A Large Anthology of Science Fiction

by Jerry

  The little scientist opened the door.

  “Oh, Benton. Come in. I’ve been thinking over what you said about a human agency behind this—”

  Without a word of explanation, the reporter slipped the weighted hat over Dr. Balstine’s bald skull. He went through the same reactions Woodley had displayed, but recovered more quickly.

  “A shield!” he cried excitedly, his blue eyes snapping. He examined it while Benton told of how he had found it.

  “This is in effect,” the scientist continued, “a condenser composed of two strips of aluminum and copper, with a thin layer of glass wool between. Any outside field of broadcast force, striking it, is shunted away, by being condensed between the strips. Thus the brain wearing the hat is protected from whatever wave is producing the amnesia.”

  “But the question is—who’s producing the wave?” cried Benton. “Can you track it down in any way, Dr. Balstine? I have good reason to believe the man behind all this is in Chicago!”

  The scientist started a little.

  He put the hat back on and sat for a moment quietly. His eyes narrowed, as he evidently reviewed something in his returned memory. By degrees his face became whiter and more dumbfounded. At the last, when a minute had gone by, his features were wildly perturbed.

  “Dr. von Steeden!” he gasped. “We worked it out together, a year ago, from my theory—a type of wave that would depress the potential of physiological time in the mind. Good God! I’m responsible for this world-wide amnesia! It’s on my soul!”

  Benton shook the half hysterical man by the shoulders.

  “Snap out of it and talk sense!” he demanded.

  The little scientist took hold of himself.

  “I published an article on my time-theory a year ago, but withheld the final formulae, realizing the danger—” He stopped and began again, frowning thoughtfully. “No. Now I remember! I wanted to build a wave-projector. A great plan had struck me. I could prevent the coming world war that festered in Europe! By wiping out memory, the warlords would be confused. Each time a so-called crisis arose, I would use the wave-projector, scattering the danger. Such was the great, blinding mission that I set my soul upon, with my discovery!”

  Benton gasped. The little scientist had indeed conceived a stupendous thing, altruistic to the core. But, as with all such idealistic men, he had not foreseen the impracticable side of it. He had staved off the latest European crisis, all right, but what more? How did the crime-wave tie in?

  “This von Steeden,” Benton asked. “What of him?”

  Dr. Balstine’s pinched face was a sickly grey.

  “I’m trying to think it out,” he cried nervously. “Von Steeden read my article, and looked me up. We developed the wave-projector together. We finished it a month ago. It’s out there in my back yard, screened by trees!” He moaned. “I’d forgotten—forgotten it all!”

  “Then let’s turn it off!”

  Benton jumped up, with this idea in mind.

  CHAPTER V

  The Amnesia Machine

  “WAIT! Be seated, gentlemen!”

  It was a new voice, from the doorway behind them.

  A tall, grim-faced, hook-nosed man stood there, smiling mirthlessly. Larry Benton recognized him instantly as “Doctor” Mike Larnin, international underworld master-mind—clever, cunning, ruthless.

  “Dr. von Steeden!” gasped the scientist. “We must turn off our wave-projector! We’ve made a mistake—”

  “Sit down!” repeated the newcomer.

  Benton sat down and pulled the scientist down with him. Two men had appeared silently, one in the doorway opposite, the other at the window of the sun-porch. They were armed thugs.

  “Now let me explain,” continued Mike Larnin. He added softly, “You’ll both be—as we say—rubbed out, when I’m through. You know too much already.”

  His accents were polished, in keeping with his groomed, respectable appearance. More than any other underworld character, Mike Larnin was the closest approach to the scientific, brainy crime leader. He was, in effect, Benton’s “master-mind” criminal.

  He went on:

  “Briefly, I saw the possibilities of your new discovery, Dr. Balstine, a year ago. I came to you as a fellow scientist—I’ve done considerable laboratory work in my unique career—to work out a projector. I pretended interest in your altruistic scheme of stopping war. But my real idea was this greatest of all crime coups!”

  “I was so blind—blind!” groaned Dr. Balstine.

  “When the wave-projector was completed,” continued the master criminal, “we waited for the next European crisis. But in the meantime I had sent my signal around, through the vast organization I had formed. The Crime Wave was launched. When government agencies were about to stamp down, I started the projector secretly, one night, while you slept.”

  He waved a hand.

  “That was yesterday, August 10th, 1940. I set the dial back a year, to August 10th, 1939. It robbed you, Dr. Balstine, of all memory of our connection. You didn’t even know of the projector in your back yard. Nor of the metal headband shield we devised. Now, unfortunately, through the meddling of this reporter, you’ve found out, and will have to go with him. I don’t need you any more, since the projector works perfectly.”

  Lamin leered at them both, as though enjoying his cat-and-mouse role. Benton felt more sick than when the amnesia had first struck. They were trapped—doomed!

  “The wave, as I foresaw,” resumed the criminal leader, “made our coup an instant success. Like radio waves, this wave pulses over the whole earth—into every mind. The physiological Time-sense in the mind is overthrown, set back a year. It doesn’t take much power, since the mind-fields are very delicate. Less power, in fact, than any radio station. You’ll remember we set up a radio-like aerial, Dr. Balstine. It looks no more than an amateur radiosending outfit. No one will suspect it. I have diesel generators, and a supply of oil on hand, in case electricity fails, from the powerhouses.”

  “How long,” asked Benton hoarsely, “are you going to keep the wave up?”

  “About a month. In that time, my criminal organization will have just about all the ready cash, gold, jewels, and lives we planned to take.” The man’s cold eyes flashed fire. “The plunder of the world! I’ll be the richest man alive when it’s done! I’ll get a portion of every haul, throughout the world. And”—grating laughter came from his lips—“this grand-scale emptying of the world’s coffers will always be an ‘unsolved’ crime. For I’ve stolen time and memory with it!”

  Benton bit his lip. He was right. When the time-wave was turned off, a month later, there would be no way of tracking down the criminals. There wouldn’t be a single recorded clue!

  Dr. Balstine’s face was tortured. He had placed the blame on his own soul. He had made it possible for the lawless to empty the money-bap of earth.

  THE master criminal straightened up. Stepping to the radio, he turned it on. “I think you know what comes next!” he said suavely. He tuned organ music, and turned up the volume. His two men became alert, fingering their guns. Lamin held up his hand for the signal of death. . . .

  Benton’s hand had been creeping toward his pocket. He could feel the gun there, that he had brought along on a dim hunch, from Woodley’s office. It was a hopeless chance, but he might plug one of them. He would try to get Lamin.

  He flung himself forward, clutching for his gun.

  A shot rang out—

  Benton wondered why he wasn’t hit. Good God—how long would it take him to get his hand out of his pocket? Ages seemed to pass, as in a nightmare.

  More shots rang out. Still he wasn’t hit!

  He prayed for another second of this miracle as he brought up the gun he had finally jerked from his pocket. He leveled it for Larnin’s chest.

  He fired.

  And then, suddenly, he realized he had shot a dead man!

  Lamin had begun to fall a split second before, with a hole in his forehead! Benton sat
up, dazed. Someone else had killed Lamin!

  He looked around. Blue was a wonderful color, he thought, especially when it was the blue uniform of the police! Two of them were coming in from the sun-porch, stepping over the body of the thug they had shot. Two more came in from the front door, followed by rumple-haired Jim Woodley of the Times-Star. Benton never knew when he had been so glad to see his sourfaced chief.

  “Just in time, it seems,” the latter commented dryly. His eyes lighted up as he recognized the slain ringleader of crime on the floor.

  “How did you happen to come here, with the cops, chief?” Benton asked the question that bewildered both himself and Dr. Balstine. The latter had sat through the shooting fray like a wooden image, too frightened to move.

  “She did it,” returned Woodley. “Called me on the phone right after you left. When I told her you’d gone looking for a criminal master-mind—which I thought was funny—she started in on me I What a tongue-lashing I got! Before I knew it I had called up the Chief of Police and requisitioned a squad. And here we are.”

  “She?” yelled Benton. “She who? You mean—”

  A flying form came in the door and Benton stopped with his breath squeezed out, as she hugged him. The blue of Alicia Deane’s eyes was even nicer than the police blue, he reflected.

  He looked at her a moment. There was something he should remember about her. He had known it while wearing the shielding hat. But now he could only remember that he should remember something, not the thing itself!

  “You love me!” he accused. “Let’s get—”

  He broke off and whirled, grasping Dr. Balstine’s arm. “Go out and turn off that damned wave-projector,” he said. “Take a couple of cops along in case any of Larnin’s men are around.”

  He turned back to the girl. “—married!” he finished.

  “No!” she said.

  She drew three things out of her bag. “This key is the one for the new apartment you couldn’t get in. This ring was at the jeweler’s, to have another stone added after your pay-raise from the Times-Star. And this document is a marriage-license. I have all the proof. You can’t get out of it, Larry Benton!”

  “Out of what?” he gasped.

  She looked up at him, smiling tenderly.

  “We were married two months ago!”

  A subtle hum that had existed in the air flicked out suddenly. A policeman had turned off the wave-projector, in back. Larry Benton remembered now. He bent to kiss his wife. He’d never forget again. He didn’t want to.

  WAR-LORDS OF THE MOON

  Linton Davies

  Bruce Ross, on the Earth-Moon run, asked a simple question, “How are the stars behaving, Harry?” But Harrell Moore could only stare at him in horror. For the stars had run amok—cosmic engines of destruction in the hands of the twisted genius of the Moon!

  A FAINT quiver ran through the great hull of the rocket ship, and passed. The harsh drumming of her motors died to a singing drone. Flight-Commander Bruce Ross nodded absently. The ship had shaken off the Earth-drag, and the speed indicator climbed fast. Eleven, twelve hundred miles an hour, the flagship of the rocket-ship fleet sped on its way to the Moon.

  He moved to the forward telescope at the side of the control cabin, and squinted at their objective. The pale circular bulk of the Moon loomed larger than when he had last observed it. He twisted to look through the rear telescope, and saw with satisfaction that the other seven ships of his fleet were following in echelon, each a mile and somewhat to the right of the one before it.

  Ross grinned with pleasure. It wasn’t his first trip to the Moon, but on that earlier occasion, when Magnus, King of the Moon People, had pledged a truce, with the Earth’s Council of Seven, he had commanded only the flagship. Now he had his own flagship, larger and more powerful that that outmoded rocket ship of five years ago, and seven more fighting ships besides. He strolled over to stand behind his navigator, plump, bespectacled Harrell Moore, who was squinting strainedly through the star-scope.

  “How are the stars behaving, Harry?” Moore’s forehead was corrugated with concern. Without taking his eye from the scope he muttered softly, “Something funny going on, Bruce.”

  He moved back to let his chief step to the eye-piece. But before the flight-commander could take the seat a sliding door opened with a bang. The two turned, startled.

  In the opening swayed a white-faced clerk. “Sir,” he gasped, “there’s trouble with communications!”

  “Well?” snapped Ross.

  The clerk brushed sweat off his brow. “The ray-type machine’s gone dead, sir, and the ray-phone’s crippled. We get only a weak muffled voice from the Council of Seven Headquarters!”

  “How about the blinkers from the other ships?” snapped Ross.

  “Blinkers are working, sir—” The clerk stopped short as Ross jumped to the rear of the control room.

  “Jorgens!” snapped Ross. “Signal each ship, and ask if they’ve—they can get Seven Headquarters on the ray-type!”

  “Aye, sir!” The signal chief hastened to the blinker buttons and began to rap out the message. He was half through it when a dull boom echoed like a sigh through the control room.

  ROSS and Moore exchanged startled glances. Jorgens, white of face, looked up, his hand poised as if paralyzed over the buttons. Then Ross jumped to the rear telescope, which commanded a view of his following seven ships.

  There were only six. Where the seventh—the last in the staggered-line—should have been, a faint glow filled the air. Ross stared at it, heart-sick. Was that blow the last sign of his rear guard? A rocket ship blotted out—destroyed! But how? How?

  “Jorgens!” he snapped. “You had the Moon on the ray-type a while ago! Try to get that Peak One station again!”

  “Aye, sir,” breathed Jorgens shakily. He tapped the black key, rattling the call signal feverishly, then snapped on the receiver. The prong-like type fingers made no move.

  “The ray-phone!” rasped Ross.

  The signal chief plugged the yellow cylinder into its gray socket, and flashed the light beside it. “First Fleet, calling Peak One!” he chanted. “Peak One, answer First Earth Fleet!”

  Ross, Moore and Jorgens held their breath. No sound came through the ray-phone trumpet Jorgens lifted a gray face toward Ross.

  The fleet commander smiled wryly. “Let it go, Jorgens. Check all the batteries and connections before you try again.”

  As Jorgens nodded and disappeared to trail the snaky coils of insulated ray-tubes to their battery reserves, Ross turned to Moore. “Number Eight’s gone,” he said softly.

  Moore blinked. “Gone? Where?”

  “Where the woodbine twineth,” said Ross.

  Moore’s breath came faster. “Wiped out?” He whipped off his spectacles and polished them absently, his jaw working on his half-forgotten chew of tobacco. “Gone,” he muttered dazedly.

  A sudden thought struck Ross. He gripped his navigator’s shoulder. “The stars! You said there was something funny going on!”

  Moore’s eyes flashed. “Yes!” He slapped his glasses on. “Come on! Let me show you!” He led the way to the star-scope.

  Ross, following, stopped as a signalman approached with a typed message—the answer to the blinker call that Jorgens had started. The first sentence was short and blunt. “Number Two reports ray-type dead, ray-phone weak.” Messages from the other five ships were identical except in the case of Number Seven. An added sentence from the last ship of the line stood out on the page and Ross felt sick inside as he read it. “Number Seven also reports explosion on right quarter where Number Eight was flying. No sign of Number Eight.”

  AT the star-scope Moore hovered as Ross applied his eye to the powerful lens. “That’s Denabola you’re on.” The navigator’s jaw worked, his eyes glittering.

  “Dim,” muttered Ross. “Clouds?”

  “No!” exploded Moore. “Denabola was bright as ever, then suddenly went dim!” Ross sat up quickly, a question in his sta
ring eyes.

  “You mean—the way the red stars go dim when we drain them of the red rays that power our ships and inter-planet communications?”

  “Just that way,” said Moore, blinking in excitement.

  For a long moment their glances were locked. Then Ross heaved a stifled sigh. “This may mean a lot, Harry,” he murmured. “I wonder if it might not even mean—”

  “Whatever happened to Number Eight?” asked Moore quickly.

  Slowly Ross nodded. “Let’s see. Denabola’s a blue star. Have you checked on any other blue stars?”

  Moore took the seat at the star scope. “Only Vega. She’s dim, too. Let me get Sirius.” He twirled a knob at the side of the telescope barrel, then another, then straightened, with an explosive gasp. “Look at Sirius!”

  Ross looked and caught his breath.

  Sirius, the brightest star in all the firmament, was a dull lackluster thing.

  Flight-Commander Bruce Ross sat back at the star-scope and pushed his space helmet off his head. He ran a steady hand through his unruly blond hair, smoothing out the tight wrinkles in his broad forehead as if to silence the urgent question that hammered in his brain. Something was happening in the heavens, and all his lore of flying and fighting might be none too much to set against the celestial puzzle.

  “Harry,” he asked finally, “the Moon Men know all about our red-ray work. Do you suppose they’ve gone to work somehow on the blue stars?”

  Moore screwed up his face, blinking behind his glasses. “Well,” he said finally, “there’s Horta.”

  Ross nodded. “I was thinking of Horta,” he admitted grimly. He had never forgotten Horta, Lord of the Moon Caverns, the darkly hostile savant who had held out so long at that fateful conference when the Council of Seven, rulers of the Earth, had made their all-or-nothing flight to the Moon, there to lay the question of peace or war before Magnus, the Moon King, and his lords. The Seven had won Horta over finally by offering him all the Earth secrets of the red rays that had made Earth-Moon travel possible. They had even set up a ray reservoir in Horta’s great cavern, and had shown him how the harnessed rays could provide power for ships and explosive for sky-torpedoes. Yet Horta had never succeeded in building any but tiny ships that could barely circle the Moon, and he had denied any success with the torpedoes. Only on the ray-type and the ray-phone, essential to Earth-Moon intercourse, had he followed instructions with real results.