 Invasion by Mary Leinster. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Greg Marguerite. Invasion by Mary Leinster. It was August 19, 2037. The United Nations was just 50 years old. Televisors were still monochromatic. The NITICS had just won the World Series in Prague. COMPUB observers were publishing elaborate figures on moving specs in space, which they considered to be Martian spaceships on their way to Earth, but which United Nations astronomers could not discover at all. Women were using gilt lipsticks that year. Heat induction motors were still considered efficient prime movers. Thorn hard was a high-level flyer for the Pacific watch. Mathelitis was the most prominent of nationally advertised diseases and was to be cured by RO-17, the foundation of personal charm. Somebody named Nerdlinger was president of the United Nations and somebody else named Krasin was commissar of commissars for the COMPUBs. Newspapers were printing flat pictures in three colors only covering the high cost of stereoscopic plates and Thornhard was a high-level flyer for the Pacific watch. That is the essential point, of course. Thornhard's work with the watch. His job was officially hanging somewhere above the 20,000-foot level with his detector screens out listening for unauthorized traffic and the normal state of affairs between the COMPUBs and the United Nations being one of highly armed truce. Unauthorized traffic meant nothing more or less than spies. But on August 19, 2037, Thornhard was off duty. Decidedly so. He was sitting on top of Mount Wendell in the Rockies. He had a ravishingly pretty girl sitting on the same rock with him and he was looking at the sunset. The plane behind him was an official watch plane which civilians are never supposed to catch a glimpse of. It had brought Thornhard and Sylvia West to this spot. It waited now, half-hidden by a spur of age-eroded rock to take them back to civilization again. Its GC, general communication phone, muttered occasionally like the voice of a conscience. The colors of the mountain changed and blended. The sky to westward was a glory of myriad colors. Man and girl high above the world sat with the rosy glow of dying sunlight in their faces and watched the colors fade and shift into other colors and patterns even more exquisite. Their hands touched. They looked at each other. They smiled clearly as people smile who are in love or otherwise not quite sane. They moved inevitably closer. And then the GC phone barked rockously. Thornhard stiffened all over. He got up and swung down to the stubby little ship with its gossamer-like wings of cellate and touched the report button. Blame 257A reporting 710 line. Thornhard flying on Mount Wendell, on leave. Orders? He was throwing on the screens even as he reported and the vertical detector began to whistle shrilly. His eyes started to the dial and he spoke again. Added report. Detector shows traffic approaching bound to east 700 miles an hour. High altitude. Correction, 65 miles. Correction, 600. He paused. Traffic is decelerating rapidly. I think, sir, this is the reported ship. And then there was a barely audible whining noise high in the air to the west. It grew in volume and changed in pitch. From a whine it became a scream. From a scream it rose to a shriek. Something monstrous and red glittered in the dying sunlight. It was huge. It was of no design ever known on earth. Wings supported it, but they were obscured by blasts of forward rockets checking its speed. It was dropping rapidly. Then lifting rockets spouted flame to keep it from too rapid a descent. It cleared a mountain peak by a bare 200 feet, some two miles to the south. It was a hundred odd feet in length. It was ungainly in shape, monstrous in confirmation. Colossal rocket tubes behind it now barely trickled vaporous discharges. It cleared the mountaintop, went heavily on the steep glide downward and vanished behind a mountain flank. Presently the thin mountain air brought the echoed sound of its landing of rapid fire explosions of rocket tubes, and then silence. Thorn Hard was snapping swifts staccato sentences into the report transmitter, describing the clumsy glittering monster, its motion, its wings, its method of propulsion. It seemed somehow familiar, despite its strangeness. He said so. Then a vivid blue flame licked all about the rim of the world and was gone. Simultaneously the GC speaker crashed explosively and went dead. Thorn went on grimly, switching in the spare. A very violent electrical discharge went out from it then. A blue light seemed to flash all around the horizon at no great distance and my speaker blew out. I have turned on the spare. I do not know whether my sender is functioning. The spare speaker cut in abruptly at that moment. It is. Stay where you are and observe. A squadron is coming. Then the voice broke off because a new sound was coming from the speaker. It was a voice that was unhuman and clearly horrible and somehow machine-like. Hoots and howls and whistles came from the speaker. Whaling sounds. Ghostly noises devoid of consonants but broadcast on a wavelength close to the GC band and therefore produced by intelligence, though unintelligible. The unhuman hoots and howls and whistles came through for nearly a minute and stopped. Stay on duty, snapped the GC speaker. That's no language known on earth. Those are Martians. Thorn looked up to see Sylvia standing by the watch-plane door. Her face was pale in the growing darkness outside. Beginning duty, sir, said Thorn steadily. I report that I have with me Miss Sylvia West, my fiance, in violation of regulations. I ask that her family be notified. He snapped off the lights and went with her. The red rocket ship had landed in the very next valley. There was a glare there which wavered and flickered and died away. Martians said Thorn in fine irony. We'll see when the watch-planes come. My guess is comp-hubs using a search-light. Nervy. The glare vanished. There was only silence, a curiously complete and deadly silence, and Thorn said suddenly, There's no wind. There was not, not a breath of air. The mountains were uncannily quiet. The air was impossibly still for a mountaintop. Ten minutes went by. Twenty. The detector whistles shrilled. There's the watch, said Thorn in satisfaction. Now we'll see. And then, abruptly, there was a lurid flash in the sky to northward, two thousand feet up and a mile away. The unearthly green blaze of a hexynitrate explosion lit the whole earth with unbearable brilliance. Stop your ears, snapped Thorn. The racking concussion wave of hexynitrate will break human eardrums at an incredible distance. But no sound came, though the seconds went by. Then two miles away there was a second gigantic flash, then a third. But there was no sound at all. The quiet of the hills remained unbroken, though Thorn knew that such cataclysmic detonations should be audible at twenty miles or more. Then lights flashed on above. Two. Three. Six of them. They wavered all about, darting here and there. Then one of the flying searchlights vanished utterly and a fourth terrific flash of green. The watchplains are going up, said Thorn daisedly. Blowing up and we can't hear the explosions. Behind him the GC speaker barked his call. He raced to get its message. The watchplains we sent to join you, said a curt voice he recognized as that of the commanding general of the United Nations, have located an invisible barrier by their sonic altimeters. Four of them seem to have rammed it and exploded without destroying it. What have you to report? I've seen the flashes, sir, said Thorn unsteadily, but they made no noise and there's no wind, sir, not a breath since the blue flash I reported. A pause. Your statement bears out their report, said the GC speaker harshly. The barrier seems to be hemispherical. No such barrier is known on earth. These must be Martians, as the comp hubs said. You will wait until morning and try to make peaceful contact with them. This barrier may be merely a precaution on their part. You will try to convince them that we wish to be friendly. I don't believe they're Martians, sir. Sylvia came racing to the door of the plane. Thorn, something's coming. I hear it droning. Thorn himself heard a dull droning noise in the air coming toward him. Occupants of the rocket ship, sir, he said grimly, seem to be approaching. Orders? Evacuate the ship, snap the GC phone, let them examine it. They will understand how we communicate and prepare to receive and exchange messages. If they seem friendly, make contact at once. Thorn made swift certain movements and dived for the door. He seized Sylvia and fled for the darkness below the plane. He was taking a desperate risk of falling down the mountain slopes. The droning drew near. It passed directly overhead. Then there was a flash and a deafening report. A beam of light appeared aloft. It searched for and found Thorn's plane, now a wreck. Flash after flash and explosion after explosion followed. They stopped. Their echoes rolled and reverberated among the hills. There was a hollow tremendous intensification of the echoes aloft as if a dome of some solid substance had reflected back the sound. Slowly the rollings died away. Then a voice boomed through a speaker overhead and despite his suspicions, Thorn felt a queer surprise. It was a human voice, a man's voice, full of horrible amusement. Thorn hard. Thorn hard. Where are you? Thorn did not move or reply. If I have not killed you, you hear me? The voice chuckled. Come see me, Thornhardt. Their dome of force is big, yes. But you can no more get out and your friends can get in. And now I have destroyed your phone so you can no longer chat with them. Come and see me, Thornhardt, so I will not be bored. We will discuss their compoops and bring their lady friend. You may play their sheparon. The voice laughed. It was not a pleasant laughter. And the humming drone in the air rose and dwindled. It moved away from the mountaintop. It lessened and lessened until it was inaudible. Then there was dead silence again. By his accent he's a Baltic Russian, said Thorn grimly in the darkness. Which means compoops, not Martians. Though we're the only people who realize it and they're starting a war. And we, Sylvia, must warn our people. How are we going to do it? She pressed his hand confidently but it did not look promising. Thornhardt was on foot, without a transmitter, armed only with his belt weapons and with a girl to look after. And moreover imprisoned in a colossal dome of force which Hexenitrate had failed to crack. It was August 20th, 2037. There was a triple murder in Paris which was rumored to be the work of a compub spy, and the murderers unquestionably Gaelic touches made the rumors dubious. Newspaper vendor units were screaming rockously, Martians land in Colorado! And the newspapers themselves printed colored photos of hastily improvised models in their accounts of the landing of a blood-red rocket ship in the widest part of the Rockies. The intercontinental tennis matches reached their semi-finals in Havana, Cuba. Thornhardt had not reported to watch headquarters in 12 hours. Droplets were born in Des Moines, Iowa. Krasen, commissar of the commissars of the compubs made a diplomatic inquiry about the rumors that a Martian spaceship had landed in North America. He asked that compub scientists be permitted to join in the questioning and examination of the Martian visitors. The most famous European screen actress landed from the morning transatlantic plane with her hair dyed a light lavender and beauty shops throughout the country placed rush orders for dye to take care of the demand for lavender hair which would begin by mid-afternoon. The heavyweight champion of the United Nations was warned that his title would be forfeited if he further dodged a fight with his most promising contender. And Thornhardt had not reported to watch headquarters in 12 hours. He was, as a matter of fact, cautiously parting some bushes to peer past a mountain flank at the red rocket ship. Sylvia West lay on the ground behind him, both of them weary to the point of exhaustion. They had started their descent from Mount Wendell at the first gray streak of dawn in the east. They had toiled painfully across the broken country between to this point of vantage. Now Thornhardt looked down upon the rocket ship. It lay a little askew upon the ground, seeming to be partly buried in the earth. A hundred feet and more in length it was even more obviously a monstrosity as he looked at it in the bright light of day. But now it was not alone. Beside it was a white tower, reared upward, pure white and glistening in the sunshine. A bulging, uneven shaft rose a hundred feet sheer. It looked as solid as marble. Its purpose was unguessable. There was a huge, fan-shaped space where the vegetation about the rocket ship was colored a vivid red. In air photos the rocket ship would look remarkably like something from another planet. But nearby Thornhardt could see a lazy trickle of fuel fumes from a port pipe on one side of the monster. That tower is nothing but cellate foam, which hardens. And Sylvia, see? She came cautiously through the brushwood and looked down. She shivered a little. From here they could see beneath the bowels of the rocket ship, and there was a name there in the Cyrillic alphabet, which was the official written language of the compubs. Here on United Nations soil it was insolent. It boasted that the red ship came not from an alien planet, but from a nation more alien still to all the United Nations stood for. The compubs, the Union of Communist Republics, were neither communistic nor republics. But they were much more dangerous to the United Nations than any mere Martians would have been. We'll have some heavy ships here to investigate soon, said Thorn Grimly. Then I'll signal. He flung back his head, high up and far away beyond that invisible barrier against which watch planes had flung themselves in vain. There were tiny motes in mid-air. These were watch planes, too, hovering outside the obstacle they could not see, but which even hexi-nitrate bombs could not break through. And very far away, indeed, there was a swiftly moving dark cloud. As Thorn watched that cloud drew close and his eyes glowed, it resolved itself into its component specs. Small, two-man patrol scouts, larger 10-man cruisers of the air, huge massive dreadnoughts of the blue. A complete combat squadron of the United Nations flying forces was sweeping to position about the dome of force above the rocket ship. The scouts swept forward in tiny whirling clouds. They sheared away from something invisible. One of them dropped a smoking object. It emitted a vast cloud of paper which the wind caught and swept away and suddenly wrapped about a definite section of an arc. More and more of the tiny smoke bombs released their masses of cloud-like stuff. In mid-air, a dome began to take form, outlined by the trailing streaks of gray. It began to be more definitely traced by interlinings. An aerial lattice spread about a portion of a six-mile hemisphere. The top was 15,000 feet above the rocket ship, 25,000 feet from sea level, as high as Mount Everest itself. Tiny motes hovered even there where the smallest of visible specks was a 10-man cruiser. And one of the biggest of the aircraft came gingerly up to the very inner edge of the latticework of fog and hung motionless, holding itself aloft by powerful helicopter screws. Men were working from a trailing stage. Scientists examining the barrier, even hexi-nitrate, would not break down. Thorn set to work. He had come toilsomely to the neighborhood of the rocket ship because he would have to do visual signaling and there was no time to lose. The dome of force was transparent. The air fleet would be trying to communicate through it with the Martians they believed were in the rocket ship. Sunlight reflected from a polished canteen would attract attention instantly from a spot near the red monster, while elsewhere it might not be observed for a long time. But trying every radio waveband and every system of visual signaling and watching and testing for a reply, Thorn's signal ought to be picked up instantly. He handed his pocket speech-light receptor to Sylvia. It is standard equipment for all flying personnel, so they may receive non-broadcast orders from flight leaders. He pointed to a ten-man cruiser from which showed the queer electric blue glow of a speech-light. Listen in on that, he commanded. I'm going to call them. Tell me when they answer. He began to flash dots and dashes in that quinkly archaic telegraph alphabet watch-flyers are still required to learn. It was the watch-code call sent over and over again. They're trying to make the Martians understand, said Sylvia, unsteadily, with the speech-light receiver at her ear. Flash, flash, flash, Thorn kept on grimly. The canteen top was slightly convex, so the sunlight beam would be spread. Accuracy was not needed, therefore. He covered and uncovered it and covered and uncovered it. They answered, said Sylvia eagerly. They said, Thorn Hard, report it once. There was a hissing, roaring noise over the hillside where the red rocket ship lay. Thorn paid no attention. He began to spell out in grim satisfaction. Rocket ship is... Look out, gasped Sylvia. They say, look out, Thorn. Then she screamed. As Thorn swung his head around, he saw a dense mass of white vapor rushing over the hillside toward them. Sylvia up in his arms and ran madly. The white vapor tugged at his knees. It was a variation of the vortex stream. He fought his way savagely toward higher ground. The white vapor reached his waist. It reached his shoulders. He slung Sylvia upon his shoulder and fought more madly still to get out of the wide, white current. It submerged him in its stinging, bitter flood. As he felt himself collapsing, his last conscious thought was the bitter realization that the bulbous white tower had upheld television lenses at its top, which had watched his approach and inspection of the rocket ship and had enabled those in the red monster to accurately direct their spurt of gas. His next sensation was that of pain in his lungs, something that smarted intolerably was being forced into his nostrils and he battled against the agony it produced. And then he heard someone chuckle amusedly and felt the curious, furry sensation of electric anesthesia beginning. When he came to himself again, the machine was clicking erratically and there was the soft wine of machinery going somewhere. He opened his eyes and saw red all about him. He stirred and he was free. Painfully he sat up and blinked about him with streaming, gas-irritated eyes. He had been lying on a couch. He was in a room, perhaps fifteen feet by twenty, of which the floor was slightly off-level. And everything in the room was red. Floor and walls and ceiling, the couch he had laying on and the furniture itself. There was a monstrous bulk of a man sitting comfortably in a chair on the other side of the room, pecking at a device resembling a writing machine. Thorn sat still for an instant, gaining strength. Then he flung himself desperately across the room. His fingers curved into talons, five feet, ten, with the slant of the floor giving him added impetus. Then his muscles tightened convulsively. A wave of pure agony went through his body. He dropped and lay writhing on the floor while the high-frequency currents of an induction screen had their way with him. He was doubled into a knot by his muscles responding to the electric stimulus instead of his will. Sheer anguish twisted him and the room filled with a hearty bellow of laughter. The monstrous whiskered man had turned about and was shaking with merriment. He picked up a pocket-gun from beside him and turned off a switch at his elbow. Thorn's muscles were freed. Go back, my friend. Boomed the same voice that had come from a speaker the night before. Go to Dercouch. You amuse me and you have already been useful, but I have no hesitation in killing you. You are Thornheart. My name is Craneborg. How do you do? Where's my friend, demanded Thorn savagely? Where is she? D'er, lady friend? D'er. The whiskered man pointed negligently with the pocket-gun. I gave her a bunk to slumber in. There was a niche in the wall which Thorn had not seen. Sylvia was there, sleeping the same heavy, dreamless sleep from which Thorn himself had just awakened. He went to her swiftly. She was breathing naturally, though tears from the irritating gas still streaked her face and her skin seemed to be pinkened a little from the same cause. Thorn swung around. The weapons were gone, of course. The huge man snapped on the induction screen switch again and put down his weapon. With that screen separating the room into two halves, no living thing would cross it without either such muscular paralysis as Thorn had just experienced or death. Coils in the floor induced alternating currents in the flesh itself, very like those currents used for supposed medical effects in the medical batteries and shockers. Be calm, said Grainborg Chuggling. I am pleased to have company. This is their loneliest spot in Tearukis. It was chosen for that reason. But I shall be here for maybe months, and now I shall not be lonelyly. The of their compubes have scientific resources such as your fools have never dreamt of. But there is no scientific substitute for a pretty woman. He turned again to the writing device. It clicked half a dozen times more and he stopped. A strip of paper came out of it. He inserted it into the slot of another mechanism and switched on a standard GC phone as the paper began to feed. In seconds the room was filled with unearthly hoots and whales and whistles. They came from the device into which the paper was feeding and they poured into the GC transmitter. They went on for nearly a minute and ceased. Grainborg shut off the transmitter. My code, he observed comfortably, giving their good news to Stoggangrad. Everything is going along beautifully. I roused their fair Sylvia and kissed her a few times to make her scream into a record, and I interpolated her screamings into their last code transmission. Your wise men think their Martian have vivisected her. They are concentrating their entire fighting force of their united nations outside their dome of force, and all for a few kisses. Thorn was white with rage. His eyes burned with a terrible fury. His hands shook. Grainborg chuckled again. Oh, she is unharmed so far. I have not much time now, presently the two of you will violate their time, but not now. He switched on the GC receiver in the room filled with a multitude of messages. Thorn sat beside Sylvia, watching, watching, watching. While invisible machinery whined softly, and Grainborg listened intently to the crisp, curt official reports that came through on the fighting force band. Three combat squadrons were on the spot now, one, three, and eight. Four more were coming at fast cruising speed, four hundred miles an hour. One combat squadron of the whole fleet alone would be left to cope with all other emergencies that might arise. A television screen lighted up, and Thorn could see where the lenses on the bulbous tower showed the air all about filled with fighting planes, hovering about the dome of force like moths beating their wings against a screen. The strongest fighting force in the world, helpless against a field of electrical energy. It is a mursing, chuckled Grainborg, looking at the screen complacently. Their dome of force has no invention. It has heterodining of one frequency upon another at predetermined distance. It has all their properties of matter except mass and limit of strength. There is no limit to its strength, but it cannot be made except in sphere. So at first it seemed only defensive vipen. With it, we could defy their united nations to attack us, but we wished to do more. So I proposed plan, and I have their honor of carrying it out. If I fail, grass then disavows me. But I shall not fail, and I shall end as commissar for their continent of North America. He looked wisely at Thorn who sat motionless. You keep quiet, eh, and wait for me to say something indiscreet? Very well. I tell you, we are in sort of a goldfish-globe of electric force. Your air fleet cannot break in. You know that. Also, if they vary in, they could not break out again. So I wait, very patiently, pretending to be martian until all your fighting force has gathered around in readiness to fight me. But I shall not fight. I shall simply make do and larger goldfish-globe outside of this one. And then I go out and make faces at their fighting force of their united nations, imprisoned between their two of them. And then their kompoob fleet comes in. He stood up and put his hand on a doorknob. Is it not pretty? He asked blandly. In two weeks their air fleet will begin to starve. In three there will be cannibalism, unless their kompoobs accept their surrender. Imagine, he laughed. But do not fear, my friend. I have profusioned for a year. If you are amusing, I feed you. In any case, I exchange food for kisses with their charming Sylvia. It will be amusing to change her from woman who screams as I kiss her to one who weeps for joy. If I do not have to kill you, you shall witness it. He vanished through a doorway on the farther side of the room. Instantly Thorn was on his feet, the dead slumber in which Sylvia was sunk was wholly familiar. Electric anesthesia used not only for surgery, but to enforce complete rest at any chosen moment. He dragged her from that couch to his own. He saw her stir and her eyes were instantly wide with terror. But Thorn was tearing the couch to pieces, cover, pneumatic mattress. He ripped out a loosely fitting frame-piece of steel. Quick now, he said in a low voice. I'm going to short the induction screen. We'll get across it. Then out the door. She struggled to her feet terrified, but instantly game. Thord slid the rod of metal across the stretch of flooring he had previously been unable to cross. Then the rod amounted to a short circuit of the field. The rod grew hot and its paint blistered smokily. Thorn leaped across with Sylvia in his wake. He pointed to the door and she fled through it. He seized a chair, crashed it frenziedly into the television screen and had switched on the GC phone when there was a roar of fury from Crainborg. Instantly there was the splitting sound of a pocket-gun and in the red room the racking crash of a hexi-nitrate pellet. Nothing can stand the instant crash of hexi-nitrate. Its concussion wave is a single pulsation of the air. The cellate diaphragm of the GC transmitter tore across from its violence and thorn cursed bitterly. There was no way now of signaling. A second racking crash as the second pellet flashed its tiny green flame. Crainborg was using a pocket-gun, one of those small terrible weapons which shoot a projectile rather than the graphite of a lead pencil but loaded with a fraction of a milligram of hexi-nitrate. Two hundred charges would feed automatically into the bore as the trigger was pressed. Thorn gazed desperately about for weapons. There was nothing in sight. To gain the outside world he had to pass before the doorway through which the bullets had come. And suddenly, Thorn seized the code-writer and the device which transmitted that code as a series of unearthly noises which the world was taking for Martian speech. He swung the two machines before the door in a temporary barrier. Whatever else Crainborg might be willing to destroy, he would not shoot into them. Thorn leaped madly past the door as Crainborg roared with rage again. He paused only to hurl a chair at the two essential machines and as they dented and toppled he fled through the door and away. Sylvie appeared anxiously at him from behind a huge boulder. He raced toward her expecting every second to hear the spitting of Crainborg's pocket-gun. With the continuous fire-stud down, the little gun would shoot itself empty in forty-five seconds, during which time Crainborg could play it upon him like a hose that spouted death. But Thorn had done the hundred yards in eleven seconds, years before. He bettered his record now. The first of the little green flashes came when he was no more than ten yards from the boulder which sheltered Sylvie. The tiny pellet had missed him by inches, three more, and he was safe from persuasion. With the continuous fire-stud down three more and he was safe from pursuit. But we've got to get away, he panted. He can shoot gas here and get us again. He can cover four hundred yards with gas and more than that with guns. They fled down a tiny water-course, midget figures in an infinity of earth and sky, scurrying frenziedly from a red slug-like thing that lay askew in a mountain valley. Far away and high above hung the war-planes of the United Nations, big ones and little ones hovering in hundreds about the outside of the dome of force they could neither penetrate nor understand. A quarter of a mile, a half a mile, there was no sign from Craneburg or the rocket ship. Thorn panted. He can't reach us with gas now and it looks like he doesn't dare use a gun. They'd know he wasn't a Martian. At night he'll use that helicopter, though. If we can only make those ships, see us. They toiled on. The sun was already slanting down toward the western sky. At four, by the sun, Thorn could point to a huge air dreadnought hanging by lazily revolving gyros barely two miles away. He waved wildly, frantically, but the big ship drifted on, unseeing. The fighting force was no longer looking for Thorn and Sylvia. They had been carried into the rocket ship fourteen hours and more before. Sylvia's screaming had been broadcast with the weird hoots and whistles believed to be the language of interplanetary invaders. The United Nations believed them dead. Now a watch was being kept on the rocket ship to be sure, but it was becoming a matter of fact sort of vigilance pending the arrival of the rest of the fighting force and the cracking of the dome of force by the scientists who worked on it night and day. On level ground, Thorn and Sylvia would have reached the edge of the dome in an hour. Here they had to climb up steep hillsides and down precipitous slopes. Four times they halted to make frantic efforts to attract the attention of some nearby ship. It was six when they came upon the rim. There was no indication of its existence save that three hundred yards from them bowels waved and leaves quivered in a breeze. Inside the dome the air was utterly still. There it is, panted Thorn. Wearyed and worn out as they were they hurried forward and abruptly there was something which impeded their movements. They could reach their hands into the impalpable barrier for one foot two or even three, but an intolerable pressure thrust them back. Thorn seized a sapling and ran at the barrier as if with a spear. It went five feet into the invisible resistance and stopped, shot back out as if flung back by a jet of compressed air. He told the truth, grown Thorn, we can't get out. Long shadows were already reaching out from the mountains. Darkness began to creep upward among the valleys. Far, far away a compact dark cloud appeared a combat squadron. It swept toward the dome and disassociated into a myriad specs which were aircraft. The fliers already swirling about the invisible dome drew aside to leave a quadrant clear and combat squadron seven merged with the rest making the pattern of dancing specs markedly denser. With a fire, said Thorn desperately, they'll come, of course, but cream board took my lighter. Sylvia said hopefully, don't you know some way rubbing sticks together? I don't, admitted Thorn grimly, but I've got to try to invent one. While I'm at it, you watch for fliers. He searched for dry wood. He rubbed sticks together. They grew warm but not enough to smoke much less to catch. He muttered, a drill, that's the idea, all the friction in one spot. He tugged at the ring under his lapel and a parachute fastened into his uniform collar shot out in a billowing mass of gossamer silk, flung out by the powerful elastics designed to make its opening certain. Savagely he tore at the shrouds and had a stout cord. He made a drill and revolved it as fast as he could with the cord. A second dark cloud swept forward in the gathering dusk and merged with massive fliers about the dome. Five minutes later, a third. Dense as the air traffic was, riding lights were necessary. They began to appear in the deepening twilight. It seemed as if all the sky were a light with fireflies whirling and swirling and fluttering here and there. But then the fire drill began to emit a tiny wisp of smoke. Thorn worked furiously. Then a tiny flickering flame appeared, which he nursed with a desperate magnitude. Then a larger flame. Then a roaring blaze. It could not be missed. A fire within the dome could not fail to be noted and examined instantly. A searchlight beam fell upon them, illuminating him in a pitiless glare. Thorn waved his arms frantically. He had nothing with which to signal save his body. He flung his arms wide and up and wide again in an improvised adaptation of the telegraphic alphabet to gesticulation. He sent the watch-call over and over again. A little cloud of riding-light swept toward dome from an infinite distance away. Darkness was falling so swiftly that they were still merely specks of light as they swept up to and seemed to melt into the swirling, swooping mass of fliers about the dome. Cold sweat was standing out on Thorn's face. Despite the violence of his exertions, he was even praying a little, suddenly the searchlight beam flickered a welcome answer. We understand report. Thorn flung his arms about madly, sending, Get away quick. Calm pubs here. We'll make other dome outside to trap you. The searchlight beam upon him triggered an acknowledgement. He knew what was happening after that. The GC phones would flash the warning to every ship, and every ship would dash madly for safety. A sudden concerted quiver seemed to go over the whirling maze of lights aloft. A swift simultaneous movement of every ship in flight. Thorn breathed an agonized prayer. There was a flash of blue light, for one fractional part of a second the stars and skies were blotted out. There was a flame above him and all about the world of bright blue flame which instantly was and instantly was not. Then there was a ghastly blast of green, hexi-nitrate going off. In this glare were silhouetted myriad motes in flight, but there was no noise. A second flare, and then Thorn hard groaning, saw flash after flash after flash of green. Monster explosions, colossal detonations which were utterly soundless as the ships of the fighting force in flight from the menace of which Thorn had warned them, crashed into an invisible barrier and exploded without cracking it. It was August 24th, 2037. For three days now, seven of the eight great combat squadrons of the United Nations fighting forces had been prisoners inside a monstrous, transparent dome of force. There was a financial panic of unprecedented proportions in the parts of New York and London and Paris. Marshall Law was in force in Chicago, in Prague, in Madrid and in Buenos Aires. The compubs were preparing an ultimatum to be delivered to the government of the United Nations. Thorn and Sylvia were hunted fugitives within the inner dome of force which protected the red rocket ship from the seven combat squadrons it had imprisoned. Newspaper vendor units were shrieking, air fleets still trapped, and politician was promising his constituents that if a foreign nation dared invade the sacred territories of the United Nations a million embattled private planes would take to the air. And he seemed not to be trying to be humorous. Scientists were wringing their hands in utter helplessness before the incredible resistance of the dome. It had been determined that the dome was a force field which caused particles charged with positive electricity to attempt to move in a left-handed direction. The result was that any effort to thrust an external object into the field of force was an attempt to tear the negatively charged electrons of every atom of that substance free from the positively charged protons of nuclei. An object could only be passed through the field of force if it ceased to exist as matter, which was not an especially helpful discovery. And Thornhard and Sylvia were still hunted fugitives inside the inner dome. The sun was an hour high when the helicopter appeared to hunt for them by day. After the first time they had never dared light a fire because Grainborg in the helicopter searched the hills for a glow of light. But this day he came searching for them by day. Thorn had speared a fish for Sylvia with a stick he had sharpened by rubbing it on a crumbling rock. He was working discourageously on a private made out of a forked stick and the elastic from his parachute pack. He was haggard and worn and desperate. Sylvia was beginning to look like a hunted wild thing. Two hundred yards from them the most formidable fighting force the world had ever seen littered the earth with gossamer-seeming cellate wings and streamlined bodies at all angles to each other. And it was completely useless. The least of the weapons of the air fleet would have been a godsend to Thorn to have had one ship even the smallest where they were would have been a godsend to the fleet. But two hundred yards with the dome of force between made the fleet just exactly as much protection for Sylvia as if it had been a million miles away. The droning hum of the helicopter came across the broken ground. Now louder, now momentarily muted. Its moments of loudness grew steadily more strong. It was coming nearer. Thorn gripped his spear in an instinctive, utterly feudal gesture of defense. Sylvia touched his hand. We'd better hide. They hid. Thick brush concealed them utterly. The helicopter went slowly overhead and they saw crane board gazing down at the earth below him. Nearly overhead he paused and suddenly Thorn groaned under his breath. It's the flagship! He whispered hoarsely to Sylvia. Ah! What fools we were! The flagship! He knows the general would have brought it to earth opposite us to question us! The flagship was nearly opposite. To find the flagship was more or less to find where Thorn and Sylvia hid. But they had not realized it until now. The speaker in the helicopter boomed above their heads. Ah! My friends, I think you hear me. Answer me. I have offer to make. Shivering Sylvia pressed close to Thorn. The Kampub fleet is on their way. Said crane board juggling. Seven-eighths of their United Nations fleet is just outside. You have observed it. In six hours their Kampub fleet begins their conquest of their country and their execution of person's most antagonistic to our regime. But I have still very vicks of keeping their air fleet prisoner. Until its personnel is too weak to stop vision to offer resistance to our soldiers. So I make their offer. Come and violate their variables for me. And I accept you both from their executions. I shall find it necessary to decree. Refuse. And I get you anyhow. And you will regret your refusal, fairy mooch. Thorn's teeth ground together. Sylvia pressed close to him. Let them get me, Thorn. She panted hysterically. Don't let him get me. The droning monotonous hum of the helicopter over their heads continued. The little flying machine was motionless. The air was still. There was no other sound in the world. Silence save for the droning hum of the helicopter then something dropped. It went off with an inadequate sort of explosion and a cloud of misty white vapor reared upward on a hillside and began to settle slowly, moving out. The helicopter moved and other things dropped, making a pattern. The air still said Thorn quite grimly. That stuff seems to be heavier than air. It's flowing downhill toward the dome wall. It will be here in five minutes. We've got to move. Sylvia seemed to be stricken with terror. He helped her to her feet. They began to move toward higher ground. They moved with infinite caution in the utter silence of this inner dome even the rustling of a leaf might betray them. It was the presence of the air fleet within clear view that made the thing so horrible. The defenders of a nation were watching the enemy of a nation and they were helpless to offer battle. The helicopter hummed and droned and crane board grinned and searched the earth below him for a sign of the man and girl who had been the only danger to his plan and now were unarmed fugitives. And there were four air dreadnoughts in plain sight and five thousand men watching and crane board hunted for sport a comrade of the five thousand men and a woman every one of them would have risked or sacrificed his life to protect. He seemed certain that they were below him. Presently he dropped another gas bomb and another and then Sylvia stumbled and caught at something and there was a crashing sound as a sapling wavered in her grasp and Thorn picked her up and fled madly but billowing white water spouted upward before him. He dodged it and the helicopter was just overhead and more smoke spouted and more and more. They were hemmed in and Sylvia clung close to Thorn and sobbed. Five thousand men in a thousand grounded aircraft shouted curses that made no sound. They waved weapons that were utterly futile. They were as impotent as so many ghosts. Their voices made not even the half-herd whisper one may into a phantom. The fog vapor closed over Thorn and Sylvia as Crainborg grinned mockingly at the raging men without the dome of force. He swept the helicopter to a position above the last view of Thorn and Sylvia and the downward-beating screws swept away the foggy gas. Thorn and Sylvia lay motionless though Thorn had instinctively placed himself in a position of defense above her. The fighting force of the United Nations while Crainborg descended deliberately into the area the helicopter screws kept clear. While he searched Thorn's pockets reflectively and found nothing more deadly than small pebbles which might strike sparks and a small forked stick while he grinned mockingly at the raging armed men and made triumphant gesticulations before carrying Sylvia's limp figure to the helicopter. While the little ship rose and swept away toward the rocket plane it ended and was lost to view. Thorn lay motionless on the earth. Seven-eighths of the fighting force of the United Nations was imprisoned within the space between two domes of force though matter could penetrate. A ring two miles across and ten miles in outer diameter held the whole fleet of the United Nations paralyzed. There was sheer panic throughout the Americas and Europe and the few outlying possessions of the United Nations. And it was at this time with a great fleet already half way across the Pacific that the Compubs declared war in a fine gesture of ironic politeness. It was within half an hour of this time that the Seventh Combat Squadron, the only one left unemprisoned, dived down from fifty thousand feet into the middle of the Compub fleet and went out of existence in twenty minutes of such carnage as is still stuff for epics. The Seventh Squadron died but with it died not less than three times as many of the foe. And then the Compub fleet came on. Most of the original force remained surely enough to devastate an undefended nation to shatter its cities and butcher its people to slaughter its men and enslave its women and leave a shambles and smoking ash heaps where the very backbone of resistance to the red flag had been. It was twenty minutes before Thorn Hard stirred. His lungs seemed on fire, his limbs seemed lead. His head reeled and rocked. He staggered to his feet and stood there swaying dullly. A vivid light brighter than the sunshine played upon him from the flagship of the fleet which now was helpless to defend its nation. Thorn's befogged brain stirred daisily as the message came. Compub fleet on way. Seventh Combat Squadron wiped out. Nation defenceless. You are only hope. For God's sake try something. Anything. Thorn roused himself by a terrific effort. He managed to ask a question by exhausted gestures in the watch visual alphabet. Craneborg took her to rocket ship came the answer. She recovered consciousness before being carried inside. And Thorn, reeling on his feet and unarmed and alone turned and went staggering up a hillside toward the rocket ship's position. He could only expect to be killed. He could not even hope for anything more than to ensure that Sylvia also died mercifully. Behind him he left an unarmed nation awaiting devastation with a mighty air fleet speeding toward it at 600 miles an hour. As he went though some strength came to him. The fury of his toil forced him to breathe deeply cleansing his lungs of the stupefying gas which because it was visible as a vapor had been carried in the rocket ship. A visible gas was of course more consistent with the early pretense that the rocket ship bore invaders from another planet. And Thorn became drenched with sweat which aided in the excretion of the poisonous stuff. His brain cleared and he recognized despair and discounted it and began to plan grimly to make the most of an infinitesimal chance. The chance was simply that Craneborg had ransacked his pockets and ignored a little forked stick. Scrambling up a steep hillside with his face hardened into granite Thorn drew that from his pocket again. Crossing a hilltop he stripped off his coat. He traveled at the highest speed he could maintain though it seemed painfully deliberate. An hour after he had started he was picking up small round pebbles wherever he saw them in his path. By the time the tall bulbous tower was in sight he had picked up probably sixty such pebbles but no more than ten of them remained in his pockets. They though were smooth and round in diameter and all very nearly the same size. And he carried a club in his hand. He went down the last slope openly. The television lenses on the tower would have picked him out in any case if Craneborg had repaired the screen. He went boldly up to the rocket ship. Craneborg, he called, Craneborg! He felt himself being surveyed. A door came open. Craneborg stood chuckling at him with a pocket-gun in his hand. Ha! Just in time, my friend. I have been very busy. Their compub fleet is just due to pass and refue above their welcoming United Nations combat squadrons. I have been giving them last-minute information and assurance that their domes of force are solid and can hold for ever. I have a few minutes to spare which I had intended to default to their fair Sylvia. But what do you wish? I am offering you a bribe, sent Thorn his face a mask, a billion dollars in immunity to cut off the outer dome of force. Craneborg grinned at him. It is too late. Besides being traitor, I would be assesinated instantly. Also, I shall be commissar for North America anyhow. Two billion, said Thorn without expression. No, said Craneborg, amusedly. Trove der Club. I shall amuse myself with you, Thornheart. You shall watch der Progess of romance between me and Sylvia. Trove der Club. The pocket-gun came up. Thorn threw away the club. What do you want if two billion's not enough? Amuse mient, said Craneborg jovially. I shall be bored in this inner dome waiting for der Airfleet to starve. I wish amuse mient. And I shall get it. Come inside. He backed away from the door. His gun trained on Thorn, and Thorn saw that the continuous fire stud was down. He walked composedly into the red room in which he had once awakened. Sylvia gave a little choked cry at the sight of him. She was standing desperately defiant on the other side of the induction-screen area on the floor. There was a scorched place on the floor where Thorn had shorted that screen and the bar of metal had grown red hot. Craneborg threw the switch and motioned Thorn to her. I do not bother to search you for weapons, he said dryly. I did it so short a time ago. And you had only club. Thorn walked stiffly beside Sylvia. She put out a shaking hand and touched him. Craneborg threw the switch back again. The screen is on. He chuckled. Consolidate the other children. I am glad you came, Thorn-heart. We watched a grand review of their compoom fleet. Then I turned little in fiancin' of my nupanyu. It is Hitre of very limited range. It will be my method of wooing their fair Sylvia. When she sees you in torment, she kisses me sweetly in the privilege of stopping their Hitre. I count upon you, my friend, to plead with her to grant me their most extravagant of concessions. Then their Hitre is searing their flesh from your bones. I feel that she is soft-hearted enough to oblige you. Yes? He touched a button and the repaired television screen lighted up. All the dome of mountains and sky was visible in it. There were dancing moats in sight which were aircraft. I have removed all myetal work from that side of Darulum, added Crainborg comfortably. So I can dare to turn my back. You cannot short-terre induction screen again. That was clever, but you face scientist, Thorn-heart. You have lost. A sudden surge of flying-craft appeared on the television screen. The rounded fleet of the United Nations was taking to the air again. In the narrow two-mile strip between the two domes of force, it swirled up and up. Crainborg frowned. Now what is their idea of that? He demanded. He moved closer to the screen. The pocket-gun was left behind, five feet from his fingertips. Thorn-heart, you will explain it. They hope, said Thorn Grimly, to take gaps in the dome to shoot through. If so, they'll go out through those gaps and fight. Foolish, said Crainborg blandly. Der oliviep in vie have to use his der normal metabilism of der human system. Hunger. Thorn reached into his pocket. Crainborg was regarding the screen absorpidly. Through the haze of flying dots, which was the United Nations fleet, a darkening spot to westward became visible. It drew nearer and grew larger. It was dense. It was huge. It was deadly. It was the Compubb battle fleet, nearly equal to the imprisoned ships in number. It swept up to view its helpless enemy. It came close, so every man could see their only possible antagonists rendered impotent. Such a maneuver was really necessary when you think of it. The Compubb fleet had encountered one combat squadron of the United Nations fleet, and that one squadron dying had carried down three times its number of enemies. It was necessary to show the Compubb personnel the rest of their enemies imprisoned in order to hearten them for the butchery of civilians before them. Crainborg guffawed as the Compubb fleet made its mocking circuit of the invisible doe, and Thorn raised his head. Crainborg, he said grimly, look, there was something in his tone which made Crainborg turn and Thorn held a little fork stick in his hand. Turn off the induction screen or I kill you. Crainborg looked at him and chuckled, eat his bluff, my friend, he said dryly. I have seen many Viepens, I am scientist. You play the game of poker, you try bluff. But I answered you with der Hitre. He moved his great bulk and Thorn released his left hand. There was a sudden crack on Crainborg's side of the room. A pebble a little over an inch in diameter fell to the floor. Crainborg wavered and toppled and fell. Three times more his face merciless Thorn drew back his arm and three times Crainborg's head jerked slightly. Then Thorn faced the panel on which the induction screen switch was placed. Several times he thrust his hand through the screen and abruptly drew it back with pain in an attempt to throw the switch. At last he was successful and now he walked calmly across the room and bent over the motionless Crainborg. He was captured, he said grimly. All right, Sylvia? He went through the narrow doorway beyond picking up the pocket gun as he went. There was a noise of whining machinery. Now Thorn was emptying pellets into the mechanism that controlled the dome of force. There was a crashing of glass. It stopped. There were blows and thumpings. That noise stopped too. Thorn came back, his eyes glowing. He flung open the outer door of the rocket ship and Sylvia went with him. He pointed. Far away the fighting force of the United Nations was swirling upward. Like smoke from a campfire or winged dance from a tree stump, they went up in a colossal twisting spiral beyond the domes and above them. The domes existed no longer. Up and up and up. And then they swooped down upon the suddenly fleeing enemy. Vengefully, savagely, with all the fury of men avenging not only what they have suffered but also what they have feared. The combat squadrons of the United Nations fell upon the invaders. Green hexi-nitrate explosions lighted up the sky. Ear-cracking detonations reverberated among the mountains. There was battle there, and death, and carnage, and utter destruction. The roar of combat filled the universe. Thorn closed the door and looked down at Crainborg who breathed stenoriously. His mouth foolishly opened. Our men will be back for us, he said shortly we needn't worry. Then he said, he called himself a scientist and he didn't know a slingshot when he saw one. But then Thorn hard dropped a weapon made of a forked stick and strong elastic from his shoot-pack and caught Sylvia hungrily in his arms. End of Invasion by Mary Leinster Keep out. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Red by Megan Argo Keep out by Frederick Brown With no more room left on Earth and with Mars hanging up there, empty of life somebody hit on the plan of starting a colony on the red planet. It meant changing the habits and physical structure of the immigrants but it worked out fine. In fact, every possible factor was covered. Except one of the flaws of human nature. Daptine is the secret of it. A Daptine they called it at first then it got shortened to Daptine. It let us adapt. They explained it all to us when we were ten years old. I guess they thought we were too young to understand before then. Although we knew a lot of it already. They told us just after we landed on Mars. You're home, children! The head teacher told us after we had gone into the glass-eyed dome they built for us there. And he told us there'd be a special lecture for us that evening. An important one that we must all attend. And that evening he told us the whole story and the whys and where-falls. He stood up before us. He had to wear a heated spacesuit and helmet, of course, because the temperature in the dome was comfortable for us but already freezing cold for him and the air was already too thin for him to breathe. His voice came to us by radio from inside his helmet. Children, he said, you are home. This is Mars, the planet on which you will spend the rest of your lives. You are Martians, the first Martians. You have lived five years on Earth and another five in space. Now you will spend ten years until you are adults in this dome. Although toward the end of that time you will be allowed to spend increasingly long periods outdoors. Then you will go forth and make your own homes, live your own lives as Martians. You will intermarry and your children will breed true. They too will be Martians. It is time you were told the history of this great experiment of which each of you is a part. Then he told us. Man, he said, had first reached Mars in 1985. It had been uninhabited by intelligent life. There is plenty of plant life and a few varieties of non-flying insects. And he had found it by terrestrial standards in the middle of the world. Man could survive on Mars only by living in glassite domes and wearing spacesuits when he went outside of them. Except by day in the warm seasons it was too cold for him. The air was too thin for him to breathe and long exposure to sunlight less filtered or raised harmful to him than on Earth because of the lesser atmosphere could kill him. The plants were chemically alien to him and he could not eat them. For years he had tried to colonize Mars and all his efforts had failed. Besides this dome which had been built for us there was only one other outpost, another glassite dome much smaller and less than a mile away. It had looked as though Mankind could never spread to the other planets of the solar system besides Earth. For, of all of them, Mars was the least inhospitable. If he couldn't live here then there was no use even trying to colonize the others. And then in 2034, 30 years ago a brilliant biochemist named Weymouth had discovered Daptine a miracle drug that worked not on the animal or person to whom it was given but on the progeny he conceived during a limited period of time after inoculation. It gave his progeny almost limitless adaptability to changing conditions provided the changes were made gradually. Dr. Weymouth had inoculated and then mated a pair of guinea pigs. They had born a litter of five and by placing each member of the litter under different and gradually changing conditions he had obtained amazing results. When they attained maturity one of those guinea pigs was living comfortably at a temperature of 40 below zero Fahrenheit. Another was quite happy at 150 above. A third was thriving on a diet that would have been deadly poison for an ordinary animal. And a fourth was contented under a constant x-ray bombardment that would have killed one of its parents within minutes. Subsequent experiments with many litters showed that animals who had been adapted to similar conditions bred true and their progeny was conditioned from birth to live under those conditions. Ten years later, ten years ago the head teacher told us you children were born. Born of parents carefully selected from those who volunteered for the experiment. And from birth you have been brought up under carefully controlled and gradually changing conditions. From the time you were born the air you have breathed has been very gradually thinned and its oxygen content reduced. Your lungs have compensated by becoming much greater in capacity which is why your chests are so much larger than those of your teachers and attendants. When you are fully mature and are breathing air like that of Mars the difference will be even greater. Your bodies are growing fur to enable you to stand the increase in cold. You are comfortable now under conditions which would kill ordinary people quickly. Since you were four years old your nurses and teachers have had to wear special protection to survive conditions that seem normal to you. In another ten years at maturity you will be completely acclimated to Mars. Its air will be your air. Its food plants your food. Its extremes of temperature will be easy for you to endure and its median temperature is pleasant to you. Already because of the five years we spent in space under gradually decreased gravitational pull the gravity of Mars seems normal to you. It will be your planet to live on and to populate. You are the children of Earth but you are the first Martians. Of course we had known a lot of those things already. The last year was the best. By then the air inside the dome except for the pressurized parts where our teachers and attendants live was almost like that outside and we were allowed out for increasingly long periods. It was good to be in the open. The last few months they relaxed segregation of the sexes so we could begin choosing mates unless there is to be no marriage until after the final day after our full clearance. Choosing was not difficult in my case. I had made my choice long since and I'd felt sure that she felt the same way. I was right. Tomorrow is the day of our freedom. Tomorrow we will be Martians THE Martians. Tomorrow we shall take over the planet. Some among us are impatient. Have been impatient for weeks now but wiser counsel prevailed than we were waiting. We have waited twenty years and we can wait until the final day. And tomorrow is the final day. Tomorrow at a signal we will kill the teachers and the other earthmen among us before we go forth. They do not suspect so it will be easy. We have dissimulated for years now and they do not know how we hate them. They do not know how disgusting and hideous we find them with their ugly misshapen bodies narrow-shouldered and tiny-chested their weak, sibilant voices that need amplification to carry in our Martian air and above all their white, pasty, hairless skins. We shall kill them and then we shall go and smash the other dome so that all the earthmen there will die too. If more earthmen ever come to punish us we can live and hide in the hills where they'll never find us and if they try to build more domes we'll smash them. We want no more to do with earth. This is our planet and we want no aliens. Keep off. End of Keep Out by Frederick Brown. Read by Megan Argo. When we published Carl Jacobi's last story we had no assurance he would be with us so soon again. For when a uniquely gifted science fantasy writer becomes radioactive on the entertainment meter and goes voyaging into the unknown he may be gone from the world we know for as long as yesterday's tomorrow. But Carl Jacobi has not only returned almost with the speed of light he has brought with him shining new nuggets of wonder and surmise. The Long Voyage by Carl Jacobi. The secret lay hidden at the end of nine landings and Medusa Dark was one man's search for it in the strangest journey ever made. A soft gentle rain began to fall as we emerged from the dark woods and came out onto the shore. There it was, the sea, stretching as far as the eye could reach, gray and sullen, and flecked with green-white froth. The blue henshore trees, crowding close to the water's edge, were bent backward as if frightened by the bleakness before them. The sand, visible under the clear patches of water, was a bleached white like the exposed surface of a huge bone. We stood there a moment in silence then Mason cleared his throat huskily. Well, here goes, he said. We'll soon see if we have any friends about. He unslunged the paksak from his shoulders, removed its protective outer shield, and began to assemble the organic surveyor, an egg-shaped ball of white carponium secured to a segmented forty-foot rod. While Brent and I raised the rod with the aid of an electric fulcrum, Mason carefully placed his control cabinet on a piece of outcropping rock and made a last adjustment. The moment had come. Even above the sound of the sea you could hear the strained breathing of the men. Only navigator Norris appeared unconcerned. He stood there calmly smoking his pipe, his keen blue eyes squinting against the biting wind. Mason switched on the speaker. Its high frequency scream rose definitely above us and was torn away in unsteady gusts. He began to turn its center dial at first a quarter-circle and then all the way to the final backstop of the calibration. All that resulted was a continuation of that mournful olulation like a wail out of eternity. Mason tried again. Stiff wrists he tuned while perspiration stood out on his forehead and the rest of us crowded close. It's no use, he said. This pick-up failure proves there isn't a vestige of animal life on Stragella, on this hemisphere of the planet at least. Navigator Norris took his pipe from his mouth and nodded. His face was expressionless. There was no indication in the man's voice that he had suffered another great disappointment. His sixth in less than a year. We'll go back now, he said, and we'll try again. There must be some planet in the system that's inhabited, but it's going to be hard to tell the women. Mason let the surveyor ride down with a crash. I could see the anger and resentment that was gathering in his eyes. Mason was the youngest of our party and the leader of the antagonistic group that was slowly but steadily undermining the authority of the navigator. This was our seventh exploratory trip after our sixth landing since entering the field of the sun Ponthus. Ponthus with its sixteen equal-sized planets, each with a single satellite. First there had been Cholora, then in swift succession, Jama, Teneethon, Mokro, and R9, and now Stragela, strange names of strange worlds revolving about a strange star. It was Navigator Norris who told us the names of these planets and traced their positions on a chart for us. He alone of our group was familiar with astrogation and cosmography. He alone had sailed the spaceways and the days before the automatic pilots were installed and locked and sealed on every ship. A handsome man in his fortieth year he stood six feet three with broad shoulders and a powerful frame. His eyes were the eyes of a scholar, dreamy yet alive with depth and penetration. I had never seen him lose his temper and he governed our company with an iron hand. He was not perfect, of course. Like all earthmen he had his faults. Months before he had joined with that famed Martian scientist, Ganneth Clay, to invent that all-use material, Inderit, the formula for which had been stolen and which therefore had never appeared on the commercial market. Norris would talk about that for hours. If you inadvertently started him on the subject, a queer glint would enter his eyes and he would dig around in his pocket for a chunk of the black substance. Did I ever show you a piece of this? He would say, Look at it carefully. Notice the smooth, grainless texture. Hard and yet not brittle. You wouldn't think that it was formed in a gaseous state, then changed to a liquid and finally to a clay-like material that could be worked with ease. A thousand years after your body has returned to dust, that piece of Inderit will still exist, unchanged, unworn. Erosion will have little effect upon it. Beside it, granite, stale, are nothing. If only I had the formula. But he had only half the formula, the half he himself had developed. The other part was locked in the brain of Ganneth Clay, and Ganneth Clay had disappeared. What had become of him was a mystery. Norris perhaps had felt the loss more than anyone and he had offered the major part of his savings as a reward for information leading to the scientists' whereabouts. Our party, eighteen couples and navigator Norris, had gathered together and subsequently left Earth in answer to a curious advertisement that had appeared in the Sunday edition of the London Times. Wanted, a group of married men and women, young, courageous, educated, tired of political and social restrictions, interested in extraterrestrial colonization, financial resources, no qualification. After we had been weeded out, interviewed, and rigorously questioned, Norris had taken us into the hangar, waved a hand toward the Marie Galant and explained the details. The Marie Galant was a cruiser-type ship, stripped down to essentials to maintain speed, but equipped with the latest of everything. For a short run to Venus, for which it was originally built, it would accommodate a passenger list of ninety. But Norris wasn't interested in that kind of run. He had knocked out bulkheads, reconverted music room and ballroom into living quarters. He had closed and sealed all observation ports so that only in the bridge-cutty could one see into space. We shall travel beyond the orbit of the sun," he said. There will be no turning back. For the search for a new world, a new life, is not a task for cowards. Aside to me, he said, you're to be the physician of this party, Bagley. So I'm going to tell you what to expect when we take off. We're going to have some mighty sick passengers aboard then. What do you mean, sir? I said. He pointed with his pipe toward the stern of the vessel. See that? Well, call it a booster. Ganneth Clay designed it just before he disappeared, using the last lot of Enderitt in existence. It will increase our takeoff speed by five times, and it will probably have a bad effect on the passengers. So we had left Earth, a night from a field out in Essex, without orders, without clearance papers, without an automatic pilot check, eighteen couples and one navigator, destination unknown. If the interstellar council had known what Norris was up to, it would have been a case for the Space Time Commission. Of that long initial lap of our voyage, perhaps the less said the better. As always is the case when monotony begins to wear away the veneer of civilization, character quirks came to the surface. Cleaks formed among the passengers, and gossip and personalities became matters of preeminent importance. Rising to the foreground out of our thirty-six came Fielding Mason, tall, taciturn, and handsome, with a keen intellect and a sense of values remarkable and so young a man. Mason was a graduate of Montape, the French outgrowth of Saint Cyr, but he had majored in military tactics, psychology, and sociology, and knew nothing at all about astrogation or even elemental astronomy. He, too, was a man of good breeding and refinement. Nevertheless, conflict began to develop between him and navigator Norris. That conflict began the day we landed on Calora. Norris stepped out of the airlock into the cold then air, glanced briefly about him, and the sixteen men assembled. We'll divide into three groups, he said, each group to carry an organic surveyor and take a different direction. Each group will so regulate its marching as to be back here without fail an hour before darkness sets in. If you find no sign of animal life, then we will take off again immediately on your return. Mason paused halfway in the act of strapping on his pack sack. What's that got to do with it? he demanded. There's vegetation here. That's all that seems to be necessary. Norris lit his pipe. If you find no signs of animal life, we will take off immediately on your return, he said, as if he hadn't heard. But the strangeness of Calora tempered bad feelings then. The blue hints or trees were actually not trees at all, but a huge cattail-like growth, the stalks of which were quite transparent. In between the stalks grew curious cabbage-like plants that changed from red to yellow as an intruder approached and back to red again after he had passed. Rock outcroppings were everywhere, but all were eroded and in places polished smooth as glass. There was a strange kind of dust that acted as though endowed with life. It quivered when trod upon, and the outline of our footsteps slowly rose into the air, so that, looking back, I could see our trail floating behind us in irregular layers. Above us the star that was the planet's sun shone bright but faintly red as if it were in the first stages of dying. The air, though thin, was fit to breathe, and we found it unnecessary to wear spacesuits. We marched down the corridors of henceware trees until we came to an open spot, a kind of glade. And that was the first time Mason tuned his organic surveyor and received absolutely nothing. There was no animal life on Kalora. Within an hour we had blasted off again. The forward impact delivered by the Ganneth Clay booster was terrific, and nausea and vertigo struck us all simultaneously. But again, with all ports and observation shields sealed shut, Norris held the secret of our destination. On July 22, the ship gave that sickening lurch and came once again to a standstill. Same procedure as before, Norris said, stepping out of the airlock, those of you who desire to have their wives accompany you may do so. Mason, you'll make a final correlation on the organic surveyors. If there is no trace of animal life, return here before dark. Once our group was out of sight of the ship, Mason threw down his pack-sack, sat down on a boulder, and lighted a cigarette. Bagley, he said to me, has the old man gone loco? I think not, I said, frowning. He's one of the most evenly balanced persons I know. Then he's hiding something, Mason said. Why else should he be so concerned with finding animal life? You know the answer to that, I said. We're here to colonize, to start a new life. We can't very well do that on a desert. That's Poppycock, Mason replied, flinging away his cigarette. When the Albertson expedition first landed on Mars, there was no animal life on the Red Planet. Now look at it. Same thing was true when Bresslauer first settled Pluto. The colonies there got along. I tell you Norris has got something up his sleeve, and I don't like it. Later, after Mason had taken his negative surveyor reading, the flame of trouble reached the end of its fuse. Norris had given orders to return to the Marie Galant, and the rest of us were suddenly making ready to start the back trail. Mason, however, deliberately seized his pick and began chopping a hole in the rock surface, apparently to erecting his plastic tent. We'll make temporary camp here, he said calmly. Brant, you can go back to the ship and bring back the rest of the women. He turned and smiled sardonically at navigator Norris. Norris quietly knocked the ashes from his pipe and placed it in his pocket. He strode forward, took the pick from Mason's hands, and flung it away. Then he seized Mason by the coat, whipped him around, his fists hard against the young man's jaw. When you signed on for this voyage, you agreed to obey my orders, he said, not raising his voice. You'll do just that. Mason picked himself up, and there was an ugly glint in his eyes. He could have smashed Norris to a pulp, and none knew it better than the navigator. For a brief instant the young man swayed there on the balls of his feet, fists clenched. Then he had let his hands drop, walked over, and began to put on his paksak. But I had seen Mason's face, and I knew he had not given in as easily as it appeared. Meanwhile he began to circulate among the passengers, making no offers, yet subtly enlisting backers for a policy, the significance of which grew on me slowly. It was mutiny he was plotting. And with his personal charm and magnetism he had little trouble in winning over converts. I came upon him arguing before a group of the women one day, among them his own wife, Estelle. He was standing close to her. We have clothing and equipment and food concentrate, Mason said, enough to last two generations. We have brains and intelligence, and we certainly should be able to establish ourselves without the aid of other vertebrate forms of life. Allura, Jama, Tinnothon, Mockrel, R9, and Stregala. We could have settled on any one of those planets, and apparently we should have, for conditions have grown steadily worse at each landing. But always the answer is no, because Norris says we must go on until we find animal life. He cleared his throat and gazed at the feminine faces before him. Go where, what makes Norris so sure, he'll find life on any planet in this system. And incidentally, where in the cosmos is this system? One of the women, a tall blonde, stirred uneasily. What do you mean, she said? I mean, we don't know if our last landing was on Stregala or Kalora. I mean, we don't know where we are or where we're going, and I don't think Norris does either. We're lost. That was in August. By the last of September we had landed on two more planets, to which Norris gave the simple names of R-12 and R-14. Each had crude forms of vegetable life, represented principally by the blue hints or trees. But in neither case did the organic surveyor reveal the slightest traces of animal life. There was, however, a considerable difference in physical appearance between R-12 and R-14. And for a time that fact excited Norris tremendously. Up to then each successive planet, although similar in size, had exhibited signs of greater age than its predecessor. But on R-12 there were definite manifestations of younger geologic development. Several pieces of shale lay exposed. Under a fold of igneous rock two of those pieces contained fossils of highly developed ganoids, similar to those found on Venus. They were perfectly preserved. It meant that animal life had existed on R-12, even if it didn't now. It meant that R-12, though a much older planet than Earth, was still younger than Strigella or the rest. For a while Norris was almost beside himself. He cut out rock samples and carried them back to the ship. He personally supervised the tuning of the surveyors. And when he finally gave orders to take off he was almost friendly to Mason, whereas before his attitude toward him had been one of cold aloofness. But when we reached R-14, our eighth landing, all that passed, for R-14 was old again, older than any of the others. And then on October 16th Mason opened the door of the locked cabin. It happened quite by accident. One of the aurelium-thoxide conduits broke in the Marika Lantz central passageway and the resulting explosion grounded the central feed lines of the instrument equipment. In a trice the passageway was a sheet of flame, rapidly filling with smoke from burning insulation. Norris, of course, was in the bridge-cutty with locked doors between us and him. And now with the wiring burned through there was no way of signalling him. He was wanted for an emergency. In his absence Mason took command. That passageway ran the full length of the ship. Midway down it was the door leading to the women's lounge. The explosion had jammed that door shut and smoke was pouring forth from under the sill. All at once one of the women rushed forward to announce hysterically that Mason's wife, Estelle, was in the lounge. Adjoining the lounge was a small cabin, which since the beginning of our voyage had remained locked. Norris had given strict orders that that cabin was not to be disturbed. We all had taken it as a matter of course that it contained various kinds of precision instruments. Now, however, Mason realized that the only way into the lounge was by way of that locked cabin. If he used a heat blaster on the lounge door he was seeing what would happen to the woman inside. He ripped the emergency blaster from its wall mounting, pressed to the magnetic latch of the sealed cabin door and pressed the stud. An instant later he was leading his frightened wife, Estelle, out through the smoke. The fire was quickly extinguished after that and the wiring spliced. Then when the others had drifted off Mason called Brant and me aside. We've been wondering for a long time what happened to Ganneth Clay, the Martian inventor who worked with Norris to invent Inderit, he said very quietly. Well, we don't need to wonder any more. He's in there. Brant and I stepped forward over the sill and drew up short. Ganneth Clay was there all right, but he would never trouble himself about making a voyage and a locked cabin. His rigid body was encased in a transparent block of amber-colored solid effects, the after-death preservative used by all Martians. Both of us recognized his still features at once and, in addition, his name tattoo, required by Martian law, was clearly visible on his left forearm. For a brief instant the discovery stunned us. Clay dead. Clay, whose IQ had become a measuring guide for the entire system, had in head held more ordinary horse sense in addition to radical postulations on theoretical physics than anyone on the planet. It wasn't possible. And what was the significance of his body on Norris's ship? Why had Norris kept its presence a secret and why had he given out the story of Clay's disappearance? Mason's face was as cold as ice. Come with me, you two," he said. We're going to get the answer to this right now. We went along the passage to the circular staircase. We climbed the steps passing through the scuttle and came to the door of the bridge-cutty. Mason drew the bar and we passed in. Norris was bent over the chart-table. He looked up sharply at the sound of our steps. What is the meaning of this intrusion? he said. It didn't take Mason long to explain. When he had finished, he stood there, jaw set, eyes smoldering. Norris paled. Then quickly he got control of himself and his old bland smile returned. I expected you to blunder into Clay's body one of these days," he said. The explanation is quite simple. Clay had been ill for many months and he knew his time was up. His one desire in life was to go on this expedition with me and he made me promise to bury him at the side of our new colony. The pact was between him and me and I followed it to the letter telling no one. Mason's lips curled in a sneer. And just what makes you think we're going to believe that story," he demanded. Norris lit a cigar. It's entirely immaterial to me, whether you believe it or not. But the story was believed, especially by the women, to whom the romantic angle uphealed and Mason's embryonic mutiny died without being born, and the Marie Galant sailed on through uncharted space toward her ninth and last landing. As the days dragged by and no word came from the bridge-cutty, restlessness began to grow amongst us. Rumor succeeded rumour, each story wilder and more incredible than the rest. Then just as the tension had mounted to fever pitch, there came the sickening lurch and grinding vibration of another landing. Norris dispensed with his usual talk before marching out from the ship. After testing the atmosphere with the ozonometer, he passed out the heat pistols and distributed the various instruments for computing radioactivity and cosmic radiation. This is the planet Nizar, he said shortly, largest in the field of the sun Ponthus. You will make your survey as one group this time. I will remain here." He stood watching us as we marched off down the cliffside. Then the blue hint-sorten trees rose up to swallow him from view. Mason swung along at the head of our column, Eyes Bright, a figure of aggressive action. We had gone but a hundred yards when it became apparent that, as a planet, Nizar was entirely different from its predecessors. There was considerable topsoil and here grew a tall, red-shaped plant that gave off varying chords of sound when the wind blew. It was as if we were progressing through the nave of a mighty church with a muted organ in the distance. There was animal life, too, a strange, lizard-like bird that rose up in flocks ahead of us and flew screaming overhead. I don't exactly like it bagly, he said. There's something unwholesome about this planet. The evolution is obviously in an early state of development, but I get the impression that it has gone backward, that the planet is really old and has reverted to its earlier life. Above us the sky was heavily overcast and a tenuous white mist rising up from the hints-ort trees that formed curious shapes and designs. In the distance I could hear this washing of waves on a beach. Suddenly Mason stopped. Look, he said. Below us stretched the shore of a great sea, but it was the structure rising up from that shore that drew a sharp exclamation from me. Shaped in a rough ellipse, yet mounted high toward a common point, was a large building of multiple hues and colors. The upper portion was eroded to crumbling ruins, the lower part studded with many bob reliefs and triangular doorways. Let's go, Mason said, breaking out into a fast-loping run. The building was farther away than we had thought, but when we finally came up to it we saw that it was even more of a ruin than it had at first appeared. It was only a shell with but two walls standing, alone and forlorn. Whatever race had lived here, they had come and gone. We prowled about the ruins for more than an hour. The carvings on the walls were in the form of geometric designs and cabalistic symbols, giving no clue to the city's former occupants' identity. And then Mason found the stairs leading to the lower crypts. He switched on his auto-flash and led the way down cautiously. Level one, level two, three. We descended lower and lower, here water from the nearby sea oozed in little rivulets that glittered in the light of the flash. We emerged at length on a wide underground placence, a kind of amphitheater, with tear on tear of seats surrounding it and extending back into the shadows. Judging from what I've seen, Mason said, I would say that the race that built this place had reached approximately a grade C5 of civilization, according to the Mochart scale. This apparently was their council chamber. What are those rectangular stone blocks depending from the ceiling, I said? Mason turned the light beam upward. I don't know, he said, but my guess is that they are burial vaults. Perhaps the creatures were ornithoid. Away from the flash, the floor of the placence appeared to be a great mirror that caught our reflections and distorted them fantastically and horribly. We saw then that it was a form of living mold composed of millions of tiny plants, each with an eye-like iris at its center. Those eyes seemed to be watching us, and as we strode forward a great sigh rose up as if in resentment at our intrusion. There was a small triangular dais in the center of the chamber and in the middle of it stood an irregular black object. As we drew nearer, I saw that it had been carved roughly in the shape of this central building and that it was in a perfect state of preservation. Mason walked around this carving several times, examining it curiously. God, he said, it looks to be an object of religious veneration, but I never heard before of a race worshipping a replica of their own living quarters. Suddenly his voice died off. He bent closer to the black stone, studying it in the light of the powerful out-of-flash. He got a small magnifying glass out of his pocket and focused it on one of the miniature reliefs midway toward the top of the stone, and fastening his geologic hammer from his belt he managed with a sharp swinging blow to break off a small protruding piece. He drew in his breath sharply and I saw his face go pale. I stared at him in alarm. What's wrong? I asked. He motioned that I follow and led the way silently past the others toward the stair-shaft. Climbing to the top level was a heart-pounding task, but Mason almost ran up those steps. At the surface he leaned against a pillar, his lips quivering spasmodically. Tell me I'm sane, Bagley, he said huskily, or rather, don't say anything until we've seen Norris. Come on, we've got to see Norris. All the way back to the Marie Galant, I sought to soothe him, but he was a man possessed. He rushed up the ship's gangway, burst into central quarters, and navigated Norris like a runner stopping at the tape. You damn lying hypocrite, he yelled. Norris looked at him in his quiet way. Take it easy, Mason, he said. Sit down and explain yourself. But Mason didn't sit down. He thrust his hand in his pocket, pulled out the piece of black stone he had chipped off the image in the cavern, and handed it to Norris. Take a look at that, he demanded. Norris took the stone, glanced at it, and laid it down on his desk. His face was emotionless. I expected this sooner or later, he said. Yes, it's indirect, all right. Is that what you want me to say? There was a dangerous fanatical glint in Mason's eyes now, with a sudden quick motion. He pulled out his heat-pistol. So you tricked us, he snarled. Why, I want to know why. I stepped forward and seized Mason's gun-hand. Don't be a fool, I said. It can't be that important. Mason threw back his head and burst into an hysterical peel of laughter. Important, he cried. Tell him how important it is, Norris. Tell him! Quietly, the navigator filled and lighted his pipe. I'm afraid Mason is right, he said. I did trick you, not purposely, however, and in the beginning I had no intention of telling anything but the truth. Actually, we're here because of a dead man's vengeance. Norris took his pipe from his lips and stirred it absently. You'll remember that Ganneth Clay, the Martian, and I worked together to invent, but whereas I was interested in the commercial aspects of that product, Clay was absorbed only in the experimental angle of it. He had some crazy idea that it should not be given to the general public at once, but rather should be allocated for the first few years to a select group of scientific organizations. You see, Inderit was such a departure from all known materials that Ganneth Clay feared it would be utilized for military purposes. I took him for a dreamer and a fool. Actually, he was neither. How was I to know that his keen penetrating brain had seen through my motive to get control of all commercial marketing of Inderit? I had laid my plans carefully and I had expected to reap a nice harvest. Clay must have been aware of my innermost thoughts, but Martian-like, he said nothing. Norris paused to wet his lips and lean against the dusk. I didn't kill Ganneth Clay, he continued, though I suppose in a court of law I would be judged responsible for his death. The manufacture of Inderit required some ticklish work. As you know, we produced our halves of the formula separately. Physical contact with my half over a long period of time would prove fatal, I knew, and I simply neglected to so inform Ganneth Clay. But his ultimate death was a boomerang. With Clay gone I could find no trace of his half of the formula. I was almost beside myself for a time. Then I thought of something. Clay had once said that the secret of his half of the formula lay in himself. A vague statement, to say the least. But I took the words at their face value and gambled that he meant them literally, that his body itself contained the formula. I tried everything. X-ray, chemical analysis of the skin. I even removed the cranial cap and examined the brain microscopically, all without result. Meanwhile the police were beginning to direct their suspicions toward me in a matter of Clay's disappearance. You know the rest. It was necessary that I leave Earth at once and go beyond our system, beyond the jurisdiction of the planetary police. So I arranged this voyage with a sufficient complement of passengers to lessen the danger and hardship of a new life on a new world. I was still positive, however, that Clay's secret lay in his dead body. I took that body along, encased in the Martian preservative, solidifix. It was my idea that I could continue my examination once we were safe on a strange planet, but I had reckoned without Ganneth Clay. What do you mean? I said slowly. I said Clay was no fool, but I didn't know that with Martian stoicism he suspected the worst and took his own ironic means of combating it. He is the last lot of Enderit to make that booster, a device which he said would increase our takeoff speed. He mounted it on the Marie Galant. Mason, that device was no booster. It was a time machine, so devised as to catapult the ship, not into outer space, but into the space-time continuum. It was a mechanism designed to throw the Marie Galant forward into the future. A cloud of fear began to well over me. What do you mean? I said again. Navigator Norris paced around his desk. I mean that the Marie Galant has not once left Earth, has not in fact left the spot of its moorings but has merely gone forward in time. I mean that the nine landings we made were not stops on some other planets, but halting stages of a journey into the future. Had a bombshell burst over my head the effect could have been no greater. Cold perspiration began to ooze out on my forehead. In a flash I saw the significance of the entire situation. That was why Norris had been so insistent that we always returned to the ship before dark. He didn't want us to see the night sky and the constellations there for fear we would guess the truth. That was why he had never permitted any of us in the bridge-cutty and why he had kept all ports and observation shields closed. But the names of the planets Kalora, Sturgella, and the others and the positions on the chart I objected. Norris smiled grimly. All words created out of my imagination. Like the rest of you I knew nothing of the true action of the booster. It was only gradually that truth dawned on me. But by the time we had made our first landing I had guessed. That was why I demanded we always take organic surveyor readings. I knew we had traveled far into future time, far beyond the life-period of man on earth. But I wasn't sure how far we had gone. And I lived with the hope that Clay's booster might reverse itself and start carrying us backwards down the centuries. For a long time I stood there in silence. A thousand mad speculations racing through my mind. How about that piece of Enderit? I said at length. He shipped off an image in the ruins of a great building a mile or so from here. An image, repeated Norris, a faint glow of interest slowly rose in his eyes. Then it died. I don't know, he said. It would seem to presuppose that the formula, both parts of it, was known by Clay and that he left it for posterity to discover. All this time Mason had been standing there, eyes smoldering, lips and ugly line. Now abruptly he took a step forward. I've wanted to return this for a long time, he said. He doubled back his arm and brought his fists smashing into Norris's jaw. The navigator's head snapped backward. He gave a low groan and slumped to the floor. And that is where, by all logic, this tale should end. But, as you may have guessed, there is an anticlimax, what storytellers call a happy conclusion. Mason, Brant and I worked, and worked alone, on the theory that the secret of the Enduret formula would be the answer to our return down the time trail. We removed the body of Ganneth Clay from its solid effects envelope and treated it with every chemical process we knew. By sheer luck the 40th trial worked. A paste of Carbogenethon, mixed with the crushed seeds of the Martian iron flower, was spread over Clay's chest and abdomen. And there, in easily decipherable code, was not only the formula, but the working principles of the ship's booster, or rather, time catapult. After that it was a simple matter to reverse the principle and throw us backward in the time stream. We are heading back as I write these lines. If they reach print and you read them, it will mean our escape was successful and that we return to our proper slot in the epilogue of human events. There remains, however, one matter to trouble me. Navigator Munaris. I like the man. I like him tremendously, in spite of his cold-blooded confession and past record. He must be punished, of course. But I, for one, would hate to see him given the death penalty. It is a serious problem. End of The Long Voyage by Carl Richard Jacopi.