 Section 1 of Astounding Stories of Super Science, September 1930. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Miriam Esther Goldman. A Problem in Communication, Part 1 by Miles J. Brewer M.D. Part 1, The Science Community. The delivery of his country into the clutches of a merciless, ultra-modern religion can be prevented only by Dr. Hagstrom's deciphering and extraordinary code. This part is related by Peter Hagstrom, Ph.D. The ability to communicate ideas from one individual to another, said a professor of sociology to his class, is the principal distinction between human beings and their brute forebears. The increase and refinement of this ability to communicate is an index of the degree of civilization of a people. The more civilized a people, the more perfect their ability to communicate, especially under difficulties and in emergencies. As usual, the observation burst harmlessly over the heads of most of the students in the class, who were preoccupied with more immediate things. With the evening's movies and the weekend's dance. But upon two young men in the class, it made a powerful impression. It crystallized within them certain vague conceptions and brought them into a conscious focus, enabling the young men to turn formless dreams into concrete acts. That is why I take the position that the above enthusiastic words of this sociology professor, whose very name I have forgotten, were the prime moving influence which many years later succeeded in saving occidental civilization from a catastrophe which would have been worse than death and destruction. One of these young men was myself, and the other was my lifelong friend and chum, Carl Benda, who saved his country by solving a tremendously difficult scientific puzzle in a simple way, by sheer reasoning power and without apparatus. The sociology professor struck a responsive chord in us. For since our earliest years, we had wigwag to each other as boy scouts, learned the finger alphabet of the deaf and dumb so that we might maintain communication during school hours, strung a telegraph wire between our two homes, admired Poe's gold bug together, and devised boyish cipher codes in which to send each other postcards when chance separated us. But we had always felt a little foolish and considered our childish hobbies until the professor's word suddenly roused us to the realization that we were a highly civilized pair of youngsters. Not only did we then and there cease feeling guilty about our secret ciphers and our dots and dashes, but the determination was born within us to make of communication our life's work. It turned out that both of us actually did devote our lives to the cause of communication, but the passing years saw us engaged in widely and curiously divergent phases of the work. Thirty years later, I was professor of the psychology of language at Columbia University, and Benda was maintenance engineer of the Bell Telephone Company of New York City, and on his knowledge and skill depended the continuity and stability of that stupendously complex traffic, the telephone communication of greater New York. Since our ambitious cravings were satisfied in our everyday work, and since now ordinarily available methods of communication sufficed our needs, we no longer felt impelled to signal across the house stops with semaphores, nor to devise ciphers that would defy solution. But we still kept up our intimate friendship and our intense interest in our beloved subject. We were just as close chums at the age of fifty as we had been at ten, and just as thrilled at new advances in communication at television, at the international language, at the supposed signals from Mars. That was the state of affairs between us up to a year ago. At about that time, Benda resigned his position with the New York Bell Telephone Company to accept the place as the director of communication in the science community. This, for many reasons, was a most amazing piece of news to myself and to anyone who knew Benda. Of course, it was commonly known that Benda was being sought by universities and corporations. I know personally of several tempting offers he had received, but the New York Bell is a wealthy corporation and had thus far managed to hold Benda, both by the munificence of its salary and by the attractiveness of the work it offered him. That the science community would want Benda was easy to understand, but that it could outbid the New York Bell was, to say the least, a surprise. Furthermore, that a man like Benda would want to have anything at all to do with the science community seems strange enough in itself. He had the most practical common sense, well-balanced habits of thinking and living supported by an intellect so clear and so keen that I knew of none to excel it. What the science community was, no one knew exactly, but that there was something abnormal, fanatical about it, no one doubted. The science community, situated in Virginia in the foothills of the Blue Ridge, had first been heard of many years ago when it was already a going concern. At the time of which I now speak, the novelty had worn off and no one paid any more attention to it than they do to Zion City or the Dunkards. By this time, the science community was a city of a million inhabitants, with a vast outlying area of farms and gardens. It was modern to the highest degree in construction and operation. There was very little manual labor there, no poverty. Every person had all the benefits of modern developments in power, transportation, and communication, and of all other resources provided by scientific progress. So much visitors and reporters were able to say. The rumors that it was a vast socialistic organization without private property with equal sharing of all privileges were never confirmed. It is a curious observation that it was possible in this country of ours for a city to exist about which we knew so little. However, it seemed evident from the vast number and elaboration of public buildings the perfection of community utilities, such as transportation, streets, lighting, and communication from the absence of individual homes and the housing of people in huge dormitories that some different, less individualistic type of social organization than ours was involved. It was obvious that, as an organization, the science community must also be wealthy. If any of its individual citizens were wealthy, no one knew it. I knew Benda as well as I knew myself, and if I was sure of anything in my life, it was that he was not the type of man to leave a $50,000 job and join a communist city on an equal footing with the clerks in the stores. As it happens, I was also intimately acquainted with John Edgewater Smith, recently power commissioner of New York City, and the most capable power engineer in North America, who, following Benda by two or three months, resigned his position and accepted what his letter termed the place of director of power in the science community. I was personally in a position to state that neither of these men could be lightly persuaded into such a step, and that neither of them would work for a small salary. Benda's first letter to me stated that he was at the science community on a visit. He had heard of the place, and while at Washington on business had taken advantage of the opportunity to drive out and see it. Fascinated by the equipment he saw there, he had decided to stay a few days and study it. The next letter announced his acceptance of the position. I would give a month's salary to get a look at those letters now, but I neglected to preserve them. I should like to see them because I am curious how they exhibit the characteristics of the subsequent letters, some of which I now have. As I have stated, Benda and I had been on the most intimate terms for forty years. His letters had always been crisp and direct, and thoroughly familiar and confidential. I do not know just how many letters I received from him from the science community before I noted the difference, but I have one from the third month of his stay there, he wrote every two or three weeks, characterized by a verbosity that sounded strange for him. He seemed to be writing merely to cover the sheet, trifles such as he had never previously considered worth writing letters about. Four pages of letter conveyed not a single idea, yet Benda was, if anything, a man of ideas. There followed several months of letters like that, a lot of words, evasion of coming to the point about anything just conventional letters. Benda was the last man to write a conventional letter, yet it was Benda writing them, gruff little expressions of his, clear ways of looking at even the various trifles, little allusion to our common past. These things could neither have been written by anyone else, nor written under compulsion from without. Something had changed Benda. I pondered on it a good deal, and could think of no hypothesis to account for it. In the meanwhile, New York City lost a third technical man to the science community. Donald Francisco, commissioner of the water supply, a sanitary engineer of international standing, accepted a position in the science community as water director. I did not know whether to laugh and compare it to the National Baseball League's trafficking in big names, or to hunt for some sinister danger sign in it. But as a result of my ponderings, I decided to visit Benda at the science community. I wrote him to that effect, and almost decided to change my mind about the visit because of the cold evasiveness of the reply I received from him. My first impulse on reading his indifferent, lackadaisical comment on my proposed visit was to feel offended and determined to let him alone and never see him again. The average man would have done that. But my long years of training in psychological interpretation taught me that a character and a friendship built during 40 years does not change in six months, and that there must be some other explanation for this. I wrote him that I was coming. I found that the best way to reach the science community was to take a bus out from Washington. It involved a drive of about 50 miles northwest through a picturesque section of the country. The latter part of the drive took me past settlements that looked as though they might be in about the same age of progress as during the American Revolution. The city of my destination was back in the hills and very much isolated. During the last ten miles we met no traffic at all, and I was the only passenger left in the bus. Suddenly the vehicle stopped. Far as we go, the driver shouted. I looked about in consternation. All around were low, wild-looking hills. The road went on ahead through a narrow pass. They'll pick you up in a little bit, as the driver said as he turned around and drove off, leaving me standing there with my bag, very much astonished at it all. He was right. A small, neat-looking bus drove through the pass and stopped for me. As I got in, the driver mechanically turned around and drove into the hills again. They took up my ticket on the other bus, I said to the driver. What do I owe you? Nothing. He said curtly, fill that out. He handed me a card. An impertinent thing that card was. Besides asking for my name, address, nationality, vocation, and position, it requested that I state whom I was visiting in the science community, the purpose of my visit, the nature of my business, how long I intended to stay, did I have a place to stay, arranged for, and if so, where and through whom. It looked for all the world as though they had something to conceal. Sara Struscia couldn't beat that for keeping track of people and prying into their business. Sign here, the card said. It annoyed me, but I filled it out, and by the time I was through the bus was out of the hills, traveling up the valley of a small river. I am not familiar enough with northern Virginia to say which river it was. There was much machinery and few people in the broad fields. In the distance ahead was a mass of chimneys and the cupolas of ironworks, but no smoke. End of Section 1 Recording by Maria Mester-Goldman Section 2 of Astounding Stories of Super Science, September 1930 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information order volunteer. Please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Maria Mester-Goldman The Problem in Communication by Miles J. Brewer and D. Part 2 Part 2 The New Religion This part is interpolated by the author and to Dr. Hagstrom's narrative. Every great religion has, as its psychological reason for existence, the mission of compensating for some crying, unsatisfied human need. Christianity spread and grew among people who were, at the time, subjects or slaves of Rome and it flourished through the Middle Ages at a time when life held for the individual chiefly pain, uncertainty, and bereavement. Christianity kept the common man consoled and mentally balanced by minimizing the importance of life on earth and offering compensation afterwards and elsewhere. A feeble nation of idle dreamers torn by a chaos of intertribal feuds within, menaced by powerful conquest lusting nations from without. Arabia was enabled by Islam, the religion of her prophet Muhammad, to unite all her sons into an intense loyalty to one cause and to turn her dream stuff into reality by carrying her national pride and honor beyond her boundaries and spreading it over half the known world. The ancient Greeks in despair over the frailties of human emotion and the unbecomingness of worldly conduct which their brilliant minds enabled them to recognize clearly but which they found themselves powerless to subdue and doubt the gods whom they worshipped with all of their own passions and weaknesses and thus the foolish behavior of the gods consulped them for their own obvious shortcomings so it goes throughout all of the world's religions. In the middle of the 20th century there were in the civilized world millions of people in whose lives Christianity had ceased to play any part. Yet psychically remember, psyche means soul. They were just as sick and unbalanced just as much in need of some compensation as were the subjects of the early Roman Empire or the Arabs in the Middle Ages. They were forced to work at the strained and monotonous pace of machines. They were the slaves, body and soul of machines. They lived with machines and lived like machines. They were expected to be machines. A mechanized mode of life set a relentless pace for them while just as in all the past ages life and love, the breezes and the blue sky called to them but they could not respond. They had to drive machines so that machines could serve them. Mines were cramped and emotions were starved but hands must go on guiding levers and keeping machines in operation. Lives were reduced to such a mechanical routine that wondered how long human minds and human bodies could stand the restraint. There is a good deal in the writings of the times to show that life was becoming almost unbearable for three fourths of humanity. It is only natural therefore that Rohan, the prophet of the new religion, found followers more rapidly than he could organize them. About ten years before the visit of Dr. Hagstrom to his friend Benda, Rohan and his new religion had been much better than newspapers. Rohan was a Slovak, apparently well educated in Europe. When he first attracted attention to himself he was a foreman in a steel plant at Birmingham, Alabama. He was popular as an orator and drew unheard of crowds to his lectures. He preached of science as a god and all pervading inexorably systematic being the true center and motive power of the universe, a being who saw men and pitied them because they did not help committing inaccuracies. The science god was helping man become more perfect. Even now men were much more accurate and systematic than they had been a hundred years ago. Men's lives were ordered and rhythmic like natural laws not like the chaotic emotions of beasts and savages. Somehow he soon dropped out of the attention of the great mass of the public. Of course he did so intentionally when his ideas began for his future organization began to form. At first he had a sort of church in Birmingham called the Church of the Scientific God. There never was anything cheap nor blatant about him. When he moved his church from Birmingham to the Lovett Branch Valley in Northern Virginia he was hardly noticed. But with him went seven thousand people to form the nucleus of the science community. Since then some feature writer for a Metropolitan Sunday paper has occasionally written up the science community both from its physical and its human aspects. From these reports the outstanding bit of evidence is that Rohan believes intensely in his own religion and that his followers are all loyal worshippers of the science god. They conceived the earth to be a workshop in which men serve science, their god serving a sort of apprenticeship during which he perfects them to the state of ideal machines. To be a perfect machine always accurate with no distracting emotions, no getting off the track that was the ideal which the great god science required of his worshippers. To be a perfect machine or a perfect cog in a machine to get rid of all individuality all disturbing sentiment that was their idea of supreme happiness. Despite the obvious narrowness it involved there was something sublime in the conception of this religion. It certainly had nothing in common with the Christian science that was invoked during the early years of the 20th century. It towered with a noble grandeur above that feeble little sham. The science community was organized like a machine and all men played their parts in government in labor, in administration and production, like perfect cogs and accurate wheels and the machine function perfectly. The devotees were described as fanatical but happy. They certainly were well trained and efficient. The science community grew. In 10 years it had a million people and was a worldwide wonder of civic planning and organization. It contained so many astonishing developments in mechanical service to human welfare and comfort that it was considered as a sort of model of the future city. The common man there was provided with science produced luxuries in his daily life that were in the rest of the world the privilege of the wealthy few. But he used his increased energy and leisure in serving the more devotedly, his god science who had made machines. There was a great temple in the city the shape of a huge dynamo generator whose interior was worked out in a scheme of mechanical devices and with music, lights and odors to help in the worship. What the world knew the least about was that this religion was becoming militant. Its followers spoke of the heathen without and were horrified at the prevalence of the sin of individualism. They were inspired with the mission that the message of god scientific perfection must be carried to the whole world. But knowing that vested interests, governments, invested capital and established religions would oppose them and render any real progress impossible they waited. They studied the question looking for some opportunity to spread the gospel of their beliefs prepared to do so by force finding their justification and their belief that millions of sufferers needed the comforts that their religion had given them. Meanwhile, their numbers grew. Rohan was chief engineer which position was equal and honor and dignity to that of prophet or high priest. He was a busy, hard working man black haired and gaunt small of stature and fiery-eyed. He looked rather like an overwork department store manager rather than like a prophet. He was finding his hands more full every day both because of the extraordinary fertility of his own plans and ideas and because the science community was growing so rapidly. Among this heterogenous mass of proselyte strangers that poured into the city and was efficiently absorbed into machine it was difficult to find executives, leaders men to put in charge of big things and he needed constantly more and more of such men. That was why Rohan went to Benda and subsequently to others like Benda. Rohan had a deep knowledge of human nature. He did not approach Benda with the offer of a magnanimous salary but came into Benda's office asking for a consultation on some of the puzzling communication problems of the science community. Benda became interested and on his own initiative offered to visit the science community saying that he had to be in Washington anyway in a few days. When he saw what the conditions were in the science community he became fascinated by its advantages over New York. Rohan from the ground up no obsolete installation to wrestle with an absolutely free hand for the engineer in charge. No politics to play no concessions to antiquated city construction nor to feeble minded city administration. Just a dream of an opportunity. He almost asked for the job himself but Rohan was tactful enough to offer it and the salary though princely was hardly given a thought. For many weeks Benda was absorbed to the exclusion of all else. He sent his money to his New York bank and had his family move in and live with him. He was happy in his communication problems. Give me a problem in communication and you make me happy. He wrote to Hagstrom in one of his early letters. He had completed a certain division of his work on the science community's communication system and it occurred to him that a few days relaxation would do him good. A run up to New York would be just the thing. To his amazement he was not permitted to board the outbound bus. You'll need orders from the chief engineer's office, the driver said. Benda went to Rohan. Am I a prisoner? He demanded with his characteristic directness. An embarrassing situation. The suave Rohan admitted very calmly and at his ease you'll see I'm nothing like a dictator here. I have no arbitrary power. Everything runs by system and you're a sort of exception. No one knows exactly how to classify you. Neither do I. But I can't break a rule. That is sin. What rule? I only want to go to New York. Only those of the faith who have reached the third degree can come and go. No one can get there in less than three years. Then you got me in here by fraud? Benda asked bluntly. Rohan sidestepped gracefully. You know our innermost secrets now. He explained. Do you suppose there is any hope of your embracing the faith? Benda whirled on his heel and walked out. I'll think about it. He said, his voice snapping with sarcasm. Benda went back to his work in order to get his mind off the matter. He was a well-balanced man, if he was anything, and he knew that nothing could be accomplished by rash words or incautious moves against Rohan and his organization. And on that day he met John Edgewater Smith. You here? Benda gasped. He lost his equilibrium for a moment in consternation at the sight of his fellow engineer. Smith was too elated to notice Benda's mood. I've been here a week. This is certainly an ideal opportunity in my line of work. Even in heaven I never expected to find such a chance. By this time Benda had regained control of himself. He decided to say nothing to Smith for the time being. They did not meet again for several weeks. In the meantime Benda discovered that his mail was being censored. At first he did not know that his letters, always typewritten, were copied and objectionable matter omitted and his signature reproduced by the photo engraving process separately each time. But before long several letters came back to him rubber stamped not passable please revise. It took Benda two days to cool down and rewrite the first letter but outwardly no one would have ever known that there was anything amiss with him. However he took to leaving his work for an hour or two a day and walking in the park to think out the matter. He didn't like it. This was about the time that it began to be a real issue as to who was the bigger man of the two Rohan or Benda but no signs of the issue appeared externally for many months. John Edgewater Smith realized sooner than Benda that he couldn't get out because not sticking to work so closely he had made the attempt sooner. He looked very much worried when Benda next saw him. What's this? Do you know about it? He shouted as soon as he had come within hearing distance of Benda. What's the difference? Benda replied casually. Aren't you satisfied? Smith's face went blank. Benda came close to him linked arms and led him to a broad vacant lawn in the park. Listen he said softly in Smith's ear Don't you suppose these people who lock us in and censor our mail aren't smart enough to spy on what we say to each other? Our only hope Benda continued is to learn all we can of what is going on here. Keep your eyes and ears open and meet me here in a week. And now come on we've been whispering here long enough. Oddly enough the first clue to the puzzle they were trying to solve was supplied by Francisco, New York's former water commissioner. Why were they being kept prisoners in the city? There must be more reason for holding them there than the fear that information would be carried out, for none of the three engineers knew anything about the science community that could be of any possible consequence to outsiders. They had all stuck rigidly to their own jobs. They met Francisco very blue and ejected walking in the park a couple of months later. They had been having weekly meetings feeling that more frequent rendezvous might excite suspicion. Francisco was overjoyed to see them. Been trying to figure out why they want us, he said. There is something deeper than the excuse they have made that wrought about a perfect system and no breaking of rules may be true, but it has nothing to do with us. Now here are three of us widely admitted as having good heads on us. We've got to solve this. The first fact to work on, he continued, is that there is no real job for me here. This city has no water problem that cannot be worked out by an engineer's office clerk. Why are they holding me here, paying me a profligate salary for a job that is a joke for a grown-up man? There's something behind it that is not apparent on the surface. The weekly meetings of the three engineers became an established institution. Mindful that their conversation was doubtless the object of attention on the part of the towers of the city through spies and concealed microphones, they were careful to discuss trivial matters most of the time and mentioned their problem only when alone in the open spaces of the park. After weeks of effort had produced no results, they arrived at the conclusion that they would have to do some spying themselves. The great temple, shaped like a dynamo generator, attracted their attention as the first possibility for obtaining information. Benda, during his work with telephone and television installation found that the office of some sort of ruling council or board of directors were located there. Later he found that it was called the Science Staff. He managed to slip in several concealed microphone detectors and wire them to a private receiver on his desk, doing all the work with his own hands under the pretense of hunting for a cleverly contrived short circuit that his subordinates failed to find. They opened their meeting, he said reporting several days of listening to his comrades with a lot of religious stuff. They really believe they are chosen by God to perfect the earth. Their fanaticism as the Mohamedans beat 40 ways. As I get from listening in the city is just a preliminary base from which to carry forcibly the gospel of scientific efficiency to the whole world. They have been divinely appointed to organize the earth. The first thing on the program is the seizure of New York City and it won't be long, I've heard the details of a cut and dried plan. When they have New York the rest of America can easily be captured for cities aren't as independent of each other as they used to be. Getting the rest of the world into their hands will then merely be a matter of routine just a little time and it will be done. Mohamed's wars weren't in it with this. Francisco and Smith stared at him aghast. These dull-faced blue-surge-clad people did not look capable of it unless possibly one noted the fiery glint in their eyes. A worldwide crusade on a scientific basis, the idea left them weak and trembling. Gotta learn more details before we can do anything. Benda said, come on we've been whispering here long enough they'll get suspicious. Benda's brain was now definitely pitted against this marvelous organization. I've got it! Benda reported at a later meeting. I pieced it together from just a few hours listening. Devilish scheme! Can you imagine what would happen in New York in case of a breakdown in water supply, electric power and communication? In an hour there would be panic. In a day the city would be a hideous shambles of suffering, starvation, disease and trampling maniacs. Dante's Inferno would be a lovely little pleasure resort in comparison. Also, have you ever stopped to think how few people there are in the world who understand the handling of these vital elements of our modern civilized organization sufficiently to keep them in operation? There you have the scheme because they do not want to destroy the city but merely to threaten it. They are holding the three of us. A little skillful management will eliminate all other possible men in this machinery except ourselves. We three will be placed in charge. A threat, perhaps a demonstration in some limited section of what horrors are possible. The city is at their mercy and promptly surrenders. An alternative plan was discussed. Just a little quiet violence could eliminate those who are now in charge of the city's works. And the panic and horrors would commence. But within an hour of the city's capitulation the three of us could have things running smoothly again. There would be no New York. This place would be science community number two. From it they could step on to the next city. The other two stared at him. There was only one comment. They seemed to be sure that they could depend on us. Smith said. They may be correct. Bender replied. Would you stand by and see people perish if the return of your hand could save them? You would for the moment forget the issue between the old order and the new religion? They separated. Horrified by the ghastly simplicity of the plan. Just following this Bender received the telegram announcing the prospective visit of his lifelong friend Dr. Hagstrom. He took it at once to Rohan. Will my friend be permitted to depart again if he once gets in here? He demanded with his customary directness. It depends on you. Rohan replied blandly. We want your friend to see our community and to go away and carry with him the nicest possible reports and descriptions of it to the world. I wonder. Do I make myself clear? That means I gotta feed him taffy while he's here? Bender asked gruffly. You'll choose to put it in delicately. He is to see and hear only such things about the science community as well please the world and impress it favorably. I am sure he will understand that under no other circumstances will he be permitted to leave here. Bender turned around abruptly and walked out without a word. Just a moment. Rohan called after him. I am sure you appreciate the fact that every precaution will be taken with the last word that you'll say to him during his stay here. You are watched only perfunctorily now. While he is here you will be kept track of carefully. And there will be three methods of checking everything you do or say. I am sure you do not underestimate our caution in this matter. Bender spent the days intervening between then and the arrival at his friend Hagstrom closed up in his office in intense study. He figured things on pieces of paper, read the newspaper, and scrupulously burned the paper. Then he wandered about the park and plucked at leaves and twigs. End of Section 2 Recording by Miriam Esther Goldman Section 3 Of Astounding Stories of Super Science September 1930 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Miriam Esther Goldman A Problem in Communication by Miles J. Brewer MD Parts 3 and 4 Recording by Miriam Esther Goldman A Problem in Communication by Miles J. Brewer MD Section 3 Part 3 The Cipher Message Related by Peter Hagstrom, PhD Bender conducted me personally to a room very much like an ordinary hotel room. He was glad to see me. I could tell that from his grip of welcome, from his pleased face, from the warmth in his voice, from the eager way in which he hovered around me. I sat down on a bed and he on a chair. Now, tell me all about it, I said. The room was very still and in its privacy following Bender's demonstrative welcome. I expected some confidential revelations. Therefore, I was astonished. There isn't much to tell, he said gaily. My work is congenial, fascinating and there's enough of it to keep me out of mischief. The pay is good and the life pleasant and easy. I don't know what to say for a moment. I had come there with my mind made up that there was something suspicious of what, but he seemed thoroughly happy and satisfied. I'll admit, I treated you a little shabbily in this matter of letters. He continued, I suppose it is because I've had a lot of new and interesting problems on my mind and it's been hard to get my mind down to writing letters. But I've got a good start on my job and I'll promise to reform. I was at a loss to pursue that subject any further. Have you seen Smith in Francisco? I asked. He nodded. How do they like it? Both are enthusiastic about the wonderful opportunities in their respective fields. It's a fact no engineer has ever before had such resources to work with on such a vast scale and with such a free hand. We're laying the framework for a city of tens of millions all thoroughly systematized and efficient. There's no city in the world like it. Dream of utopia! I was almost convinced. There was only the tiniest of lurking suspicions that all was not well but it was not powerful enough to stimulate me to say anything. But I did determined to keep my eyes open. I might as well admit in advance that from that moment to the time when I left the science community four days later I saw nothing to confirm my suspicions. I met Smith in Francisco at dinner and the four of us occupied a table to ourselves in a vast dining hall and no one paid for the meal nor for subsequent ones. They also seemed content and talked enthusiastically of their work. I was shown over the city through its neat efficient streets through its comfortable dormitories each housing hundreds of families as luxuriously as any modern hotel through its marvelous factories where production had passed the stage of labor and had assumed the condition of a devoted act of worship. These factory workers were not toiling they were worshiping their God of whom each machine was apart. Touching their machine was touching their God. This machinery while involving no new principles was developed and coordinated to a degree that exceeded anything I had ever seen anywhere else. I saw the famous science table in the shape of a huge dynamo generator with its interior decorations paintings carvings frescoes and pillars all worked out on the motive of machinery with its constant streams of worshipers and blue surge performing their conventional rites and staying their prayer formulas at altars in the forms of lathes microscopes motors and electron tubes. You haven't become a science communist yourself I bantered Benda. There was a metallic ring in the laugh he gave they'd like to have me was all he said I was rather surprised at the emptiness of the large and well-kept park to which Benda took me. It was beautifully landscaped but only a few scattering people were there lost in its vast reaches. These people seem to have no need of recreation Benda said they do not come here much but I confess that I need air and relaxation if only short snatches. I've been too busy to get away for long at a time but this park has helped me keep my balance I'm here every day for at least a few minutes. Beautiful place I remarked a lot of strange trees and plants I never saw before all mostly tropical forms common enough in their own habitats they have steam pipes under the ground to grow them I've been trying to learn something about them fancy me studying natural history I never cared for it but here where there is no such thing as recreation I have become intensely interested in it as a hobby I find it very much of a rest to study these plants and bugs why don't you run up to New York for a few days all the time will come for that in the meanwhile I've got an idea all of a sudden will you do me a little service even though you might think it's silly I'll do anything I can I began eager to be of help to him it has been somewhat of a torture to me Benda continued to find so many of these forms which I am unable to identify I'd like to be scientific even in my play and reference books on plants and insects are scarce here now if you would carry back a few specimens for me and ask some of the botanian zoology people to send me their names fine! I exclaimed I've got a good sized pocket notebook I can carry them in well then, please put them in the order in which I hand them to you and send me the names by number I am pretty thoroughly familiar with them and if you will keep them in order there is no need for me to keep a list the first blade is of this square grass I filed the grass blade between the first two pages of my book it is this unusual looking pinnate leaf he tore off a dry leaflet and handed me a stem with three leaflets irregularly disposed of it now leave a blank page in your book that will help me remember the order in which they come next came a flat insect which strangely enough had two legs missing on one side however Benda was moving so fast that I had to put it away without comment he kept darting about and handing me twigs of leaves sticks, pieces of bark, insects not seeming to care much whether they were complete or not, grass blades several dagger shaped locust thorns cross sections of curious fruit moving so rapidly that in a few moments my notebook bulged wildly and I had to warn him that his hundred leaves were almost filled well that ought to be enough he said with a sigh after his lively exertion you don't know how I'll appreciate you're indulging my foolish little whim say I've named, ask something of me this is nothing I'll take it right over to the botany department and in a few days you ought to have a list of names fit for a bolshevik one important caution he said if you disturb their order in the book or even the position on the page names you send me will mean nothing to me not that it will be any great loss he added whimsically I suppose I've become sort of a fan on this like the businessmen who claim that their office work is with their golf we walked leisurely back toward the big dormitory it was while we were crossing a street that Benda stumbled and to dodge a passing truck had to catch my arm and fell against me I heard a soft voice whisper in my ear get out of this town as soon as you can I looked at him and startled amazement but he was walking along shaking himself from his stubble and looking up and down the street for passing trucks as I was saying I heard a soft voice we expect to reach the one and one quarter million mark this month I never saw a place grow so fast I felt a great leap of sudden understanding for a moment my muscles tightened but I took my cue what a remarkable place I said calmly one reason a lot of half truths about it too bad I can't stay any longer sorry you have to leave he said in exactly the right tone of voice but you can come again how thankful I was for the 40 years of playing and working together that had accustomed us to that sort of teamwork unconsciously we responded to one another's cues once our ability to play together had saved my life it was when we were in college and we were out on a cross country hike together Benda suddenly caught my hand and swung it upward I recognized the gesture later and worked together at football games and we had one stunt in which we swung our hands over our heads jumped about 3 feet and let out a whoop this was the stunt that he started out there in the country where we were by ourselves automatically without thinking I swung my arms and leaped with him and yelled only later did I notice the rattle snake over which I had jumped I had not seen that I was about to walk right into it and he had noticed it too late to explain a flash of what this means suggested the cheering stunt to him communication is a science he had said and that was all the comment there was on the incident so now I followed my cue without knowing why nor what it was all about but confident that I should soon find out by noon I was on the bus on my way through the pass to meet the vehicle from Washington as the bus swung along a number of things kept jumbling through my mind bent as effusive glee at seeing me and a sudden turning and bundling me off in a nervous hurry without a word of explanation his lined and worried face and yet his insistence on the joys of his work in the science community his obvious desire to be hospitable and play the good host and yet his evasiveness and unwillingness to chat intimately and discuss important thing as he used to finally that notebook full of odd specimens bulging in my pocket and the memory of his words as he shook hands with me when I was stepping into the bus long live the science of communication he had said otherwise he was rather glum and silent I took out the book of specimens and looked at it his caution not to disturb the order and position of things rang in my ears the science of communication two and two were beginning to make four in my mind all the way on the train from Washington to New York I could hardly keep my hands off the book I had definitely abandoned the idea of hunting up botanists and zoologists at Columbia Venda was not interested in the names of these things that book meant something else some message the science of communication that suddenly explained all the contradictions in his behavior he was being closely watched any attempt to tell me the things he wanted to say would be promptly recognized he had succeeded brilliantly in getting a message to me now my part was to read it I felt a sudden sinking within me that book full of leaves bugs and sticks how can I make anything out of it there's a secret service I thought they're skilled in reading hidden messages it must be an important one worthy of the efforts of the secret service or he would not have been at such pains to get it to me but no the secret service is skilled at reading hidden messages but not as skilled as I am in reading my friend's mind knowing Benda his clear intellect his logical methods will be of more service in solving this than all the experts of the secret service I barely stopped to eat dinner when I reached home I hurried to the laboratory building and laid out the specimens on white sheets of paper meticulously preserving order position and spacing to be on the safe side I had them photographed asking the photographer to vary the scale of his pictures so that all of the final figures would be approximately the same size plate one shows what I had I was all the tremble and the mounted photographs were handed to me the first thing I did was to number the specimens giving each blank space also its consecutive number certainly no one could imagine a more meaningless jumble of twigs, leaves, berries and bugs how could I read any message out of that yet I had no doubt that the message concerned something of far more importance than Benda's own safety he had moved in this matter with astonishing skill and breathless caution yet I knew him to be reckless to the extreme where only his own skill was concerned I couldn't even imagine his going to this elaborate risk merely in account of Smith and Francisco something bigger must be involved I stared at the row of specimens communication is a science Benda had said it came back to me as I studied the bent worms and the beetles with two legs missing I was confident that the solution would be simple once the key idea occurred to me I knew I should find the whole thing astonishingly direct and systematic for a moment I tried to attach some sort of hieroglyphic significance to the specimen forms in the writing of the American Indians a wavy line meant water and inverted V meant a wigwam but I discarded that idea in a moment Benda's mind did not work along the paths of symbolism it would have to be something mathematical rigidly logical leaving no room for guesswork no sooner had the key idea occurred to me than a basic conception underlying all those rows of twigs and bugs suddenly flashed into clear meaning before me the simplicity of it took my breath away I knew it I said aloud though I was alone very simple I was prepared for the fact that each one of the specimens represented a letter of the alphabet if nothing else their number indicated that now I could see so clearly that the photograph shouted at me that each specimen consisted of an upright stem and from this middle stem projected side arms to the right and to the left and in various vertical locations on each side the middle upright stem contained these side arms and various numbers and combinations in five minutes I had a copy of the message translated into its fundamental characters as shown on plate two the first grass blade was the simple upright stem the second three leaflets on their stems represented the upright portion with two arms to the left at the top and middle and one arm to the right at the top and so on that brought the message down to the simple and straightforward matter of a substitution cipher I was confident that Benda had no object in introducing any complications that could possibly be avoided as his sole purpose was to get to me the most readable message without getting caught at it I recollected now how cautious he had been to hand me no paper and how openly and obviously he had dropped each specimen into my book because he knew someone was watching him and expecting him to slip in a message he had as I could see now in the retrospect been conspicuously careful that nothing suspicious should pass from his hands to mine substitution ciphers are easy to solve especially for those having some experience the method can be found in Edgar Allen Poe's gold bug and in a host of imitators a secret service cipher man could have read it in an hour but I know my friend's mind well enough to find a shortcut I knew just how he would go about devising such a cipher in fact how 99 persons out of 100 with the scientific education would do it if we begin adding horizontal arms to the middle stem from top to bottom and from left to right the possible characters can be worked out by the system shown on plate 3 it is most logical to suppose that Benda would begin with the first sign and substitute the letters of the alphabet in order that would give us the cipher code shown on plate 4 it was all very quick work just as I had anticipated once the key idea had occurred to me the ease and speed of my method far exceeded that of Poe's method but of course was applicable only to this particular case substituting letters for signs out of my diagram I got the following message am prisoner are plans capture of ny by seizing power water and phones than world conquest s-o-s part 4 lawn voy by peter hagstrom md my solution of the message practically ends the story events followed each other from then on like bullets from a machine gun a wild drive and a taxi cab brought me to the door of mayor anderson at ten o'clock that night I told him the story and showed him my photographs following that I spent many hours telling my story to and consulting with officers in the war department next afternoon photographic maps of the science community and its environs brought by airplanes during the four noon were spread on desks before us a kernel of marines and a kernel of aviation sketched plans and notebooks after dark I sat in a transport plane with muffled exhaust and propellers slipping through the air silently as a hawk about us were a dozen bombing planes and about fifty transports carrying a battalion of marines I am not an adventure loving man though a cordon of husky marines about me was protection against any possible danger yet stealing along through that wild valley in the virginia mountains toward the dark masses of that fanatic city the silent progress of the long dark line through the night their mysterious disappearance one by one as we near the city the creepy hair-raising journey through the dark streets I shall never forget for the rest of my life the sinking feeling in my abdomen and the throbbing in my head but I wanted to be there for benda was my lifelong friend I guided them to Rohan's rooms and saw a dozen dark forms slip in one by one then we went to the dormitory where benda lived benda answered our hammering at his door in his pajamas he took in the captain's automatic and the bayonets behind me at a glance good boy Hagstrom he said I knew you'd do it there wasn't much time left I got my instructions about handling the New York telephone system today as we came out into the street I saw Rohan handcuffed to two big marines and rows of bayonets gleaming in the darkness down the streets every few moments a bright flare shot out from the planes in the sky until a squad located the powerhouse and turned on all the lights they could find end of section 3 recording by Miriam Esther Goldman September 1930 Have you ever stood on the seashore with the breakers rolling at your feet and imagined what the scene would be like if the ocean water were gone I have had a vision of that many times standing on the Atlantic coast gazing out towards Spain I can envisage myself not down at sea level but upon the brink of a height Spain and the coast of Europe off there upon another height and the depths between unreal landscape mysterious realm which we now call the bottom of the sea these bloated mud plains noise some reaches of ooze which once were the cold and dark and silent ocean floor caked and drying in the sun and off to the south the little fairy mountain tops of the West Indies rearing their verdant crowns aloft if the ocean water were gone can you picture it a new world greater in area than all the land we now have they would call the former sea level the zero height perhaps the depths would go down as far beneath it as Mount Everest towers above it aeroplanes would fly down into them and I can imagine the settlement of these vast new realms new nations being created born of man's indomitable will to conquer every adverse condition of inhospitable nature a novel setting for a story of adventure it seems so to me can you say that the oceans will never drain of their water someday in the future and lower the water into subterranean caverns the volume of water of all the oceans is no more to the volume of the earth than a tissue paper wrapping on an orange is it too great a fantasy why reading the facts of what happened in 1929 it is already prognosticated the fishing banks off the coast of Newfoundland have suddenly sunk cable ships repairing a broken cable snapped by the earthquake in November 18th 1929 report that for distances of 100 miles on the grand banks the cables have disappeared into unfathomable depths and before the subterranean cataclysm they were within 600 feet of the surface and all the bottom of that section of the north Atlantic seems to have caved in 10,000 square miles dropped out of the bottom of the ocean fact not fancy and so let us enlarge the picture let us create the lowlands 20,000 feet below the zero height the setting for a tale of adventure the romance of the mist shrouded deeps and the romance of little jetta chapter one the secret mission I was 25 years of age that may evening of 2020 when they sent me south into the lowlands I had been in the national detective service bureau and then was transferred to the subterranean cataclysm department Atlantic lowlands branch I went alone it was best, my commander thought an assignment needing diplomacy rather than a show of force it was 9 p.m. when I catapulted from the little stage off long island airport a fair moonlit evening a moon just beyond the full rising to pale the eastern stars I climbed about a thousand feet swung over the headlands of the hook and keeping in the thousand foot local lane 1,300 miles southeast of great New York I could do a good normal 390 in this fleet little wasp especially if I kept to the rarer air pressures over the zero height a thousand foot lane had a southward drift this night I was making now well over 400 I would reach nareda soon after midnight the continental shelf slid beneath me dropping away as my course took me further from the highland borders the lowlands lay patched with inky shadows and splashes of moonlight domes with upstanding rounded heads plateaus of naked black rock 10,000 feet below the zero height trenches like valleys ridged and pitted naked in places like a pockmarked lunar landscape or again a pall of black mist would shroud at all dark curtain of sluggish cloud with moonlight tinging its edges pallid green to my left eastward towards the great basin of the mid-atlantic lowlands there was always a steady downward slope to the right it came up over the continental shelf to the highlands of the United States there was often water to be seen in these lowlands a spring fed lake fired down in a cauldron pit spilling into a trench low lying landlocked little seas canyons some of them dry others filled with tumultuous flowing water or great gashes with water sluggishly flowing or standing with heavy time and a pall of uprising vapor in the heat of the night at 37 degrees north and 70 degrees west I passed over the newly named atlas sea a lake of water here more than 100 miles in extent its surface lay 15,000 feet below the zero height its depth in places was a full 3,000 it was clear of mist tonight the moonlight shimmered on its rippled surface like pictures my father had often shown me of the former oceans I passed a little later well to the westward of the verned mountaintops of Bermuda there was nothing of this flight novel to me I had frequently flown over the lowlands I had descended into them many times but never upon such a mission as was taking me there now I was headed for nareda capital village of the tiny lowland republic of nareda which only five years ago came into national being as a protector of the northern states its territories lie just north of the mountain highlands of Haiti santa domingo and Puerto Rico a few hundred miles of tumbled lowlands embracing the turgid nars sea whose bottom is the lowest point of all of the western hemisphere some 30,000 feet below the zero height the village of nareda is far down indeed I had never been there my chart showed on the southern border of the nars sea the mona valley behind it like a gash in the steep upward slopes to the highlands of Puerto Rico and Haiti nareda has a mixed population of typical lowland adventures among which the hardy dutch predominate and holland and the united states have combined their influence in the world court to give it national identity and out of this had arisen my mission now mercury the quicksilver of commerce so recently come to tremendous value in the new antiseptics which bid fair to check all human disease was being produced in nareda the import duty to the united states was being paid openly enough but nevertheless hanley's agents believed that smuggling was taking place it was to investigate this condition that hanley was sending me I had introduction to the nareda government officials I was to consult with hanley by etherphone and seeking the hidden source of the contraband quicksilver but in the main to use my own judgment a mission of diplomacy I had no mind to pry openly among the people of these lowland depths looking for smugglers I might indeed find them too unexpectedly over curious strangers are not welcomed by the lowlanders many have gone into the depths and have never returned I was above the nars sea by midnight I was still flying a thousand feet over the zero height 21,000 feet below me lay the black expanse of water the moon had climbed well towards the zenith now its silver shafts penetrated the hanging mist stradas the surface of the nars sea was visible dark and sullen looking I shifted the angles of incidence of the wings reset my propeller angles and made the necessary carburetor adjustments switching on the supercharger which would supply air and normal zero height of carburetors throughout my descent I swung over an arena the lights of the little village far down dwarfed by distance showed like a bleary winking eyes through the mist the jagged recesses of the mono valley were dark with shadow the nars sea lay like some black monster asleep and slowly heavily panting moonlight was over me with stars and fleecy white clouds calm, placid, atmospheric night air but beneath it all seemed so mysterious fantastic, sinister my heart was pounding as I put the wasp into a spiral and forced my way down end of section 4 section 5 of astounding stories of super science September 1930 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recorded by Paul P. Jetta of the Lowlands by Ray Cummings chapter 2 The Face at the Window with heavy sluggish engines I panted down and came to rest in the dull yellow glow of the field lights a new world here the field was flat caked ooze, cracked and hardened it sloped upward from the shore towards where a quarter mile away I could see the dull lights of the settlement blurred by the gathering night vapors the field operator shut off his permission signal and came forward he was a squat heavy set fellow in wide trousers and soiled white shirt flung open at his thick throat the sweat steamed from his forehead this oppressive heat I had discarded my flying garb in the descent I wore a shirt knee-high pants with hose and wide, sold shoes of the newly fashioned lowland design what few weapons I dared carry were carefully concealed no alien could enter a narrator bearing anything resembling a lethal weapon my wide, thick, sold shoes did not look suspicious for one who planned much walking on the caked lowland ooze but those fat souls were cleverly fashioned to hide a long, keen knife blade like a dirk I could lift a foot and get the knife out of its hidden compartment this I had in one shoe in the other was a small mechanism of a radio safety recorder and image finder with its attendant individual audio phone transmitter and receiver a miracle of smallness, these tiny contrivances with batteries wires and grids the whole device could lay in the palm of one's hand once past this field inspection I would rig it for use under my shirt strapped around my chest and I had some colored magnesium flares the field operator came panting who are you Philip Grant from Great New York I showed him my name etched on my forearm he and his fellows searched me but I got by you have no documents no my letter to the president of narrator was written with invisible ink upon the fabric of my shirt if he had heated it to a temperature of 180 degrees Fahrenheit or so and blown the fumes of hydrochloric acid upon it the writing would have come out plain enough I said you'll house and care for my machine they would care for it they told me the price swindlingly exorbitant for the unwary traveler who might wander down here all correct I said cheerfully and half that much more for you and your men if you give me good service where can I have a room and meals spawn said the operator he's the best fat-bellied from his own good cookin take him there Hugo I had a gold coin instantly ready and with a few additional directions regarding my flyer I started off it had been hot and oppressive standing in the field it was infinitely worse climbing the mudslope into the village with my carrier trudging in advance of me along the dark winding path up the slope shouldered my bag and seemed not to notice the effort we passed occasional tube lights strung on poles they loomed the heavy rounded crags a tumbled region the slope which once was the ocean floor 20,000 feet below the surface rifts were here like gullies little buttes reared their rounded dome heads and there were caves and crevices in which deep sea fish once had lurked for ten minutes or so we climbed it was past the midnight hour the village was asleep we entered its outposts the houses were small structures of clay in the gloom they looked like drab little beehives set in unplanned groups with paths for streets wandering between them then we came to a more prosperous neighborhood the streets widened and straightened the clay houses still with rounded dome-like tops stood back from the road with wooden front fences and gardens and shrubbery the windows and doors were like round finger holes plugged into clay by a giant hand occasionally the windows dimly lighted stared like sleeping giant eyes there were flowers in all the more pretentious private gardens their perfume hanging in the heavy night air lay on the village making one forget the over curtain of stenching mist down by the shore of the North Sea this world of the depths had seemed darkly sinister but in the village now it felt less ominous the scent of flowers the street lined in one place by arching giant fronds drowsing and nodding overhead there seemed a strange exotic romance to it the sultry air might also have been sensuous much further Hugo no we are here he turned abruptly into a gateway led me through a garden to a doorway of a large rambling one-story building the news of my coming had preceded me a front room was lighted and my host was waiting Hugo set down my bag accepted another gold coin with a queer side-long smile the incentive for which I had not the slightest idea he vanished I fronted my host this Jacob Spawn strange fate that should have led me to Spawn and to Little Jetta Spawn was a fat-bellied Dutchman as the field attendant had said a fellow of perhaps fifty-five with sparse gray hair and heavy jowled smooth-shaved face from which his small eyes peered at me he laid aside a huge old-fashioned calabash pipe and offered a pudgy hand welcome young man to Noreda seldom do we see strangers the meal which he presently cooked and served me himself was lavishly done he spoke good English but slow heavily with the guttural intonation of his race he sat across the table from me puffing his pipe while I ate what brings you here young lad a week you say? looking for oil there should be petroleum beneath these rocks for an hour I avoided his prying questions his little eyes roved me and I knew he was no fool this Dutchman for all his heavy-stalled look we remained in the kitchen saved for its mud-walls its concave dome-roof it might have been a cookery of the Highlands there was a table with its tube-light the chairs his electron stove his orderly rows of pots, pans, and dishes I recall that it seemed to me a woman's hand must be here but I saw no woman no one indeed besides Spawn himself seemed to live here he was reticent of his own business however much he wanted the prying to mine I had felt convinced that we were alone but suddenly I realized it was not so the kitchen adjoined an interior back garden I could see it through the open door-oval a dim space of flowers a little path to a pergola an adobe fountain it was a sort of Spanish patio out there partially enclosed by the wings of the house moonlight was struggling into it and as I gazed idly I thought I saw a figure lurking someone watching us was it a boy observing us from the shadowed moonlit garden I thought so a slight half-grown boy I saw his figure in short ragged trousers and shirt-blouse made visible in a patch of moonlight as he moved away and entered the dark opposite wing of the house I did not see the boy's figure again and presently I suggested that I retire Spawn had already shown me to my bedroom it was in another wing of the house it had a window facing the front and a window and a door back to the same patio and a door to the house corridor sleep well Mr. Grant my bag was here on the table under an electrical ear shall I call you yes I said early he lingered a moment I was opening my bag I flung it wide under his gaze well good night I shall be very comfortable thanks good night he said he went out the patio door I watched his figure cross the moonlight path and enter the kitchen the noise of his puttering there sounded for a time then the light went out and the house and garden fell into silence I closed my doors they sealed on the inside transparent window panes I did not undress but lay on the bed in the dark I was tired I realized it now but sleep would not come I am no believer in occultism but there are premonitions which one cannot deny it seemed now as I lay there in the dark that I had every reason to be perturbed yet I could not think why perhaps it was because I had been lying to this innkeeper stoutly for an hour past whether he believed me or not for the life of me I could not now determine I sat up in bed presently and adjusted the wires and diaphragms of the ether wave mechanism when in place it was all concealed under my shirt as I switched it on the electrodes against my flesh tingled a little but it was absolutely soundless and one gets used to the tingle I decided to call Hanley the New York wave sorter handled me promptly but Hanley's office was dead as I sat there in the darkness annoyed at this a slight noise forced itself on me the scratching a tap something outside my window spawn come back to peer in at me I slipped noiselessly from the bed the sound had come from the window which faced the patio the room over by the bed was wholly dark the moonlight outside showed the patio window as a dimly allumed oval for a moment I crouched on the floor by the bed no sound the silence of the lowlands is as heavy and oppressive as its air I felt as though my heart were audible I lifted my foot extracted my dirk it opened into a very business like steel blade of a good 12 inch length I bared the blade the click of it leaving the flat hollow handle sounded loud in the stillness of the room a moment then it seemed outside my window a shadow had moved I crept along the floor rose up suddenly at the window and stared at a face peering in at me disframed in short, clustering dark curls a girl end of section 5 section 6 of astounding stories of super science September 1930 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recorded by Paul P Jetta of the Lowlands by Ray Cummings chapter 3 in the moonlit garden she drew back from the window like a startled fawn timorous yet curious too for she ran only a few steps then turned and stood peering the moonlight slanted over the western roof of the building and fell on her a slight boyish figure in short, tattered trousers and a boy's shirt open at her slim rounded throat the moonlight gleamed on the white shirt fabric to show it torn and ragged her arms were upraised her head with clustering flying dark curls was tilted as though listening for a sound from me a shy, wild creature drawn to my window tapping to awaken me then frightened at what she had done I opened the garden door she did not move I thought she would run, but she did not the moonlight was on me as I stood there I was conscious of its etching me with its silver sheen and twenty feet from me this girl stood and gazed with startled eyes and parted lips and white limbs trembling like a frightened animal the patia was very silent the heavy, arching fronds stirred slightly with a vague night breeze the moonlight threw a lacy dark pattern of them on the grey stone path the fountain bowl gleamed white in the moonlight behind the girl and in silence I could hear the low splashing of the water a magic moment unforgettable it comes to some of us just once but to all of us it comes I stood with its spell upon me then I heard my voice tense, but softly raised who are you it frightened her she retreated until the fountain was between us and I took a step forward she retreated further, noiseless with her bare feet treading the smooth stones on the path I ran and caught her at the doorway of the flowering pergola she stood trembling as I seized her arms but the timorous smile remained and her eyes, upraised to mine glowed with misty starlight who are you this time she answered me I am called Jedha it seemed that from her white forearm within my grasp a magic current swept from her to me and back again the humans for all our clamoring boasting intellectuality are no more than puppets in nature's hands are you Spawn's daughter yes I saw you a while ago when I was having my meal yes I was watching you I thought you were a boy yes my father told me to keep away I wanted to meet you so I came to wake you up he may be watching us now no he is sleeping listen you can hear him snore I could indeed the silence of the garden was broken now by a distant choking snore we both laughed she sat on the little mossy seat in the pergola doorway and on the side away from the snore I had the wit to be sure of that I wanted to meet you she repeated was it too bold I think that what we said sitting there with the slanting moonlight on us could not have amounted to much yet for us it was so important building memories which I knew and I think she knew even then we would never forget I will be here a week Jetta I want I want very much to know you I want you to tell me about the world of the Highlands I have read few books I can't read very well but I can look at the pictures oh I see a traveler gave them to me I've got them hidden but he was an old man all men seemed to be old I'd rip those in the pictures and you Philip I laughed well that's too bad I'm mighty glad I'm young ah in that moment with blessed youth surging in my veins I was glad indeed young I don't remember ever seeing anyone like you the man I am to marry is not like you he is old like father I drew back from her startled marry yes when I am 17 the law of narrator your Highland too father says I will not let a girl be married until she is that age in a month I am 17 oh I stammered but why are you going to marry because father tells me to and then I shall have fine clothes as it has promised me and go live in the Highlands perhaps and see things and be a woman not a ragged boy forbidden to show myself and I was barely touching her it seemed as though something some vision of happiness which had been given to me were fading were being snatched away I was conscious of my hand moving to touch hers why do you marry unless you are in love are you her gaze like a child came to meet mine I never thought much about that I have tried not to it frightened me until tonight she pushed me gently away no let's not talk of him I'd rather not but why are you dressed as a boy I'm not as gay as her slim but rounded figure in the tattered boy's garb but the woman's lines were unmistakable and her face with clustering curls gentle girlhood a face of dark wild beauty my father hates women he says they are all bad it is a sin to wear women's finery or breed sin in women let's not talk of that Philip tell me oh if you could only realize all the things I want to know in great New York there are theaters and music yes I said and began telling her about them the witching of this moonlight garden but the moon had presently sunk and to the east the stars were fading Philip look why it's dawn already I've got to leave you I held her just a moment by the hand may I meet you here tomorrow night I asked yes she said simply good night Jedha Philip made me very happy she was gone into a doorway of the opposite wing the silent empty garden sounded with the distant reassuring snores of the still sleeping spawn I went back to my room and lay on my bed and drifted off on a sea of magic memories the world my world before this night now seemed to have been so drab empty lifeless but now there was pulsing living magic in it for me I drifted into sleep thinking of it End of Section 6 Section 7 of Astounding Stories of Super Science September 1930 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Barry Eads Jedha of the Lowlands by Ray Cummings Chapter 4 The Mine in the Cauldron Depths I was awakened by the tinkling buzzing call of the radio diaphragm beneath my shirt I had left the call open It was Hanley I lay down, eyeing my window which now was allumed by the flat light of dawn Hanley's microscopic voice Phil I just raised President Marx there in Narada I've been a bit worried about you I'm all right, Chief Well, you better see President Marx this morning That was my intention Tell him frankly what you're after This smuggling of quicksilver from Narada has got to stop But take it easy, Phil Don't be reckless Remember, one little knife thrust and I've lost a good man I laughed at his anxious tone That was always Hanley's way A devil himself when he was on a trail but always worried for fear that one of his men would come to harm Right enough, Chief I'll be careful He cut off presently I did not see Jedda that morning I told Spahn I was hoping to see President Marx on my petroleum proposition and at the proper hour I took myself to the government house This lowland village by daylight seemed even more fantastic than shrouded in the shadows of night The morning sun had dissipated the overhead mists were hot in the rocky streets under the weird overhanging vegetation The settlement was quietly busy with its tropical activities There were a few local shops vehicles with the highland domestic animals horses and oxen panting in the heat an occasional electro-automatic car but there were not many evidences of modernity here The street and house tube lights a few radio image finders on the house tops an automatic escalator bringing ore from a nearby mine past the government checkers to an aero stage for northern transportation cultivated fields in the village outskirts operated with modern machinery but beyond that it seemed primitive 200 years back street vendors people in primitive ragged tropical garb half naked children I was stared at curiously an augmenting group of children followed me as I went down the street the president admitted me at once in his airy office with safeguards against eavesdropping I found him at his desk with a bank of modern instruments before him sit down Grant he was a heavy set flabby man of 60 odd the slowland president white hair an old-fashioned rolling white mustache of the sort lately come into South American fashion he sat with a glass of ice-drink at his side his uniform was stiffly white an ornate with heavy gold braid but his neckpiece was wilted with perspiration damn them all he grant yes sir president have a drink he swung a tinkling glass before me now then tell me what is your trouble smuggling here in Narada I don't believe it his eyes incongruously alert with all the rest of him so fat and lazy we of the Narada government watch our quick silver production very closely the government fee is a third I might say that the Narada government collected a third on all the mineral and agricultural products of the country in exchange for the necessary government concessions Marx exported this share openly to the world markets paying the duty exactly like a private corporation he added you think Hanley thinks the smuggling is on too large a scale to be an illicit producer I nodded then he said it must be one of our recognized minds Hanley thinks it is a recognized mind falsifying its production record I explained if that is so I will discover it he said he spoke with enthusiasm and vigor for you I shall treat as what you are the figures of our quick silver production I shall lay before you in just a few days let me fill up your glass Grant the lazy tropics I really did not doubt his sincerity but I did doubt his ability to cope with any clever criminal his enthusiasm for action would wilt like his neck piece in Narada's heat unless perhaps the knowledge that the smuggler was cheating him as well as the United States that might spur him he added and now I got a shock wholly unexpected if we think that some recognized producer of quick silver here is cheating us it should not be difficult to check up on it Narada has only one large cinnabar load being worked a private individual that fellow, Jacob Spawn Spawn? I exclaimed involuntarily why yes did not he mention it? his mind is no more than 10 kilometers from here to the southern slope he did not mention it I said so that is strange but he is a secretive Dutchman by nature he specializes in prying into the other fellow's affairs he fell into a reverie while I stared at him Spawn the big the only big quick silver producer here the president interrupted my startled thoughts I hope you did not intimate your real purpose no we both turned at the sound of an opening door Marx called ah come in Perona are you alone? good close that slide here is chief Hanley's representative he introduced us all in a breath this is interesting Perona damly interesting we are being cheated what? it looks that way sit down Perona this was Greco Perona Narada's minister of internal affairs Spawn had mentioned him to me a South American a man in his fifties thin and darkly saturnine with iron gray hair carefully plastered to cover his half bald head he sat listening to the president's rang twirling the upturned wax and ends of his artificially black mustache a wave or perfume enveloped him a lady's courtier this Perona by the look of him his white uniform was immaculate carefully tailored and carefully worn to set off at its best his still trim and erect figure well he said when at last the president paused of a surety something must be done Perona seemed not excited rather more carefully watchful of his own words and of me his small dark eyes roved me what is it you would plan to do about it senorito? an irony was in that Latin native he spread his pale hands your United States officials perhaps exaggerate I am very doubtful if we have smugglers here in Narada unless it is spawn the president interjected Perona frowned slightly but his suave manner remained spawn? why spawn? you need not take offense Perona marks retorted we are discussing this before an envoy of the United States sent here to consult we have nothing to hide marks turned to me and his next words were like a bomb exploding at my feet Perona is offended Grant but I promise you his natural personal prejudice will not affect my investigation of course he is prejudiced since he is to marry spawn's daughter the little Jetta I started involuntarily this pomaded old daughter this perfumed ancient dandy for all the importance of my mission in Narada my thoughts had been subconsciously more upon Jetta far more than upon smugglers of quick-silver this palsied popinjay this the reality of the specter which had been between Jetta and me during all that magic time in the moonlit garden this suave old rake betrothed to that woodland pixie whose hand I had held and to whom I had sung love songs in the magic flower-scented moonlight to go and whom I had promised to meet there again tonight this then was my rival nothing of importance transpired during the remainder of the interview marks reiterated his intention of making a complete governmental investigation at once to which Perona suavely assented por dios senorito he said to me we would not have your great government annoyed at Narada if there are smugglers we will capture them of a certainty from the government house it now being almost time for the midday meal I returned to Spawn's the rambling mud walls of the inn stood baking in the noonday heat when I arrived the outer garden drowsed there seemed no one about I went through the main door oval into the front public room where first I had met Spawn he was not here now nor was Jetta a sudden furtiveness fell upon me with noiseless steps I immediately padded interior corridor to my own room my belonging seemed undisturbed a vague idea that Spawn might have seized this opportunity to ransack them had come to me but it seemed not though if he had he would have found nothing I stood for a moment listening at my patio window I could see the kitchen from here there was no one in it I started back for the living room that furtive instinct was still on me I made no noise abruptly I heard Spawn's voice floating out softly in hush silence of the house so Perona a brief silence in which it seemed that I could hear a tiny aerial answer then Spawn again a startled Oath the Doval you say I stood frozen listening she is here yes I will keep her close I am no fool Perona Spawn's laugh was like a growl later today yes fear not I am no fool I will be careful of it Spawn talking by private autophone to Perona the coliquy came to an abrupt end might eavesdrop by hell you are right I heard the click as Spawn and Perona broke connection Spawn came from his room but he was not quick enough I slipped away before he saw me in the living room I had time to be calmly seated with a lighted cigarette his approaching heavy footsteps sounded he came in oh grant good noon friend Spawn I am hungry I grinned at him I understand my bargain with you included a noonday meal does it he eyed me suspiciously have you been waiting here long no I just came in he led me to the kitchen he apologized for the informality of his hotel service so infrequent but the good quality of his food would make up for it right I agreed your food is marvelous friend Spawn there was a difference in Spawn's manner toward me now he seemed far more wary outwardly he was in a high good humor he asked nothing concerning my morning at the government house he puttered over his electron stove making me help him he cursed the heat he said one could not eat in such heat as this but the meal he cooked and the way he sat down opposite me and attacked it belied him he was acting but so was I and perhaps I deceived him as little as he deceived me we avoided the things which were uppermost in the thoughts of us both but when we had very nearly finished the meal I decided to try him out I said suddenly out of a silence Spawn why didn't you tell me you were a producer of Quicksilver I gave him a sharp glance you are aren't you it took him by surprise but he recovered himself instantly yes are you interested I tried another shot what surprised me was that a wealthy mine owner you are aren't you should bother to keep an unprofitable hotel why bother with it Spawn I thought I knew the answer he wanted Narada's visitors under his eyes that is a pleasure there was irony in his tone I am a lonesome man I like interesting companionship such as yours young Grant it was on my tongue to hint at his daughter but I thought better of it I am going to the mine now he said abruptly would you like to come yes I smiled thanks I wanted to see his mine but that he should be eager to show it surprised me I wondered what purpose he could have in that I had a hint of it later for when we took his little auto car and slid up the winding road into the bloated crags towering on the slope behind Narada he told me calmly I shall have to put you in charge of my mine commander I am busy elsewhere this afternoon you will see the mine just as well without me he added I must go to the government house President Marx wants a report on my recent production so that was what Perona had told him over the autophone meal it was an inferno of shadows and glaring lights this underground cavern as modern mining activities go it was small and primitive no more than a dozen men were here beside this sweating pudging mine commander who was my guide a valuable fellow of what original nationality I could not determine we stood watching the line of carts dumping the ore onto the endless lifting belt it went a hundred feet or so up and ascending the shaft to fall with a clatter into the bins above the smelter rich ore I said isn't it the cinnabar ran like thick blood red veins in the rock rich said the mine commander that it is rich but who doesn't make rich only spawn not me he waved his arms airing his grievance with which for an hour passed he had regaled me only spawn for me a dole each week the smelter was in a stone building one of a small group of mine houses which stood in a cauldron depression above excavations rounded domes of rock towered above them the sun even at this tri-noon hour was gone behind the heights above us the murky shadows of night were gathering the mists of the lowland settling the tube lights of the mine strung between small metal poles winked on like bleary eyes of a day soon I will fling this job to hell I was paying scant attention to the fellow's tirade could there be smuggling going on from this mine it all seemed to be conducted openly enough if the production record were being falsified I felt that this dissatisfied mine commander was not aware of it he showed me the smelter where the quick silver condensed in the coils and ran with its small luminous silver streams into the vats he was called away momentarily to one of his men leaving me standing there I was alone no one seemed in sight or within hearing in the shadow of the condensers I drew out my transmitter and called Hanley I got him within a minute chief yes Phil I hope you'd called me didn't want to chance it raising you when you might not be alone I told him swiftly what I had done where I was now and Hanley said with equal bristness this is an important fact just had Marx on secret wavelength he tells me that spawn has been saving up his quick silver for six months past he's got several hundred thousand dollars standards worth of it in ingots there right now here at the mine yes got them all radio-mized ready for the highest priced markets Marx said he is scheduled to turn them over to the government checkers tomorrow the neurotic government takes its share tomorrow then spawn exports the rest I heard a footstep off chief I'll call you later I clicked off summarily the little grid was under my shirt when the mine commander rejoined me for another half hour or so I hovered about the smelter house a treasure of quick silver ingots here I mentioned it casually to my companion he shot me a sharp glance spawn has told you that I heard it his business we do not talk of that never can I tell what spawn will choose we rambled upon other subjects later he said we work not at night but spawn he is here often at night with his friend the Senor Perona that caught my attention I met Perona this morning I said quickly is he a partner of spawns if he is so I never was told it but much he is here at night why at night the fellow really knew nothing if he did he was diplomatic enough not to jeopardize his post by babbling of it to me he said Perona is spawn's friend why not his daughter to marry that will make him a son-in-law he laughed an old fool but not such a fool either spawn is rich his daughter has he a daughter the little Jetta you haven't seen her well that is not strange I will tell you quickly about it all neurotic talks but no one knows and spawn does not like questions spawn abruptly joined us he came from the black shadows of the lured smelter room had he heard us discussing Jetta I wondered end of section 7 section 8 of astounding stories of super science September 1930 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Barry Eads Jetta of the Lowlands by Ray Cummings chapter 5 mysterious meeting ah Grant have you enjoyed yourself he dismissed his subordinate I was detained sorry he was smoothly imperturbable have you seen everything quite a little plant I have here we shut down early today I will make ready to close I followed him about while he arranged for the termination of the day's activities the clatter of the smelter house was presently still the men departing spawn and I were the last to leave save for the eight men who were the mines night guards they were stalwart silent fellows armed with electronic needle projectors the lights of the mine went low until they were mere pencil points of blue illumination in the glow the eerie look of the place was intensified by the darkness and silence of the abnormally early nightfall the fantastic crags stood dark with formless shadow spawn stopped to speak to one of the guards the men wore a gold trend but now dirty white linen uniform wilted by the heat the uniform of Narada's police I remarked it to him the government let me the men spawn explained of an ordinary time I have only one guard but this then is not an ordinary time I hinted he looked sharply at me and upon sudden impulse I added President Marx said something about you having a treasure here radium-ized quicksilver it was evidently spawn's desire to appear thoroughly frank with me he laughed well then if Marx has told you then might I not as well admit it the treasure is here indeed yes will you like to see it he led me into a little strong room adjoining the smelter coil rectifiers he flashed his hand search light on the floor piled cross-rise were small molded bars of refined quicksilver dull darkened silver ignorance of this world's most precious metal quite a treasure grant here tonight see it is radium-ized he snapped off his torch in the darkness the little bars glowed iridescent tomorrow I will divide with our neurata government one third for them and my share I will export to great new york this shipment already I have the order for it he added calmly the duty is high grant too bad your big new york market is protected by so large a duty with my cost of production these accursed lowland workmen who demand so much for their labor third of all I produce taken by neurata there is not much in it for me he had relighted the room I could feel his eyes on me but I said nothing it was obvious to me now that he knew I was a government customs agent I said this certainly interests me friend spawn I'll tell you why some other time we exchanged significant glances both of us smiling well I can guess it young grant so here is my treasure without the duty I would soon be wealthy chuck why should I roll in pity for myself there is a duty and I am an honest man so I pay it I said aren't you afraid to leave this stored here I knew that this pilot thing that's the quick silver in its randomized form was worth four or five hundred thousand dollars in American gold coin at the very least spawn shrug who would attack it but of course I would be glad to be rid of it it is a great responsibility even though it carries international insurance to protect my and the Narada government share he was sealing up the heavy barred portals of the little strong room there was an alarm detector connected with the office of Narada's police commander spawn set the alarm carefully I have every safeguard grant there is really no danger he added as though with sudden thought except possibly one a deaf bandit named D'Bor ever you have heard of him yes I have we climbed into spawn small automatic vehicle the lights of the mine faded behind us as we coasted the winding road down to the village D'Bor said spawn a fellow who lives by his wits in the depths near here perhaps who knows they say he has many followers fifty a hundred perhaps outlaws a cut belly band it must be didn't he once take a hand in Narada's politics I suggested spawn gaffaud that is so he was once what they called a patriot here he thought he might be made president but Marx ran him out now he is a bandit I have believed that American mail ship which sunk last year in the caldron north of the Narse sea you remember how it was attacked by bandits I have always believed that was D'Bor's band we rolled back to Narada spawn's manner had again changed he seemed even more friendly than before more at his ease with me we had supper and smoked together in his living room for half an hour afterward but my thoughts were more unjetta than on her father there was still no evidence of her about the premises ah if I had only known what had taken place there at spawns that afternoon while I was at the mine soon after supper spawn yawned I think I shall go to bed his glance was inquiring what are you going to do I stood up I'll go to bed too Marx wants to see me early in the morning you'll be there spawn yes we will go together it was still no more than 8 o'clock in the evening spawn followed me to my bedroom and left me at his door sleep well I will call you in time thanks spawn I wondered if there were irony in his voice good night no one could have told I did not go to bed I sat listening to the silence of my room and the garden and spawns retreating footsteps he had said he was sleepy but nevertheless I presently heard him across the patio he was apparently in the kitchen cleaning away our meal to judge by the rattling of his pans it was as yet not much after hour eight of the evening the hours before my trists with Jetta seemed an interminable time to wait she might not come though I was afraid until midnight at all events I felt I had some hours yet and it occurred to me that the evening was not yet too far advanced for me to call upon Perona he lived not far from here I had learned I wanted to see this bereaved old minister of Narada's internal affairs I would use as my excuse a desire to discuss further the possibility of smuggler being here in Narada I put on my hat and light jacket verified that my dirk was readily accessible and sealed up my room spawn apparently was still in the kitchen I got out of the house I felt sure without him being aware of it the Narada streets were quiet there was a few pedestrians and none of them paid much attention to me it was no more than ten minutes walk to Perona's house his house was set back from the road surrounded by luxurious vegetation there was a gate in front of the garden and another a hundred feet or so along a small alleyway which boarded the ground to my left I was about to enter the front gate when the sight of a figure passing under the garden foliage checked me it was a man evidently coming from the house and headed toward the side gate he went through a shaft of light that slanted from one of the lower windows of the house Perona, I was sure it was he his slight figure with a gay tricornard hat short tassled cloak hanging from his shoulders he was alone walking fast he evidently had not seen me I crouched outside the high front wall and through its lattice bars I saw him reach the side gate open it swiftly, pass through and close it after him there was something furtive about his manner for all he was undisguised I decided to follow him the front street fortunately was deserted at the moment I waited long enough for him to appear but he did not and when I ran to the alley corner chancing bumping squarely into him I saw him far down its dim narrow length where it opened into the back street which bordered his grounds to the rear he turned to the left and shot a swift glance up the alley which I anticipated provided for by drawing back when I looked again he was gone I have had some experience of playing the shadow but it was not easy here along the almost deserted right neurata streets Perona was walking swiftly down the slope toward the outskirts of the village where it bordered upon the Nara's sea for a time I thought he was headed for the landing field but at a cross path he turned sharply to the right away from the field whose sheen of lights I could now see down the rocky defile ahead of me there was nothing but broken precipitous rocky country ahead of him and to which this path he had taken was winding a minister being gauged in wandering off alone into this black deserted region it was black indeed by now the village was soon far behind us a storm was in the night air a wind off the sea solid black clouds overhead blotted out the moon and stars the crags and butts and gullies of this tumbled area loomed barely visible about me there were times when only my feel of the path under my feet kept me from falling into a ravine or crevice I prowled perhaps 200 yards behind Perona he was using a tiny hand flash now it bobbed and winked in the darkness ahead finishing sometimes when a curve in the path hit him or when he plunged down into a gully and up again I had no search beam nor would I have dared use one Perona could too obviously have seen that someone was following him there was half a mile of this I think it was possible I could hear the sea rising with the wind pounding against the rocks to my left then a distance ahead I saw lights moving Peronas and others three or four of them their combined glow made a radiance which loomed the path and rocks I could see the figures of several men whom Perona had joined they stood a moment and then moved off to the right a ragged cliff wall towered the path I caught the vague outline of a huge broken opening like a cave mouth in the cliff the lights were swallowed by it I crept cautiously forward end of section 8