Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 Part 39

And then, from the shadows at the other end of the small room, came a low, unemotional voice.

"Before you begin, Strange--"

Michael Strange whipped about in his chair like a tiger. His hand dropped to his pocket, so swiftly that my eyes did not follow it. And as it dropped, a single staccato shot split the darkness of the room. The scientist slumped forward in his chair.

The dull, whirring sound of that h.e.l.lish machine had stopped abruptly, cut short by the sudden weight of Strange's lunging body as he fell upon it. I saw the livid, fiery snake of white light twist suddenly upward through that coil of wires: and in another moment the entire apparatus shattered by a blinding crash of flame.

After that I turned away. Whether the bullet killed Strange or not, I do not know: but the sight of his charred face, hanging over that table of destruction, told its own story.

It was Inspector Drake who came across the room toward me, and took my arm. The smoking revolver still lay in his hand, and as he led me into the adjoining room, I saw that Margot had already found refuge there.

"You see now, Dale," Drake said quietly, "why I let Hartnett go with you before? If Strange had suspected me, I should have been merely another victim. As for Hartnett, he has been under constant guard down at headquarters. He's safe. They've kept him there, at my instructions, in spite of all his terrific efforts to leave them."

I was listening to my companion in admiration. Even then I did not quite understand.

"I was wrong in just one thing, Dale. I left you alone, without protection. I believed Strange would ignore you, because, after all, you are not a Scotland Yard man. Thank G.o.d I had the sense to follow Margot--to trail her here--and get here soon enough."

And so ended the horrible series of events that began with Sir John Harmon's chance visit to my study. As for Harmon, he was later cleared of all guilt, upon the charred evidence in Michael Strange's house in Mate Lane. The girl, I believe, has left London, where she can be as far as possible from memories that are all too terrible.

As for me, I am back once again in my quiet rooms in Cheney Lane, where the routine of common medical practice has wiped out many of those vivid horrors. In time, I believe, I shall forget, unless Inspector Drake, of Scotland Yard, insists upon bringing the affair up again!

_IN THE NEXT ISSUE_

THE INVISIBLE DEATH

_A Thrilling Novelet of an Invisible Empire Within the United States_

_By_ Victor Rousseau

STOLEN BRAINS

_Another Absorbing Dr. Bird Story_

_By_ Capt. S. P. Meek

PRISONERS ON THE ELECTRON

_An Exciting Story of a Young Man Marooned on an Electron_

_By_ Robert H. Leitfred

JETTA OF THE LOWLANDS

_Part Two of the Current Novel_

_By_ Ray c.u.mmings

_--AND OTHERS!_

[Ill.u.s.tration: _We had been captured by a race of gigantic beetles._]

The Attack from s.p.a.ce

A SEQUEL TO "BEYOND THE HEAVISIDE LAYER"

_By Captain S. P. Meek_

"No one knows what unrevealed horrors s.p.a.ce holds and the world will never rest entirely easy until the slow process of time again heals the protective layer."--From "Beyond the Heaviside Layer."

Over a year has pa.s.sed since I wrote those lines. When they were written the hole which Jim Carpenter had burned with his battery of infra-red lamps through the heaviside layer, that hollow sphere of invisible semi-plastic organic matter which encloses the world as a nutsh.e.l.l does a kernel, was gradually filling in as he had predicted it would: every one thought that in another ten years the world would be safely enclosed again in its protective layer as it had been since the dawn of time.

There were some adventurous spirits who deplored this fact, as it would effectually bar interplanetary travel, for Hadley had proved with his life that no s.p.a.ce flyer could force its way through the fifty miles of almost solid material which barred the road to s.p.a.ce, but they were in the minority. Most of humanity felt that it would rather be protected against the denizens of s.p.a.ce than to have a road open for them to travel to the moon if they felt inclined.

[Sidenote: From a far world came monstrous invaders who were all the more terrifying because invisible.]

To be sure, during the five years that the hole had been open, nothing more dangerous to the peace and well-being of the world had appeared from s.p.a.ce than a few hundreds of the purple amoeba which we had found so numerous on the outer side of the layer, when we had traveled in a Hadley s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p up through the hole into the outer realms of s.p.a.ce, and one lone specimen of the green dragons which we had also encountered. The amoeba had been readily destroyed by the disintegrating rays of the guarding s.p.a.ce-s.h.i.+ps which were stationed inside the layer at the edge of the hole and the lone dragon had fallen a ready victim to the machine-gun bullets which had been poured into it. At first the press had d.a.m.ned Jim Carpenter for opening the road for these horrors, but once their harmlessness had been clearly established, the row had died down and the appearance of an amoeba did not merit over a squib on the inside pages of the daily papers.

While the hole in the heaviside layer was no longer news for the daily press, a bitter controversy still waged in the scientific journals as to the reason why no observer on earth, even when using the most powerful telescopes, could see the amoeba before they entered the hole, and then only when their telescopes were set up directly under the hole. When a telescope of even small power was mounted in the grounds back of Carpenter's laboratory, the amoeba could be detected as soon as they entered the hole, or when they pa.s.sed above it through s.p.a.ce; but, aside from that point of vantage, they were entirely invisible.

Carpenter's theory of the absorptive powers of the material of which the heaviside layer was composed was laughed to scorn by most scientists, who pointed out the fact that the sun, moon and stars could be readily seen through it. Carpenter replied that the rays of colored or visible light could only pa.s.s through the layer when superimposed upon a carrier wave of ultra-violet or invisible light. He stated dogmatically that the amoeba and the other denizens of s.p.a.ce absorbed all the ultra-violet light which fell on them and reflected only the visible rays which could not pa.s.s through the heaviside layer because of the lack of a synchronized carrier wave of shorter wave-length.

Despetier replied at great length and showed by apparently unimpeachable mathematics that Carpenter was entirely wrong and that his statements showed an absolute lack of knowledge of the most elementary and fundamental laws of light transmission. Carpenter replied briefly that he could prove by mathematics that two was equal to one and he challenged Despetier or anyone else to satisfactorily explain the observed facts in any other way. While they vainly tried to do so, Carpenter lapsed into silence in his Los Angeles laboratory and delved ever deeper into the problems of science. Such was the situation when the attack came from s.p.a.ce.

My first knowledge of the attack came when McQuarrie, the city editor of the San Francisco _Clarion_, sent for me. When I entered his office he tossed a Los Angeles dispatch on the desk before me and with a growl ordered me to read it. It told of the unexplained disappearance of an eleven year old boy the night before. It looked like a common kidnapping.

"Well?" I asked as I handed him back the dispatch.

With another growl he tossed down a second telegram. I read it with astonishment, for it told of a second disappearance which had happened about an hour after the first. The similarity of the two cases was at once apparent.

"Coincidence or connection?" I asked as I returned it.

"Find out!" he replied. "If I knew which it was I wouldn't be wasting the paper's money by sending you to Los Angeles. I don't doubt that I am wasting it anyway, but as long as I am forced to keep you on as a reporter, I might as well try to make you earn the money the owner wastes on paying you a salary, even although I know it to be a hopeless task. Go on down there and see what you can find out, if anything."

I jotted down in my notebook the names and addresses of the missing children and turned to leave. A boy entered and handed McQuarrie a yellow slip. He glanced at it and called me back.

"Wait a minute, Bond," he said as he handed me the dispatch. "I doubt but you'd better fly down to Los Angeles. Another case has just been reported."