Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 Part 18

As the light struck their dens, they attempted clumsily to take wing, but a interlacing network of devastating disintegrating rays from the ray-guns shattered their bodies to dust, which was borne away by the wind.

The next few months were spent in combing the quartz crags of Venus for similar infested areas, but only the one breeding nest was found. The scourge had been conquered in its first and only stronghold.

So ended the greatest reign of terror in the history of Venus.

Leslie Larner was given a vote of thanks, and riches were showered upon him by the good people of the sky's brightest star.

His modesty was characteristic, and he insisted that his part in saving humanity on the planet had been small.

Pa.s.sage back to earth was offered him, but Nern and Tula Bela urged him to say and live his life on Venus. This he finally agreed to do.

"If I returned," he said, "I would always be tempted to tell my experiences while away, and there is not a jury in the world which would account me sane after I had once spoken."

That the story of Larner's adventure reached earth dwellers at all is due to the fact that Nern Bela on a subsequent visit to the earth narrated it to a Colorado quartz miner. This miner, a bronzed and bearded prospector for gold, stumbled on the targo in a mountain fastness, and there was nought to do but make him welcome and pledge him to secrecy.

The miner surveyed the crystal targo in rapt wonderment and said: "And to think I am the only earth man who ever viewed such a craft!"

"No," answered Nern Bela, "there is one other." And then the stirring story of Leslie Larner's life on Venus was told.

SAFE FLYING IN FOGS

The outstanding development in aviation recently, and one of the most significant so far in aviation history was the "blind" flight of Lieut.

James H. Doolittle, daredevil of the Army Air Corps, at Mitchel Field, L. I., which led Harry P. Guggenheim, President of the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics, Inc. to announce that the problem of fog-flying, one of aviation's greatest bugbears, had been solved at last.

There has been "blind flying" done in the past but never before in the history of aviation has any pilot taken off, circled, crossed, re-crossed the field, then landed only a short distance away from his starting point while flying under conditions resembling the densest fog, as Lieut. "Jimmy" Doolittle has done, in his Wright-motored "Husky"

training-plane. It was something uncanny to contemplate.

The "dense fog" was produced artificially by the simple device of making the cabin of the plane entirely light-proof. Once seated inside, the flyer, with his co-pilot, Lieut. Benjamin Kelsey, also of Mitchel Field, were completely shut off from any view of the world outside. All they had to depend on were three new flying instruments, developed during the past year in experiments conducted over the full-flight laboratory established by the Fund at Mitchel Field.

The chief factors contributing to the solution of the problem of blind flying consist of a new application of the visual radio beacon, the development of an improved instrument for indicating the longitudinal and lateral position of an airplane, a new directional gyroscope, and a sensitive barometric altimeter, so delicate as to measure the alt.i.tude of an airplane within a few feet of the ground.

Thus, instead of relying on the natural horizon for stability, Lieut.

Doolittle uses an "artificial horizon" on the small instrument which indicates longitudinal and lateral position in relation to the ground at all time. He was able to locate the landing field by means of the direction-finding long-distance radio beacon. In addition, another smaller radio beacon had been installed, casting a beam fifteen to twenty miles in either direction, which governs the immediate approach to the field.

To locate the landing field the pilot watches two vibrating reeds, tuned to the radio beacon, on a virtual radio receiver on his instrument board. If he turns to the right or left of his course the right or left reed, respectively, begins doing a sort of St. Vitus dance. If the reeds are in equilibrium the pilot knows it is clear sailing straight to his field.

The sensitive altimeter showed Lieut. Doolittle his alt.i.tude and made it possible for him to calculate his landing to a distance of within a few feet from the ground.

Probably the strangest device of all that Lieut. Doolittle has been called upon to test in Mr. Guggenheim's war against fog is a sort of heat cannon that goes forth to combat like a fire-breathing dragon of old. Like the enemies of the dragon, the fog is supposed to curl up and die before the scorching breath of the "hot air artillery" although the fundamental principle behind the device is a great deal more scientific than such an explanation sounds. It is, in brief, based on the known fact that fog forms only in a very narrow temperature zone which lies between the saturation and precipitation points of the atmosphere. If the air grows a little colder the fog turns into rain and falls; if it is warmed very slightly the mist disappears and the air is once more normally clear, although its humidity is very close to the maximum.

Brigands of the Moon

(The Book of Gregg Haljan)

PART TWO OF A FOUR-PART NOVEL

_By Ray c.u.mmings_

[Ill.u.s.tration: _I turned back to look at the Planetara._]

Out of awful s.p.a.ce tumbled the s.p.a.ce-ship _Planetara_ towards the Moon, her officers _dead_, with bandits at her helm--and the controls out of order!

My name, Gregg Haljan. My age, twenty-five years. My occupation, at the time my narrative begins, in 2075, was third officer of the Interplanetary s.p.a.ce-ship _Planetara_.

Thus I introduce myself to you. For this is a continuation of the book of Gregg Haljan, and of necessity I am the chief actor therein. I shall recapitulate very briefly what has happened so far:

Unscrupulous Martian brigands were scheming for Johnny Grantline's secret radium-ore treasure, dug out of the Moon and waiting there to be picked up by the _Planetara_ on her return trip from Mars.

The _Planetara_ left, bound for Mars, some ten days away. Suspicious interplanetary pa.s.sengers were aboard: Miko and Moa, a brother and a sister of Mars; Sir Arthur Coniston, a mysterious Englishman; Ob Hahn, a Venus mystic. And small, effeminate George Prince and his sister, Anita.

Love, I think, was born instantly between Anita and me. I found all too soon that Miko, the sinister giant from Mars, also desired her.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

As we neared the Moon we received Grantline's secret message: "Stop for ore on your return voyage. Success beyond wildest hopes!" But I soon discovered that an eavesdropper in an invisible cloak had overheard it!

Soon afterwards Miko accidentally murdered a person identified as Anita Prince.

Then, in the confusion that resulted, Miko struck his great blow. The crew of the _Planetara_, secretly in his pay, rose up and killed the captain and all the officers but Snap Dean, the radio-helio operator, and myself.

I was besieged in the chart-room. George Prince leaped in upon me--and put his arms around me. I looked at him closer--only to discover it was Anita, disguised as her brother! It was her brother, George, who had been killed! George had been in the brigands' confidence--thus Anita was able to spy for us.

Quickly we plotted. I would surrender to her, Anita Prince, whom the brigands thought was George Prince. Together we might possibly be able, with Snap's help, to turn the tide, and reclaim the _Planetara_.

I was taken to my stateroom and locked there until Miko the brigand leader should come to dispose of me. But I cared not what had happened--Anita was alive!

CHAPTER XIV

_The Brigand Leader_

The giant Miko stood confronting me. He slid my cubby door closed behind him. He stood with his head towering close against my ceiling. His cloak was discarded. In his leather clothes, and with his clanking sword-ornament, his aspect carried the swagger of a brigand of old. He was bareheaded; the light from one of my tubes fell upon his grinning, leering gray face.

"So, Gregg Haljan? You have come to your senses at last. You do not wish me to write my name upon your chest? I would not have done that to Dean; he forced me. Sit back."