Fantastic Vignettes

by Jerry

  He was about to turn back to the amplifier again when something made him look closer at the metal box. He scrutinized it closely. There was some printing on the cover. Larry read: “El-analyzer”. That was all. Curiosity got the better of him. He lifted the lid which popped open in a peculiar way in spite of the fact that there seemed to be no clips or clasps.

  A small glass plate stared up at him and two metallic-looking cables lay coiled to one side of the plate. Larry felt them. They had the oddest rubbery feeling—and they were tipped with metal.

  Larry stepped back. This was gag! Well, I’ll show them, he said mentally. But there didn’t seem to be anything fake about the thing. Gingerly he picked up the instrument—it was amazingly light—and brought it alongside the analyzer. He. took out one of the cables—picking at random and touched it to the high voltage source on the amplifier.

  Then his eyes nearly popped out of his head.

  The glass plate softly glowed: “Hi-vol—453.2 v.—.01% ripple”—it said in clear black letters almost like type yet wavery like light!

  This thing was a real analyzer—and a honey!

  Larry touched the cable tip to the circuit which had just flashed and which he was certain he’d blown. You could even see the glassy deposit on the side of the fuse. The plate lit up again. This time it said: “Capac groonded-burn three—fusnow ookey—”

  And in that instant it seemed to Larry as if the fuse moved slightly—and then it was whole!

  “My God!” Larry said, “what have I got here? I better call Dr. Weston. This thing is magic!”

  He picked up the phone and dialed Ke-4-J202. Holding the phone he turned and kept his eyes on the strange instrument while the phone buzzed. Finally he got an answer. The sleepy voice of Dr. Weston said: “Hello? Weston speaking.”

  “Hello, Doc,” Larry said, “say, I’ve got the craziest gadget down here. It’s some kind of a circuit analyzer. Do you know about it?”

  “Where is it?”

  “Right on the bench he—” Larry broke off abruptly. There was a weird shimmering before his eyes and the instrument slowly faded from view.

  “It just disappeared!” he .shouted.

  “What did you say?” Weston queried. “I say it just vanished. It’s gone. I don’t get it . . .”

  “Forget it, Larry,” Dr. Weston said. “Be sure to fix the analyzer—and Larry—”

  “Yes?” Larry managed feebly.

  “—Don’t bother me with your nightmares. Keep on the ball.”

  Larry sat down weakly as he hung up the phone and stared at the space where the instrument had been. “I wonder,” he said. “I wonder . . .”

  . . . and three thousand years away, the cold metallic voice of the Mekaniker said to the frightened human slave: “I told you not to use the stasis. That’s the second time we’ve missed an instrument. It’s a good thing for you that the power was on. Ah, here it is now. Don’t let this happen again or I’ll see you taken from the Labs and put into the mines. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”

  And the furtive crouching figure in the vast metallic room shivered and said, “No Mekaniker—I will be careful. Please . . . I will be very careful with the Mekaniker tool, very careful . . .”

  1951

  Lunar Farmer

  M.H. Stanton

  CONSTUCTION STATION SEVEN on the edge of Tycho was a beehive of humming activity. Since the plans for Luna City had been decided on. all of the Stations were working at capacity and every man in them was infused with a new sense of power and importance, a sense of responsibility.

  All except one, that is.

  Engineer Fenton saw the thing happen, but he was powerless to prevent it. He’d been worrying about Luke Crayton for a month—and now it had happened. The gaunt, awkward youth misjudged the swing of the crane and seven tons of air-compressor dropped fifty feet, struck the steel girder, teetered precariously for a moment and then plunged fifty feet into a pile of beams, ending up as a mass of junk!

  Engineer Fenton groaned aloud. “Crayton!” he roared, “come here, you damned fool!”

  By the time the gangling boy reached Fenton’s office-cubicle and removed his helmet, the engineer had calmed himself somewhat. He gazed at the boy with mingled contempt and sorrow.

  Finally he brought himself to speak, the boy avoiding his direct gaze.

  “Crayton,” Fenton said gently, “I don’t know what to do with you. You don’t have the slightest feel for tools, you’re clumsier than an elephant trying to walk a tightrope. How the devil did you ever get assigned to a Lunar crew? We’re supposed to have skilled mechanics, not bumbling idiots.

  Luke Crayton shifted uncomfortably under the supervising engineer’s critical stare.

  “I ain’t no mechanic,” he admitted dumbly, “I jest cain’t figure them things out. I reckon you better send me back, sir.”

  Fenton shook his head. “Can’t do that. Contract won’t allow it and we can’t waste any space to the shuttle stations. We should have caught you long ago.” He thought for a moment. “Tell you what I’m going to do. I’ll put you in hydroponics—know anything about farming?”

  “My pappy farmed three hundred acres, sir,” the boy said quietly.

  “Well, you won’t have to do any farming. Granger probably could use another hand at weeding.”

  So Fenton sent Luke Crayton to Hydroponics, that vast gallery of chemical nutrient tanks filled with growing pumpkin plants which converted carbon dioxide into oxygen to provide the precious air for the work station.

  Granger knowing the boy’s inability to cope with complicated machinery kept him away from the controllers and only allowed him to weed, to watch and to shovel in the chemicals—previously weighed by himself—into the tanks. He couldn’t afford to take a chance.

  But apparently he didn’t have to worry. Luke Crayton seemed to have struck his element. He fitted in perfectly with the tedious monotonous work. In three months Granger discovered that he could pretty well rely on the boy and he finally gave him minute, implicit instructions, for the starting of a new gallery. Assembling, the tanks, starting the seedlings and adding the chemicals shouldn’t be beyond the boy. The installation would occupy eight hundred square meters. Then he left Luke Crayton alone. He had enough to do to take care of his present duties.

  He first got his chance to inspect Crayton’s work about three weeks later.

  He walked with the boy to the hydroponics gallery which was supposed to have been. set up. The minute he opened the door he knew something was wrongly.

  Instead of eight hundred acres of growing green leaves. Granger saw a quarter of that area. The rest of the tanks were empty!

  His face turned red and he let out a groan. Suffused with rage he turned on Crayton.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you boy? I promised that this acreage would be ready. We want more oxygen! Can’t you understand that?”

  Instead of shrinking in fear, Luke Crayton had a smile on his long lean face.

  “Naow jest a minute, sir,” he said calmly, “I’m givin’ you your oxygen. Jest take a look at the recorders.”

  Apologetically Granger glanced at the instruments. His startled eyes took in the fact that this quarter-acreage was delivering four times what it should have!

  “I been doin’ a little sperimehtin’. sir,” Luke Crayton said by way of explanation as the startled Hydroponics chief tried to believe his eyes, “I figgered them plants could stand a little breedin’. My pappy showed me a couple a tricks—an’ they worked here jest like back home.”

  Luke Crayton is now chief of Hydroponics on Luna City. His knowledge of plant life is vast and nobody ever mentions the fact that he can’t screw a nut on a bolt without jamming it. He’s no mechanic, but he does know plants!

  Space School No. 1

  William Karney

  “COMING?” JERRY asked Lana, the tall brunette who was taking Physics One with his class.

  “Be right there.” Lana said, turning from the
group of girls with whom she was talking. “All right, Jerry where do we go now?”

  “The class-ship is leaving from the south campus. Let’s walk over. I don’t feel like bothering with a heli-copt now.”

  The handsome couple strode slowly across the magnificent flaring greenness that was the campus of the Eastern Scientific University.

  Other students in the class were converging on the rocket, a metallic sliver of glistening steel which lay in its cradle preparatory to the routine flight.

  Soon all were aboard and Jerry and Lana seated themselves in the assigned acceleration chairs, tightened the straps and relaxed with their cigarettes.

  “Dr. Fielding’s always good,” Lana said. “I like him. He makes physics really fascinating.”

  “Me too,” Jerry agreed. “He’s got a sense of humor too.”

  Ten minutes later the rocket bearing its class was space-borne and Dr. Fielding was standing facing his class, strapped in a verticle chair. The lecture began.

  “Mass is property of matter that measures its inertia, its tendency to remain in a given state of motion or rest,” he said.

  “We can best distinguish between mass and weight by showing you the difference in a free rocket. Our rocket, right now—is free—that is, we’re not accelerating—” the class felt the peculiar sense of floating that comes with free-fall,—“and we can study the meaning of mass.”

  The professor bent over and lifted two metallic sphere a foot in diameter in the. air and left them poised.

  “One of these,” he went on, “is a solid steel sphere. The other is a metallic-painted balloon. Now which is which? They look alike and they weigh the same—that is, nothing. How can I tell the difference between them?

  “The answer is simple. The steel sphere contains the greatest amount of matter, the most atoms, the balloon the fewest. The steel sphere is the more inert, the more massive. I’m gong to give each of these a push—I’m applying the same force to both. Let’s see what happens.”

  He slapped one of the spheres and it skittered through the room rapidly—just as you would expect of a light balloon. Then he tapped the other sphere with the same kind of a slap. Ponderously it swung into motion, its massiveness apparent in its sluggishness. It drifted slowly through the air until it touched a steel wall with a dang and bounced backwards. Professor Fielding caught It.

  “Mass is a measure of inertia,” he said, “and it can only be appreciated in free space . . .” Calmly the classroom in space observed the lavish demonstrations. The schools had followed the tithes . . .

  Hit, Run—And Error!

  Carter T. Wainwright

  THE STORY of the first Moon rocket has been done a thousand times—that’s no exaggeration. The fact that it is the one interplanetary journey we are certain to see within our lifetime, makes it all the more exciting. Consequently every story we read about the almost-real trip is interesting. And the stories get better with time, because they are strictly out of the realm of fantasy now and into the region of hard, cold, engineering fact. The blossoming of. the V-2 and its resultant revival of interest in rocketry, put thousands of fine scientists to the problem. Right now, with the possible exception of fuel, the problem is solved. We know exactly how, when where—all the details—of the first Rocket To The Moon.

  With this enormous fund of scientific information at his fingertips, the author of such a story—and we hope there are plenty—can hardly go wrong as far as the technical data are concerned. In recent years then, most moon-rocket stories have a solid ring of authenticity. You feel as if, well, as if this is it!

  But it is rarely true that a moon-rocket story is not written with at least one error. This may be allowed as part of a writer’s license—but it is disappointing too. And many, many readers catch the slightest error.

  Recently an excellent moon-rocket story appeared. in a national magazine. It was quite authentically written, though from a literary standpoint it was a bit weak. However, scientifically it had “it”.

  There was one jarring error however that, slipped through the editorial blue pencil. And consequently when you finished the story you were left a little annoyed.

  The writer had his moon-rocket equipped with a heating device—which is O.K.—but he also had a refrigerating mechanism installed! That is strictly for the birds! The implication in the story was that a conventional refrigerator pumped the heat to the outside! It simply wouldn’t work, that’s all. The excess heat aboard the rocket would have to leave by radiation. This would call for a network of tubing far above the carrying capabilities of a small two man rocket. Furthermore refrigeration could be accomplished by direct evaporation of gases, a system impossible to. use because of the weight and space limitations again.

  The problem of preventing overheating in a rocket merely involves a shiny outside surface which will reflect, radiant heat—that does it—that’s all. No complicated refrigeration, machine is needed—nor could one be taken.

  This little story error half-spoiled the effect of authenticity which the author wished. Let’s be a little more careful, eh boys?

  The Evil Martians Do . . .

  Charles Recour

  RIX LAMSON’S fingers played a gentle tattoo on the keyboard and the servos responded, automatic valves opening and slithering shut in answer to the electromagnetic commands. The slim, hundred-foot hull of the Explorer 1 slipped unhesitatingly into the perihelion of the ever-decreasing ellipse that was to bring into gently to the Martian surface a thousand miles below.

  Rix breathed a sigh of relief, and leaned back in the bucket seat before the board. He stretched and yawned after the tense tedious work of following the computations. This is it, he thought. He glanced at the chronometer—only seven more hours J And man will land on Mars for the first time!

  Strangely there was less elation than he expected. The tenseness and alertness required for the first interplanetary trip was a far cry from the frequent Moon-runs he had made. Rix found himself almost thinking of this experience as a job—which he knew it was not. Certainly this privelaged attempt couldn’t be called that.

  After-he tired of gazing at the Martian nearness, Rix drifted to the galley and had something to eat. He was not really hungry. The nervous intensity was becoming too strong to permit hunger. He glanced at the radio. It was useless for the moment. The. bulk of the planet lay between the Explorer 1 and Earth’s spheroid. No chance to beam a pulse through, even though for the last month the Lunar station had been tracking him. Oh well, he get a chance to drop another communication before the ship settled its bulk.

  In an elliptical orbit of ever-decreasing minor diameter Rix’s ship approached closer and closer to the Red Planet. The vegetation patches and the canali—clearly shown by the ’scopes on Luna—were just as he expected and no novelty, but through his own scopes he saw patches of surprising area that could indicate only one thing—cities!

  When the rocket was swinging-in its last orbital glance, a mere fifty miles above the surface, Rix half-awaited the greeting of flying ships of some kind, still capable of boting into the thin Martian air. But there was no breath of life stirring to greet him.

  At an ever and rapidly decreasing altitude the rocket came nearer and nearer to the surface and now Rix was skimming low over the land. Twice he saw clearly, the complex and labyrinthine mounds of stone and metal. Mars was—or had been inhabited! That was certain.

  Rix watched till his eyeballs ached seeking to peer into the shells he’d shortly visit. And as he watched a soft rustling caught his ears. He jerked to alertness and then as he understood the alternately waxing and waning sound, a great sadness clutched at him and he realized he would never greet a Martian and that the planet lying beneath his skittering rocket was as dead as Moses. No living or laughing or loving would ever be done here except by Earthmen—for Mars was empty or life and the whispering sound from the outer detectors spelled the cryptic answer.

  Radiation!

  The Geigers rustled
softly each time the rocket skimmed a Martian city, their voices rising in a little symphony of death and then softened into silence when the rocket passed. The Martian cities were radio-active and when Rix read the gauges and touched the computers, he knew that though men would walk through those cities, Martians would not ever again. The residual radiation told the story for there was enough left to be dangerous possibly for humans.

  What must it have been like before?—before time had half-healed the gaping scars of atomic warfare with which the Martians must have ruthlessly wiped themselves out? Would the records show their love of life?

  A tired bitter feeling crept into Rix’s brain and the triumph of the coming landing was as ashes in his mouth. He thought: I’m landing on a gigantic tomb. Why does this have to be? The soul sickness and the sorrow made mockery of Man’s efforts. With ineffable sorrow Rix gingerly set the rocket down and prepared to walk the Martian cemetary, the repository of a billion dreams, studded with the shadow and trace of living handiwork, the great empty cities of malignant horror.

  The Explorer 1 landed on the dead Martian globe . . .

  Guerrilla Traitor!

  June Lurie

  LIEUTENANT DEAN SMITH knew there was a traitor among them. He watched the half a hundred men. the remnant of his two hundred, wearily sprawled in attitudes of sleep or crouched in groups over the small fires taking the chill off the Mexican cave. One of them had betrayed the American guerrilla group last night. Only that could account for the beating they had taken from the Eastern Asians.

  It would have worked so well, Dean thought. In his mind’s eye he’d seen the Asian convoy moving tanks and electric trucks down the road, heading toward Dallas where the American line still stretched northward all the way across the States and Canada, the Rockies serving as a barrier to keep the Asian hordes contained in the western states they’d managed to invade. Then he recalled the murderous fire from behind that had engulfed his own men lining the road. It was a miracle that as many had escaped. Someone had betrayed the band of guerrillas to the Asian counterforces.