all-pervading medium sometimes
called the ether, just as are radio waves. When a beam
of light passes tlyough andite, its rate of vibration is
enormously increa^; so that it exceeds by many
thousands of times the vibratory rate of even Hadley’s
Q-ray which is used as an anaesthetic. This super-
vibration is the crystal ray. It will penetrate four feet
of solid lead and a much greater thickness of any other
metal. When it strikes a man it produces wi^in his
blood a poison that is instantly fatal. The process is
comparable with that which goes on in the leaves of a
plant when starch is produced by the action of sun-
light.
“The projectors of the crystal ray are merely special-
ly constructed radio lamps, equipped with a receiver of
wireless power, and fitted with a piece of andite which
modifies the light.
“After I had learned what my discovery was capable
of, I staged a demonstration before the best minds of
America. They gave me the cooperation of the whole
country and this is the result.”
“But what was the necessity of building this enor-
mous power plant?” inquired Jerry: “Couldn’t the old
stations supply the needed energy?”
“No,” said Pelton; “The light produced in Ihe ray
projectors must be many times as intense as that
produced by ordinary lamps, in order to be effective at
any considerable range. Only this new power plant
could furnish sufficient energy. The filaments in the
projectors would only glow on the power supplied by
the old outfits.”
Momentarily the roar of terrarium shells and the
flashing of magnesium flares waxed more intense in the
air above. In the few minutes that the big generator
had been running, the Americans had annihilated prac-
tically three-quarters of their foes. However, a few
were trying to escape into the night with their lights
turned off. One fifteen-hundred-foot monster was
directly above at an altitude of not more than half a
mile. Its guns belching with the fury of despair at a
smaller but much more agile American ship that was
rapidly approaching.
Suddenly the invaders scored a hit. The little vessel
crumpled up and fell. The big ship was continuing its
retreat away from the scene of battle when a bluish
beam, originating from a projector in the neighborhood
of Whitley Park, leaped up from the earth and struck
it. The ray lingered over the whole expanse of its
hull for a second and then died out. The dreadnaught
continued to hurtle blindly on its way, its rocket motors
roaring full blast. It was headed straight for a sky-
scraper, and a moment later it stru(^. A third of the
building’s height was sheared off; together with the
twisted remnants of the ship the mass of steel and
masonry fell with a terri^ crash into the cleft of a dark
street. There the airship still buzzed and hissed like a
wounded insect.
458
AIR WONDER STORIES
A wild impulse was surging up in the breast of Pel-
ton — an intense desire to take an active part in the
victory he had done so much to bring about.
He turned to his companion: “Keep the outfit run-
ning, Jerry, I’ve simply got to be in this fight.’’
As rapidly as his legs would carry him, the young
scientist raced to the little shed nearby where he kept
his flier. In his hand he carried a small black tube
fitted with a pistol grip and trigger. It was a ray
projector.
In a moment he had dragged the little craft out and
climbed into the cockpit. He turned a dial that
operated the gravitational screen. There was a sud-
den feeling of weightlessness — ^and then he shot up-
ward amid the gust of rising air.
Three thousand feet Pel ton ascended before he
started his terrarium rocket-motors.
At a distance of perhaps half a mile, a “dog-fight” be-
tween countless small craft, was in progress.
At first he thought there was no one in his im-
mediate vicinity; and then, above him and a little to
the north, he saw a flier similar to his own, but ob-
viously Asiatic. A bar of opalescence leaped out from
the little weapon in Pelton’s hand, and the enemy pilot
was no more.
The discoverer of the crystal ray was in the act of
turning around to join the “dog-fight” when a dozen or
more bullets directed with an uncanny ciccuracy swept
down upon him from above. He was unhurt, but a
lead pellet had struck his weapon, destroying it com-
pletely. When he looked up, clammy fear seized him ;
for he saw a black flier painted with orange suns and
piloted with a fiendish skill, diving straight toward him.
Every inhabitant of the United States would have re-
cognized that craft. It belonged to Saku, the ace who
had shot more than a hundred opponents from the sky !
Impelled by the instinct of self-preservation, Pelton
shut off the power from his gravitational screen. It
was all he could do. He thought that perhaps by a
rapid dive he could escape the yellow ace; but it was
a vain hope. Even as he began to fall plummet-like
toward the earth, a gust of poisoned bullets ripped
through his body. Probably his sense swam, and it
was certain that he felt no pain; for death in those
cases is a matter of an instant. Nevertheless a faint
smile crossed his lips. Against the blackness of the
eternity that poured into his brain, he seemed to see
his name written so that people of the future would
read with awe, and after his name the words: “He won
the war!“
THE END
WHAT IS YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF AVIATION?
Test Yourself by This Questionnaire
T ie questions given below are taken from the stories in this issue. They will serve,
by your ability to answer them, to test yourself in your knowledge of aviation. By
thus testing yourself, you will be able to fix in your mind a number of important faas of
aviation that are presented by the stories.
The pages, on which the answers are given, follow each question.
1 — ^What is the duef use of Thorium? (Page
444)
2 — ^How could the Autogiro increase its flying
speed? (Page 444)
3 — ^What are the advantages of the turbine for
airplanes? (Page 444)
4 — ^How is it believed that the sun obtains its
boundless energy? (Page 447)
5 — Why is the air of the upper atmosphere thiimer
than nearer the surface of the earth? (Page
451)
6 — ^Who first proved the possSiilides of directing
a rocket to the moon? When? (Page 432)
7 — ^Why is the rodcet plane saved from the de-
terioration by vibration? (Page 432)
8 — How is it possible to reduce “parasitic drag”?
(Page 433)
9 — ^Wbat is generally supposed to be the “Fourth
dimension”? (Page 415)
10 — ^What limits the possible weight of planes?
How could this problem be overcome? (Page
422)
AIR WONDER STORIES
459
Suitcase Airplanes
{Continued from Page 429)
10 furnish you with the million planes together with
such arms and ammunition as you may need; and I
propose to handle the planes in the fight, while you are
to man them with two millions of your best sharp-
shooters who are to do the shooting when I have placed
them where thqr can do the most good. I will also
assist myself with my ‘Electric Flash.’ In payment for
the whole cost of this, we will accept ”
Fifteen minutes later, with his “Electric Flash” un-
loaded of the thousand planes he had brought with
him, Sam started his return trip for home. Before
daylight the next morning, he had made eleven round
trips and the whole outfit was delivered.
Exactly one month after this, Sam stood just at
daylight one morning on the heights of the En-
totto hills. By his side, his huge “Electric Flash”
monstrosity rested easily upon the ground, with the
side door open ready for him to step inside. Behind
him, on the southern slope of the Entotto hills, two
millions of the pick of the Abyssinian soldiers were
marshalled under their officers by the sides of one
million of the diminutive two-passenger planes. En-
tirely circling the whole scene, an elaborate “Spark
Screen” smudge made the whole thing absolutely in-
visible from the outside by any known device. At a
signal from him, the two million soldiers embarked in
the planes and were promptly strapped into their seats.
Then Sam stepped quickly into his “Electric-Flash”
monstrosity, and, a moment later, soared to a height
of one thousand feet. Here he pushed a button in
the “Spark Screen Broadcaster,” which lowered that
interference to his visibility to a height of five hundred
feet, so that, through his “Electro-Visional,” he could
see everything within a radius of one hundred miles
with minute distinctness.
To the west, well within the hundred miles, the ex-
tended lines of the English army, estimated at more
than ten millions of soldiers, were plainly visible scat-
tered over the mountain tops and down into the deep
valleys and gorges. Taking advantage of their “Cape
to Cairo” railroad, the English had been the first to
mass in force on the western front, and their progress
since then had been slow but sure, in spite of every-
thing that all the men, women and children who could
be spared from the other fronts could do.
With nervous haste, Sam turned his machine around
until it pointed exactly southwest. Then he stuck one
of two needles that were attached to a fine copper
wire into a point in the “Electro-Visional” dial exactly
one hundred miles to the southwest, and the other he
stuck into “Local.” Then he connected up his “Elec-
tric Flash” and also connected it with the helicopter,
and he set its regulator at “.0006 Seconds.”
Next he turned to a large battery covered with a
confusing medley of buttons, and pushed one of the
buttons. A moment later, a squad of one thousand of
the small planes appeared in the air flying in the direc-
tion of the English army’s headquarters. Thirty min-
utes afterwards, they had nearly reached their destina-
tion and the soldiers in them had already started shoot-
ing wildly at everything in sight, but now they were
confront^ by the entire English air forces which had
taken the air to intercept them. And now Sam hastily
pushed another button in the battery, and the whole
thousand planes promptly circled in perfect formation
and scurried away to the south, with the English air
forces in hot pursuit. In another twenty-five minutes,
this flight and pursuit had brought nearly the whole
of the English air forces practically in line to the
southwest — and then Sam, leaving the thousand planes
to their own devices for the moment, frantically pulled
his helicopter lever, was immediately enveloped in a
blinding flash of lightning. Then he caught the an-
swering “tug” of his rear propeller in .0006 of a sec-
ond afterwards and 111.6 miles from where he started
from, recklessly threw out his biplane wings when the
“Speedometer” had slowed down to only “500 Miles
per Hour,” pulled a lever which circled him around
and headed him straight back, and pushed another
button in the battery which regained control of the
thousand planes and started them back home.
In another forty-five minutes, he was flying back
over the territory where the English planes had been,
and he saw that the ground was heavily littered with
the debris. He had missed a few, which were then
scurrying back to their headquarters, but, practically,
the English were “out of the air.”
Exactly one hour and a half after he started his
“Electric Flash” drive, he was settled back in his
former position with everything straightened out. Then
he pushed still another button in his battery, and, pres-
ently, a division of ten thousand of the little planes
appeared flying in the direction of the English lines.
These were quickly followed by division after division
of the others as Sam pushed button after button in
the battery, until the whole million were in the air.
Thirty minutes later, when they had reached the
English lines, the soldiers in the planes started shoot-
ing — and now for a few minutes Sam worked like a
frantic demon pushing buttons, as he sent this or that
division or platoon or squad in this or that direction
to “mop up” wherever he saw a sign of life. But
with two millions of sharpshooters laying down a solid
lead barrage with machine guns, it was all over in less
than five minutes.
'The next day he repeated on the French 150 miles to
the east, and the Italians 150 miles to the north.
“The readjustment of Abyssinia’s boundaries which
has been agreed upon in the final terms of peace,”
Sam said one week later in concluding his full report
to his boss, Mr. Albert Edward Reginald Gordon-
Cummings, "gives them a wide strip to the sea which
is protected by natural barriers, and which can easily
be defended if necessary. This is probably an unneces-
sary precaution, for it would be absolutely impossible
to induce any nation or group of nations to tackle
Abyssinia again — at least not within the present gen-
eration an 5 rway — but I insisted that they hold out for
the whole thing and play safe.”
As he was leaving the office after completing his
report, Mr. Gordon-Cummings called him back.
“By the way, Sam,” he said casually. “You remem-
ber that I fined you one-half day’s pay for being late
to your work the morning of the day this business
started ? Well, I’ve ordered the bookkeeper to refund
that to you in your next pay-envelope.”
The End
460
AIR WONDER STORIES
Beyond the Aurora
{Continued from Page 441)
Professor Standish was crouched in a corner, hold-
ing upraised in a defensive attitude, a short bar of
steel. In front of him, slowly approaching, four of
Sharkey’s henchmen seemed intent upon injuring the
scientist. On the floor lay a man with his head bat-
tered to a mass.
“That’s all, boys !” Captain Wollack growled, swing-
ing his pistol into line with the outlaws. They raised
their hands at once. “Truss ’em up. Professor ! These
birds have done enough flying I’’ He turned to them
sternly: “You might as well surrender, gentlemen!
Sharkey’s dead ! What’s the idea of attacking Profes-
sor Standish?”
The scientist stepped forward.
“They tried to force me to change our course and
head back to earth, Captain,” he said, his features
showing his relief at the change of affairs: “I was
afraid to do it. Sharkey swore he’d kill me if I waver-
ed !”
Triumphantly the Tobias Wollack cruised back to her
landing in Washin^on; Colonel Brigham was there
when she arrived, dipping down abruptly from a high
altitude. As she neared the landing a stream of fire
roared from her velocity-reducing exhaust, and she
came to rest gently after skimming along the ground
for perhaps a quarter of a mile.
As Captain Wollack stepped out of the control cabin.
Colonel Brigham grasped his hand firmly. Scores of
newsreel and newspaper photographers stood in the
offing, grinding steadily and flashing powder. Profes-
sor Standish dodged them and remained within the
ship until several police officers entered it. They re-
moved the prisoners at once.
“When I got your television call. Captain,” the
colonel was saying, “you could have knocked me down
with a feather ! I’ve been waiting here for you for an
hour! How did you manage it, sir?”
“Oh, I’ll tell you about it all later. Colonel,” he said,
smiling. “Let me rave now about the Tobias Wollack !
She’s a marvel ! She’s been nearer the moon than any-
thing else that ever left this earth !”
A reporter grasped him by the arm.
“Where’s Sharkey, Captain Wollack?” he asked,
beaming in anticipation of some sort of a scoop for
his paper.
“Sharkey?” the Captain said; “He didn’t like our
company and insisted on quitting it! We had to drop
him off beyond the aurora !”
The End
Editor, AIR WONDER STORIES,
98 Park Place, New York City.
I have checked on the coupon below, the stories I like best in this issue and have listed them
in the order of my preference:
1
2
3
4
6
Remarks and suggestions:
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AIR WONDER STORIES
461
The Second Shell
(Continued from Page 451)
My guard climbed through, suspicious and in haste,
evidendy unconscious of the beam. I slipped the tube
under my coat, to hide its crimson glow, playing the
ray over him again, and over the mechanics and my
two fellow-passengers, as they came through. I heard
footsteps, and a light flashed on. I saw that we were
in a long, low room, with a door at the farther end.
Four men, in red uniform, with rifles, were approach-
ing. Hopelessly, I gave them the benefit of the ray,
but still nothing happened.
‘Move on, Pard,” my guard muttered. “The Master
waits.” He gave me another vigorous prod with the
blade. (He seemed to enjoy his prerogative im-
mensely.)
I still had the tube in my hand, concealed against
my coat. Though it seemed to have no effect, I was
missing no chances. We passed through a door at the
end of the room, into another fitted up like a luxurious
office. At a paper-littered desk, the lunatic, Vars, was
sitting with three other men, who, for all their looks,
might have been ex-pugilists or bootlegger kings (or
both).
Suddenly Vars ducked, and a pistol flashed at his
side. My hand went numb, and I heard the crash
of glass. He had shot the tube as I turned it upon
him. As he cursed and fired again, I threw myself at
the feet of the fat man. Pistols cracked, and I felt
the wind of bullets. Strangely, the big fellow col-
lapsed as I dived, striking the floor at my side.
And then a fearful thing threw itself at me!
It was a many-tentacled creature of luminous purple
fire, with an eye-like nucleus of bright scarlet in its
shapeless, semitransparent body! It was a thing or
horror like that which had looked upon me as I lay
in the cell — a nightmare being! I struck at it feebly,
reeling in terror.
It had followed us into the room ; it must have been
the pilot of our ship.
Slender tentacles of purple fire coiled around me.
They touched me. Their touch was cold — cold flame!
But it burned! I felt a tingling sensation of pain —
unutterably horrible. The contact with that monster
shocked like electricity — ^but it was as cold as space!
I shrieked as I fell !
With my last energy, I sent out my fist at that flam-
ing scarlet core. My arm went through it, cut it!
Then I have a confused impression of cries of agony
and terror, of men cursing, screaming, falling. There
were pistol shots, shouts, and dreadful sobbing gasps.
I sat up, and saw that the room was full of writhing,
dying men ! Corpses weirdly splashed with red I
And the purple thing lay before me on the floor,
inert and limp, with the fire in it fading. Still it was
unspeakably horrible.
Then I heard Ellen cry out, calling my name! I
ran on in the room. Ellen stood at the bars of a flimsy
little door back of the desk at which the men had been
seated.
"Bob,” she cried, "I heard you ! I knew it was you !”
I smashed the door with one of the rifles. The girl
ran out to me, with Bill and the Doctor at her heels.
The Doctor took in what had happened.
“The r-r-r-ray made slow p-p-p-p-poisons in theiii
blood. Not adjusted right. It can upset the chemical
equilibrium of the body in a thousand ways. But let’s'
get b-b-b-back in the other ship before something
happens.”
We got through the manhole. I closed it again and
unfastened the clamps that held us to the other ship,
while the Doctor and Bill ran forward into the pilot’s
compartment. I felt the vessel rise.
Ellen and I stood by one of the round ports. We
saw the weird red city drop away below us. Soon the
flat, desolate purple desert was slipping along beneath
us, with the green-gray earth visible through it, so
far below.
And still there was no movement from the city.
We were several miles away before I saw the red
ships rise in long lines from their places on the land-
ing deck. Our flight had been discovered 1 And then
I saw the great dome moving, the slender tube point-
ing at us.
They were going to use the ray !
The Doctor’s voice came from the forward compart-
ment. “I was afraid something would happen to the;
p-p-p-p-plans. You know I told you that I almost
had an atomic explosion of the molten Vemonite elec-
trode. The specifications on the blue print were almost
right — almost — ”
A great flare of white light burst from the trans-
parent dome. A blaze of blinding incandescence blotted
out the scarlet metal city. After a long moment it was
feone, and we could see again. The city in the sky
was no more !
There was only a vast ragged hole in the purple
plain !
That was perhaps the most terrific explosion of his-
tory, but we neither felt nor heard it, for we were
above the air.
^ *
'That is a year ago, now. Ellen and I are married.
Soon we shall go back to El Tigre, to see the Doctor
and Bill. Dr. Vernon is working on a new modd
of his tube, and is making a painstaking examination
of the strange ship we brought back to earth.
Did the destruction of a single city destroy the
menace? In all that world above the air, larger than
our own, may there not be other cities, or nations and
races, perhaps, of intelligent beings? What might we
not gain from them in the arts of peace, or not lose
to them in war?
This summer the four of us are goin^ to adventure
above the air again, in that captured ship— to explore
the Second Shell.
The End.
CONSTRUCTION
Helicopter Sdll Far From Success
T he helicopter is still far from success. 9^
Ernest V. Fair in Atronsmtics, ancL despin
whac ambitious manufacturers claim tor their
pr^BCts, oe d^endable machine to rise aad
descend venkaJly has yet been invenced. There
are certain standards to which a heliomcer ought
to measure up and some of these* elaborated by
Professor Alexander Klemin, bead of the Gug-
f enhetm School of Aeronautics* are mentioned.
he machine must be able to climb vertically
with a moderate amount of useful load ; it muK
attain a reasonable ceiling; it must achieve ver*
tical descent on a steep path with dead engines ;
it must have a reasonable hori 2 onrBl speed ; and
it must be fairly stable and conq)letely control-
lable. Alcho many machines of the helicopter
variety can climb vertically, when their aiscain-
ihg apparatus goes dead they will fall to earth
liw rocks. It is impossible to have wina ool
them* because that would destroy their lifting
power. Few of them have achieved any reason-
able speed* and they are certainly not yet con-
sidered safb
Giant Movable Dirigible Mast at
Lakehurst
N OW being experimented on by the Navy
at Lakehurst, New Jersey, is a giant mov*
able dirigible mast. At present H is being used
for the great rigid airship the Los Angeles,
Its desimer in Comnander Rosendabl, former
cornnaixRr of the Los Angeles.
The device consists of three derrick-like
towera mounted on three great caterpiUars two
of which are fixed and the third movable like a
tricycle. A great tank famishes the power. The
towers are connected together and form an
equilateral triangle. There is an elevator which
can be raised or lowered by machinery operated
from the top of the combined structure. The
purpose of toe deviee is to remove tbe necessity
of tour hundred men pulling a ship to and from
its hangar when it settles to earth or is leaving
By mearM of the cQuipment the ship is arurhored
to the structure and the tank moves it neatly and
with despatch into io hangar. At present the
^rthing of a ship or getting it ready to leave
the hangar is an expensive matter, so expensive
that it IS stated that ff the Navy Department
bad not given the Graf Zeppelin the use of its
personnel free of charge it is doubtful whether
tbe recerit trips from Germany or the around the
world trip would have been et^t^. ,
815*Mile an Hour Goal $ec for
Flyers
A new goal for the speed <rf man's flight
through the air has been added to choso
which be already had. Dr. L. O. Howard of
the U. S. Bureau of Entomology, according ro
the New York Times, mentions a deer fly which
attains a speed of 813 miles an hour and main-
tains it for several hours. The fly is a marvel
of mechanical perfeaion, being exceedingly lichc
in wei^c and possessing powerful wing musclM.
Our airplane designen should study this little
insect for. as Dr. Howard says, speed in flight
is nothing more than a matter of mechanics.
Dr. Townsend, formerly of the Bureau of Entooi-
olt^, states that we must really look to the
insect world for guidance in building our future
planes. The deer fly could fly from New York
to Paris in three hours, for it has not only speed
but its own reserves of fuel. Ir is also men-
tioned that, in tbe Langley Laboratory at Langley
Field, Va., experiments are being made with
enormous velocities to determine the abili^ of
planes to withstand them ; in one experiment
a jet of air rushing at the speed of sound Is
directed against propeller blades. The aim that
man has apparently sec for himself is the cir-
cumnavigation of the globe in a single day. The
development of superplanes, as well as super-
pilots, is hoped to make this possible.
Bleriot Sees Floating Docks
Coming
B elieving that the floating docks for air
tones recently proposed by an American
win come to pass, Loais Bleriot, who first flew
the En^idh Channel, predicts regular ocean
travel within ten years. The world has now
celebrated the twentietli anniversary of Blerior’s
historic flight on July 2S| 1909. ^ He believes
that seven or eight floating stations between
Ameriean and France or England would solve
the problem readily.
Giant German Plane Tested
T he great German plane of Dr. Domier,
the has been Boccessfully tested in
Gernany. De sign ed to carry a pay load of
11 tons or 22,000 pounds the craft, which is a
seaplane, has a wm^ spread of 225 feet. It
can travel at ISO miles an hour, although its
cruising speed is 120 miles per hour. It is
power^ by twelve motors in tandem. It has
a main deck sixty-four feet lon^. All the
motors will be controlled from a smgle enmoe
room. There will be an engineer with tour
assistants to operate tbe motors. The plane can
carry 120 passengers. In its teat ow Lake
ConMsnce tl>e plane took ofl from the water
in 28 seconds.
Manufacturers Building Planes on
Wrtmg Principles
C B. ALEEN, writing in the New York Wtrrld,
♦alteges that airplane manufacturers ate
placing the industry in a rather chaotic state by
their short-aighted i^icy in designing planes.
Instead of approaching the problems from an
aerodynamic point of view, and cleaning their
designs so chat they have the grea^ structural
strength reserve rawer, he clatms, they are
trying to crowd all me hois^wer possible out
cn t& morois and are reducing safety-factors to
tbe lowest point consonant with Department trf
Commerce regulations. Many planes, made tri-
motored for safety, have been so loaded up chat
the safety-factor of multiple motors beoDtoes^ '*a
snare and a dehtston for the unsuspMting public."
An instance of a far-sighted designer is cited
in the case of Giuseppe Bellanca : who is develop-
ing, from the 200-horsepower Whirlwind motor
used by Lindbergh, Chamberlin and others, a
300-hotsepower motor with the same weight ol
plane. This gives the plane a greater spe ed tan gfr
and provides a "cushion" or reserve of power in
case of emergencies.
Oceanic Airship Lines Not Yet
Fea^le Says Burney
C OMMANDEt SIR CHARLES D. BUR-
NEY, in chuge of the great British dirigible
R-lOO says, "that we are not yet ready for
regular traas-atlaiitic service by dirigibles. In
or^r CO make the thing feasible from a practical
standpoint, a cruising speed of 90 miles an hour
most be maintained ana in order to do this tbe
present size of the sh^s must be doubled. In-
stead of having abipa of 3,500,000 cubic f^t
capacity, which is the size of the Graf Zeppelin,
tbe ships must have 10,000,000 cubic feet, with
300 tons displacement Instead of 150 tons at
present. Andeven if these ships could be built
BOW it would be costly to land them. A new
method of working out the landing problem must
be made.”
^ Sir Charles however does not decry the
dirigible. He believes that^unless a new principle
of heavier-than-air craft is developed, the com-
mercial planes will not be able^ to rival tbe
dirigible. He sees bis own ship the R-lOO
already able to cross the Atlantic without pas-
sengers. It has ^en designed, however, for
other service and it is not built for the speed
so necessary for trans-atlantic work.
462
Motors ia Wings in New Plane
A NEW Junkets 30-paascn g e f s plane is being
developed which will have its four motors
mounted in the wings, two on either side of the
fuselage. This machine will be a departure from
the standard Junkers type in chat the older models
used the win^ for the accommodation of pas-
sengeis and freight. There will be two 600-
and two 400-H.P. Jankers engines to power the
machine, giving 2,400 horse-power in all. This
construaion is intended not only to have aero-
dynamic advantages but also to promote ease ot
inspection and repair of motors during flight.
Because of the wing span of 44 meters (a^ut
144 feet) there is necessary to afford stability to
the plane a new tall-steering gear, axisiscing of
two horiaoncal planes, one above the ocher, at-
tached to whicn are two rudders. Thirty-two
benbs lor night flying ate posB2>le in tbe plane
which will develop a speed of 170 kilometers
(110 miles) an hour.
Adjustable Propeller Will Increase
Fffidency
]DY designing their blades so that the pitch
can be adjusted, the effidcKy of tbe propel-
ler screwing the plane throng the air will be in-
creased, in rhe oprorin of members of the So-
ciety of Automotive Engineers. It has been
found chat, as the speed of the plane is changed,
the efficie^ of the propeller changes with the
varying slip thru the air. It is proposed, there-
fore, that a small electric moeor aaivaced by U
storage battery be geared to the propeller to pro-
vide the means for ebanging the pitch of the
blades.
Cierva Predicts PopuUr Owoerdiip
of Autogiro
E very man who has thirty square yards of
ground can own his aucc^ro j^ane, declared
Sr. Juan dc la Cierva, inventor of the autogtro
plane which is able co take-off without a tun and
land on any spot desired. According co the
New York Times, Sr. Cierva is now in this
country, where he has conferred with officials of
the Pitcairn Aviation factory, which owns the
American righs to the autogiro. Sr. Cierva be-
lievs char bis planes can be manufactured
in large numbers to sell at the cost of a
medium-priced automobile. Tbe plane has four
re v olving vanes ato^ the fus^gc, set on a
venical axis, this beirm the means of adjusting
the verercal flight. Cierva conceived the
auiDgiro principle in 19^ when Im was 24 years
old. His plane will be entered in the $100,000
Guggenheim safe-aircraft compecitioo.
Autogiro Makes Perfect Landing in
Test
I N A recent test of his autogtro, Sr. Juan dc la
Cierva landed his machine without any roll-
ing or skidding on the ground ; thereby demon-
strating the capacity of the machine to make
what might be termed tbe petfea IcMig-songht-
for landing. This test was made at the Pitcairn
flying field at Bryn Athyn, Pa. During the tests,
the mventor also showed how ^ machine could
make a takeoff in about one half the run re-
quired by an ordinary plane Even^ autogtros
in the past have had to do <^ite a bit erf taxi-
ing before a takeoff. Now. with an arrangement
whereby the air stream from the^ propeller starts
die "windmills" automatically, it is, pot
sary to get up a terrific speed before rising. The
inventor was also able to set the machira,
in flight, at a stalling angle and do tricks which
would have meant death in an ordinary plane.
It Is expected that the autogiro can be operated
with much less skill than an ordinary plane;
this will effectively cut down the time necessary
for novices to learn how to fly.
AIR WONDER STORIES
463
OPERATION
New Speed Record 358 Miles an
Hour Made
A new world record for speed of homen
travel was made by Squadron Leader Augus>
tus H. Orlebar, to the supcnsarioe plane, Rolls-
Royce S-6. when he attained an average speed
of 337.7 miles an hour over a three-kilometer
course on Southampton Water, England. This
record betters by 23 miles the record of 332.8
miles an hour made by Plying Officer Richard
Accberley in the 1929 Schneider Cup race; and
is 37 miles an hour faster than the <^cial rec-
ord of 318.6 miles an hour esublished by Major
Bernard! of Italy last year. Orlebar is said to
have complained of a 13-mile wind which delay-
ed him, and also stated that he had on ocher
occasions flown faster than 333 miles an hour on
a straight course. Several times Orlebar dived,
fflcceor-like, Irom a 1300-foot level to gain speed
and, flashing past all objects, he made the
fastest moving things about him seem motionless.
Lieutenant George Stainforth also broke the
previoos record with a speed of 336 miles gp
hour.
Aitplane Attadied to Alt^p in
Flight
T he rather speaacular feat of attaching an
airplane to the aiohip Las Am^Us while in
flight, and transferring Umsekf from the plane
to the ship and Aen back again, was aecooiplirii-
ed recently by Lieut. A, W. Gorton. Flying a
small Vougbt biplane, Gorton flew close to the
airship and tried to attach a steel shepherd’s
crook, buHc upon the plane’s upper wing, to a
metal trapeze that hung seventeen feet below the
ship’s hull. It was close work, because the
part of the ship where the trapeze bung is flanked
on either side by gondolas of the ship. Three
times the flyer nearly made it, but each time the
hook slippy away. Ar the fourth attempt, a
tight contact was made and the crew of the
airship pulled the plane snugly against the ^ip.
Gorton dien transferred him^f via die eodt-
pit and wing to the airship, and then return-
ed to onhook bis ship and fly away. All this
was (kmc in the face of a focty-flve knot gale.
Telephone From Air to Be Regidar
Service
'COLLOWING many esperimencs of tekphonic
A* communication faM^een airplanes and the
ground, it has been announced, according to the
New York Times, (bat in cbe near future tele-
phone switchboards would be equipped to re-
ceive and transmic calls regDlafty from the air.
The Universal Aviation Corporation plans two-
way radio communication equipment on all planes
enabling pdots in flight to convene with air-
ports. These will be installed on the coast-to-
coast, air-iail route of the comparry. Conversa-
tions, according to tests made, can be carried on
over a distance of twelve hundred miles. While
the service, at flm, will be priaaiUy for the
pilots, it is undersn^ chat k will be very easy
later on to mneod k to pa a s c ngcn ; who wdl
then be able to converse with almost any tele*
phone aubsctiber in the cotmciy.
300 Miles an Hour Normal Speed ia
Future
S IR Alan Cobham, noted English aviation
authority, believes that 300 miles an hour
may become the normal cruising speed in planes
of the future, says the Now York Times, Al-
though such a speed is a figure now aimed at
in speed contests such as the Schneider Cup races,
Sir Alan believes that the information gained
from such races will enable builders to con-
strua planes easily enable of sustained travel at
this rate. Sir Alan therefore does not agree
with critics that speed contests are unwise and
dangerous, and gain u$ nothing. It is only when
a machine is put to an extreme test that its
weaknesses and good features become evident.
He notes that when the steam locomotive was
first ioveoied 30 miles an hour was once con-
sidered the maximum speed at which humans
could travel. So also, with the ctMning of the
airplane, 100 miles an hour was deemed an im-
possible speed. Sir Alan sees the only reasonable
limit, to determine the speed of a plane, in the
economic factor; determining that figure at which
the cost of operation is minimum.
MadiiiK'Gua Gtmera Records "Hits’*
B y placing a camera on madiine guns wkh
which army fliers praaice, it will be possible
to obtain a record of what "hits** have been made.
The regular type of machine guns will be used
but, instead of firing bullets when the trigger is
pressed, tbe camera attaebnKOt takes a series of
pictures showing where the bullets would have
hit. ‘The times at which the shots are fired will
also be recorded on the camera film. These
cameras will be used in army maneuvers and
*T>accles’* and the umpires of ^e batdes, decid-
ing which planes should have been shot down,
will determine this from the records. These
camera attachments are being made bf the
Fairchild Aerial Camers Coiperatton.
Radio Beacon Marks Out Twelve
Courses
^^E Bureau of Scaadards, cooperating with
X the Deparonent of Commme, has de^opod
e new radio beacon which allows an aviator to
pidc ont any of the twelve diflerent courses and
at difemc angles. Sec on tbe pilot’s iastni-
ment board is a three-reed mdicacor which gives
him his gtkidance and enables him, though
*Tost,’* to find out which coarse he is on. This
new device has been made necessary by the grow-
ing comploky of routes ttoouading large air-
ports. 'fhe mulci-direaiooal beacon uses a tbme-
phase transminer. Several of the transmitters
have been ordered, according to Captain F. C.
Hingsburg, chief engineer of the Akways Divi-
sioa of the Dqiartenent of Commerce, and will
be instated for operariea as soon as received.
"Aviation News of the
, Month”
portrajs ki tdain, yet coadse ko-
guage every important aviation
advance during the month. No-
where can the average reader get
such a wealth of accurate and vital
information condensed into such a
small volume. Some 40 aviation
magazines and newspapers are
utilized by our editors in the com-
pilation of diis department. The
publishers wekoffle short contribu-
tioos to these pages from the
various scientific msmodons, labor-
atoriea, mdeers and distributots of
planes, etc
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2^ppelm Trip Shows Need of Air
Preparedness
T he flight of the Gm/ XeppeUn across tbe
Pacific in three days has reduced that once
**boundless expanse of water” to a "narrow
strip,” says the New York Sunday Ameruan
editorially ; and it has placed before us the
u^ent seed of protecting ourselves from attacks
from the air. Once, we considered chat oceans
on either side of us were reasonable safegutfds
from attacks in case of war. But shk>s likp
the Zeppelin, capable of carrying tons of a-
plosi^, and having very wide cruising ranges,
bring within possibility the destruction of our
cities by enemy invaders. The editorial asks for
an air fleet for the nation secood to none. The
govennnent should itself develop aviation Instead
of relying on private initiative and should have
a fleet of aircraft so large that nations would
hesitate to aicack us and always be in fear of
reprisals by us if they went to war with us. Tbe
air forces should not be mere anns of the army
and navy, but independent forces. Ute editorial
suggests that an air fleet used by tbe post
office for the carrying of mail shoild be readily
convertible into war planes capable of carrying
bombs, poison gas and machine guns.
Cmference to Study Better
Plane Radio Recepdon
I N order co improve the radio lecqitfoo gf
planes by shielding engines, a conference ts
being held at the Bureau of Standards at
Washii^on. The purpose is to coordiaace tht
knowledge now extant about shielding, to stim-
ulaie the standardization of shielding practices
and establish better methods of testing so that
the effects of various types of shields can be
determined. The conference is being attended
by not only the commercial iocerests, manufac-
turers of planes, engines, magnetos, but research
organizations and government employees con-
concerned. It has been found that tbe various
pans of the ignition system must be enclosed
ia mcttl shields with a high conductivity.
Liodbergh Favors Dirigible Line
dirigible as now developed is su^rior
^ «o tbe airplafie for traaaoccanic flying,”
said Col. Charles Lindbergh recently. Tbe leceoc
trip of die Oraf Zeppelin has dcmooatraied the
pncdcabdity of the lighter-tban-air ships. He fees
no conflia b et w e en them, and believes that de-
velopment of one is bound to increase tbe use
of the other. He also expressed the hope that
theie will be a air line in tbe United
States. He also expects that 100 -passeager
plaocs will come to this country soon, and
tbe dme consumed in the traoscoatiaental fl%bt
would be macerially seduced.
Graf Zeppelin’s Trip Proves
Airship’s Flexibility
T he recent successful round-the-world tour of
the Graf Zeppelin has proved one auperionty
of the rigid airship over tbe beavier-than-air
plane, says Lauren D. Lyenafl in the New York
Tines, The airship has an element of flex-
ibility, obtained through its great reserves of
fuel that permit k to deviate from its route acul
escape sronns aod fogs. Akbo k cannot make an
unalterable schedule, such as is neoessary in the
traosconrinenral air routes, and fly right dirough
any kind of weather as tbe heavier-than-air planes
must, yet tbe airship can make a longer flight
tlmn tbe plane, and ac a more leisurely rate.
Mr. Lyman believes that the con tr oversy between
akship and plane is mote imaginacy chan ical
and ^at the reasonable solution is to use each ia
its proper and natural sphere.
Nations Cooparate for Adamic
Weauwr Service
A S A isuit of a recent conierenee of meteor-
ohagiss at O^enhagen, says a New York
Timas edkorial, plans for tbe establtduBenc of
an internattonal weather service on the Atlantic
seem to be afoot. In the past, not only has the
lack of adequate information on Atlantic storms
seriously hindered ship navigation, but to it is
accribiiced also the loss of a unoi^r of lives in
akplaoe anempo to ooss the ocean. Whoc is
prop o sed bow is that ships supplied by eadi
i n t er ested nation be designated as weather-gather-
ing units ; the United States would provide
twenty. Great Britain thirty-two. Fiance fiw, etc.
They would carry powerf^ radio sets and keep
coanal scationa sig>^ied at all cknes with data an
the weather. Commercial air travel, says die
editorial, can ne v er flourish until weather fore-
casting is as accurate as methodical seports can
make it.
Regular Zeppelin Oceanic Air Lines
A S A result of the successful round-the world
> tour of die Graf Zeppelin, plans are now
being made which may end in the establishment
of two oceanic air lines. With officials of the
Goodyear Zeppelin Company of Akron, Ohio
(whidi is building two huge airships) and prom-
inent bankers. Commander Eckener and other Ger-
man offidab are discussing the possibility of a
Pacific and Atlantic service. The plan b n>
have two air liners, each twice aa large as tbe
Gf<i/ Zeppelin, to ply between some Pacific port
and either Honolulu or Tokio. There would also
be one or two liners running on regular schedule
between an Adantic port and Europe. Paul W.
Litchfield, president of the Goodyear Company,
indicated that capital is already available for
building the ships contemplated.
464
AIR WONDER STORIES
AVIATORS
New Endurance Record Made by
Civilian Flyers
B y remaining ia the air above Fort Worth,
Texaa, for 172 hottre and 31 rainutee, Reg-
inald L. Robbins and James Kelley broM the
world endurance record for continuous flight
by more than 21 hours. The previous record
of 151 hours was established early this year by
the Question Mark piloted by Aimy flyers. The
plane used, called tne Fort fVorth, was a used
machine with a Wright Whirlwind motor. It
had previously been flown about 500 hours, and
the pilots intended to stay aloft until the ma-
chine knocked itself to pieces. But a battered
propeller, and excessive vibration in the machine
ended the flight, with a new record, but short
of the 200-bour mark hoped for by the flyers.
The Fort IVorth flew altogether over 10,000
miles. It carried 250 gallons of gasoline and
was refueled every 24 hours with 100 gallons.
Ten*Mile Altitude Goal Sought
A ttempts to raise the altitude record of
planes to 10 miles are now being thought
of by aviators, according to Lieut. Apollo Soucek,
who has made many successful altitude flights.
Although present airplane constniction sod the
equipment for the aviator limit the altitude n>
al^t eight sod a half miles, many new im-
provements are being devised to core for the un-
usual conditions existing above chat level; lighter
planes, made possibly of magnesium, special fur-
lined clothes and elearicsily heated goggles,
means of providing sufficient pressure for the plane
to fflatDCtla the lift. Balloons without passengers
have already been sene as high as twenty-four
miles where the weather and atmospheric con-
ditions have been studied. These studies are ex-
peaed to provide data on which the equipment for
altitude record-seekers will be based. One of the
chief difficulties is in obtaining oxygen for the
aviator and another is the obtaining of oxygen
for the motor. The flrsc is taken care of by
oxygen flasks that the aviator takes with him and
the second by superchargers which pump air in
faster and give almost sea-level atmosphMic con-
ditions. But beyond seven miles the conditions
become so bad chat even those two aids t^gin to
fail. Lieut. Soucek predicts, however, that planes
should reach the 10-mile level within the next
ten yeais.
” Aviation" to Discourage Atlantic
Flights
VIATIONf a weekly devoted to aeronautics
and edited by Edward P. Warner, former
Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Aero-
nautics, has editorially declared itself against
oceanic flights that have not as their aim the
extension of our information or to make real
contributions to aeronautics. The great number
of failures undertaken hastily and without lack
of experience^ or proper Judgment fau tended
to impair confidence of the public. No one
has really improved on what Lindbergh did In
1927, says the editorial.^ In order to dis-
courage nights for publicity or personal glory
the .paper nas adopted the policy of not men-
tioning in its news columns or editorials such
flights. In this way it is hoped that su^
flights shut off from publicity will be dis-
couraged.
School for Airship Pilots Started
T he first school for the training of airship
pilots has been started by the Goodyear-
Zeppelin Company at Akron^
junction with Akron University. Twenty-flve
members of the Goodyear persoimei will receive
full instruction paralleling that of the Navy
iloo on the construction and operation of
gbter-than-air ships. The students must study
also the balloon and be able to pilot a balloon
before being allowed at the controls of tthe
motored ship. Instruction will also be given in
heaver-than-air craft. But the real course is
designed to provide a selected group of men
with the means to pilot the temperamental and
elusive airship.
New Altitude Record
39,140 Feet
T he official certification of a new altitude
record of 39,140 feet was awarded to Lieut.
Apollo Soucek, the Navy aviator. A report
CO this effect was submioed by the Bureau of
Standards to the National Aeronautical Asso-
ciation. This record tops by 722 feet the old
record of 38,418 feet establiened by Lieut. C. C.
Champion, also of the Navy, in 1927. The
calibration of two barographs carried by Soucek
provided the means of determining the altitude
reached. One of the interesting devices used
in the plane was a Hoots Supercharger which
was designed to reproduce in the motor the
same atmospheric conditions that are obtainable
at lower altitudes. A complete transcript of
the flight will be forwarded to the International
Aeronautical Federation's headquarters at Paris.
Guggenheim Fund to Study Air
Insurance
A COMPREHENSIVE study of the question
of air Insurance, now becoming an im-
ponanc one, will be undertaken by me Daniel
Guggenheim Fund for Aeronautics. The study
wllf be directed by Captain Dunn, who is a
consultant to the Fund. Because of the lack of
information on air risks, what they are and
which are the most important, the rates at
p^resent are prohibitive. The information that
Captain Dunn will obtain will be made avail-
able to the insurance companies. At present the
lack of reliable mformatioQ has made what is
called a confusing situation with wide variances
in rates.
Bombing Planes Demonstrate
Great Mobility
A RECENT demonstration proved conclu-
sively, according to C. B. Allen, aviation
editor of the New York World, the great mobilire
of bombiM planes. Eight Hornet motored,
Keystone Panther bombing planes took off from
Langley Fiel^ Virginia and in forty hours had
reached San Diego, California. The planes made
only three stops en route. The ships when fully
loaded weigh 13,000 pounds and have as arma-
ment not only bombs but five machine guns for
offensive and defensive purposes. The feat is
considered to be of great importance not only
to the offensive but also to the defensive scheme
of the nation. It is now possible with unheard-
of rapidity to shift the strength of the air
forces from any point In the country to an-
other. During the trip the planes not only
maintained communications with each other but
also with the nound. It should be said, how-
ever, that in tne present flight the space that
was normally occupied by 2,150 pounds of bombs
now held special ^s tanks which increased the
range of the planes from their normal ^0 mile
range, to 1,)()0 miles.
Fly-by-Nigbt Air Sdiools to Go
S TATE laws designed to stamp out the fly-
by-night flying acbools which have not tho
personnel nor equipment to properW conduct
a school, are urged by Dr. James Sullivan of
the New York State education board. He men-
tions how a pxkI many requests for licenses are
received by enterprises which call themselves
^'engineering^ schools,'* yet present no evidence
of their being suclL Many so<a11^ ''flying
schools" are also refused licenses because of a
doubt as to their educational character. Since
the Department of Commerce is already work-
ing on regulacion to govern flying schools. New
York state ofiicials are expect^ to confer with
the Commerce Department officials to arrive at
some uniformity.
—GENERAL—
"Enplane” and "Deplane” Added to
Dictionary
T WO new words to express the aco of a
passenger entering an airplane and leaving
one are to be found in "enplane" and "deplane,'^
which the New Standard Diaionary has added
to its list. These, says Dr. Frank Viatelly, editor-
in-chief of the diaionary, are parallel words to
"entrain" and "detrain" as ap|died to train pas-
sa^ and "embark" and "debark" as appliea to
ships. The addition of these words illustrate bow
our homage is changing in proponion to the
change m our mode of Uving ana our customs.
Ait Police Force for New York
I F the plans of Police Commissioner Whalen
are adopted, New York City will soon have
four amphibian planes to protea Its citizens from
the hazards of the air. Tnis seep is to be under-
taken as the result of recent casualties caused
by aircraft accidents in the city. The commis-
sioner is said to have remarked that he foresees
a time not far distant when thousands of people
will be flying, and chat means to pcotea non-
flyers must be considered now. If necessary he
is ready to recommend the requirement of a'
municipal license for flying within city limits ;
stating that municipal or state aaion might be
necessary to supplement federal authority.
25,000 Foot Qiute Jump Sets Record
A new altitude record for a parachute jump,
is believed by the Ryan Aircraft Corporation
to have been sec, when Jimmy Donahue, well-
known parachute jumper, left a Ryan brougham
piloted oy O. N. Mosier over the muDlcipal air-
port at Colorado Sprinn (near Pike's Peak) at
an altitude of 25,400 feet, during a recent air
meet.
The record is unofficial as yet. but will be
verified as soon as the barograph can be checked.
The descent took 19 minutes, and Donahue
drifted two miles south of the airport. The Ryan
without spMial ^uipmenc climbed to the 25,-
400-fooc altitude in 42 minutes. The plane was
still climbing when the extremely low cemperatute
forced the pilot to descend, b^ause of lack of
special clothing.
Despite the record height from which the
jump was made, Donahue descended at the race
of only about 15 miles an hour after hia para-
chute opened. He landed widiouc Injury.
Letters on Plane Denote
Classification
B efore passeogera enter a plane, if they
wish to determine the standing of the
plane before the law, they may do so by ob-
serving the letters preceding the plane's num-
ber, says the American Air TransMrt Asso-
ciation. A plane with the letter "C” has been
permitted to make iocentate trips with pas-
aen^s and one with "NC* Is permitted also
to ily to foreign countries. "S'' means that
the plane is in government service and "X"
denotes that it is for experimental purposes
only. A plane with "E" on it means that it
has not yet been licensed. Only planes with
the designation "C" or "NC** should be used
by passengers for perfect safety, warns the
Association.
Two Sdiools Wage Ba^e on
Ultimate Plane Size
W ITH the plans afoot for a number of
gigantic planes, there has come to the front
the battle that has always existed between tbs
two schools of aviation experts on the ultimate
size of the plane, says T. J. C, Marm in the
New York Times, Dr. Dornier w^ae 100-
pusenger plane has already made a successful
trial flight is enthusiastic about large planes.
He believes chat his DOX is a living refiiution
of the theories of the "small plane schooL’*
The latter bold the belief that as the size of
the plane increases the weight increases more
than proportionately. In otoer words a large
plane would become so heavy that it would
necessitate a wing area extraordinarily large.
Dr. Dornier as the result of bis studies does not
believe this altogether true as ^ there are some
compensating features as the size of the plane
increases.
The commercial necessities, at least, are all on
the side of large planes. The personnel
necessap^ to operate a plane does not increase
proportionately with the number of passengers
carried. Thus there Is an econom^^ in haveing
large planes. Further there is possible on large
planes many features for the comfort of passen-
gers impossible on those of small size. Thus
the DOX may have elearic kitchens, a bar,
dining room, and well-laid out sleeping quarters.
These things however if finally installed may
cut the passenger capacity down to ^ 50 persons.
Mr. Martyn believes that the dirigible wiQ
be able to carry passengers in greater comfort
than the airplane and on chb score it has an
advantage over the heavier-than-alr machine.
The dirigiUe also can carry heavier loads than
planes as now develoi>ed. Theoret(call}% be
says, it would be possible for a dirigible to
carry 1,000 passengers and a vast amount of
freight. But he believes it Is a rash prophet
who would predict which type will ultunately
win out
(Continued on Page 466)
SsSii**^'
Aviation Forum
T his deparcmenc is o]M to ttaders who wish to have answered ques* possible illuscratioos will be used to answer the questions. Queries
tions on Aviation. As fax as space will permit, all questions deemed should be brief and not more chan three should be put in any deccer.
of general interest to ouf teadecs will be answer^ here. And where Address all communications to the Editor.
The Cantilever Wing Explained
Editor, Aviation Forum:
When you first put out Am WONDBR Stories.
I immediately sent for the first copy. 1 have
now sul»crtbed and received the August and
September issues. The stories are all very good
and I will not cominent on any of them, except
"The Ark of The Covenant," by Victor Mac-
Clure.
(2). a and b^The airplane speed record is
held by Squadron Leader Augustus H. Orlebar of
England who, on September 12. 1929, made ^$7.7
miles per hour. Inasmuch as Orlebar used a
supermarine plane, his record can be considered
the seaplane record also.
(2) c. The record for racing cars is held by
Illustration of an
Arrow Sport Bi-
plane having both
the Cantilever sup-
ported and c^iered
wings.
Note the fact chaf
the wings are sup-
ported only at the
root.
From "Modern Aircraft" by Victor Page. Published by Norman D. Henley Co.
This is about the best aviation story I've ever
read. I wish the author would give us a sequel
to It.
Being a student of aviation. I have a few
ideas 1 want corrections on. They are as fol-
lows:
(1). I understand a cantilever aerofoil, or
wing, CO be a wing which is thicker at the center,
measuring from tip to tip, and thinner towards
the tips. Is this correct?
<2). I understand a tapered wing to be a
wing whose chord is greater at the center and
smaller at the tips. Is this correa?
MARGARITO MARTINEZ,
Box 939, Morenci, Arizona.
(1. A cantilever wing is generally thicker at
the fuselage (root) than at the wing tip, but it
is not that faa that gives it its name. The
cantilever wing is one that is braced only at the
rooc^it has no external braces under the wing to
suppon it. The reason for the fact that it is
thicker at the root is that the bending force on
the wing’s cross-seaion is greatest there, and so
the cross-seaion must be made greater to sustain
it.
2. A tapered wing is one whose chord (the dis-
tance across the wing from nose toward die tail)
is greater at the root than at the tip. Tapering
is a method also used to adjust the cross-section
of the wing to cake care of the variation in
bending "moment" or strain at each point on the
wing. The accompanying illustration shows a
cantilever plane with tapered wings. — Editor,)
Major Sir Henry Seagrave of Great Bricaia who
at Daytona Bea^, Florida, made over 231 miles
per hour.
(2) c. The speedboat record of 93 miles per
hours is held by Gar Wood of the United States,
who made the record in 1929.
(3) . Charles Lindbergh was born on February
4, 1902.— Editor,)
Some Speed Records
Editor, Aviation Porumi
I would be very much obliged if you would
answer the following questions.
( 1 ) . Who made and when, the first non-stop
trans-Atlantic flight?
(2) . Who made and when, the speed records
of the following? Also what were the records
in miles per hour?
a. — Airplane
b. — Hydroplane
c. — Race-car
d. — Speed boat.
(3) . Date of Col. Charles A. Lindbergh's
birth.
I thank you.
R. J. SMOLIK
Fernie, B. C., Canada.
( I ) . Captain John Alcock and Lieut. Anhur
Brown made the first non-stop flight across the
Atlantic, flying from Sc. Johns, Newfoundland.
CO Clifden, Ireland, on June 14. 1919.
What Happens to Gravity-
Insulated Planes
Editor Aviation Forum:
t have read the August and September issues
of Air Wonder Stories, enjoying both very
much. In each copy 1 found a story about
flying machines insulated against gravity.
As the earth is revolving around the sun on
its orbit, I think that the machine, not being
attracted by the earth, would separate from this
planet.
WALLACE FORBES,
Kansas Cit^ Mo.
(This question is well taken. When a
"gravity insulated plane" is spoken of it must
be remembered that it is insulated from all
gravity. The earth does not alone possess
eravicacional power, all bodies do. So when a
body is insulated from all gravity it means that
no body whatever (this means also no heavenly
body) would attract it. Therefore if no other
force acted, the plane would remain suspended
in space. But the propelling forces of the craft
are what drive it at any given direction. Freed
from gravitational force the machines can move
about as if no heavenly bodies whatever existed.
And that is what happens in the case of the
stories referred to. The only other possible
force acting on the planes on the ground is
centrifugal force. Now if a body on earth were
freed of gravity suddenly and had no other
motive power, it vtould suddenly fly off tbe
earth at a tremendous speed due to the centrif-
ugal force caused by the earth's motion. But
in alt the cases mentioned the planes rise into
the air and are thus acting as free bodies—
Editor,)
Editor, Aviation Forum:
There has been a question that I have often
wondered about. It must be very simple but
I just can’t figure it out.
As you know the reason for airplanes
keeping in the air is that they beat the air
with their propellers so as to force theiqselvcs.
The elevator, rudder and other things govern
its motion. The rocket plane works on almost
the same order of pushing against the air to
make it go up.
Outside of the earth’s air there is only
traces of gas and planets. The rest is ether.
Then how could a rocket plane move on its
own accord if there is no air?
Another question, is, wouldn’t there be some
gravity in space from the sun and planets?
EDMUND FITCH,
Chicago, III.
(The rocket is not propelled, a» Mr. Fitch
supposes, by pushing against the air but by
the reaction to the exnaust of highly com-
pressed gases. Tbe action is like that of
the recoil of a gun. Action being equal to
reaction tbe force of the exhaust of the rases
propels the rocket forward with the same force.
Therefore air is not necessary for the rocket,
in fact the rocket works best in a vacuum,
as nothing impedes tbe exhaust of the gases.
An airplane does not remain in the air by the
action of the propellers but by the upward lift
of air under the wings and the suction above
the wings. Tbe propeller drives it through
the air. There is of course always some gravity
in space from some heavenly body. But it is
possible to reach points where the gravitation pull
is so small chat it is practically oegllgible.— '
Editor , )
(Continued on Page 466)
465
466
AIR^WONDER STORIES
AVIATION FORUM
{Continued from Page 465)
Negative Angle of Incidence
Editor, Aptatiom Forum:
In the last issue ol Air Wonder Stoubs there
appeared a diagram ei^laining how the air pres«
sitfc lifts the plane*
Now* I am generally interested in aviation, and
personally interested to a very great extent in
model building,
I have often seen, the above-mentioned diagram
and understand it fully. There is a point, how-
ever, that I always forget to look up, which
often puzzles me, and 1 am jumping at this
chance to have it cleared up.
Just how can this principle be applied, al-
though I know it can, when the plane or wing
is sec at a negative angle of incidence.^
WILLIAM BREKMEYER,
2345 V 16th Street.
(When a plane's wing is sec at a negative angle
of Incidence [i.c., when the wing is dipped be-
low the horizon] the same principle is applied
as when it is above the horizon, but the effea is
opposite. In other words, the wind striking the
top pan of the wing, in the case of a negative
angle to the horizon, exerts a force tending to
draw the plane toward the eanh. Under the wing
there is now a reduced pressure (as can be seen
from the diagram) which tends further to de-
press the plane. The negative angle of incidence
present gondola types would increase the resist-
ence. Why pick on the poor Yellow Mao or
Bolshevik always? 1 think our own people who
forever complain of their lot, curse incompe-
tent public officials and thus foment trouble, yet
refuse to vote, or assist in bettering their lot are
our worst enemies.
"Men With Wings" may not have been good
science but 1 have read it through four times
and aq>ect to read it still more as I keep all
copies of this magazine.
Mr. Keller in "The Bloodless War" states diac
John Farrol tapped out a message and sent the
planes out to sea. As 1 understand radio con-
trol the planes are controlled by a definite fre-
quency or beat received aboard the plane by a
sensitive receiver that moves the controls as
the frequency is varied, perhaps J am in error;
if so please correct me.
Finally — some writers are using Einstein’s latest
theory, to prove that gravity and electro-mag-
netism are one and the same. I understand
Einstein said that gravity and elearo-magnetism
were closely related* Am I wrong.^ Sorry to
take up so much of your time but you seem to
invite it.
Arizona H. Duane,
c/o Ladolick Ranch,
Alma, Calif.
(Mr. Duane's conception of the method of
radio control is quite correct. The sending and
receiving sets are adjusted to the same wave
length and frequency and by moduladoo of the
or REDUCED PRESSURE.*
wms
horizon""—
ABia O^WCREAStO PRCSSURC.
ARCA Of mCREASED PRESSURt /WINO
HORIZON
AREA OF REDUCED PRESSURt.
llluscrating the ef-
fea on a plane
wing of a negative
and a positive angle
of incidence. As
noted the negative
angle occurs when
the wing is dipped
below the horizon.
The positive angle
is shown in the
upper illustration
and the negative
angle io the lower.
occurs, naturally, only when the plane u pointed
toward the earth; there are no planes designed
for operacioa with a negative angle ol incidence
— Editor . )
About Radio-Controlled Planes
Editor, Aviation Forum:
Having read the first three copies of our maga-
zine. I cake the liberty of writing — and now to
business —
"The Ark of the Covenant" is the best story
I have ever read and 1 am a voracious reader.
Your last chapter left them in an awkward
positioo. I am due to speculate a lot till the
next issue is out.
"The Air Terror" was good. The idea of
filling the wings with a gas to help lift the
plane looks feasible to me.
"The Yellow Air Peril" was also good. In
building a ship with a tunnel through the cen-
ter, would it not be possible to have quarters
for the passengers inside also? 1 think the
frequency at the sending end the impulses traos-
mitced are varied and various pieces of apparatus
controlled by a certain frequency are operated.
Einstein in his latest theory stated that mag-
netism and gravity arose from the same funda-
mental cause. They are more than closely re-
lated. they are brother and sister, so to speak.
And they not only operate in the same manner
and by the same laws but also Einstein believes
they can be controlled in the same way. For
that reason our authors are quite justified in
devising apparatus, which must ulnmarely come,
by which gravity as well as magnetism can be
shielded. — Editor.)
TO OUR READERS
A few copies of tbe July, August, Sept-
ember and October issues of
AIR WONDER STORIES
Can still be had at tbe regular price of
25c each. Send cash, stamps or money
order to
AIR WONDER STORIES
98 Park Place
New York, N. Y.
AVIATION NEWS '
General
{Continued from Page 464)
Warships to Be Helpless in Next
War, Says Mitchell
G ENERAL William Mitchell, former com-
mander of the Air Forces,. A.E.F. and Di-
rector of Military Aeronautics, U-S.A., writing in
Aeronautics, states that in the next war, our
naval fieet will be practically helpless against
aaacks from the air. Picturing a typical battle,
he shows how a great fleet of planes operating
from a convenient land base could overwhelm
the aircraft of any naval fleet and then, ac its
leisure, proceed to sink the fleet. With the
development of great higbpe^losive bombs, gas
bombs, torpedoes guided by radio, etc., warships
travelling ac 25 miles an hour have no chance
against aircraft travelling ac 150 to 300 miles an
hour. The Panama Canal, he states, is practical-
ly defenseless against anacks from the ak; for,
despite all that a naval fleet eouM do, a few
well-laid bombs would make tbe Canal impas-
sible. Considering the costs of a naval fleet and
aircraft, he sees no reason for naval construc-
tion. Sixteen battleships costing about llOO,-
000,000 each with all their accessory craft and
eqvipacnc require an expenditure equal to that
for a fle« of 80,000 airplanes, enough to over-
run any nation.
Thinking Machine Aims Guns
Automatically
ri «0 combat the growing menace of airplanes in
JL time of war, by increasing the effectiveness
of anti-aircraft guns, the ordnance department of
the U. S. Army has developed what is called a
*^'chiokiog machine," says Scienee News-Letter.
The device consists of two. telescopes which are
kept trained on the attacking plane by operators.
One follows the horizontal and the other the
vertical movement of the target. By means of
gears these two movements are cookiined to give
a resultant motion, and thereby a direaion-set-
ting which can be transmitted to the guns. Ocher
operators, manipulating control dials, feed into/'
tbe machine ocher necessary data; soch as the
range and altitude and corrections for wind tod
other atmospheric conditions. The instrument's
seaing is transferred to the guns by an electric
cable. A synchronous motor mounted on each
gun translata the inscrumeoc’s data into move-
ments of the gun carriage; whereby the muzzle
of the piece is trained on the target, with enough
"lead" so that a shell fired will arrive ac a
certain point at the same time that the plane
does. A battery of bigh-angle guns can be oper-
ated by the machine with the assistance of a
few highly-trained operators and the guns will
be firing within thirty seconds after the range is
determined. The cannwieers will not need to see
the target, for they may be hidden in woods and
separat^ from the machine by as much as half
a mile. It is believed that several batteries of
guns may be operated by one machiae and thus
a great concentration of artillery can warmly wel-
COOK any invading aircraft.
Pilots* Tests Harder in Europe
P HYSICAL examinations of prospeaive air-
plane pilots differ considerably in most
European countries from those required in Amer-
ica. England has discarded the whirling-chair
as a means of determining a pilot's equilibrium,
and America has followed suit, adopting in its
stead the English test; this consists of having
the candidate stand on one foot, with the ocher
leg bent at tfie knee, and eyes closed, for fifteen
minutes. If this feat is performed satisfactorily,
and the prospect has healthy ears and no dis-
turbance of gait, he is considered to have a suf-
ficient sense of equilibrium. Defects in this
sense result in difficulty in keeping the plane
on an even keel and cause tbe pilot to become
confused in spirals, banks and spins. In France,
the hearts and lungs of applicants are subjeaed
to an X-ray examination, and they have also
breath-holding and night-vision msts ; which
have either never been sanctioned in the United
States or have been discarded. The eye test in
this country differs from that of England, in
that America employs a spotlight, red glass, Mad-
dox rod and prisms; whereas England uses what
is known as the "red-green" test, in which red
end green illumination is employ^ in a slotted
form. Most of the European couiirries appear to
be unwilling to issue licenses to women ; and
in England, France, Italy and Germany, transport-
pilot licenses are refused to married women.
XtiE READER
AIR$
EIS VIEWS
I N chit depinmeat we (haU publish «7erf moach pour opinions. After all,
this is your magasine and it is eciiced for you. If we fall down on
the choice of our stories, or if the editorial board slips up occasionally,
It is up to you to voice your opinion. It makes no difference whether your
letter is complimentary, critical, or w li e d ie i h contains a good old-fashioned
bcick'bat.
All of your lecten, as much as space wilt allow, will be published here
for the benefit of all. Due to the lar^ infiux of mafl, no communications
to this dq>artment are answeiod iodtvidually uolesa 2)c in stamps to covet
time and postage is remkted.
A Coatrovetsy: What Sustains a
Plane?
EJilor, AIR WONDER STORIES:
Air Wonder Stoues for September favored me
with a real *‘wonder'' indeed; namely. Major
William A. Bevan^s lener, printed at the boc*
torn of page 263, escplaining the wing lift on
airplanes. Inasmuch as this is based upon a
transparent fallacy which is eradicated from the
mind of every high-school student during his first
year's study of physics — 1 mean the popular idea
chat a vacuum has any "sucking’*' or "lifting’*
power whatsoever. Water follows a pump plun-
ger. not because the vacuum itself has any power
to lift, but because of the difference of pressure
on the surface of the water under the plunger
and the outside surface exposed to the atmos-
phere. The lift on airplane wings is entirely
due to the air pressure on the lower side of the
wing ; and this pressure is composed of two
factors; the dynamic pressure of the flowing air,
and the static atmospheric pressure exerted, due
CO the vacuum on the upper side. The impos-
sibility of a vacuum lifting anything can be read-
ily seen by simply asking the question. *’as to
what material exists in a vacuum capable of ex-
erting a tensile force?"
I do not have the August number at hand, and
so cannot pass on the correctness of the reply
given by you and to which Major Bevao tak^
exception. The whole matter is quite surprising
because, although laymen and novices frequently
will make the statonenc that the lift on air-
plane wings is caused by a vacuum, this is the
first time 1 have seen it sponsored by a Pro-
fessor.
In anotiicr conoecdoo* Mr. Wallace C. Ward-
ner's letter, printed od page 282, is equally in
error. Mitchell's famous propaganda is now
three or four years old, and entirely inapplicable
to present conditions. As the facts a^rear to
me, it was considerably overdrawn, owing to
the distordoA perfec t ive which e ve r y enthusi-
astic professional miiitd acquires in regard to his
own specialty in the course erf rime. Had
Mitchell’t agitation succeeded, the United States
woidd now have been saddled with many million
dollars* worth of obsolete planes, utterly useless
ia the cate of air attack; inasmuch as any mili-
tary plane more than one or two yean old is
supCTaaauated. At the present time, the United
States is tremendously superior to any other coun-
try. not merely in the number of up-to-date
planes, civil and military, now in commission,
but ia faaory facilities for turning them out.
Had a tremeodout investment been put into planes
at the rime of Mitchell’s agitation, it would
now have been lost; and the process, to carry
out the idea logically, would have to Ire repeated
at least every two or three years, imposing an
intolerable burden upon the taxpayen, until such
time os their patience gave way.
Harl Vincent's story, "The Yellow Air-Peril,**
I regard as extremely objectionable. If a scien-
tific pdslication is to enter at all into religious
and racial matters, it should be along such lines
as will help to eliminate ighorance, prejudice,
and misunderstanding of alien peoples and alien
faiths. As one extremely familiar with the
teachings and spirit of Buddhists and Buddhism,
I wish CO state that the aims tad ambitions
ascribed to the "Gautamans" in the story, repre-
sent very accurately the spirit of the "Chrisrian*'
nations. They are nothing short of libelous and
slanderous as applied to the doctrine whose re-
straining influence upon the Asiatic hordes, in the
early days, made the development of Western
civilization possible. Otherwise it would have
been wiped out in its infancy. I regard this
article and Wardner’s letter as typical demonstra-
tions of the deficiencies of the scientific mind fo
regard to accomplishing the object which is ab-
solutely essential to the future salvation of civil-
ization : namely, the bringing about of a spirit
of inter-racial and inter-religious nnderscaodiog
and brotherhood.
Victor A. Endersby,
Associare Bridge Engineer,
California Division of Highways
Sacramento, Calif.
(Inasmuch as Mr. Endersby's chief criticism
was directed against Major Bevan we asked the
latter to write an answer to this letter. We print
Major Devan’s letter without co£amttxx.,-^Editor,)
Editor, AIR TTONDER STORIES:
I will say that this party is merely quibbling
over a word. I had no intention whatsoever
to convey the idea diat a vacuum has in itself
any "sucking’* or "lifting** power. Nor is there
in my statement any fallacy that is supposed to
be "eradicated from the mind of every high-
school student during his first year’s study of
physics.*’ I used the term "vacuum" in its com-
monly accepted sense and as used by all en-
gineers; namely, a reduction of pressure. We
have on steam condensers "vacuum gauges’* thaC
are marked and calibrated to read "vacuum in
pounds" or in "inriies of mercury.*’ We use
manometers to read redunion of pressure below
that of atmospheric and, again, speak of it as a
"vacuum of so many inches of water" or "of
mercury’* as the case may be. It is not incor-
rect for "laymen," or "novices,** or even en-
gineers to tise the word "vacuum" as I have
used it; regardless of bow much it may *'sur-
prise" this critic.
It can be readily shown that there is a re-
duction of pressure or "partial vacuum" on the
^ top side of a wing when either the wing is
drawn through the air or air is blown or drawn
by the wing. Static tubes placed flush with the
surface of the wing and connected to some areas-
tiring device or manometer readily show the dis-
tribution of pressure on the surface of a wing.
It is die reduction of pressure, or "pantal vacu-
um," on the top side of the wing, that causes
the static pressure on the bottom side of the
wing to be effective in giving lift. If the pressure
on the top and bottom sides were the same,
then there could be no lift due to static pressure
on the bottom side. When flying one can readily
see the bulging upward of the fabric between the
ribs and the spars on the cop side of the lower
wing. This is especially so in the path of the
propeller-slip stream. Of course, the same thing
ia true of the fabric on the top side of the upper
wing.
It is considered that the decrease in pressure,
or "panial vacuum," on the top side of a wing
is due to an increase of velocity of the air on
the cop side above that on the bottom side.
Bernoulli’s Theorem states that there is a reduc-
tion of pressure when the velocity of the fluid
ia increased.
After objecting to my use of the word * 'vacu-
um,** you will note, this critical person in his
explanation of the life on a wing makes the
statement that the "static atmospheric pressure
exerted" on the lower side of the wing is "rfar
to the vacuum on the upper side” In other
words, he uses the word "vacuum" in exactly
riie same manner that I used it in my article in
the September issue. However, he tries to make
out that my statement was entirely incorrect.
For a more complete discussion, than I have
riid time or the space to give, to the subjea, of
the "lift OD a wing," I would suggest chat this
critic read Chapter III of Warner’s Airplane De-
sign {Aerodynamics), There he will also find
a brief discussion of the theory of lift os devel-
oped by Kutca and Joukowski.
Most penoos, whom this critic calls "laymen**
oad "aofics," think that the "life oa a w«og'*
467
is due entirely to the dynamic force of the air
on the under side of the wing. It was to cor-
rect that idea, that I wrote my brief note as
published in the September issue of Air Wonder
Stori^ I merely wanted to bring out the fact
chat only a small part of the "lift" on a wing is
due to dynamic pressure and that most of the
"lift" is due to a rtduaion of pressure on the
top side. 1 did not go fnto detail as to why
this was so or why, therefore, the static pressure
of the air on the lower side would then be
effective.
Furthermore, there is oothiog in Mr. Wardner’s
letter to call for the above criticism. Gen-
eral Mitchell’s claim that the United States had
an inadequate air force was perfectly true three
or four yean ago, and is still true today. I
have been an officer of the Air Service and the
Air Corps, Regular Army and Reserve, for twelve
years; and 1 know what I am talking about.
This critic’s statement that: "At the present
time, the United States is tremendously superior
to any other country, not merely in up-to-date
planes, civil and military, now in commission,
but in faaory facilities for turning them out"
is too absurd to call for much comment. He.
evidently, knows nothing whatever about the
aviation, civil and military, of Great Britain.
France, Italy and Japan; and, especially, the
civil aviation of Germany.
William A. Bevan,
Professor of Aeronautical Eogineerlag,
Iowa State College,
Ames, Iowa.
When Is a Tail Spin?
Edittr, AIR WONDER STORIES:
1 have just fiaished reading the third number
of Air Wonder Stories and think it the best
air magazine anywhere. The "Ark of the Cove*
nam" sue is a pip! I tbo liked the "Yellow
Alr-PerU" very much. But as for "Where Grav-
ity Ends"‘~don’t you think that was just a
little far-fached? There were a few minor
errors also. Mr. Leitfred said that, when Mer-
rill eased down on the throttle, the plane got
into a spin. A plane will not fall into a spin
if the controls are in neutral. If a model stalls,
it never spins because the controls are in neu-
tral. It either slips off and dives, or the nose
drops in a whip-stall and it dives. A plane is
brought out of a spin by bringing the controls
to neutral and diving until flying speed is at-
tained. Even if it did fall into a spin, it
could not be brought out by gunning up the
motor. Also it would aot continue up when it
was brought out.
Merrill thought chat perhaps he was being
blown by a great tail-wind when the meter said
500 M.P.H. If he were blown by a wind he
could not cell by the meter chat he was going
that fast ; because the wind that works
the meter would not travel that fast with a
tail-wind. The plane might have that much
ground speed, but the meter cannot show chat.
That is oU I can find wrong with the whole
magazine.
Harrison Stephens,
621 No. Las Palmas,
Los Angeles, Cal.
(Mr. Stephens should remember that the plane
in question was headed upward when the avia*
tor turned down the throttle. It would seem
tbea that the only thing that could happen
would be a coil spin. What Mr. Harrison pic-
tures would indeed occur if the plane were^
traveiliog on an even ked at the rioie ^ pilot
turned down the throttle. But a plane headed
upward would not be apt to go into a nose
dive. We appreciate, anyway, his cridcism.^
Editor,)
(Corttintted em Pdgf 466)
468
AIR WONDER STORIES
THE READER AIRS HIS UIEWS
{C 0 ntinued jrom Pagf 467)
"Beyond Gravity” a Disgrace?
EJittr, AIR WONDER STORIES:
I am an enthusiastic reader of both Air
Wonder Stories and Sobnce Wonder Stories.
I have jusr read the September issue of the for-
mer, afid enjoyed it immensely, but I would like
to offer my criticism which I hope you will
cake in the spirit in which it is given.
I find that almost all of the stories are scien-
tifically well-founded, but the great trouble is
(hat there are very few men with great literary
ability combined with a broad scientific knowl-
edge. For example, as far as literature goes,
"Beyond Gravity," in the August issue, was a
disgrace to the name of story. Its science was
O.K. ; but I assure you 1 have read beaer
stories from the pens of grade-school children.
The idea of a man’s falling in love with a
girl, like he did, is absolutely ridiculous. Mr.
Repp seemed to imply that their engagement was
a sure thing from the first. My advice to au-
thors who cannot do any better than chat is to
stick to science and leave love-making to some-
one who can handle it.
"The Ark of the Covenant,** by Victor Mac-
Clure, is a corker. If more stories could be
like k I would have no complaint, but I realize
how hard it must be for you to find authors
like Mr. MacClure. I suggest that if you can-
not find more like him, you enlarge upon your
"Aviation News of the Month" depanment, and
have more praaical ardcles like the one on
"The Airplane of the Future." That alone was
worth the price of the magazine, and one or
two like it every month would put your maga-
zine on a much higher level.
Why don’t you have a story contest and
uncover some new talent (which I am sure you
would) rather than publish some of the punk
stuff I have referred to?
Counney R. Draper,
352 So. 21th Street,
Salt Lake City, Utah.
(We are not sure whether Mr. Draper objects
chiefly to Mr. Repp's method of portraying a
courtship, or whether to bis literary style also.
If it is ^e former, we must rise in Mr. Repp’s
defence to state that with the collapse of Vic-
torianism, love-making has undergone a complete
change. *rhere is no definite method or formula
that one can rely on, and Mr. Repp merely
wanted to Illustrate one method. Personally we
enjoyed it.
The story contest has already been starred. Mr.
Draper will find it in the November issue of
Science Wonder Stories, where it is being
worked out in a very novel manner. We expect
great things from it. — Editor,)
The Energy Within the Atom?
Editor, Air Wonder Storiesx
As I make my debut as a critic I must say
that your magazine (mine also, now) is the
best of the old and new aviation magazines now
on the stands. Up to the present, I have de-
rived much entertainment and, I believe, some
education, from the stories. I do not deplore the
"impossible" stories; as some of your other
readers "pretend" to because they cannot grasp
the new theories brought up. In faa there are
many theories I am not able to take in but that
does not spoQ my enjoyment of these stories
written so iocerestiogly with soaring imaginations.
When I say that I cannot grasp or take in a
far-reaching new idea, I mean that it is not
possible for me to "picture" its form although
I may understand and appreciate its possibilities.
Take the condition of weightlessness for exam-
ple; my mind is not able to think long about
this without beginning to topple.
Once I thought that only trouble-makers com-
plained about minor mistakes; such as a sen-
tence construction, where an entirely different con-
struction appears in the midst of a story at an
interesting point, upsetting the entire meaning.
Now, however, I join the ranks of, not the
^’trouble makers" as I once called than, but the
ranks the construarve critics as I now call
them. Minor flaws show me that the author
of the story in which they appear (the flaws)
is not a particxilarly good writer. Bur the real
reason I do not like these errors, (I have been
evading a good deal, haven’t 1?) is that they
jar upon my senses and thus curtail my immedi-
ate enjoyment and ^preciation of the story.
The "Aviation News" d^anment is a great
idea. Although one or two articles appearing
may be old, the new news of aviation's progress
compensates quite capably for it and overshadows
it overwhelmingly. I would rather get all this
information from this one magnificent aviation
science-fiction magazine than from forty non-
fiction and most likely dry and drab scientific jour-
nals — as one of your readers has written you
that we, the ocher readers should do.
I chink that the "Aviation Forum" is another
good means of establishing favor among us
readers. Just the same I think that this depart-
ment is incompetent. I'd bet chat these two
questions, chough simple in appearance and of
great interest to all of your followers, cannot be
answered in the columns of the "Aviation
Forum.'*
How is an airplane controlled during scan-
jng and in the air?
How does an airplane motor function?
Now I’ve changed my mind; I think that
these questions can be answered but not com-
pletely enough to satisfy my lack of knowledge
on this subjea. If all your readers saw this
there would soon reach your files some one’s
written opinion corresponding to and meaning,
something like this: "Enough is enough ; this
guy wanes too much." Isn’t it so? (This is
meant as a compliment, and nothing else.)
The book reviews are quite good but I am not
much interested in them and I would nor be
heanbroken if they were omitted in order to
have more space for the "Aviacioo Fortim."
(Continued on Page 471)
PawPs Clover illustrations
Reproduction Originals
IN WATER COLORS -
Thousands of readers have praised the work of the great artist Paul — and
thousands have asked us to sell them the original covers — but not until
recently have we been able to satisfy this demand.
Now, reproduction originals in water colors of all the forthcoming
covers of AIR WONDER STORIES can be had at an astonishin^y
low price by our readers. These covers are exactly the same size
as the artist's painting {18" x 2}") and made with the same 13
full colors that were used in making the original. There is no
printed matter whatever on the cover as you will note by the
illustration at the right. Covers are made of heavy flexible mat
board which makes them well deserving of a frame — a suitable
picture to be hung in any home, classroom or clubhouse.
The subjeas, while both educational and scientific, may
appear fantastic now but in future years will be a reality.
Predictions of Jules Verne, H. G. Wells and others
that have come true — actual happenings in everyday life.
1
Prepaid
Surely you will be happy to own one
of Paul’s full-sized cover illustra-
tions — tell yout friends of this op-
ponunity. Send only one dollar and
the reproduction original tvill be
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(Canada and foreign $1.23).
1
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Young lady bolding a full size reproduction original which is four
times the usual magazine cover exactly as it will be mailed to you.
AIR WONDER STORIES
469
CLIPPINGS
The Chmic Spirit of America’s Press
Here’s to Clippings-"
W E arc indebted to CLIPPINGS, a new monthly magazine, for a lot of
laughs. Do you know CLIPPINGS? No? Well, it is a new magazine
published by one of our star humorists, and we have no hesitation in
saying that there are as many or more laughs to the page than in almost any
other magazine you may pick up. The editor takes the cream of the humor
from other publications, clips them (there’s where CLIPPINGS gets its name)
and adds his own comment, whimsical, mirthful, sad or what have you. What-
ever the comment is, it goes like an arrow to the mark and gives you a laugh or
stores up a new thought. Life at best is a sad old game, and we maintain that
anyone or anything that can give you an added laugh a day is fulfilling a mighty
worthy mission. The next time you pass a newsstand get a copy. If you don’t
get yourself a lot of laughs we will personally refund the money you paid for
CLIPPINGS. That’s going some when you figure that your editor is a Scot and
prying a penny lose from him is like blowing over a mountain with a summer
zephyr.
(From The Illinois Motorist)
CLIPPINGS
Beginning with the September, 1929 issue, CLIPPINGS
switched from quarterly publication to monthly. The demand
for the early issues as a quarterly did the tricL
Everybody enjoys seeing a serious problem smacked in the eye
with a few well-directed loose-baked pies I Out-worn conven-
tions, and holier-than-thou-hypocrisy should get it in the neck —
and CLIPPINGS, The Comic Spirit of America’s Press, is do-
ing the necking! CLIPPINGS has a future as one of the fun-
niest books on the stands and simply because so many funny
things are pulled off in the course of a year. The editors keep
their eyes open and their tongues in their cheeks. The readers
eat it up.
(From a Contemporary Publication)
Special Offer to New Subscribers
New subscribers are the life of our
party (any advertiser will tell you
that) just as the regular reader of
CLIPPINGS becomes the life of any
party (and why not with such a sup-
ply of “nifties” and bon mots). Our
offer to new subscribers is interesting.
We will send you CLIPPINGS for
six months beginning with the October
issue for one dollar. Get that? Six
months of lively reading, of barbs
sweetened with honey and honey
spiked with barbs.
Now, to business. Unless you fill in
the coupon below and attach it to your
dollar, this bright piece of advertising
literature is a flop. Do it now, while
the thought is fresh in your mind.
SPECIAL
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' Enter my subscription to CLIPPINGS for six months
beginning with the October issue. My dollar is attached.
Name
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470
AIR WONDER STORIES
NEW SCIENCE FICTION SERIES
City
Brand New Series
We are presenting to our readers the first six numbers
of our new Science Fiction Stories* These small bookSf
illustrated by artist Paul, are printed on a good grade
of paper and are sold at a low price, due to the large
amount put out. New ones will be issued from time
to time.
REMEMBER THESE ARE BRAND NEW
STORIES AND HAVE NOT BEEN PUBLISH-
ED BEFORE IN ANY MAGAZINE. THEY
CAN ONLY BE SECURED THROUGH THE
SCIENCE FICTION SERIES.
Every book contains but a single story by a
well-known science fiction author. The type
is large and well-readable, and the size of
each book is 6x8 in., which makes it
convenient to carry in your podret.
Below you will find a list of the first
six books. Your choice of five books
for 50c or the entire six books for
60c prepaid. . Not less than five
books sold.
1— THE GIRL FROM MARS
By Jack Williamson and Miles J,
Breuer
Suppose some one from an-
other planet landed on our
earth. What would happen?
“The Girl from Mars," is an
adventure of a Martian visi-
tor, with all the strange
situations that one can
imagine in such an event.
2— THE THOUGHT
PROJECTOR
By David H. KeUer. M.D.
'The power of suggestion on the human mind forma
the basis of "The Thought Projector." Ideas re-
peated over and over exert a great force on
us. They penetrate our minds and give us ideas
that we often think are our own.
3— AN ADVENTURE IN VENUS
By R. Michelmore
Aviation five hundred or a thousand years hence
will probably be something beyond most of our
present conceptions. Journeys to other planets
may well become a commonplace as it does m
the present story.
4— WHEN THE SUN WENT OUT
By Leslie Stone
The sun is said to be slowly cooling, and
generations many thousands of years hence
must face the problem of how their heat
and light is to be provided when the sun*s
end does come. In this thrilling story,
Leslie Stone an.swers that question.
5— THE BRAIN OF THE
PLANET
By Lilith Lorraine
If a super-intelligence could have
hs wisdom poured into our brains,
what a different world we might
have. Miss Lorraine poses such i
problem and works oat the answer
in an astounding manner.
fr— WHEN THE MOON FELL
By Charles H. CoUaday
Collisions between celestial bodies of
any size have not occurred within his-
torical times. But such an event is not ah
impossibility. In fact many astronomers be-
lieve that our solar system came into being
by such a oollision. ^^ose the moon were
to crash into the earth. What would happen?
_ STELLAR PUBLISHING CORP..
J 9.W..I1 98 Park Place, New York, N. Y.
■ Gentlemen;
- I am mcloelnff herewith $ ..for which
* pleaee send me prepaid borts which I have
* marked with an X;
S [ ] 1 THE GIRL FROM MARS
] 2 THE THOUGHT PROJECTOR
) 8 AN ADVENTURE IN VENUS
] 4 WHEN THE SUN WENT OUT
] 5 THE BRAIN OF THE PLANET
] 6 WHEN THE MOON FELL
Name
Addreas
........State
AIR WONDER STORIES
471
THE READER AIRS HIS VIEWS
(Continued from Page 468)
Please do noc fold the magazine when you
send me the succeeding issues; the binding and
the pages are ruined and the cover is almost
completely bent and tom when the magazine
reaches me. 1 should also like you to rkrain
from folding the magazines Science Wonder
Stories and Science Wonder Quarterly to
which I have recently subscribed.
(This has already been rectihed.^Edicor.)
There is one thing that I do not like to see
in any magazine and which appears in/ An
Wonder Stories ; that is. serials of more than
two parts. The reason for this is clear. In
one month many things are forgotten including
the first or second part of a serial; therefore I
save the several parts of each serial until the
whole is obtained. To wait a month to put a
story together is a long time, two months are
interminable ; and more chan that is without
expression.
The kinds of stories I should like to find in
Air Wonder Stories are:
1. Interplanetary Stories.
2. New Fads in Present-Day Aviation.
3. Air Mystery Stories.
4. Humorous Air Stories of the Future.
3. Humorous Mystery Air Stories.
I shall now proceed to give a short criticism
of the stories printed up to now.
Islands in the Air — Excellent. But I thought
that the islands were neutralized against gravity
with the aid of a machine on the ground.
How did the remaining Island fly off into space
lost forever?
The Beacon of Airport Seven — Quick action
on a new theory. The story was greatly ap-
preciated.
The Bloodless War — Well-written and I en*
joyed it. But why would the United States be
so unprepared for aerial war and unwilling to
listen to reason at first? But of course that lent
spice to the story.
Men With Wings — An example of excellence
and nothing else but, in all its aspects.
The Silent Destroyer^K very, very good science
— aviatior^^fiction story that I liked very much.
Beyond Gravity — ^A marvelous story In a marvel-
ous magazine.
The Planefs Air Master — The best story of
them all.
The Airplane of ti^e Future — I appreciated this
article in such a magazine.
The Yellow Air Peril — Ah. marvel of marvels.
This author cannot be downed. I must bow
down to his greatness. The story is unsur-
passed.
Where Gravity ffn^/^Excellent for Its size. A
baby grand.
Plight in 1999 — This story is as good as ad-
vertised. I liked its new ideas ; while with
its underlying humor it became topping.
One machination I think all your authors and
many scientists have got wrong is the atomic
engine; not in the form of the engine but in
the theory itself. I chink that the energy in an
atom is not sufficient to move a grain of sand —
hardly a large machine moving and controlling
a gigantic airship or landship. My theory is
this: an atom has a great amount of energy but
that energy can only be dissipated through an
infinitely small space. In a hydraulic press there
are two pistons ; one small and one large piston.
The small piston is pushed down to operate the
press. When this is done, the pressure exened
on the large piston by the water is as many
times greater, as the area of the large piston is
greater than that of the small piston. How-
ever. the large piston is only moved a distance
equal to the volume of the small piston in cubic
units divided by the area of the large piston.
If in a hydraulic press the area of the small
piston is 30 $q. in., the area of the large piston
is 1,000 sq. in., the ^lume of the smdl piston
is 1300 cu. in. and a pressure of 100 lbs. is
exerted on the small piston ; what pressure is
exerted on the large piston by the water in the
press, and how far will the large piston move
in one movement?
As the pressure on the large piston is de-
termined by multiplying the pressure exerted on
the small piston by the amount of times the area
of the large piston is greater than the area of
the small piston, and the area of the targe piston
is 1000 sq. in., and the area of the small piston
is 30 sq. in., then the pressure on the large
piston is 1000 -r 30 X 100 thus equalling 2000
lbs.
But since the distance the large piston will be
moved is determined by dividing the volume of
the small piston by the area of the surface of
the large piston being acted upon by the water,
and the volume of the small piston being 1300
cu. in., and the area of the pressure surface of the
large jiiston being 1000 sq. in., then the distance
it will move will be 1300 1000 or 1.3 in.
Now suppose it possible for the small piston to
be the size of an atom which has, let us say
for convenience, one two-millionth of one inch
as length, width, and depth respectively. The
large piston will be the size of an imaginary
piston of an imaginary atomic engine, say about
60 square inches area on the pressure surface.
If the small piston representing an atom had a
force of 1.000,000 pounds exerted upon it (in an
atom by the movement of its electrons) and in
one minute is to develop 30,000 horsepower (or
since one honepower is 33.000 foot-pounds per
minute, it is to develop an amount of power of
30,000 X 33,000 or 1,630,000,000 foot-pounds
per minute) the requirement of power in an
atomic engine that would drive a gigantic air-
liner of the future, would this power be de-
veloped?
Even for an atomic engine requiring only 3
horsepower there would be needed at least 2,400,*
000,000 atoms.
Therefore it is my final conclusion: That it
is not possible or practical to run so-called atomic
engines by isolating the atom and so therefore
it is equally impossible and impractical to run
any other type of engine by this method. That
because of the inability to use this method the
only solution is t(^ increase the efficiency of ma-
chines to a very high degree and to obtain fuel
for these machines by transmutation of the
atoms of valueless materials into fuel. (I be-
lieve that transmutation of the atom will come
about.)
In closing this long and interesting ? ? ? let-
ter I wish to say that I won’t mind if your
authors keep on using the atomic engine in their
stories and I want you to keep up the good
work getting better and better with each suc-
cessive issue and if possible I should like you
to publish this letter in "THE READER AIRS
HIS VIEWS" so that my astounding (?) revela-
tions about the atomic engine might be read by
all to be criticised and correaed if I am wrong
in my statements on this' subject.
Edward Sheinberg,
Arverne, L. I.,
New York.
(We were very much interested to get Mr.
Sheinberg’s ingenious development of the "en-
ergy within the atom" question. But Mr. Shein-
berg approaches the question from the wrong
end when he seeks to discover the "pressure"
that an atom would exen against a piston.
The energy within the atom is purely the
kinetic energy of the electrons revolving about
their nucleii. The velocity, for the sake of com-
putation, may be assumed to be 100,000 miles
per second or 328.000,000 feet per second. Now
if it were possible to utilize chat kinetic energy
by turning it into another form (as the kinetic
energy of the particles of steam is used to rotate
turbine blades) we would have the energy ex-
pressed by the equation E = MV^/2 where V is
the velocity and M is the mass of electrons. Let
it be assumed that we have one pound weight
of electrons to give up their energy.
The energy in foot pounds in a pound of our
electrons would be 0.30 X 328,000.000 X 326.-
000,000 o6 139,392,000,000,000,000 foot pounds.
This is enough energy to raise the 60,000 ton
Leviathan 1,161,600,000 feet or 220,000 miles;
nearly the distance to the moon. It can be
readily perceived therefore that the statement that
a thimbleful of water could drive an airship is
no exaggeration. We would be very glad to
get the cmnments of our readers on this most
interesting question.
Firully Mr. Sheinberg in his own manner
really has proved the case of the energy within
the atom. He says that 2,400,000,000 atoms
would be required to give five horsepower to an
engine. Now the volume of 2,400,000,000 atoms
is so infinitesimal that it could not be seen by
a microscope. There are 83,000,000,000,000,000,-
000,000 atoms of copper in one cubic centimeter.
So, according to Mr. Sheinberg^s conclusion, one
cubic centimeter of copper could furnish about i
40,000,000,000,000 horsepower. <^ite a respect- |
able amount of power. — Editor,)
(Continued on Page 473)
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472
AIR WONDER STORIES
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AIR WONDER STORIES
THE READER AIRS HIS
VIEWS
{Centinutd from Page 471)
Could Not Blow That Far
Editor, Air Wonder Storiet:
I have received the September issue of Air
Wonder Stories and read it through. In the
comments on "The Reader Airs his Views" you
said that you missed the familiar brickbat. Well,
here goes.
In the fint place, the paper is too thick. It
makes the magazine too thick and unwieldly, and
it tears too easily at the staples. Also, you
should use more staples ; the magazine comes
apart too readily as it is. Again: please print
the full addresses of the contributors to "The
Reader Aits his Views" and "The Reader
Speaks." The August issue of Science Wonder
Stories contained a letter describing a Science
Correspondence Club, but Mr, Maloire’s address
was not given in full. How can anyone who is
interested in the club get in touch with it? And
you said you would do all in your power to help
the club. One more: The wrapping of the
magazine is too flimsy.
That will do for the make-up of the magazine
for the present. Most of the stories were good,
with a few minor exceptions. "The Ark of the
Covenant" was by far the best. I have never
read a better story of the air and never expect
to. "Flight in 1999" was also fine. Mr, Mor-
row’s second attempt was better than the first.
"Men With Wings" was a well-wriaen story;
but there is some doubt as to whether the human
organism could uphold the skeletal and muscu-
^ ■ £ ' ' t * d * ^ ' A * d h 'i t. '' i t * 'i t ' 't' " i t' ' I *
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? This magazine specializes in inter-
^ planetarian science fiction and the
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first issue contains the following
marvellous stories:
"The Shot into Infinity,” by Otto
Willi Gail;
"The Artificial Man," by Clare
Winger Harris;
"The Hidden World,” by Edmond
Hamilton;
4* "The Gravitational Deflector,” by
J Harry D. Parker.
^ Do not miss the initial issue
now on all newsstands.
lar structure oecessary for wings without grave
changes. However, what is important in a story
is the story itself.
In "Beyond Gravity" a ship with rocket
propulsion is caught out in space beyond the
earth’s gravitational field. Why didn’t they use
the rocket cubes to come back? No up-wind
could blow them that far. anyway.
1 hope that you will accept these comments
with the good feeling with which I write them,
and keep on publishing a bigger and better
magazine.
Clyde F. Beck.
Box 486.
Lakeport, California.
(What Mr. Repp meant by "Beyond Gravity"
was not literally that the Annihilator was taken
beyond the earth's gravitational influence for
many thousands of miles would have to be
traversed into space before such a thing could
occur. What he did mean was that the up-
draft was so powerful that it more than overcame
the force of gravity. Such a thing occurs when
a tornado lifts up trees, houses, automobiles and
cattle. The only difference is that the up-draft
constituted a permanent force, whereas a tor-
nado after it has passed over an area allows the
bodies to fall back to eanh. Raymond A.
Palmer is secretary of the Science Correspondence
Club. His address is 2226 Vine St., Milwaukee.
Wis.—
(Continued on Page 474)
473
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474
AIR WONDER STORIES
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THE READER AIRS HIS
VIEWS
(Continued from Page 475)
A Reader’s OMrespondence Page
Editor^ Air Wonder Stories:
Congraculations — mainly because every issue
seems to be outdoing its piedecessor. I am inter-
ested, not only io the fine stories that are being
published, but also in the readers’ ideas on them.
Id looldog over the comments in Septem-
ber issue. I noticed a great deal of comment
over '’Men With Wings.” 1 will say that it is
one of the finest stories of its type that I have
ever read. The feature of its being written by
a young woman only increases my admiration.
"The Ark of the Covenant” is another fine
story and deserves to rank with the leaders.
What could you eatpect from Victor MacClure?
I think the stories of this issue should be
ranked as follows: "The Air Terror," "The
Yellow Air Peril,'" "Where Gravity Ends," and
lastly "Flight in 1999." For some reason or
other the last did not appeal to me. The plot
did not seem well knit. The ideas were splendid
and I chink a much more interesting story could
have been built around them. Of course, chat
is my idea.
Now come a few thoughts suggested by my
fertile imagination. Why not have a page
whereby readers might 'be able to correspond with
each other? Although Air Wondbr Stories is
a growing magazine everyone is not air-minded
and I should like to correspond with some fel-
lows about sixteen who have their own ideas on
these stories.
Here comes a new thought. It may have al-
ready been expressed. 1 have always been an
ardent admirer of stories from the pen of Edgar
Rice Burroughs. Nothing would please me more
than an aviation story of the future by him.
His Martian stories show chat he would have no
trouble at all io penning a loosing story for our
magazine.
Here’s looking forward to the same high grade
stories and an Air Wonder Quarterly.
Normaa £. MacbesoDp
Frankford, Pa.
(We have received requests for so many new
departmeocs for our mogazino chat we must go
slowly. We are however very glad c# get this
suggestion. The request for stories from the pen
of Edgar Rice Burroughs is also under coosidera-
tioQo^Editor.)
Fact and Fiction
Editor, Air Wonder Stories:
Reading your criticism of my letter published
io the September issue, I find your complatnc
as to receiving letters with nothing but praise
in them for Air Wonder Stories. But Mr.
Gernsback — what can a fellow do? I admit that
you receive brickbats from indignant writen, but
1 am neither a misanthrope nor a halfwit. No
allusions to the casters of brickbats, BUT!
1 got a hearty laugh out of the flying figures
on the September *cover, illustrating "Flight in
1999." You see, all ^ them had their arms
extended in a peculiarly laughable manner, and
I was reminded of a friend of mine who broke
an arm and had it in a cast over his head.
Everybody he looked at waved bade at him.
I was afraid that you would crowd out stories
with new departments ; but this you have not
done, io spice of Jack Datrow’s remarks.
"Where Gravity Ends” left me in a peculiarly
helpless and bemused condition. I couldn’t un-
derstand it. Did it, or was it, or has it hap-
pened? About the only way I can tell a fiction
story from a true article is to read the first
paragraph. You see. I'll find, "Although this
story may sound incredible, I beg you to believe
that it is solemn truth, and for God's sake
take action on it and rescue me" and so on and
so on; and at last "to be continued in our next.”
That’s fiction, in case you don’t know it.
Oh, Bob Olsen. You have broken my heart.
I mean with chat story, "Flight in 1999.” I
don't know why, bne I didn’t like it. In fact,
it disagreed with me intensely. I would rather
read one of your fourth-dimensional stories any
day. Take the hint. Only one thing for Mor-
row. He is GOOD.
When I first read Air Wonder Storibr, it
affeaed me so much that I wrote a 'Comic avia-
tion story about a rocket-plane. The usual thing
{Continued on Page 475)
AIR WONDER STORIES
475
THE READER AIRS HIS VIEWS
(Continued from Page AlA)
occurred. One of my friends (?) told me that
it was the greatest tragedy of a generation. And
if rd written a tragedy they'd have rocked with
laughter.
So 1 read ’em instead.
I’m not the only one who made that mistake
about Leslie Stone. And for that matter, 1
don’t expea this letter to hod you alive. For
one Fred Pecenoa asked for Leslie's age and you
told him! Whether k was right or not don't
matter, as no man can safely tell the age of
a member of the oppoake see. Have you for-
gotten what our old friend. Dr. Haekensaw, re-
marked to Pop, ’There are two things it doesn't
pay to monkey widi; one is a buzz-saw and the
other is a womao’s age.** I hope Leslie doesn't
live in New York; and anyway, look oot for
infernal machines. I'm not giviog my address
for the same reason.
When I found the Sept, issue of **our maga-
zine" on a newsstand it was upside down. Per-
haps that aflecied the name plate causing it to
go into a side slip? Kindly advise.
Henry Kuttner, Jr.,
Los Angeles, Calif.
(We are always glad to get letters from Mr.
Kuttner. They are alive, witty and charming.
As he will notice a great many leners appearing
in the present issue begin by remarking ^at we
asked for "brick-bats" and now we are getting
them.
So the reqnest we made in answering Mr.
Kunner's letter was successful after all.
We feh that airplanes do not always fly on
an "even keel." fn fan they are always at an
angle when banking and making a turn. Air
Wonder Stories are always making a turn [for
the betterj.
"Where Gravity Ends" b one of those pow-
erful little bits of haion that are written so
realistically that they do convey the idea of
reality, llie "newspaper eloping" of coarse was
only to give the verisimilitude necessary. — Editor.)
* T’
Hi
F yon mjoy AIR WONDER STORIES,
you must read of SCIENCE WON-
DER S’rORIBS, Sta aiater magaziae.
tn SCIENCE WONDER STORIES you
Witt find all of the good euthora who
anita for AIR WONDER STORIES, and
there are many atorlea that deal with
aviation and, particularly, apaea dying
and intenlanetarian trips. Be aure to
get the November isaoe now on all newa-
itanda and read about the ^300 short,
SHORT Story Contest whch you can en-
ter. Table of contanta followa:
'^The Phantom Teleview," by Bob Olsen
**The KlHng Flash," by Hugo Gemsback
**The Gold Triumvirate,*' by Walter
Kateley
"The Human Termites,** by D. H.
Kallar, M.D.
"The Green IntelHgenca,** by Harley S.
Aldinger
"The Stellu Missile, by Ed. Earl Repp
us again. His story "Islands in the Air" was
very good, but "The Air Terror" is still very
much better.
All the other stories published in this maga-
zine are good, but there is not enough room
and time to discuss each one.
The aviation questionnaire will be much, better
if you will also print the answers.
Paul is surely turning out some wonderful
cover illustrations lately.
Thomas Mania,
Lansing, Mich,
(Mr. Morris should remember that the future
includes a long time. Although we do believe
that in the long run the rocket plane will be
the ultimate type, still the development of the
prt^ller plane is going on and planes such as
were pictured in the "Airplane of the Future"
will undoubtedly be built. It has frequeody
been true that two types of machines, of all
kinds, have been developed side by side for a
long time before one type finally superseded the
ocber.~£dr/ef.)
df
d*
d*
d»
d*
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>*•
u*
>►
>►
*
Fiction Alone Is Silly
Editor, Ah Wonder Storiesx
I have been reading with mteresc your Septon-
ber Air Wonder Stories. I surely admire Mac-
Clure, for his wonderful detail and technic in
this month's "Ark."
Some of his points are fine, but his plan of
steering a gas cloud, around with a high-ten-
sion current, is sure going some.
I fail to agree with Mr. Darrow of Chicago
with regard to the ’’Aviation Forum." and
"News." Fiction unless backed by some sense
and reason, is silly and worthless, as well as
pernicious.
W. H. Plumicy,
Kansas City, Mo.
(We do not agree with Mr. Plumley entirely
that fiaion must always be backed by non-fiaion
material to make it worth while. But in the
case of science fiction, where the aim is to edu-
cate and stimulate as well as entertain, we will
say unqualifiedly that any informative material
added to the fiction pages helps to carry out the
magazine's purpose. This view is in accord with
that of the majority of our readers. — Editor.)
The Airplane of the Future
Editor, Air Wonder Stories:
The first "brickbat" I shall throw will be
at you. In your editorial you stress the point
that rocket engines will be the future means of
propulsion used by airplanes, and then on the
next page you give a description of the airplane
of the future, and never mention the rocket.
The "Aviation Forum” meets with my hearty
approval. It will probably settle many argu-
ments between "would be" aviators, and answer
many questions for the benefit of all readers of
Air Wonder Stories.
The "Aviation News of the Month" is a very
useful department. Although there are times
when an item which appears under that heading
may be known to seme, the majority of them
are news.
Victor MacClurc's "Ark of the Covenant" is
by far the best science atr-fktion story which
has appeared in this magazine, and is one of
the best stories I have ever read.
Bob Olsen sure gives one a very good idea
of what life in 1999 will probably be kke. It
may not be too absurd to hope chat some of us
will live to see in reality the scenes pictured
in his story.
I see Lowell Howard Morrow is back with
From an Eleven Year Old Girl
Editor, Air Wonder Stories:
Whew what a book! A few nights ago I
bought my first copy. That night I got quite
a few thrills. The stories are wonderful.
"The Ark of the Covenant," I enjoyed.
"The Air Terror," by Lowell Howard Morrow,
"Plight in 1999," by Bob Olsen, I think were
best. Please have some more stories like them.
1 was disappointed in the "Air Terror" that
the hero didn't marry Miss Brandon.
The "Yellow Air Peril," I thought was thrill-
ing.
I think I could repeat the "Air Terror,"
"Flight in 1999," and "Where Gravity Ends,"
by heart.
When I go to college I am going to take
science as one of my studies. I think it very
interesting. I don’t know a thing about an
airplane, but would like to learn.
Why do the good men in stories either get
stabbed, shot, poked with a bloody poker or
disappear, when some one shouts something at
them?
1 really didn't see why the Captain or Borden
had to get killed in the "Yellow Air Peril,"
I'll have to wait a whole month before I
can get another "Air Wonder" book.
It’s terribly hard to wait.
Couldn’t you have some more Science maga-
zines put on the market? I would be one of
the willing buyers. Please do.
Please answer this question. Why do you
want criticisms when you can always ga com-
pUments?
Why in the world don’t you have more stories
in it? They’re entirely too few, and too short.
Also ! Please try and see if the author of
"Where Gravity Ends," won’t write a sequel.
Mary Cameron Bassett
Dallas, Texas.
(This is quite an ioteresriog letter to get
from a young girl who, we, believe is only 11
years old. It betrays an unusual interest in sci-
(Continued on Page 476)
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THE READER AIRS HIS
VIEWS
{Continued from Page 473)
ence and gives us hope that in the future, as
many science fiction authon have indicated, wo-
men as well as men will produce our scientific
marvels. We recommend to Miss Bassett a study
of the life of Madame Curie who discovered
the propenies of radium. It will be quite in-
spirational.
It is too bad that men must be killed in bat-
tle and that heroes cannot marry heroines. But
unfortunately '’that's the way life is.'*
If wd desist from putting out more magazines
it's only because of the pleas of our readers.
They tell us chat if we do publish more they
will have to buy them and it will keep them
broke. However every now and then we will
publish mote science fiction books such as the
six books now available so that those who want
them may have them.
it is only wisdom on our part that causes us
to ask for criticism. There is nothing so de-
structive CO editorial morale as a "swelled head."
We must have our readers watching us carefully
and writing us our misdeeds so that we may
always be kept alert and watchful.
We invite Miss Bassett to write us anytime the
mood seizes her. Afid, perhaps, some day she can
be Induced to write us a good "brickbat."**
Editor , )
Adventure Necessary to Science
Fiction
Editor, Ah XPonder Storiesx
Not wishing to mutilate my magazine. I gm
writing criticism below.
Com — Excellent drawing, but subject is rather
ill-chosen.
Table of Concents — Too much "nexr month"
and not enough "this month."
Editorial — Just so-so.
"Airplane of the Future"-^Good ides. Hate
til article in nearly every issue.
"Yellow Air Peril"— Very good.
This is the kind of story you need. Has g
good, exciting plot and does not make science
the whole point of the story,
"Ark of the Covenant" — See criticism of "Yel-
low* Air Peril."
"Air Terror"— Much better chan "Islands in
the Air." Hasn't exactly an original plot, but
is thrillingly told.
i "Flight in 1999"**01d! get-the-money-Just-in-
time-pay-off-che-moitgage" plot. Good attention
to small details. (Game of "Machic." name
system, etc.)* Fairly interesting.
I "Where Gravity Ends" — Good idea and maybe
a good story could have been worked out. but
nothing happens. The small "newspaper clip-
ping" praaically cells the entire story.
Why not leave out some parts of some letters
iyou print? There are very many parts that are
of interest to only you and ^e writer in a
great deal of the letters sent in. If only pans
,were published, more letters could be used.
How about printing "Flying Death." a book,
by Edwin Balmer? (E. Balmer is one half of
the "Balmer, MacHarg" team, 1 believe).
"Flying Death" is somewhat like "The Blood-
less War." only much more developed.
Don't, PLEASE, put out an Aia Wonder
.Quarterly.
i Air Wonder Stories gets better and better,
jevery issue.
] I think it would be well to cut down on
["Latest Air News" dep'c,
"Air Forum" is a good idea.
H. Bugg.
Oakland, Cal.
("The Flying Death" has not come to our
acteocion before but we will investigate its pos-
I ^sibilities. The careful analysis given here is ap-
preciated. We agree that science should not
be the entire basis of a story. The emotions,
reactions and adventures of human beings will
always hold a great interest for us. And after
all the study of psychology is in itself a science;
and where the motives of people are laid bare,
a bit of science has been developed.— £i;V(7r.)
I Another Case of Conversion
Editor, Air Wonder Stories:
Before your magazine came out I had been
reading one very similar to it. Since I am only
eleven I am not very well fit to criticise your
magazine. "Flight in 1999" and the "Human
{Continued on Page 477)
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AIR WONDER STORIES
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THE READER AIRS HIS
VIEWS
(Continued from Page 476)
Termites*' are the best stories I have read in your
magazine so far. The '‘Ark of die Covenant"
is a very good story only it is too much like
"Nowadays." Being interested in science your
cover design first led me to your magazine, but
I was disappointed by finding very little chem-
istry in your magazine, most of it is physics and
electricity. I tried to get my older brother to
read your stories; (and that was some >ob).
After reading your magazine you couldn’t get
him away from it. I am sending in a subscrip-
tion. Here’s hopes for a weekly Science and
Air Wonder Stories.
Won’t Eugene Dow. Jr., from Amesburg,
Mass., please communicate with me?
Bernard Dryer.
681 Capitol Ave..
Bridgepoir, Conn.
(We are glad to hear of> the power of con-
version of a younger brother over an older. It
speaks well for young Mr. Dryer’s enthusiasm
and sincerity.
Stories on chemistry do occasionally come to
us but we too would like to have more of
them. — Editor,)
English and American Heroes
Editor, Air Wonder Stories:
Have just completed reading No. 3 of your
magazine. September issue in other words. Best
story is, *’^^ere Gravity Ends" as that story
is more than just a wonder tale, it’s so very
dramatic and real. The story is nearer our
understanding because the happenings were sup-
posed to have taken place in our time and the
hero is not one of these impossible super-men
most of the other stories contain. And there is
no happy ending. Am watching out for more
stories of this type and author. Next best story
is, of course, the "Ark of the Covenant." It.
too, is not too far from our times and what’s
more, has such good writing to its favor. The
author is a real writer, something that cannot
be said of the remaining authors whose stories
appeared in Sept, issue. Just to combine a lot
of childish notions like spacemobiles and that
sort of things with a pathetic 10c novel ending
with: "'The home is saved." does not make a
real Air Wonder Story. Readers want first:
A good plot, second: — interesting and daring
(but not the imaginations of a six year old
kid) and new "air wonders." third:— if possi-
ble. a little consideration for today’s problems,
in other words leave out stories about "race
wars" and the like, as it isn’t good nor wise
to play with fire!
Wonder why in the "Ark of the Covenant"
all the principal charaaers are either English
or English'Americans. Surely, a few Germans
might have come in handy since the "Ark" is,
after all. just an improved Zeppelin and that
type of dirigible has Germany as its background.
But perhaps the story was written a number of
years ago and the ajithor didn’t dare ....
You see, any balloon with an engine as its driv-
ing power is a dirigible. But a balloon with
the shape of a cigar and possessing a metal
structure (in other words a balloon with a back-
bone) and driven by motors is a Zeppelin, being
named after its inventor, the late Graf Zeppelin.
As I have said before, the "Ark of the Cove-
nant" is a corker) So is the author even though
he seems to be inclined to give all credit of
deeds and happenings in his tale to the English
and English-Americans. Well, we should worry!
The magazine is okay, only the paper is bad.
Why not print your stories on real paper in-
stead of blotting paper? It would be so much
better for the eyes. Arthur H. Welter,
Clean, N. Y.
(Viaor MacClure gave us such a splendid
story that we would hardly quarrel with him
because he had the crew of the Ark all Eng-
lish or Americans. Mr. MacClure is, we be-
lieve. a Scotchman and as might have been
noticed he compliments his kinsmen occasionally.
However he might be pardoned for being panial
to his own nationals. There is another point
in connection with that. As you could observe
in the Ark’s crew, all the men were well known
to one or more members. A select crew was
an absolute essential to the success of the under-
taking. Therefore inasmuch os the instigators
of the League were Englishmen and Ameiicans
it is natural that the crew should be picked
from those nationals.— £d/V<>r.)
(Continued on Page 478)
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Hours of pleasant pastime are well spent in reading stories
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THE READER AIRS HIS
VIEWS
(Continued from Page 477)
Plane to Fly Backward
Editor, dir bonder Storia:
Yoar flugisiae '*An Womdk Stokibs*’ sure
« a "’Wow/*
1 was aw*f sc cam^ for > m uJts and couldn’t
gee the Augosc iwue, and wliea I come back
none of che stoics had it. So I am sending
CO you for it.
I €an*c find any source of criticisffl of any
of the acMies in che magazine although I nocked
in your September Bsoe someching wrong in che
picture of che airsh^ of the future. Question
might be raised as to whether the plane was
to fly backwards or forwards because the steam,
escaping from the tips of die propeller* shows
it CO be turniog backwards.
Well Mr. Gernsback t guess I had better sign
off now because 1 have nothing more to say
except that I want to compliment you on your
swell magazine and wish you lode and success.
J. P. Alburger,
Merion. Pa.
(In che illustration the propellers are shown
as rotating clockwise which we believe is che
standard method of rotation to prt^l che plane
forward through che air. — Editor.)
I F you have not as yet seen the
SCIENCE WONDER QUAR-
TERLY,
WATCH FOR THE GOLD
COVER
Be sure to procure a copy im-
mediately from your newsstand.
This magazine specializes in inter-
planetarian science fiction and the
first issue contains the following
marvellous stories:
"The Shot into Infinity,” by Otto
Willi Gail ;
"The Artificial Man,” by Qare
Winger Harris;
"The Hidden World,” by Edmond
Hamilton ;
"The Gravitational Deflector," by
Harry D. Parker.
Do not miss the initial issue
now on all newsstands.
Reinstating Faith
Editor, Air Wonder Stories'.
$0 many times have 1 written to various maga-
zincs and so many times have I looked for a
publication of my letters in vain, that I have
began to lose fai^ in che magazines, so if you
want to reinstate that lost faith you may do
so by putting this into your column. Now,
your serial, “The Ark of the Covenant” is prob-
ably the most intctescing story I have ever read.
More stories from Mr. MacClure's pen. "The
Beacon of Airport Seven** and *’The Bloodless
War** are also very good. *'Men With Wings”
comes close upon che heels of Mr. MacClure's
remarkable story.
I think chat “Beyond Gravity*’ was the best
story of your (or is it our?) August issue.
“The Yellow Air Peril” and “Flight in 1999”
were excellent. Now for some “brickbats.**
I haven’t really enjoyed either of Mr. Mor*
row’s stories and “"W^ere Gravity Ends” was
terrible — the science may be good but the story
was terrible. In answer to Arthur Kauper’s
criticism of Paul’s an I may say chat the shadow
of the tower nearest the top is not a shadow
at all, but a reflection. Also with the varying
wind currents it is not improbable that the wind
cone should be blowing in the opposite dtrec*
cion of che smoke. Here's to a Quarterly.
Ron^d J. Small,
New York City.
(We really can’t place the letters we have
received from Mr. Small before. We want him
to know however that we receive so many letters
chat it is possible to print only a fraction of
them. We hope however this makes amends
for past di$appoiotmencs.~£(//Vi9f.)
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TO NEW READERS
A few copies of the July, August^
September and October issues of
AIR WONDER STORIES
can still be had at the regular price
of 25c. each. Send cash, stamps or
money order to
AIR WONDER STORIES
98 Park Place New York, N. Y.
BOOK REVIEW
THE ARCTIC RESCUE, by Captain Einar
Lundborg, translated by Alma Louise
Olson, 220 pages, illustrated, stiff cloth
covers. Size 6 x 9^4. Published by
Viking Press, New York. Price |3-00.
Many stories, and some of them confikting in
one or more details, have come to the world
from the wreck of the now notorious Nobile
Expedition to the North Pole. Since the rescue of
the crew of the Italia turned out to be an inter-
national matter, with four nations cooperating in
the search for the missing men, the stories given
to the world have varied somewhat according
CD the desire to have the efforts of one's own
nationals put in a favorable light.
The present volume from the pen of the man
who actually rescued Nobile, and was himself
subsequently (in attempts to rescue others of the
crew) strand^ in the ice fields, should be re-
ceived as authentic. Captain Lundborg writes
with true Scandinavian restraint, feeling pain-
fully it times the necessity detailing the facts
with the utmost accuracy.
For example he described, just as it happened,
the DOW popularly-discussed adeccioD of the
first man taken back to land when Lundborg
landed at the Italics camp. Lundborg, himself
for strategic (and possibly diplomatic) reasons
wished to rescue Nobile, who was suffering from
a broken leg. Nobile wished Ceccioni, who also
suffered from a broken leg as well as other
injuries, to go first and himself last. But Nolule
allowed himself to be persuaded by the mem-
bers of his patty to go first, and he did.
One gets in this book an admiraUe insight
into the vast preparations necessary for the rescue
party. In the popular ei^ositioas of the work
given by the newspapers, the spectacular ele-
ments connected with long flights, death, and
heroism have thrown into the background how
much the success of such expeditions depended
on the careful scrutiny of supplies and the de-
ciding which, of the limited number of things
that could be taken, should go. Further we
learn, perhaps for the first time, how much
depei^ed, too, on the picking of suitable landing
spots in the treacherous ice and snow of those
Arctic fields.
PRACTICAL FUGHT TRAINING, by
Lieutenant Barrett Studley, U. S. Navy.
435 pages, illustrated. Stiff cloth cover.
Size 5J4 X 854. PubEshed by Macmillao
Company, New York. Price $5.00,
Lieutenant Studley as a navy aviation instructor
is undoubtedly competent to write on practical
aviation training for the student. His present
book is designed chiefly as a handbo^ for the
beginner.
It is written with an eye for thoroughness, i
and it achieves it, and achieves at the same time |
a remarkable clarity of thought. The subject
of aviation is finely divided into a study of the
essentials of aviation training, elementary flying
which includes the standard maneuvers in the
air, advanced flying which includes such things as
acrobatics, precision landing on power, cross-
country flying, aerial navigation, formation flying,
night flying etc. Drawing from his experience.
Lieutenant Studley also includes several chap-
ters on the work of the instructor and what the
flight school should do. i
Interesting is Lieutenant Srudley’s analysis of
the subject of personal qualifications necessary
to make the aviator. "Flying is an art," he
says tersely, "and without natural ability it is
useless to attempt it." Alenness is vital. The
pilot must always be looklof* around at engine
, instrumenrs, obstructions, approaching planes,
wind. He must also constantly have the feel of
the plane so that what the instruments do not tell
him about its perfonnance he can judge. "Any
tendency toward absentmlndedoess must bo lefc
on the ground."
These are no doubt cruel facts ffint many
aspiring aviators, eager to enter an exciting pro-
fession, do not realize. Bttt whereas a mo-
mentary lack of attention in a motor car may mean
a bent fender or a blowout, in the air it may
mean a loss of limb or life. And this will be
increasingly true, for with the increasing tendency
to use the air, the skies will be filled with planes
darting about at speeds from 100 to 300 miles an
ho’.;r.
CanYou Outness
O.HenrijV\
Can yen look ahead in an O. Henry
story and see the unexpected denou-
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breach-taking finish? Try it? If you
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O. Henry sets the wits of the brilliant
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livid flash horror in the midst of a
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Stories of Wit and Pathos
Gentle is O. Henry, but manly - - —
strength flows in every virile
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his unphitnibcd depths of un-
derstanding the sparkling cry-
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writer, yet the most entertain-
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Reading hia stories is Jflia
TheMaster
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er
listenfav to a more brilliant
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and grace the shelves of tha
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53 BEST STORIES
Less than AW
4 cents each Y ^ •
You are now offered for the first
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CHEMISTRY
I F you are interested in chemistry, you
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CHEMICAL INSTITUTE OF NEW YORK. „
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THE LATEST^THE BEST--THE LOWEST PRICED!
For 25 years the manaffomeDt of this firm has sold merchandise hy mail. This is our guarantee to you-— promise courteous
treatment and prompt shipments.^*
Order Direct we prepay all orders above so cents. Money Refunded If
Froin this Peee (Re“»t Five cents extra postage for aU orders below ^c) GOOdS UnS3tl^3Ct0ry
Ramlt br cbeeh, moB.]r erdw or U. S. Pottage stampt. Caaadlan and foreign itamp. not aceopteil.
Microtcope
Microtcope
Tbli If • flof Importfd
combination a 1 o r o •
8cop«, Beall; two Inatni-
menu In one. One end
uied for high magnlfloatlon.
euch aa aeelng bacteria In
milk or water. Other end
to leo parte of Inieeti,
flower fpoclmena, eto. Flo*
lehed In gold braae. Mag-
niflee about 25 dlameteci.
No. flSIS FloroiMpg
Prepaid —
Hego If s real high
power imported mlcroecopo
for Inetniction and labora*
lor; work. Haa ragulatlon
rotating light alirw. Hae
adjustable lens for correct
focusing. With It come 8
ipe^en atkloo. Entlrel;
brau. Paokod in neat
leatberetto bos. Magnifies
about 60 dUmetare.
Nol 1517 MIereaaepOA. aa
Prepaid pl .»0
Tsli fine folding pocket
magnlCglng glaM, also
called linen tesie^ ie mode
•ntlreir of gold laoqn*
breag, Has powerful lens
that magniflaa orerrUUng
10 tlmea. Hai flsed focus.
Juat (d>en It and It li
read;. When folded this
megnlttor oecitploa • apace
about as largo ae n Quarter
and twice aa thick.
Ne. 8818 Matolflor
Handsomol; canred gold
Ailed ring. LM*e Juft like
■a; oUmr ring. But. oh
bo;, wait tlU jonlook
tbroagk the *'TIBW."
Strong magnlt;lsff glais
ihewi Franeh actreas when
slewed against lltfu. Bing
bu large imitation dla*
mond. When ordering ea-
cloce 1 strip of paper
glTlng else of ;our flngor.
No. B8II Surpriso ««
Ring. Prepaid ..35c
See what's going mi be*
hind jour bi^ wltb this
SeebactaMCOpe. Used like a
magBlf;lBC glgst. No one ,
know! jeu'ro wntdilng
them. Qlrea pm *'ejei In
jour beck.** Thli article Ie
made la molded bekoUto
and lU ilze is
No. ASM ParlMOPO
Prepaid , | Me
Wonderscopes
Microscopes
i A BEAL laborotoiy microscope
that stands 6" ntgb. oomes
complete with forcspu. 2 pre*
paced specimen slides and two
blank glass slides, all packed
In a cherr; wood box with brass
hinges and fittings. Made «n>
tliel; of lacquered braae. with
pownrful lenses. Entlrel; do-
mountable to facllltato cleaning.
Haro arcade (open both sides)
rrame and rotar; reflecting mir-
ror. Ifado In three models for
uso In home, office. laboratMT.
Na 6646. MIereeeopo. Maialllee a. aa
60 diamgtere. Prepnld
Na 8646. HUrsoeopo. Mopolllee ^ -o
76 dlometere. Prepaid
No. 6647. MIeroaeopo. ^MogolfloA Aa - e
66 dlmooterA Prtpnld — 5U.70
Telescopes
We carry- only high grade Imported
French telesoopos. AU come In gold brass
lacquer. Tbe most powerful telescopes
medA No. 8650 la covered with black
Morocco leather. Brlnge object nearer ten
times. This number has also brass dust
cap and autometlo eyesllde piece. Comes
lu Imitation leather carrying case.
No. 8604. Toloscepf. One draw,
et'c". Prepaid —
No. 6648. Teleeefpo. Two draw aa aa
Ne. 8648. Teleaeape. Three draw aa ma
I 2!4 . Prepaid »...-...«.-.-..«..««Z-53.50
Ne. 8650. Special teleseepe a«
4 Sestleni. 13'/a" long. Prepaid #4.95
Make jour own tumlnoue
nrtletea. Paint watch and
cl(^ banda. electric light
swltchea. push buttona. kaj*
boles, bouso numbers, etc.
1.000 usee. Artlelos treat-
ed stand out brIUlantlj In
dark. The darker the
room, the more brUllencj.
Ne. 6506 LumlMue Palit
Prepaid
Na 8866-A a« abb
Ur*" *lS" $1.00
Bis Marie Set
Bluff jour ftleoda wltb
tbla gun. Made of com*
posltloa BoUl handsomolj
nl^eloiL Bxactlj eame
iIm* wolgbt and ehapo u
reel nitlelA Fine to bluff
borglare. Usod also na desk
paper wolgbt Sixe of this
gun is 8^'' bog and 8"
wldA
Na 6565 Blnffius m
P repaid 60c
A real high-powered Im-
ported pocket mloroscnpe for
Instniotlon and laborato^
worlL Has adjustable and
automatlo lens for t ene c i fo-
cussing. Comes wltb 1 pre-
pared subject and three spe-
cimen flats slides. Sntlrel;
made of lacquered brass.
Packed In a neat leatheretta
box. MiBNlflea 40 dlametarA
Na 6617 Mieraeeepg a«
Prieo .51*40
S imp in the Bottle
A real Cartesian direr— Can you
explain how U works! A llttlo
glass imp placed In a bottlo of
plain water and sealed with spe-
olal rubber cap, dances up and
down In the liquid at your will.
WIU perform unique antics. An
Inureitlng. amaiing and scientific novelty.
Bottle 1 Inches high.
Na 6S78. Imp Ip Bottle. aa
Prepaid „ 35c
‘Real PUt^
I
MIIlM
A pretty and unique watch diarm. 4i"x
I''. Exact duplicate of real Opera Olasses.
Powerful lenses ihst clearly magnify the
new. Asserted views, ecenlo and French
Bctreisa. Fitted with ring to attach to
watch chain. 2 VIEWS to each charm.
Na 8585.^ Bent Optra QIasa
Charm. Prepaid 25c
Na 8566. Relied Cold Opera .a
Glaii Charaa. Prepaid 75c
A jhest of magical apparatus
and directions for performing
TWELVE AMAZING blAQl-
CAL FEATS. An entire eve-
ning's entertainment can be
given with them. Includes the
Magle Vanlsher. Cigarette
Vanlsher, Hee Cains. Matter
Memory. Beads an String. Obe-
dient Ball, Vanishing Watch,
and many ethera. Biggest
value ever offered, worth double
the price we ask.
Ne. 6713. Bl| Magle a* aa
S et. Prepaid -...51 -66
Hera's a real pistol, yet smaU enough to be used as
a watch charm. Illustratlou Is full slsc. Imported,
best European workmanship. Excellent reproduction of
standard pistol. Cut shows pistol broken open to
losd blank cartridge. When trigger Is pulled, car-
tridge gees off with a loud BANG, that can bo heard
for a block. Pistol entirely made of eteel. nickel
plated. Handle Is beautifully engraved. 0>ct8gonal
barrel. Comes In box, with clesnlng rod and 25
bUnk cartridges AT NO EXTBA CHARGE.
<As explosives ere prtdiibUed to go by mail, pistol is
sent express collect). ^
Na 8509 Pistol 51-20
Ne. 6500A Bet of 29 Cartridges, by exp. collect .25
Cigaret Gun
NEW!!
Telegraph 25c
For the astoolahlng
small aum of 85o you
can now learn telegra-
phy. Any wide awake
boy or girl can learn
the telegraph codes with
this little outfit within
from 80 to 60 days.
Gives loud elgoals
perfectly nothing to
wear out. No batter-
ies. Tbe lAStrumeut
consists hard fiber
bue. meobanlcat aoun-
der and telegraph hey
knob. Screw to table
or carry it In pocket.
Guaranteed to give ex-
«st reprodMtfen et
tefeorsah sounds Just
like regulation tetA
We also furnish free a
■et of telegraph codes
as shown, and full In-
structions of bow to
learn telegraphy.
NA 8525
2Sc
InyitiUe Ink
A fluid la which you can
write love letters, confiden-
tial messages, etc. without
fear of detection. Remains entirely Invisible until
paper Is heated. Used extenalvely by secret service
operatives, detectives, etc.
Ne. £526. Invisible Ink.^ Per bottle, prepaid
(3 far 40e)
Spinthariscope
Positively the most
asteundlng scientific In-
stTument ever develop-
ed. This instruroent
formerly eold from
61.00 to $50.00 up-
wards. Now It Is pos-
sible to get it for a
small sum. Witness
actusl destruction ot
thomands of Worlds by simply looking through tbe
tens of the Instrument Actual radium It disintegrated
before yeur eyes. You see the atomic bombardment
plainly. Znatrament Is guaranteed to crataln a min-
ute quantity of radium. There Is no more enthral-
ling eight to tb whole world. Nothing to wear out.
Lasts forever
No. 6524— Sptntharlseopa complete with Instnis-
NEW. Actually r ~
ahoote cigarettes. '
New improved double oc-
tion model, ^ess the trig-
gegr lightly— evt iheote a elg- I BHu
arette— prats it again, back files V,^Mk
the lid rereallng it a cigarette
case. Lo^s like a real automatic. Made
I eotlrelv of metal, with oxidized ato^s, bar-
' fittings. The same ilzea u the real
artlclA and weighs but 12 ounces.
No. 88IIL Automatls Clflarette as aa
G un. Prepaid ....$1.79
BUclutone's Magi*
A big SS-oif. book, tmt trick 11-
luitratod. Instructions for over 60
MAGICAlk TBICKB — 25 MATCH
!ks— 7 OPTIC AL ILLUaiONS and
MANY OTHEB interesting dlvsrslons
No skill needed — no praotlce— on ipe-
Dial apparatus. Written by the fs-
mous maglclsD. Harry DlMhgteaA
NeaUy bound with blMih lithograph-
ed cover. Mfwt aatonfahlng value ever
Na 8661. Beak af Magle. a-^
Prepaid Z5c
Humanatone
Anyone can play the Humanatone.
A unique and novel musical Instni-
ment played with note end mouth
combined. Produces sweet toned
music similar to a flutA No finger-
ing— no lessons. A little praottoe
and you’ll get the knack. Made en-
tirely of metal. Nothing to get out of
order or wear out.
Na 3537. Humanatone.
PrepaJId 10c
SCIENTIFIC NOUELTV COMPANY.
247 Greenwicfi St. New York City
Now On All
Newsstands
We are pleased to announce that the first issue of Science Wonder
Quarterly is now on the newsstands. For the first issue, we have se-
cured the American rights of a complete new novel by the famous Ger-
man science fiction author, Otto Willi Gail._ Far from being fantastic,
this story has the very vitals of reality in it. Interplanetary problems
become those serious things that are part and parcel of our everyday life.
You will' be stunned by the truths that this powerful writer gives^ you.
This is one of the most unusual interplanetarian stories ever published.
The title of the story is:
“THE SHOT INTO INFINITY.”
Among the stories are: —
THE HIDDEN WORLD
By Edmond Hamilton 98-WS Park Place
THE ARTIFICIAL MAN By Clare Winger Harris
THE GRAVITATIONAL DEFLECTOR
By Harry D. Parker
The subscription price of the QUARTERLY is $1.75 per
year, single copy 50c.
To all charter subscribers, a special price of $1.25 per year is
available now. Address all subscriptions to: —
Stellar Publishing Corporation
New York, N. Y.
Look What These Cooke
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3
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FRED G. McNABB.
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So sure am I th^t you can learn Electricity —
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L. L. COOKE, Chief Instruction Engineer
U L. COOKE SCHOOL
„ OF ELECTRICfTV
Oept. CHICAGO,
.308 ILLINOIS
^eft
6
► L. L. COOKE,
Chief Instruction Engineer
Dept. 308
. 2130 Lawrence Ave., Chicago
IBF Send me at once without
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