Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 Part 50

"It's the right place, all right, Doctor," he called. "Come on up, the shooting is all over."

Dr. Bird mounted the ladder and stepped out on the roof. Set on one edge was a large piece of apparatus, toward which the scientist eagerly hastened. He bent over it for a few moments and then straightened up.

"Where is the operator?" he asked.

Carnes silently led the way to the edge of the roof and pointed down.

Dr. Bird leaned over. At the foot of the fire escape he saw a crumpled dark heap, with a secret service operative bending over it.

"Is he dead, Olmstead?" called Carnes.

"Dead as a mackerel," came the reply. "Richards got him through the head on his first shot."

"Good business," said Dr. Bird. "We probably could never have secured a conviction and the matter is best hushed up anyway. Bolton, have two of your men help me get this apparatus up to the Bureau. I want to examine it a little. Have the body taken to the morgue and shut up the press.

Find out which room the chap occupied and search it, and bring all his papers to me. From a criminal standpoint, this case is settled, but I want to look into the scientific end of it a little more."

"I'd like to know what it was all about, Doctor," protested Bolton. "I have followed your lead blindly, and now I have a housebreaking without search-warrant and a killing to explain, and still I am about as much in the dark as I was at the beginning."

"Excuse me, Bolton," said Dr. Bird contritely; "I didn't mean to slight you. Admiral Clay wants to know about it and so does Carnes, although he knows me too well to say so. As soon as I have digested the case I'll let you know and I'll go over the whole thing with you."

A week later Dr. Bird sat in conference with the President in the executive office of the White House. Beside him sat Admiral Clay, Carnes and Bolton.

"I have told the President as much as I know, Doctor," said the Admiral, "and he would like to hear the details from your lips. He has fully recovered from his malady and there is no danger of exciting him."

"I cannot read Russian," said Dr. Bird slowly, "and so was forced to depend on one of my a.s.sistants to translate the papers which Mr. Bolton found in Stokowsky's room. There is nothing in them to definitely connect him with the Russian Union of Soviet Republics, but there is little doubt in my mind that he was a Red agent and that Russia supplied the money which he spent. It would be disastrous to Russia's plans to have too close an accord between this country and the British Empire, and I have no doubt that the coming visit of Premier McDougal was the underlying cause of the attempt. So much for the reason.

"As to how I came to suspect what was happening, the explanation is very simple. When Carnes first told me of your malady, Mr. President, I happened to be checking Von Beyer's results in the alleged discovery of a new element, lunium. In the article describing his experiments, Von Beyer mentions that when he tried to observe the spectra, he encountered a mild form of opthalmia which was quite stubborn to treatment. He also mentions a peculiar mental unbalance and intense exhilaration which the rays seemed to cause both in himself and in his a.s.sistants. The a.n.a.logy between his observations and your case struck me at once.

"For ages the moon has been an object of worship by various religious sects, and some of the most obscene orgies of which we have record occurred in the moonlight. The full moon seems to affect dogs to a state of partial hypnosis with consequent howling and evident pain in the eyes. Certain feeble minded persons have been known to be adversely affected by moonlight as well as some cases of complete mental aberration. In other words, while moonlight has no practical effect on the normal human in its usual concentration, it does have an adverse effect on certain types of mentality and, despite the laughter of medical science, there seems to be something in the theory of 'moon madness.' This effect Von Beyer attributed to the emanations of lunium, which element he detected in the spectra of the moon, in the form of a wide band in the ultra-violet region.

"I obtained from Carnes a history of your case, and when I found that your attacks grew violent with the full moon and subsided with the new moon, I was sure that I was on the right track, although I had at that time no way of knowing whether it was from natural or artificial causes that the effect was being produced. I interviewed Admiral Clay and found that you were suffering from a form of dermit.i.tis resembling sunburn, and that convinced me that an attack was being made on your sanity, for an excess of ultra-violet light will always tend to produce sunburn. I inquired about the windows of your solarium, for ultra-violet light will not pa.s.s through a lead gla.s.s. When the Admiral told me that the gla.s.s had been replaced with fused quartz, which is quite permeable to ultra-violet and that the change had been almost coincident with the start of your malady, I asked him to get you out of the solarium and let me examine it.

"By means of certain fluorescent substances which I used, I found that your pillow was being bathed in a flood of ultra-violet light, and the fluoro-spectroscope soon told me that lunium emanations were present in large quant.i.ties. These rays were not coming to you directly from their source, but one of the windows of the State, War and Navy Building was being used as a reflector. I located the approximate source of the ray by means of an improvised apparatus, and we surrounded the place.

Stokowsky was killed while attempting to escape. I guess that is about all there is to it."

"Thank you, Doctor," said the President. "I would be interested in a description of the apparatus which he used to produce this effect."

"The apparatus was quite simple, Sir. It was merely a large collector of moonlight, which was thrown after collection onto a lunium plate. The resultant emanations were turned into a parallel beam by a parabolic reflector and focused, through a rock crystal lens with an extremely long focal length, onto your pillow."

"Then Stokowsky had isolated Von Beyer's new element?" asked the President.

"I am still in doubt whether it is a new element or merely an allotropic modification of the common element, cadmium. The plate which he used has a very peculiar property. When moonlight, or any other reflected light of the same composition falls on it, it acts on the ray much as the b.u.t.ton of a Roentgen tube acts on a cathode ray. As the cathode ray is absorbed and an entirely new ray, the X-ray, is given off by the b.u.t.ton, just so is the reflected moonlight absorbed and a new ray of ultra-violet given off. This is the ray which Von Beyer detected. I thought that I could catch traces of Von Beyer's lines in my spectroscope, and I think now that it is due to a trace of lunium in the cadmium plating of the barrels. Von Beyer could have easily made the same mistake. Von Beyer's work, together with Stokowsky's opens up an entirely new field of spectroscopic research. I would give a good deal to go over to Baden and go into the matter with Von Beyer and make some plans for the exploitation of the new field, but I'm afraid that my pocketbook wouldn't stand the trip."

"I think that the United States owes you that trip, Dr. Bird," said the Chief Executive with a smile. "Make your plans to go as soon as you get your data together. I think that the Treasury will be able to take care of the expense without raising the income tax next year."

+------------------------------------------------------+ | | | _IN THE NEXT ISSUE_ | | | | | | Murder Madness | | | | _Beginning an intensely Gripping, Four-Part Novel_ | | | | _By_ MURRAY LEINSTER | | | | | | The Atom Smasher | | | | _A Thrilling Adventure into Time and s.p.a.ce_ | | | | _By_ VICTOR ROUSSEAU | | | | | | Into the Ocean's Depths | | | | _A Sequel to_ "_From the Ocean's Depths_" | | | | _By_ SEWELL PEASLEE WRIGHT | | | | | | Brigands of the Moon | | | | _Part Three of the Amazing Serial_ | | | | _By_ RAY c.u.mMINGS | | | | | | ----_And Others!_ | | | +------------------------------------------------------+

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Readers' Corner_

_A Meeting Place for Readers of_ Astounding Stories]

_Our Thanks_

Three months ago the Clayton Magazines presented to lovers of Science Fiction everywhere a new magazine with a brand-new policy--Astounding Stories--and now it is the Editor's great pleasure to announce to our thousands of friends that this new magazine is enjoying a splendid success.

Within twenty-four hours of the time that Astounding Stories was released for sale, letters of praise began pouring into our office, and--and this is significant--many of them clearly revealed that their writers had grasped the essential difference of the new Science Fiction magazine over the others.

We cannot better state this difference, this improvement, than by quoting what the Reader whose letter appears under the caption, "And Kind to Their Grandmothers," says in his very first paragraph: "And I was still more pleased, and surprised, to find that the Editor seems to know that such stories should have real story interest, besides a scientific idea." It is exactly that. Every story that appears in Astounding Stories not only must contain some of the forecasted scientific achievements of To-morrow, but must be told vividly, excitingly, with all the human interest that goes to make any story enjoyable To-day.

The Editor and staff of Astounding Stories express their sincere thanks to all who have contributed to our splendid start--especially to those who had the kindness to write in with their helpful criticism.

Already one of your common suggestions has been taken up and embodied in our magazine, and so we have this new department, "The Readers'

Corner," which from now on will be an informal meeting place for all readers of Astounding Stories. We want you never to forget that a cordial and perpetual invitation is extended to you to write in and talk over with all of us anything of interest you may have to say in connection with our magazine.

If you can toss in a word of praise, that's fine; if only criticism, we'll welcome that just as much, for we may be able to find from it a way to improve our magazine. If you have your own private theory of how airplanes will be run in 2500, or if you think the real Fourth Dimension is different from what it is sometimes described--write in and share your views with all of us.

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Corner'" and have your share in what everyone will be saying.

--_The Editor._

"_And Kind to Their Grandmothers!_"

Dear Editor:

I received a pleasant surprise a few days ago when I found a new Science Fiction magazine at the newsstand--Astounding Stories. And I was still more pleased, and surprised, to find that the Editor seems to know that such stories should have real story interest, besides a scientific idea.

Of course I took with a grain of salt the invitation to write to the editor and give my preference of the kind of stories I like. I know that every editor, down in his heart, thinks his magazine is perfect "as is." In fact, praise is what they want, not suggestions, judging by the letters they print.

Well, I can conscientiously give you some praise. If Astounding Stories keep up to the standard of the first issue it will be all right. Evidently you can afford to hire the best writers obtainable. Notice you've signed up some of my favorites, Murray Leinster, R. F. Starzl, Ray c.u.mmings. I like their stuff because it has the rare quality rather vaguely described as "distinction,"

which make the story remembered for a long time.