Many of my readers will remember the mysterious
radio messages which were heard by both amateur and professional short wave
operators during the nights of the twenty-third and twenty-fourth of last
September, and even more will remember the astounding discovery made by
Professor Montescue of the Lick Observatory on the night of September
twenty-fifth. At the time, some inspired writers tried to connect the two
events, maintaining that the discovery of the fact that the earth had a new satellite
coincident with the receipt of the mysterious messages was evidence that the
new planetoid was inhabited and that the messages were attempts on the part of
the inhabitants to communicate with us.
What was the
extraordinary connection between Dr. Livermore's sudden disappearance and the
coming of a new satellite to the Earth?
The fact that the
messages were on a lower wave length than any receiver then in existence could
receive with any degree of clarity, and the additional fact that they appeared
to come from an immense distance lent a certain air of plausibility to these
ebullitions in the Sunday magazine sections. For some weeks the feature writers
harped on the subject, but the hurried construction of new receivers which
would work on a lower wave length yielded no results, and the solemn
pronouncements of astronomers to the effect that the new celestial body could
by no possibility have an atmosphere on account of its small size finally put
an end to the talk. So the matter lapsed into oblivion.
While quite a few
people will remember the two events I have noted, I doubt whether there are
five hundred people alive who will remember anything at all about the
disappearance of Dr. Livermore of the University of Calvada on September
twenty-third. He was a man of some local prominence, but he had no more than a
local fame, and few papers outside of California even noted the event in their
columns. I do not think that anyone ever tried to connect up his disappearance
with the radio messages or the discovery of the new earthly satellite; yet the
three events were closely bound up together, and but for the Doctor's
disappearance, the other two would never have happened.
Dr. Livermore
taught physics at Calvada, or at least he taught the subject when he remembered
that he had a class and felt like teaching. His students never knew whether he
would appear at class or not; but he always passed everyone who took his
courses and so, of course, they were always crowded. The University authorities
used to remonstrate with him, but his ability as a research worker was so well
known and recognized that he was allowed to go about as he pleased. He was a
bachelor who lived alone and who had no interests in life, so far as anyone
knew, other than his work.
I first made
contact with him when I was a freshman at Calvada, and for some unknown reason
he took a liking to me. My father had insisted that I follow in his footsteps
as an electrical engineer; as he was paying my bills, I had to make a show at
studying engineering while I clandestinely pursued my hobby, literature. Dr.
Livermore's courses were the easiest in the school and they counted as science,
so I regularly registered for them, cut them, and attended a class in
literature as an auditor. The Doctor used to meet me on the campus and
laughingly scold me for my absence, but he was really in sympathy with my
ambition and he regularly gave me a passing mark and my units of credit without
regard to my attendance, or, rather, lack of it.
When I graduated
from Calvada I was theoretically an electrical engineer. Practically I had a
pretty good knowledge of contemporary literature and knew almost nothing about
my so-called profession. I stalled around Dad's office for a few months until I
landed a job as a cub reporter on the San Francisco Graphic and then I quit him
cold. When the storm blew over, Dad admitted that you couldn't make a silk
purse out of a sow's ear and agreed with a grunt to my new line of work. He said
that I would probably be a better reporter than an engineer because I couldn't
by any possibility be a worse one, and let it go at that. However, all this has
nothing to do with the story. It just explains how I came to be acquainted with
Dr. Livermore, in the first place, and why he sent for me on September
twenty-second, in the second place.
The morning of
the twenty-second the City Editor called me in and asked me if I knew "Old
Liverpills."
"He says
that he has a good story ready to break but he won't talk to anyone but
you," went on Barnes. "I offered to send out a good man, for when Old
Liverpills starts a story it ought to be good, but all I got was a high powered
bawling out. He said that he would talk to you or no one and would just as soon
talk to no one as to me any longer. Then he hung up. You'd better take a run
out to Calvada and see what he has to say. I can have a good man rewrite your
drivel when you get back."
I was more or
less used to that sort of talk from Barnes so I paid no attention to it. I
drove my flivver down to Calvada and asked for the Doctor.
"Dr.
Livermore?" said the bursar. "Why, he hasn't been around here for the
last ten months. This is his sabbatical year and he is spending it on a ranch
he owns up at Hat Creek, near Mount Lassen. You'll have to go there if you want
to see him."
I knew better
than to report back to Barnes without the story, so there was nothing to it but
to drive up to Hat Creek, and a long, hard drive it was. I made Redding late
that night; the next day I drove on to Burney and asked for directions to the
Doctor's ranch.
"So you're
going up to Doc Livermore's, are you?" asked the Postmaster, my informant.
"Have you got an invitation?"
I assured him
that I had.
"It's a good
thing," he replied, "because he don't allow anyone on his place
without one. I'd like to go up there myself and see what's going on, but I
don't want to get shot at like old Pete Johnson did when he tried to drop in on
the Doc and pay him a little call. There's something mighty funny going on up
there."
Naturally I tried
to find out what was going on but evidently the Postmaster, who was also the
express agent, didn't know. All he could tell me was that a "lot of
junk" had come for the Doctor by express and that a lot more had been
hauled in by truck from Redding.
"What kind
of junk?" I asked him.
"Almost
everything, Bub: sheet steel, machinery, batteries, cases of glass, and Lord
knows what all. It's been going on ever since he landed there. He has a bunch
of Indians working for him and he don't let a white man on the place."
Forced to be
satisfied with this meager information, I started old Lizzie and lit out for
the ranch. After I had turned off the main trail I met no one until the ranch
house was in sight. As I rounded a bend in the road which brought me in sight
of the building, I was forced to put on my brakes at top speed to avoid running
into a chain which was stretched across the road. An Indian armed with a
Winchester rifle stood behind it, and when I stopped he came up and asked my
business.
"My business
is with Dr. Livermore," I said tartly.
"You got
letter?" he inquired.
"No," I
answered.
"No ketchum
letter, no ketchum Doctor," he replied, and walked stolidly back to his
post.
"This is
absurd," I shouted, and drove Lizzie up to the chain. I saw that it was
merely hooked to a ring at the end, and I climbed out and started to take it
down. A thirty-thirty bullet embedded itself in the post an inch or two from my
head, and I changed my mind about taking down that chain.
"No ketchum
letter, no ketchum Doctor," said the Indian laconically as he pumped
another shell into his gun.
I was balked,
until I noticed a pair of telephone wires running from the house to the tree to
which one end of the chain was fastened.
"Is that a
telephone to the house?" I demanded.
The Indian
grunted an assent.
"Dr.
Livermore telephoned me to come and see him," I said. "Can't I call
him up and see if he still wants to see me?"
The Indian
debated the question with himself for a minute and then nodded a doubtful
assent. I cranked the old coffee mill type of telephone which I found, and
presently heard the voice of Dr. Livermore.
"This is Tom
Faber, Doctor," I said. "The Graphic sent me up to get a story from
you, but there's an Indian here who started to murder me when I tried to get
past your barricade."
"Good for
him," chuckled the Doctor. "I heard the shot, but didn't know that he
was shooting at you. Tell him to talk to me."
The Indian took
the telephone at my bidding and listened for a minute.
"You go
in," he agreed when he hung up the receiver.
He took down the
chain and I drove on up to the house, to find the Doctor waiting for me on the
veranda.
"Hello,
Tom," he greeted me heartily. "So you had trouble with my guard, did
you?"
"I nearly
got murdered," I said ruefully.
"I expect
that Joe would have drilled you if you had tried to force your way in," he
remarked cheerfully. "I forgot to tell him that you were coming to-day. I
told him you would be here yesterday, but yesterday isn't to-day to that
Indian. I wasn't sure you would get here at all, in point of fact, for I didn't
know whether that old fool I talked to in your office would send you or some
one else. If anyone else had been sent, he would have never got by Joe, I can
tell you. Come in. Where's your bag?"
"I haven't
one," I replied. "I went to Calvada yesterday to see you, and didn't
know until I got there that you were up here."
The Doctor
chuckled.
"I guess I
forgot to tell where I was," he said. "That man I talked to got me so
mad that I hung up on him before I told him. It doesn't matter, though. I can
dig you up a new toothbrush, and I guess you can make out with that. Come
in."
I followed him
into the house, and he showed me a room fitted with a crude bunk, a washstand,
a bowl and a pitcher.
"You won't
have many luxuries here, Tom," he said, "but you won't need to stay
here for more than a few days. My work is done: I am ready to start. In fact, I
would have started yesterday instead of to-day, had you arrived. Now don't ask
any questions; it's nearly lunch time."
"What's the
story, Doctor?" I asked after lunch as I puffed one of his excellent
cigars. "And why did you pick me to tell it to?"
"For several
reasons," he replied, ignoring my first question. "In the first
place, I like you and I think that you can keep your mouth shut until you are
told to open it. In the second place, I have always found that you had the gift
of vision or imagination and have the ability to believe. In the third place,
you are the only man I know who had the literary ability to write up a good
story and at the same time has the scientific background to grasp what it is
all about. Understand that unless I have your promise not to write this story
until I tell you that you can, not a word will I tell you."
I reflected for a
moment. The Graphic would expect the story when I got back, but on the other
hand I knew that unless I gave the desired promise, the Doctor wouldn't talk.
"All
right," I assented, "I'll promise."
"Good!"
he replied. "In that case, I'll tell you all about it. No doubt you, like
the rest of the world, think that I'm crazy?"
"Why, not at
all," I stammered. In point of fact, I had often harbored such a
suspicion.
"Oh, that's
all right," he went on cheerfully. "I am crazy, crazy as a loon,
which, by the way, is a highly sensible bird with a well balanced mentality.
There is no doubt that I am crazy, but my craziness is not of the usual type.
Mine is the insanity of genius."
He looked at me sharply as he spoke, but long
sessions at poker in the San Francisco Press Club had taught me how to control
my facial muscles, and I never batted an eye. He seemed satisfied, and went on.
"From your
college work you are familiar with the laws of magnetism," he said.
"Perhaps, considering just what your college career really was, I might
better say that you are supposed to be familiar with them."
I joined with him
in his laughter.
"It won't
require a very deep knowledge to follow the thread of my argument," he
went on. "You know, of course, that the force of magnetic attraction is
inversely proportional to the square of the distances separating the magnet and
the attracted particles, and also that each magnetized particle had two poles,
a positive and a negative pole, or a north pole and a south pole, as they are
usually called?"
I nodded.
"Consider
for a moment that the laws of magnetism, insofar as concerns the relation
between distance and power of attraction, are exactly matched by the laws of
gravitation."
"But there
the similarity between the two forces ends," I interrupted.
"But there
the similarity does not end," he said sharply. "That is the crux of
the discovery which I have made: that magnetism and gravity are one and the
same, or, rather, that the two are separate, but similar manifestations of one
force. The parallel between the two grows closer with each succeeding
experiment. You know, for example, that each magnetized particle has two poles.
Similarly each gravitized particle, to coin a new word, had two poles, one
positive and one negative. Every particle on the earth is so oriented that the
negative poles point toward the positive center of the earth. This is what
causes the commonly known phenomena of gravity or weight."
"I can prove
the fallacy of that in a moment," I retorted.
"There are
none so blind as those who will not see," he quoted with an icy smile.
"I can probably predict your puerile argument, but go ahead and present
it."
"If two
magnets are placed so that the north pole of one is in juxtaposition to the
south pole of the other, they attract one another," I said. "If the
position of the magnets be reversed so that the two similar poles are opposite,
they will repel. If your theory were correct, a man standing on his head would
fall off the earth."
"Exactly
what I expected," he replied. "Now let me ask you a question. Have
you ever seen a small bar magnet placed within the field of attraction of a
large electromagnet? Of course you have, and you have noticed that, when the
north pole of the bar magnet was pointed toward the electromagnet, the bar was
attracted. However, when the bar was reversed and the south pole pointed toward
the electromagnet, the bar was still attracted. You doubtless remember that
experiment."
"But in that
case the magnetism of the electromagnet was so large that the polarity of the
small magnet was reversed!" I cried.
"Exactly,
and the field of gravity of the earth is so great compared to the gravity of a
man that when he stands on his head, his polarity is instantly reversed."
I nodded. His
explanation was too logical for me to pick a flaw in it.
"If that
same bar magnet were held in the field of the electromagnet with its north pole
pointed toward the magnet and then, by the action of some outside force of
sufficient power, its polarity were reversed, the bar would be repelled. If the
magnetism were neutralized and held exactly neutral, it would be neither
repelled nor attracted, but would act only as the force of gravity impelled it.
Is that clear?"
"Perfectly,"
I assented.
"That, then,
paves the way for what I have to tell you. I have developed an electrical
method of neutralizing the gravity of a body while it is within the field of
the earth, and also, by a slight extension, a method of entirely reversing its
polarity."
I nodded calmly.
"Do you
realize what this means?" he cried.
"No," I
replied, puzzled by his great excitement.
"Man
alive," he cried, "it means that the problem of aerial flight is
entirely revolutionized, and that the era of interplanetary travel is at hand!
Suppose that I construct an airship and then render it neutral to gravity. It
would weigh nothing, absolutely nothing! The tiniest propeller would drive it
at almost incalculable speed with a minimum consumption of power, for the only
resistance to its motion would be the resistance of the air. If I were to
reverse the polarity, it would be repelled from the earth with the same force
with which it is now attracted, and it would rise with the same acceleration as
a body falls toward the earth. It would travel to the moon in two hours and
forty minutes."
"Air
resistance would—"
"There is no
air a few miles from the earth. Of course, I do not mean that such a craft
would take off from the earth and land on the moon three hours later. There are
two things which would interfere with that. One is the fact that the propelling
force, the gravity of the earth, would diminish as the square of the distance
from the center of the earth, and the other is that when the band of neutral
attraction, or rather repulsion, between the earth and the moon had been
reached, it would be necessary to decelerate so as to avoid a smash on landing.
I have been over the whole thing and I find that it would take twenty-nine
hours and fifty-two minutes to make the whole trip. The entire thing is
perfectly possible. In fact, I have asked you here to witness and report the
first interplanetary trip to be made."
"Have you
constructed such a device?" I cried.
"My space
ship is finished and ready for your inspection," he replied. "If you
will come with me, I will show it to you."
Hardly knowing
what to believe, I followed him from the house and to a huge barnlike
structure, over a hundred feet high, which stood nearby. He opened the door and
switched on a light, and there before me stood what looked at first glance to
be a huge artillery shell, but of a size larger than any ever made. It was
constructed of sheet steel, and while the lower part was solid, the upper
sections had huge glass windows set in them. On the point was a mushroom shaped
protuberance. It measured perhaps fifty feet in diameter and was one hundred
and forty feet high, the Doctor informed me. A ladder led from the floor to a
door about fifty feet from the ground.
I followed the
Doctor up the ladder and into the space flier. The door led us into a
comfortable living room through a double door arrangement.
"The whole
hull beneath us," explained the Doctor, "is filled with batteries and
machinery except for a space in the center, where a shaft leads to a glass
window in the bottom so that I can see behind me, so to speak. The space above
is filled with storerooms and the air purifying apparatus. On this level is my
bedroom, kitchen, and other living rooms, together with a laboratory and an
observatory. There is a central control room located on an upper level, but it
need seldom be entered, for the craft can be controlled by a system of relays
from this room or from any other room in the ship. I suppose that you are more
or less familiar with imaginative stories of interplanetary travel?"
I nodded an
assent.
"In that
case there is no use in going over the details of the air purifying and such
matters," he said. "The story writers have worked out all that sort
of thing in great detail, and there is nothing novel in my arrangements. I
carry food and water for six months and air enough for two months by constant
renovating. Have you any question you wish to ask?"
"One
objection I have seen frequently raised to the idea of interplanetary travel is
that the human body could not stand the rapid acceleration which would be
necessary to attain speed enough to ever get anywhere. How do you overcome
this?"
"My dear
boy, who knows what the human body can stand? When the locomotive was first
invented learned scientists predicted that the limit of speed was thirty miles
an hour, as the human body could not stand a higher speed. To-day the human
body stands a speed of three hundred and sixty miles an hour without ill
effects. At any rate, on my first trip I intend to take no chances. We know
that the body can stand an acceleration of thirty-two feet per second without
trouble. That is the rate of acceleration due to gravity and is the rate at
which a body increases speed when it falls. This is the acceleration which I
will use.
"Remember
that the space traveled by a falling body in a vacuum is equal to one half the
acceleration multiplied by the square of the elapsed time. The moon, to which I
intend to make my first trip, is only 280,000 miles, or 1,478,400,000 feet,
from us. With an acceleration of thirty-two feet per second, I would pass the
moon two hours and forty minutes after leaving the earth. If I later take
another trip, say to Mars, I will have to find a means of increasing my
acceleration, possibly by the use of the rocket principle. Then will be time
enough to worry about what my body will stand."
A short
calculation verified the figures the Doctor had given me, and I stood
convinced.
"Are you really going?" I asked.
"Most
decidedly. To repeat, I would have started yesterday, had you arrived. As it
is, I am ready to start at once. We will go back to the house for a few minutes
while I show you the location of an excellent telescope through which you may
watch my progress, and instruct you in the use of an ultra-short-wave receiver
which I am confident will pierce the Heaviside layer. With this I will keep in
communication with you, although I have made no arrangements for you to send
messages to me on this trip. I intend to go to the moon and land. I will take
atmosphere samples through an air port and, if there is an atmosphere which
will support life, I will step out on the surface. If there is not, I will
return to the earth."
A few minutes was
enough for me to grasp the simple manipulations which I would have to perform,
and I followed him again to the space flier.
"How are you
going to get it out?" I asked.
"Watch,"
he said.
He worked some
levers and the roof of the barn folded back, leaving the way clear for the
departure of the huge projectile. I followed him inside and he climbed the
ladder.
"When I shut
the door, go back to the house and test the radio," he directed.
The door clanged
shut and I hastened into the house. His voice came plainly enough. I went back
to the flier and waved him a final farewell, which he acknowledged through a
window; then I returned to the receiver. A loud hum filled the air, and
suddenly the projectile rose and flew out through the open roof, gaining speed
rapidly until it was a mere speck in the sky. It vanished. I had no trouble in
picking him up with the telescope. In fact, I could see the Doctor through one
of the windows.
"I have
passed beyond the range of the atmosphere, Tom," came his voice over the
receiver, "and I find that everything is going exactly as it should. I
feel no discomfort, and my only regret is that I did not install a transmitter
in the house so that you could talk to me; but there is no real necessity for
it. I am going to make some observations now, but I will call you again with a
report of progress in half-an-hour."
For the rest of
the afternoon and all of that night I received his messages regularly, but with
the coming of daylight they began to fade. By nine o'clock I could get only a
word here and there. By noon I could hear nothing. I went to sleep hoping that
the night would bring better reception, nor was I disappointed. About eight
o'clock I received a message, rather faintly, but none the less distinctly.
"I regret
more than ever that I did not install a transmitter so that I could learn from
you whether you are receiving my messages," his voice said faintly.
"I have no idea of whether you can hear me or not, but I will keep on
repeating this message every hour while my battery holds out. It is now thirty
hours since I left the earth and I should be on the moon, according to my
calculations. But I am not, and never will be. I am caught at the neutral point
where the gravity of the earth and the moon are exactly equal.
"I had
relied on my momentum to carry me over this point. Once over it, I expected to
reverse my polarity and fall on the moon. My momentum did not do so. If I keep
my polarity as it was when left the earth, both the earth and the moon repel
me. If I reverse it, they both attract me, and again I cannot move. If I had
equipped my space flier with a rocket so that I could move a few miles, or even
a few feet, from the dead line, I could proceed, but I did not do so, and I
cannot move forward or back. Apparently I am doomed to stay here until my air
gives out. Then my body, entombed in my space ship, will endlessly circle the
earth as a satellite until the end of time. There is no hope for me, for long
before a duplicate of my device equipped with rockets could be constructed and
come to my rescue, my air would be exhausted. Good-by, Tom. You may write your
story as soon as you wish. I will repeat my message in one hour. Good-by!"
At nine and at
ten o'clock the message was repeated. At eleven it started again but after a
few sentences the sound suddenly ceased and the receiver went dead. I thought
that the fault was with the receiver and I toiled feverishly the rest of the
night, but without result. I learned later that the messages heard all over the
world ceased at the same hour.
The next morning
Professor Montescue announced his discovery of the world's new satellite.
