The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  Ray leaped across the room with an outstretched arm, caught a switch, jammed it closed. A glimpse into the swirling spiral told him that there had been not a second to spare. As the full scare of what had nearly happened came over him, he slumped to a chair weakly.

  Vivian’s frightened face was at his shoulder. “You—you saved her?” she sobbed.

  Ray nodded. “She is safe at one of our stations—” He glanced at the switches. “Space Ship Center.”

  The girl cried with tearful joy, “Oh, Ray, I knew you wouldn’t let her do it.”

  “But how did you know what she was planning?”

  Her head turned away and he realized that his question required no answer. Obviously both girls had had the same plan for making the supreme sacrifice when he had intercepted one with his order for the designs.

  Dwight entered briskly and addressed Vivian in a courteous manner, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Lattimer, but I failed to find your coat.” He suddenly stiffened in surprise. “Where’s the emergency operator? Has he been officially dismissed, Mr. Lattimer?”

  “Yes,” Ray lied. “I took over, but I’m turning it back to you now. Please deliver Mrs. Lattimer to Buchanan’s at once. Then I’ll have another order for you—a very special one—concerning myself.” There was strong decision in Ray’s tone that made faithful employees like Dwight ready to obey, and devoted wives like Vivian ready to trust.

  Five minutes later a television conversation between Buchanan’s and Space Ship Center assured all parties involved that Ray Lattimer’s plan was off to a successful start.

  Both Vivians were shocked to hear what Ray had seen—Blougan inadvertently stumbling into a death trap; both were rejoicing that they had not taken that exit from happiness.

  Several of the guests at Professor Buchanan’s party enjoyed looking through the designs of radio transit which President Lattimer laid before them, while his wife looked on radiantly; while in a space ship rocketing toward Venus, another Ray and Vivian lolled in their compartment, chatting over what fun it would be to find places for themselves on a new planet.

  [*] This process of “duplicating” is made possible through a strange paradox, which at first glance seems impossible, since the laws of matter and energy preclude the possibility of producing matter from nothing. However, this is not the case in the radio transmitter used by Radio Transit. Objects to be sent by radio are resolved into energy and transmitted as such, in a definite energy pattern, recreated into matter by the receiver. However, this entails a loss of energy by widespread broadcast, and a subsequent necessary addition of energy at the receiver, from generators for that purpose. Exactly enough energy is sapped from the storage cells by the energy pattern received by the receiver, and reconstruction is duplicated to the last molecule exactly as broadcast. Thus, with a duplication of receivers, acting on the same energy pattern, it is possible to create more than one object, exactly identical.

  WHEN THE MOON DIED

  First published in Amazing Stories, September 1939

  Earth’s day of reckoning was near; the Moon was breaking up. Ray Lattimer had eight months to finish the space radio before disaster came . . . then greed interfered.

  CHAPTER I

  The Moon Is Coming!

  True to the predictions of astronomers, a stray comet swept past the earth. It slipped by safely but left seeds of disaster in its wake: it drew the moon out of its course. That satellite accelerated earthward. It spiralled into the earth’s danger zone seeking a new orbit. Calamities followed.

  Great tides, hundreds of feet high, rolled over the seaboards and washed cities into the ocean. People fled to the mountain tops. The earth groaned, storms thrashed, the seas went mad. The land was bombarded with deadly meteors as the moon’s icy mountain peaks cracked and hurtled into space.

  Days were blackened and nights were filled with ghostly white light as the huge moon circled close. That menacing satellite covered one fifteenth of the visible sky as its bulging form hovered over the earth. Old Luna and her mother planet were headed for a crack-up.

  How soon? Months—years—centuries? Terror stricken Man huddled close to Mother earth and waited.

  Life went on. The hail of meteorites slackened a little. The giant tides found a new rhythm. Shrunken continents assumed new coast lines. Man crept forth and began to repair his civilization.

  He redrew his maps of the continents, he burrowed deeper into the earth, he, built protections against the surging seas and the raining meteorites, and—out of his human weakness, optimism—he gambled heavily upon the safety of his flimsy devices. But his days on this earth were numbered.

  Scientists swarmed the observatories to watch and calculate and predict. Their reports were never hopeful. It was common knowledge that each day the menacing egg-shaped monster drew closer. Each day it bulged more dangerously. Soon it would crack and send great fragments crashing to earth; and when it did so, no living thing would stand the heat of that concussion.

  Space ships did a land-office business. Hordes of people migrated to Mars as their ancestors had migrated to America a thousand years before. Everyone who could afford it applied for reservations. Interplanetary Lines could not expand its facilities fast enough.

  The space pilots and hostesses were badly overworked. They frequently snapped under the strain. They were fighting time with the fever of rescue workers who know the dam must soon burst.

  More Space Pilots Wanted!

  Advertisements blazed from the walls of the underground streets A new call was issued on the day that Lane Carruth reached the age limit. He registered eagerly and presented his qualifications. The official was impressed.

  “So you trained under Ray Lattimer?” he said, eyeing the boy.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There’s no question but what we’ll use you. Come back in the morning.”

  Lane rushed to the underground station and caught a train for Rocky Mountain Observatory where the International Conclave of Scientists was convening. He must find his sister and Ray Lattimer and tell them the news.

  Vivian Carruth and Ray Lattimer sat on a vast glass roofed porch, one of the most popular lobbies at Rocky Mountain Observatory. The evening sun flashed among the mountain peaks. On the eastern horizon the wide brim of the moon appeared like a bloody knife edge slowly lifting.

  More than the moon, however, the faces of the scientists engrossed the attention of the couple, as the endless line moved down the escalator from the tower of telescopes. Anxious faces, tense lips, nervous eyes.

  The young couple sat in silence. There was no use commenting on what they saw. They had watched the fears of these men grow from year to year as they attended the annual Conclave.

  But no amount of fear or worry could help, Vivian told herself. She was already doing everything she could. She was a space hostess for the Interplanetary Lines. That was how she had met this keen-eyed engineer at her side. He was not only a pilot—he was something of a genius. He had charted routes and contributed inventions to space navigation, had trained scores of pilots, had dared to help with the surveys of the moon, and now—

  Vivian’s thoughts broke. What was Ray Lattimer’s new work? He had never told her. She had seen him so little. This was her first day off in months. Why had he been so anxious for her to attend this Conclave with him?

  Vivian’s eyes widened in surprise. Lane was coming through the crowd toward her.

  “If it isn’t my long lost brother! What in the world are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you two,” said the gleaming-eyed youth. “I’ve come all the way from Interplanetary headquarters to spring the big news.”

  Ray Lattimer read the boy’s face. “You’ve signed up.”

  “Righto. I report tomorrow morning.” Lane’s exuberance faded as he looked into Lattimer’s cool eyes. The trainer of pilots could express volumes of disapproval without speaking a word. “What’s wrong?” Lane asked.

  “Sit down with us,” said Ray. “Wha
t does your sister think of all this?” Vivian did not understand Ray’s misgivings.

  “It’s exactly what I expected. With all the training and experience you’ve given Lane he ought to be an A-l pilot.”

  “He will be,” said Lattimer, “but signing up for Damon D. Sheebler and his Interplanetary Lines—at a time like this—” he paused thoughtfully.

  “I don’t get it,” said Lane.

  “Take a look at those tell-tale faces coming down the escalators,” said Ray. “Tomorrow their dire prophecies will scream from the headlines and over the radios, and thousands of new applications will pour in to Sheebler for quick voyages to Mars.”

  “Well, that’s why he needs more new pilots—”

  “And more old ships,” Lattimer cut in.

  “Old ships?”

  “Let me tell you something,” said the veteran pilot.

  The three heads gathered in close. “Damon D. Sheebler’s great monopoly is coining money hand over fist. I’ve no objection to that. If he could build ships and train pilots fifty times faster he still couldn’t take in the money as fast as his customers are waving it at him. But—if he wants to be unscrupulous, there’s nothing to prevent him from dragging out his worn-out ships and putting them into use—”

  “Ray!” Vivian protested, “you surely don’t suspect Damon D. Sheebler, the president of the greatest space line in the world—”

  “I’ve suspected him for a long time,” said Lattimer, “and my little encounter with him a month ago didn’t improve my opinion.”

  “You talked with him?” Lane’s youthful face glowed as if he had suddenly come into the shadow of greatness. To him there had been no greater name than that of Damon D. Sheebler.

  “He sent for me to come and make technical examinations of all his ships. He paid me big money—in advance. I found a few that could be put back into service, but I condemned all twenty of the KPB series. They’re only two years old but they’re about as safe as starting to Mars on a firecracker. I told him to junk them. It made him angry. He faked a report and tried to force me to sign it.”

  “Not really,” Vivian gasped. “What’d you do?” asked Lane with one eyebrow up.

  “Started to walk out on him. He blocked the door and used some language I’m not used to. I lost my temper and smacked him, and—well, that’s how we parted.”

  “Gee!” Lane’s mouth spread in astonishment. “And to think you used to be his crack pilot—and his trainer—and his technical adviser—and you popped him! Gosh!”

  Vivian was silent. She was no doubt disturbed by this startling news, but her eyes showed a glint of admiration for Ray’s rash behavior.

  “So let me warn you, Lane,” the engineer narrowed an eye at the boy, “if Sheebler puts any KPB ships back into service—be sure you keep out of them.”

  “Of course.” Lane sat thoughtfully for a few minutes, then rose to go. “Just think, I’ll soon be taking off for Mars—maybe tomorrow—in a ship of my own! I’ll see you at the American Headquarters at the other end, Sis.”

  “Don’t forget what Ray has told you,” Vivian warned.

  “KPB. I won’t forget.”

  “One more hint,” said Ray. “Sheebler might be snake enough to resurface those old boats so you’d never know them. Check up on details. The KPB series had octagonal windows built into the framework in the rear, you know. That design has been obsolete for two years.”

  “Okay. See you on Mars.”

  Neither Vivian nor Ray voiced the concern they felt over the high spirited lad, after he had boarded the train back to Interplanetary Headquarters. His glowing ambition to be sole commander of a space ship had not faded through his training period. He was quick, efficient, and willing—even eager—to take a chance. Sheebler’s game would lure hundreds of his kind, thought Ray Lattimer.

  Vivian and Ray sauntered back to a secluded window. The sky monster, still creeping up from the black mountainous horizon, cast its baleful light upon their faces. Even though panes of invisible glass separated them from the out-of-doors, the lazy white giant seemed close enough to touch. It consumed hours in rising. To Ray and Vivian that was the natural thing; though some of the old people loved to tell how swiftly it used to skim across the heavens in the times before the month had been so calamitously shortened.

  Vivian broke the silence. “If the end should come soon—I know it’s criminal of Sheebler to take a chance with condemned ships, but thousands are going to be left here to perish anyway. Even a rickety space ship gives them some chance. After all, there’s nothing else.”

  Ray was slow to respond. “There might be,” he said bluntly.

  The pretty girl’s lips parted in surprise. She wanted to ask, “But what else could there be? How can anyone hope to escape this doomed planet except in space ships?” But she waited in silence. Evidently there was something revolving in his mind that he wasn’t ready to express. Instead he took her in his arms and kissed her.

  “Come,” he said. “It’s time for the opening address of the Conclave. Let’s find some comfortable seats in the balcony. Good chance for you to catch up on your sleep.”

  CHAPTER II

  Conference of Scientists

  The most conspicuous thing before the assembled scientists was the moon. The huge television screen at the front of the auditorium revealed it in full color, framed in corners of black sky. Speakers often pointed out significant marks upon the satellite as they set forth their theories. At last the chairman introduced a slender, white-haired inventor who took the stage with impressive dignity. Lattimer grew tense.

  “Here comes the bombshell,” he whispered to the girl at his side.

  “Professor Buchanan? I remember him. His speech always begins the same way. ‘I assure you the moon will not strike this year.’ ”

  Ray nodded. Vivian continued. “But I’ve heard he is a crackpot who wastes his time on impossible inventions. Surely you don’t take any stock in his notions, do you, Ray?”

  The young engineer did not answer, for the white haired man began to speak. There was strength and confidence in his voice, but his words spelled doom.

  “Fellow scientists, I assure you that the moon will strike within a year. In fact, the end will come in two hundred and forty days!”

  A tremendous confusion ensued throughout the assembly. It was minutes before the professor could continue. He turned to the living chart behind him and indicated with a pointer the places where fissures would soon appear. Then he plunged into a bewildering series of mathematical arguments. Ray sat on the edge of his seat.

  Vivian was lost. Her mind wandered. She saw the great Damon D. Sheebler sitting in the speaker’s row, and she knew why he was there. Each year the Conclave recommended expenditures to the governments of the world for the benefit of humanity, and they never failed to reward their most generous sum to Sheebler’s great interplanetary space-ship monopoly.

  Ray clutched her hand. “Now it’s coming.”

  “You have heard my theory,” the white-haired professor was saying. “In a moment I shall invite your questions. But there is one thing more I must say. The only hope for the millions of people on this planet is to migrate immediately. The past decades have proved that space ships will save only a small fraction of the population. The few who can afford the costly passage. Already our colonies on Mars are crying for laborers—but how many laborers have answered the call? Precious few. They can’t afford it. Our governments have repeatedly refused to buy transportation for anyone because they think it is a lost cause.”

  “It is a lost cause!” came a voice from the audience.

  “It is not a lost cause!” the speaker pronounced in a powerful voice. “If the governments will grant their appropriations to me at once I shall transport people to Mars by the millions—” He was interrupted by a chorus of laughter and boos led by Sheebler. He cried on: “Within five months I shall be ready with the most gigantic machine ever invented—”

  Another
volley of boos.

  “If you will only back me with public money . . .” Boo! Boo! “. . . transport the entire population free of charge!” Boo! Crackpot! Boo! Silence! S-s-sh! “The foundation of this great machine has already been laid near an unlimited fuel supply. All we need is money, labor, cooperation. The invention has already been proved!”

  This time, the boos were drowned in a clamor for silence. The chairman commanded order. The professor spoke on in a fiery manner.

  “Let me remind you that there are three thousand of us here in this Conclave. Everyone of us expects to get away to Mars in time to save his own neck. Most of us have already made reservations. But let me tell you, with the cataclysm only eight months off, we’ll be fighting among ourselves for places.”

  There was a piercing silence.

  “And how many more times will the price of the passage be raised in the next two hundred and forty days?”

  The stocky, black haired Sheebler bounced to his feet. “I protest!” he cried.

  The white-haired professor nodded with dignity to the angry space-ship magnate. “Mr. Sheebler protests. That is natural. If my invention is given a chance he will cease to reap the fat income with which he plans to become the financial czar of our new civilization on Mars.”

  “Why, you—” the enraged Sheebler was restrained by those near him.

  “Mr. Sheebler will of course deny this. I wonder if he will deny that he is putting twenty outworn space ships back into service even though they were condemned.”

  A rumble of protests. Vivian looked at Ray. “How did he know that?”

  “I told him,” said Ray.

  “You—?”

  The chairman brought the house to order, and asked the speaker to confine his remarks to his subject.

  “Then let me conclude by saying that even if you are content to rely completely upon space ships, you should remember that under the present monopolistic arrangement all of your eggs are in one basket. A single meteorite could crush that basket. I anticipate a renewed menace of deadly meteorites this very week from the moon’s outer shell. That is all. I am ready for your questions.”