The Collected Stories

by Earl

  Ordinary chemical reactions have no effect on the proton, of course, so some more powerful agency was needed. We tried radium with no effect, nor even radon, radium emanation, which is hard to isolate, and hard to handle, but extremely more radioactive. Finally we used actinium, no. 89, with success.

  Our apparatus was merely a thick-walled cylinder of lead, ½ meter long, whose ends tapered to points, with openings at each point—a large one at one end, and a small one at the other. In the large end was placed, in a built-in receptacle, the specimen of platinum to be altered. In the other end we suspended a milligram of actinium, quite a powerful agency. In making the preparations, my assistants and myself wore lead-lined suits, and helmets with goggles of lead glass. Actinium is much more powerful than radium, and a milligram is decidedly deadly to a man if he works with it for any length of time while unprotected from its penetrating gamma rays.

  Using a cube of platinum at first, we had no success. We bathed it in different ether rays while the gamma rays from the actinium acted upon it. No results—powdered platinum was the solution, known as platinum black. After the hour was up, we removed the platinum black, no physical change being apparent; but, to our great joy, upon weighing it, a loss of weight showed that we had increased the proportion of isotope 192 by about 25%. Subsequent trials with refined apparatus and more exact methods of procedure yielded specimens of almost pure iso-platinum 192 and 196, which are easily separated by the difference of their melting points.[*]

  The announcement to the scientific world of this astounding feat aroused long controversy and numerous conjectures. The International Science Group of Paris asked for a specimen of Professor Riehm’s iso-platinum 192 and upon examining it carefully, announced to the world that the great German had indeed produced the isotope of platinum of atomic weight 192 exactly! It was the spring of 1971. Already, at this time, several scientists suggested that the Law of Definite Proportions be declared null and void, but the actual act did not go into force till 1975, when Delande made five different chlorides of tin of the same formula!

  Transmutation

  WE will skip the intervening years from 1971 to 1974, during which time several isotopes of different elements were isolated in small quantities by various investigators, and return to Professor Riehm in his Boston laboratory. A big American firm had induced him to work solely for them for an enormous compensation. He moved from Berlin to Boston and continued his experiments in one of the best-equipped laboratories ever built. Here it was that he and his assistants broke down a series of elements and iso-elements, including zinc, which was broken down into the non-metal sulphur! The process was kept a secret and all we know even today is that some powerful radioactive body other than actinium was used with, however, practically the same apparatus as that for the making of iso-Pt 192.

  The decomposing (or, more modernly, the isoprotizing) of zinc into sulphur was of more interest to the scientific world than to the industrial world for which he labored, but the big men behind knew that sooner or later would come their chance. Sometime Professor Riehm would discover a process that would enrich them immensely. That was why they lured him away from Berlin, where he had been working in the interests of pure science, and business men seldom make a mistake. It came in a mild way, when out of barium, Professor Riehm made silver! The raw products were barium chloride, a very cheap salt, and certain radio-elements, and the final product was silver in the form of ingots, with hydrogen chloride gas as a valuable by-product. The big firm immediately began turning out electrical instruments with silver replacing the copper for a conducting medium, and inside of five years, copper as an electrical conductor was unheard of, silver being far superior to it in more ways than one.

  Had this been done back in the early part of the century, when some countries were on a silver standard and all countries used it for currency, there would have been a world panic. But in 1974, when money was all paper based on real estate, no ill effects resulted.

  Professor Riehm spent the rest of his active days in perfecting various processes for the giant concern which owned him. It is indeed sad that such a brilliant mind became enmeshed in the tentacles of big business. No one knows what he might have done, what great advancement the world might have known, if he had followed the guiding-star of pure science in his Berlin laboratory. However, there were others of brilliant mind to carry on the great work.

  Four years later, in 1978, Dr. Svens sprang into prominence by building up platinum or synthesizing it, from lower elements!

  Professor Riehm had done two outstanding things: he had made possible the isolation of isotopes (which is a partial transmutation) and three years later he made transmutation a reality rather than a hypothetical word by isoprotizing zinc. Transmutation, as Professor Riehm had left it, could be done only in the breaking-down way, and then only if the atom split exactly in two. (As iso-zinc 64 into two of iso-sulphur 32). But Dr. Svens introduced to science the process of synthesizing elements. This produced a stir in scientific circles equal to that produced when Perkins synthesized mauve, the first aniline dye, back in the early days of science.

  Dr. Svens’ notes are written in too technical a style for clarity to the average reader. Suffice it to say that three atoms of iso-iron 56 plus one atom of iso-aluminum 27 in protonic union gives one atom of iso-platinum 195. There are exactly enough hydrogen and helium protons and free electrons to make normal platinum of atomic weight 195 but thirteen free electrons had to be transferred from the outer shells or orbits to the nucleus! This was the task which Dr. Svens had taken upon himself. Working upon this principle that three parts by atomic-measure of iso-iron 56 (purified by Professor Riehm’s process) plus one part of iso-aluminum 27 would give one part of iso-platinum 195, he subjected the correct proportions of the lower metals to various radioactive radiations, with no success whatsoever. The metals were finely ground and carefully mixed; every radioactive material procurable was tried, and still constant failure resulted. It was not until a small amount of iso-Pt 195 was mixed with the raw products that success came. The yield was, however, poor; after dissolving out of the fused mass the unchanged iron and aluminum by boiling hydrochloric acid, a small amount of iso-Pt 195 was found, running to .01% of the total weight!

  Small as the yield was, the materials were cheap and several great chemical concerns took over Dr. Svens’ process and put synthetic platinum on the market at one-third the price of natural platinum. This was a great boon to the chemists, who found it thus easier to procure the much-needed platinum.

  Dr. Svens, in his laboratory up in northern Sweden, next attempted the production of artificial actinium! He had heard about Professor Billings and his famous atomic-engine theory and his estimation of the amount of actinium needed to run it. Imbued with the grand purpose of conquering space and establishing communication with Mars, which he knew was inhabited by reason of the Period of Signaling a decade before, and perhaps other planets, he began that series of famous experiments which culminated in the production of Svenium, the Wonder-Metal of today, a radioactive body at least 1000 times more powerful than any natural material. He reached the grand goal which Professor Riehm had set before himself, but never attained.

  But, as it chanced, before Dr. Svens perfected his process, the First Martian landed on earth, up in northern Michigan, near the shores of Lake Superior. This landing occurred three months after the making of iso-Pt 195 in 1978, and just about the time that Svens began his work on synthetic actinium. Undismayed by the crashing of his hopes of first conquering space, he labored on and in 1981 he announced success—success beyond his dreams. He not only made actinium but also element 87, an alkali metal, and so radioactive that its period (i.e. half its life) is three minutes! He was not able to isolate it, but found that when alloyed with actinium, it became much longer lived and still capable of producing enormous energy-products. He made by dint of much labor a large supply of the alloy, which subsequently became known as Svenium, or more popularly, the W
onder Metal, and offered it to the Mars Klan, of which he was a member.

  In a short time the ship built by the Mars Klan and propelled by the Wonder Metal rose into the air, and, leaving behind the shouts and mad acclaim of admiring thousands, sped to Mars, equipped with powerful engines and staunchly built to withstand space conditions.

  It was somewhat surprising that after the landing of the Pioneer, or the First Martian, no Martian ships immediately followed. The next one to arrive here came a week after Dr. Svens’ ship had left Earth. In fact, as it later proved, the Martian ship had left Mars on the same day our ship, the Tellurian, had left Earth; but the Tellurian made the journey in less time than did the Martian ship! Hence the first official spaceship from Earth arrived on Mars before her first official (the Pioneer was a lone flyer, whose departure from Mars was witnessed by only one person) ship reached earth. And then, the handicaps we had to overcome! The Martians had abundant supplies of radioactive bodies and needed but to invent the atomic-energy engine, while we had to make our actinium after long years of intense research, the fruit of perhaps 85 years of scientific advance.

  The principle of the atomic engine was discovered on earth before the fuel to run it was found. On Mars the fuel was there for the taking.

  Martian Superiority

  IF this account reaches the eyes of Martians and may seem to them rather boastful and impertinent, I give them this reason: I have written spaceship, this in answer to Markin Lavlo’s book, “Martian Superiority.” It is merely a gentle reminder that beyond the remarkable flight of the First Martian, we Tellurians can claim to be the pioneers of space.

  It must not be thought that we of earth in any way minimize the great and historical space flight of the Pioneer. Far from it. We are as quick in our homage to his dead body and everlasting spirit in the museum at the spot of landing as his fellow-Martians themselves.

  The foregoing has prepared the reader for the story of the arrival of Kastory Impan, the First Martian, or the Pioneer, whose name is held today in reverence by the peoples of two great worlds.

  There are numerous other accounts of the arrival, but none have gone back into the past to show the connection between scientific research in transmutation and interplanetary flight; a point. I think, directly connected to the first space flight and subsequent establishment of commercial relationship. It is true, that without the flight of Dr. Sven’s ship, the Earth would still be as far ahead; the Martians would still have come, but that does not detract from the honor and glory forever associated with the names of Professor Wilhelm Riehm, the founder of the science of transmutation, and Dr. Jarl Svens, who developed it. I challenge Martia, the superrace of Mars, to bring up a scientist to compare with either of these two:

  And I may add that quite by accident I came across the little sub-plot which goes with story of the arrival of the First Martian. I’m certain no one ever heard of Gregory Stewart before.

  The Arrival

  UPON the gently-sloping greensward in the shadow of the forested First Bluff, one of the myriads of peaks of the Porcupine Mountain Range, just a few miles outside of the small town of Bessemer in the year of 1978, a group of holiday picnickers were startled from their merrymakings to see descending near them, with sickening speed, a dull, green-hued sphere. Appearing high in the air as a balloon, it rapidly increased in size, and when about a hundred feet above the ground, stopped, wabbled uncertainly, and then crashed to the ground with a metallic, crackling sound. After swaying back and forth slightly, it finally came to a dead rest. So startling was this incident that it deprived the merrymakers of all action. In attitudes of astonishment, they gazed speechless at the strange object, hardly knowing what to expect next. With excited exclamations, the impetuous youths of the group ran towards it.

  “I’ll bet it’s another of those crazy planetary ships,” yelled one excitedly. “They try ’em by the dozens nowadays.”

  “Or else it’s a new perpetual-motion air glider.”

  “Or maybe it’s a new raiding plane from the Chinese,” chimed in a third, breathless from running.

  “Well, whatever it is,” came from a fourth, “the inventor, or whoever runs it, is sure gone!”

  Upon the heels of the racing youths, each eager to be first, followed the elders and the children, all thoughts of their tasty lunch, lying on the sward, forgotten. Surrounding the globe upon their approach, they did not know what to make of it, for it was such a strange-looking object. One of the boys, in his curiosity, advanced close and touched its metallic side, but quickly withdrew his hand with a cry of pain and sucked his scorched fingers. Being in diameter about ten feet, it looked like nothing more than a huge glass ball, tinted with a light green; of smooth, unseamed surface. No opening of any kind could be discerned in the area of the sphere’s surface, except that the bottom side, on which it had landed, seemed to have been crushed and the jagged edge buried in the earth. No sound could be heard from the interior of the globe, and the excited picknickers chattered volubly, conjecturing and gesticulating, trying to make something out of the puzzle.

  One of the older men voiced the opinion that it seemed to have been cast as a whole; and that seemed an impossibility to him.

  “Why, look?” he cried, “if it’s some sort of an airship, how could the driver get into it? I’ve just walked all around it and I can’t see a door!”

  “It must be on the underside,” his companion, a younger man, replied. “Just our luck, too, or we could have entered and seen what’s what. If there’s anybody in there, and there surely must be, unless it’s radio controlled, he’ll die—if he isn’t already dead.”

  “Here, Louie,” he called to a boy, “run to the highway and see if you can find a motorcopper.” He turned to the other man. “I guess that’s all we can do till he comes, Mr. Boldt.”

  “It occurs to me,” said Mr. Boldt to the other, whose name was Ramson, “that that metal doesn’t look like metal! It looks more like glass! Of course, it can’t be that, or it would be smashed to bits!”

  “It landed with enough force to snap steel,” said Ramson, “but this stuff seems to be intact, except where it struck the earth.” He bent down and looked closely at the smashed portion of the huge globe. “In fact, the only place it did smash is where it landed on a large rock, which you can just see there,” he pointed. “Over on the other side, it merely depressed the ground.”

  A third man joined them. “There is a door to the thing,” he cried. “Come on; I’ll show you.” He led the way to the other side. “There, right above our heads, you can see the crack which separates it from the wall. It’s flush with the surface and looks like a perfect fitting.”

  It was, indeed, the door, about four feet long and two feet wide, and indistinguishable, except for the fine cracks separating it from the main wall of the globe. It was evident that the sole means of opening it was from the inside—inside, where perhaps someone lay hurt or dead. It was the usual thing for unsuccessful rockets and spaceships to either smash to pieces on returning, or to land so lightly that the occupant, or occupants, escaped unscathed, and stepped smiling out of their temporarily-disabled ship.

  At that moment a man came hurrying up, easily recognized as a farmer by the spotless white suit and wide-brimmed straw hat. He arrived, breathless.

  “What in Heaven’s name has happened here? What—whose?—why, hello, Mr. Ramson, I thought you’d be here,” the farmer said as he spied his friend, “Did you bring this along?”

  “Lord, no, Mr. Chaws, I had enough to do carrying lunch! It landed just as we were eating, too. I can’t make it out. I figure it’s some fellow’s invention on its maiden voyage, and it was evidently built for space flight. My friends here——” he proceeded to introduce them.

  Mr. Chaws was introduced as manager of Section D of the well-known Brinkley Farm, whose products always sold well in big-city markets. In extent about 500,000 acres, its various sections were scattered on both sides of the Porcupine Range. Section D bord
ered the other side of the woods near which the picnickers had started to eat lunch, and specialized in dairying more than grains. Mr. Chaws himself was one of the regular college-bred, scientific farmers, who are trained in our large agricultural institutes.

  “I was just stepping out of the milking-room of Barn 3,” began Mr. Chaws, all introductions over, “when, raising my eyes for some reason, I saw this—ship—as a rather large ball high in the air. Its peculiar color and apparent speed of descent made me watch it curiously as it drew nearer. It rapidly increased in size and at first I thought it was going to land near me, but instead, it disappeared from my sight as it fell behind First Bluff. Determined to find out what it was, I jumped into my Cremson and motored over here as fast as I could, through the woods. I parked the car over on the road. I fully expected to see a mass of broken metal here, instead of this——”

  “Well, you see,” broke in Mr. Boldt, “whoever runs the machine, succeeded in halting it about a hundred feet above ground, and then lost control again.”

  “It’s all heated up,” ejaculated Mr. Ramson, “at least on the outside. Even if the fall didn’t kill the pilot of this—ship—then the heat will—or has.”

  “Isn’t there some way of opening it and getting the fellow out!” asked Mr. Chaws.

  “Doesn’t seem to be,” exclaimed Mr. Ramson, “Look, here’s the door,” and he pointed with meaning at the only evident means of egress and entrance.

  “Hm—no chance there,” spoke Mr. Chaws. “About all we can do is send for a motorcopper and let him worry.”

  “I’ve done that already,” cried Mr. Ramson. “If there was one on the highway when the boy got there, he ought to be here now. But they’re never where they’re needed most.” All the men smiled, for at that time the motor-coppers had very indefinite schedules, as compared with the present strict system.