The long days of the journey had passed and now they were reaching Earth. Just outside of Earth’s atmospheric blanket communication with Earth was established and thereafter they were constantly in touch with their fellows. The Mentor and his staff were waiting in the wide square before the government seat in Havana, and great crowds for many miles about awaited the landing of the spheres. As the spheres one by one disembarked their crews, arms reached out for the travelers as the delighted Earthlings crowded around.
Ware with his officers and the group of scientists were received in an open clearing maintained by guards. Little talking could be done in the hubbub of sound that swelled and beat on the ears, and the police had difficulty in forcing open a path by which they could reach the quiet of the building beyond to make their reports. It was then that a strange and terrific noise burst forth, causing Ware in sudden fear to look around for the group of Zoldans who, under the guard of their interpreters, should have been walking behind. He saw that they were not in sight! . . . Then he found them!
In the center of the square was a fountain with a fairly large sized pool. A great crowd had gathered there and were excitedly screaming and gesticulating, pointing at something in the water. Ware and D’Arcy, with the Mentor following close behind, unaware of what had happened, flew above the heads of the milling masses to the fountain. They were astounded to find that the twenty-four women with their babies were all lying prone in the water, while the six men whose duty it was to care for them were trying to force the laughing crowds to silence.
Earth Again!
AT Ware’s query, Charlie West, who had the women in his charge, explained that the noise of the crowds had been too much for the women, who were unaccustomed to loud grating sounds, and they were merely seeking quiet under the water! They had smelt the presence of water, and had flown to it by an unerring intuition.
The Mentor immediately dispatched orders for the square to be cleared and the crowds quieted. When the noise eventually died down, the women were enticed from the pool. A house adjoining that of the planet ruler was immediately made ready for them. There in the patio was a small fountain which the Mentor ordered removed and a large pool constructed for the use of the women.
For three days the Earthlings celebrated the return of the space-flyers, although any noise was forbidden within several thousand yards of the house wherein the Zoldans were quartered. Memorial services were also said for the fifteen men who had died in the battle on Venus.
* * * * *
The Mentor took up the business of studying the Zoldan situation. A number of the women and children were sent on a tour of the world, and scientists made thorough examination of them, but it was many years before it was agreed that the Earthlings were to breed with the Zoldans. First of all, trade was established between the two planets, and the Earthlings learned to look with favor upon the amphibians. However, after several generations of cautious co-mingling it was found that the inter-breeding was beneficial to the race. Women no longer had to die in giving birth to their young, and the presence of scales on their bodies was not distasteful to the new race. Nor were the Earthlings to become amphibians, for each new generation turned to the water less and less as time passed.
In the meantime the Earthlings upon Zolda gave reciprocal service to that world, so that in time there was scarcely any difference to be noted between the two races, and an Earthling traveling to the beautiful planet found life almost identical with that of his own world.
It was now thought that the time was ripe for an Earthly expedition to descend upon Mars, to learn whether its people were receptive to any visitors. And the question that every Earthlings asks is—cannot the empire of mankind be extended the Universe over?
THE END.
[1] See “Men With Wings” by Leslie Stone, July, 1929, issue of Air Wonder Stories.
[2] Winged.
[3] Machines that created a vacuum in the air, into which enemy craft were drawn by suction.
[4] To better understand the amount of “heat” radiated by the sun it must first be known that the rate at which radiant energy of all wavelengths is received by the Earth from the Sun at the outer surface of our atmosphere when the sun is at its mean distance, is, in terms of mechanical work, 1.51 home power per square yard. From this it can be seen that with a large number of great mirrors an immense concentration of energy could be obtained.
[5] A class of fishes with well developed jawbones.
Across the Void
THE old-time evolutionists claimed that through sheer influence of surroundings and conditions of existence man has evolved to what he is. What might have happened under absolutely different atmospheric influences remains to us eminently problematical—particularly conditions that might be prevalent outside our own galaxy, in worlds of which even our most powerful telescopes fail to give us an inkling. But it seems increasingly absurd to hold to the opinion that there can be no intelligent life except on the Earth. Leslie F. Stone has finally answered the insistent call for a sequel to “Out of the Void” with this new serial, which, incidentally, is complete in itself. In our opinion, “Across the Void” easily surpasses the original.
Do not miss the first instalment in this issue.
Part I
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER
CHAPTER I
An Old Friend
WHEN Janson ushered the three visitors into his study, Walter Kington looked up in peevish anger. “Drat the man! Would the fellow never learn that he was not to bring callers when his master was ensconced behind the desk in the room that bespoke ‘Private’ ? He must assuredly be sent on his way!” Yet Kington was not going to discharge Janson from his service, for at the sight of the tall, well-proportioned, bronze-haired man who had entered the room, Kington forgot the present to recall the past, the past in which Richard Dorr had figured so largely!
Thirty years ago, Wally Kington (he was Wally then) had averred he would always know Dick Dorr anywhere, anytime, no matter how the years might change them both. Today was proof of his given word, for immediately he had recognized his one-time chum in the browned, lined face before him.
It had not been Wally’s fault that his sister, Terry, had played rather loosely with his handsome chum, that because of the incident Dorr had left England for an African gold mine, but Wally had never forgiven himself for having allowed Dorr to meet Terry—Terry, who liked men only to demonstrate her own power over them, to toss them aside with that cold inhuman laugh of hers after they had given her their love. Wally did know that it had been Terry’s greatest mistake when she laughed at Dorr, for thereafter she had never been the same, had never so much as looked at another man and four years later had gotten herself killed in an idiotic dash for America by airplane.
As a flood this all came back to Kington, as for the first time in thirty years he looked into Dorr’s familiar face; then he was on his feet pumping the other’s hand. “Gad, Dick, it’s good to see you, old man,” he was crying. “When did you arrive in London and why the devil haven’t you let me hear from you all these years. It’s twenty-six years since I received your last letter! Why, man alive, you knock me off my feet. And you’ve not changed much either! Look at me . . . not much of the Wally of old days, eh?”
Dorr was smiling warmly down upon the little man from his own six foot height, but his demonstration was less enthusiastic than the other’s. The years had not aged him greatly, though they had put a feathery tracing of gray at his temples, and impressed lines on his face that only added to its power, leaving him this serious eyed man. Kington could remember that Dorr had always been a serious fellow—too serious, else the Terry affair would never have sent him off to Africa to forget his hurt. He was a reticent chap, too; never effusive. Wally, on the other hand, had always been the jolly-well-met fellow, open with his likes and dislikes. And only because he had become the personage that he was, eminent scientist and all that . . . had he perforce been made to shut up like a clam to the goggling
world. Yet to his friends he was still the Wally of old, bubbling with good fellowship and friendliness. But the years had sat on him more heavily, made his short body round and his head bald. Well, everyone wasn’t lucky enough to keep both their figure and hair as Dick Dorr had.
Dorr was answering Kington’s questions slowly, almost wearily. “I haven’t been in London, Wally, in all these years because I have been farther away than you would dare believe, and as for my letting you or anyone know—well that was just about an impossibility. But wait, let me present my companions.”
During the few moments consumed by the greeting, Kington had failed to note the two who had followed Dorr into his chamber, but now, for the first time, his eyes sought out the woman and the youth framed in the doorway. He saw a slender woman, gray-haired and with the ravages of the years on her sweet, calm face that could never have been very beautiful; but wholesome and gentle-eyed, it still was. Her eyes, however, were strangely arresting, not because of the life in them, but because of the faded look of a light that had died within them. She was clothed in what appeared to be a home-made dress and hat, and even the eminent recluse that he was, Kington was quick to note that her garments were antiquated by at least two decades despite the fact that they seemed newly made. Later, he was to see that both Dorr and the youth were dressed in much the same old-fashioned way—in ill-fitting, poorly tailored clothing. Now he was trying to learn what was so strange about the young fellow who stood a little to the left and behind the woman.
In the first place he was overtall—surely all of six feet six inches or more—with a large powerful body that still had something of the immaturity of youth in it. Then he was wearing large ungainly spectacles that hid his eyes, and on his head was an enveloping cap that covered hair and forehead and which he had not removed on entering the house. Yet there was enough of his face showing to tell that it was a handsome one with regular features, almost unearthly in contour, delicate and esthetically at variance with the power of his big adolescent body. And even in the lamp light that lighted the windowless room, Kington noticed a strange quality of his complexion, a queer silvery tint that seemed to underlie the skin, but that shone forth as color shines under the weave of an irridescent length of cloth. The scientist thought he had never seen an odder looking young man.
“This is Elsie Rollins-weiti and her son, Ezra-weit,” said Dorr by way of introduction that did little to explain the ill-assorted pair, in whom a slight family resemblance might be seen on second glance, but Dorr, evidently wishing to lose little time in either introductions or explanations, gathered his one-time friend’s attention to himself for the second time.
CHAPTER II
Startling News
“THE tale I have to relate you, Wally, is a strange one,” he began, “but after you hear our needs A you will not be surprised that I’ve come to you first, aside from our relations of the past. We need someone whose word carries weight on this globe, and I know you will do all that you can to help us when I show you what benefits the earth is to derive from the connection I have to offer her!”
Kington did not answer immediately. The odd speech affected him strangely. In the first place he had not yet gotten over the surprise of seeing Dorr again, then there were these strangers, Dick’s queer attitude and appearance, and now his queerer talk.
“Why, Dick,” he said, “I don’t know what you are driving at. Why, man . . . you speak as though you were from another world . . . as if . . .”
“Right! I am from another world, Wally . . . that is what I wish to tell you about,” interrupted Dick.
Had Kington’s colleagues seen the man at that instant, they would have been astounded. Kington, the unapproachable, the unemotional, the staid, sauve scientist, who dominated all gatherings, the man who never showed surprise at the latest scientific developments, the man who could ruffle an Einstein! Kington stood there, looking like a school lad who had just heard for the first time that the world was round! And he was actually stammering!
“My God . . . Dick . . . w-what are you—telling m-me? You—you are—but of course you are sane? You’ve changed—you’ve—why . . .?”
“Of course I am sane—and I am telling you the truth. Come—come, Wally, brace up. My statements shouldn’t shock you in this day and age. Why, I’ve learned that you now travel this globe of ours at the rate of 3200 kilometres per hour! Isn’t the next step for you to take into Space?”
Kington had to swallow something before he found his voice. “You mean that you’ve crossed Space?”
“Yes, and if we can arrive at terms with the earth, you will be crossing it yourself!” shot the other.
Kington’s eyes stared from his head. “You mean it, Dick?” He took his handkerchief from his pocket to mop his brow. “You’ve struck me all in a heap, Dick—it’s—well—it’s a shock, you know.”
Dorr smiled. “Sorry, old chap, that I startled you, but you see I’ve lived with the thought for the past twenty-five years now, and I can’t realize that others still can’t grasp it easily.”
“Well, come, sit down—all of you—and tell me about it. I guess there’s a long story.”
The three arranged themselves to their host’s liking. Then Janson was asked to bring brandy for the men and wine for the woman. Ezra-weit accepted his glass and sniffed of it before he drank it down, then there was such a coughing and sputtering as never had been heard before over a glass of brandy. Janson had water for the youth who took it gratefully. He had to remove his dark glasses that had become misted, and an exclamation of shocked surprise escaped Kington when he saw what the spectacles had hidden. Ezra-weit had lavender eyes!
Dorr had been chuckling over the scene. “It’s Ezra’s first try at ‘hard liquor.’ We should have warned him.”
“Tell him to take his cap off,” whispered Kington sotto voce.
Dorr looked up in surprise, then he grinned, and said something to the youth in a strange tongue. The boy complied and exposed a head covered with a thick mop of hair that was as silvery as the small vase standing on Kington’s broad desk. At a glance it could be seen that the hair had never had other pigmentation, that it was silver as Kington’s scrap of hair was black, and Dorr’s reddish bronze.
“He comes of this planet you’re speaking of?” queried Kington, his eyes on the strange features. “Mars?”
“Not Mars, but Abrui, as it is called by its inhabitants, a planet which has its orbit outside of Neptune!”
Kington started at that, and scanned Dorr’s face closely. “Gad! that hardly sounds credible, Dick. But what a find! Why that is enough to make your name resound to the heavens themselves. Yet let me think—ah, yes, there have been astronomers who believed in the fact that there are trans-Neptunian planets. Wasn’t it Forbes of Edinburgh, back in about 1880 who inferred from the study of the orbits of comets whose aphelia are beyond Neptune that there are two remote members of the solar system revolving at the distances of 100 and 300 astronomical units in periods of 1000 to 5000 years?”
“Sorry,” observed Dorr, “I am no astronomer, but the fact remains that Abrui lies just about 49 astronomical units from the sun with a period of 349 years, or 3,557,000,000 miles from Sol, or again if you like better, a little over 5,691,200,000 kilometres. . . .” The last was said with a laugh at the new system of French measures that were in use since Dorr’s time.
“Miles will do,” remarked Kington drily, “three billion and a half seem too much as it is. But do you mean you have actually traveled that distance, Dick?”
“Twice,” was the answer. “There and back, of course.”
“Good Lord! And here I was, tinkering with mere theories. But come, you must tell me how you happened to go there in the first place, and what there is to be known about this Abrui of yours . . . rum name that!”
“Abrui means ‘home’ in the Abruian tongue.”
“Nice sentiment! But what’s it all about?” said Kington.
CHAPTER III
&nb
sp; Some Past History
IN the next half hour Dorr told something of what had passed in the last quarter of a century, of Professor Ezra Rollins’ experiments to send a rocket containing a man to the planet Mars, and of the subsequent taking off of the rocket with Dana Gleason and Richard Dorr, the passing of Mars and of the landing upon the more distant world of Abrui.
Kington recalled the name of Professor Rollins, who had held an astronomical chair in one of the American universities in 1915 or thereabouts, but who had been laughed out of the country because of his belief that he could do the impossible. Rollins, it had been said, had disappeared into Africa followed by a band of men whose names bore long strings of college degree initials and who believed implicitly in their leader’s views and were with him during the building of the machine. Rollins had straightway been forgotten by the world, but what a sensation it would create when it was learned that the professor had really succeeded in building his rocket and launched it with two persons into the Void.
That the rocket had not landed upon Mars was not surprising but it did sound like a fabrication to learn that instead it had dropped upon another world, a ninth and undiscovered planet in the solar system, which, instead of depending upon distant Sol for light and energy, had a satellite sun of its own to provide those life-giving necessities. It didn’t seem possible that such a planet could have escaped detection, but then Neptune itself had not been discovered until 1787, and astronomers were not yet ready to agree positively that nothing lay beyond that distant globe.
“The reason for its not having been found in the last fifty years,” explained Dorr, “is believed by Abruian astronomers to be due to the fact that during that time the planet is in the lag of Neptune, in its shadow, and is only now dropping behind, for although Neptune’s year is shorter than Abrui, it is a larger planet and has taken that many years to pass by. Even now, were the astronomers to search for Abrui, it would be a difficult search for its influence is so small in proportion to that of Neptune as to be negligible. And Tradr, Abrui’s sun, does not throw out rays as does Sol and would appear no more than a pin-point of light, too small, in fact, to be detected against the myriad stars in its background.
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