Johnny Graphic and the Etheric Bomb

by D. R. Martin

  In the next room a telephone rang. Mr. Cargill heaved himself up off the sofa and went out to answer it. When he came back he was scowling even more darkly than usual.

  “It was Miss Beale, my managing editor,” he said, looking at the two pilots. “The Department of Etheristics has the police out looking for us. They’ve been to Johnny and Mel’s house already. The ghost of some old lady walloped Santangelo pretty good, with a broom. Wish I coulda seen that. Gentlemen, they know your floatplane came in and refueled at South Bay Port.”

  “But they can’t find us, can they?” Johnny asked.

  “I’m afraid they know exactly where we are.”

  “But how could they?” Johnny was appalled.

  “Miss Beale tells me one of our pilots got too talkative.”

  It seemed unlikely that someone with Danny’s dusky complexion could turn pink, then red, but he did. “The dock manager at South Bay Port asked where we were headed,” the flier moaned. “I told him an estate up on the Treport River.”

  “Doesn’t take much to figure out who at the Clarion has a big, fancy cottage on the Treport,” Mr. Cargill observed.

  “So if we stay till dawn,” Johnny said, suddenly more concerned than he’d been all night, “we might not even get to go!”

  Mel drew herself up. “We have to try a night takeoff. The colonel won’t let us down. You have my word.”

  “I’m not sure it’s worth dyin’ for,” Jock drawled.

  Danny looked at his co-pilot, then at Mel and Johnny. “Listen, I’m really sorry about blabbing my mouth back there at South Bay. Really sorry. But if I make the wrong decision… I’m the captain of that Gianelli out there and I’m responsible for all our lives. If you could tell me what this is all about, Mel—why do you have government officials after you? What’s so darned important that you’d risk your necks for it?”

  “I know this may sound insane.” Mel shook her head. “But I think someone, somewhere is trying to create what I call an etheric bomb. If it exists, it would be the most powerful weapon in history—capable of utterly destroying a city the size of Zenith or Neuport. One single bomb!”

  Danny shook his head. “All due respect, Mel, but you’ve gotta be mistaken. How could such a thing even be possible?”

  Mel filled in Danny and Jock on the Gesellschaft murders, then explained her suspicions about the etheric bomb. She said that as far as she knew, the people in this room were all that stood between this horrible weapon and the lives of innocent millions.

  Mel suddenly looked as if she were carrying the weight of the world on her skinny shoulders. “I actually hope, Danny, that I’m wrong. But can we take that chance?”

  Danny looked grimly around at the others. “I don’t like it, not one bit. But I guess we’ve got to give it a try.”

  At that, Mel gave her orders to the colonel. “Survey the river. Quick as you can. We need a mile and a half of clean water.”

  Chapter 20

  Aided by the caretaker and his wife, Mr. Cargill and the adventurers combed the big bluestone cottage and guest cabins, hunting for flashlights. They found seventeen that worked—exactly as many as they needed.

  In less than an hour, the colonel and his troopers had finished surveying the water. Everyone gathered on the dock, the drizzle still coming down, as the colonel reported his findings to Mel and Johnny.

  “We can give your flying machine a mile and a quarter of deep, open water, going downriver,” the ghost said. “There’s a light headwind from the southeast. But your climb brings you out perilously close to some tall trees down where the river bends. Your driver will need to pour on the power. Just follow me. I’ll be right in front of you with a battery-powered torch. Pull you up with my bare hands, if needs be.” The specter laughed his papery laugh and winked.

  Mel told Danny and Jock precisely what the colonel had said.

  “Then you’d better give your etheric friends their flashlights and we’ll be on our way,” Danny said. He and Jock stepped up into the aircraft, and a few seconds later the cabin lights came on. Uncle Louie got busy loading the luggage that Nina and Mr. Cargill were bringing from the chief’s station wagon.

  Mel and Johnny walked along the shore, each with a bag of flashlights, passing them up to the dead horse soldiers, showing each man how the devices worked. Then the troopers trotted off, taking up their positions on the broad Treport River—eight on one side, eight on the other. Holding the seventeenth flashlight in his left hand, the colonel positioned himself and Buck directly in front of the Gianelli Z-509.

  Jock’s head popped out of the aeroboat’s door. “Come on board, y’all,” he shouted. “We’ll be ready to go in a few minutes.”

  Johnny turned to his boss and stuck out a hand. Mr. Cargill took it and pumped it. “Remember, John, that you, your sister and your uncle all have letters of credit,” the chief said. “Good for cash money at any bank. Any World Press Association office will help—”

  “Automobiles comin’, Mr. Cargill!”

  They turned around to see the caretaker pointing back toward the woods. Three pairs of headlights were snaking down from the highway through pines and poplars. The police!

  “Lucky I locked the driveway gate when we arrived,” Mr. Cargill chuckled. “Time for you folks to hotfoot it, I think.” He clapped Johnny on the shoulder. “Good shooting, John, old man.”

  Johnny made a crisp salute from the brim of his fedora. He couldn’t have felt more pride…or responsibility. He could sense the weight of it. Well, this was what he’d always wanted. “We won’t let you down, Mr. Cargill,” he said with a determined nod.

  “Now I’d better go greet our visitors,” the chief said. “But I think I’ll walk kind of slowly.” He turned on his heel and began ambling up the long driveway, his hands in his pockets.

  Johnny almost managed to climb the aeroboat boarding ladder in a single bound, scampering over the last step right on Nina’s heels. As soon as Mel started up the ladder she shouted, “We have company, Danny. Time to go.”

  “Louie, untie the lines,” Danny hollered out of his cockpit window.

  The old aeroboat jockey quickly undid the ropes securing the port-side pontoon. He was inside the aeroboat and sealing the pressurized door in under forty seconds.

  The nose engine roared to life. Then the port. Finally the starboard propeller started turning. The streamlined seaplane slowly eased away from the dock and out onto the water, the rain drizzling down. It made a slow 180-degree turn—heading northwest, upriver against the current.

  * * *

  The flight deck was dim and far more cramped than on the Night Goose. But it was sure exciting being up here with Danny and Jock. In fact, Johnny had never seen a takeoff from this angle.

  He and Mel hunched over behind the two pilots. All they had to do was stay upright and not get knocked over. They were supposed to be seated in back with Nina and Uncle Louie, but Danny wanted them to keep their eyes on the colonel—in case he made an important signal that the pilots couldn’t see.

  The two siblings stared straight out through the windshield, which the wipers swiped clean of rain every few seconds. Just beyond the blur of the nose prop, the colonel and Buck trotted along easily, as if they were on a Sunday ride in the park.

  Danny steered the streamlined floatplane through another broad U-turn and aimed it downriver. Ahead, two rows of flashlights, bobbing gently, flickered down the broad center of the river. The farthest lights looked fainter through the rain. In a voice that Johnny could barely hear above the din Danny said, “Okay, people, let’s go.”

  The three radial engines roared like a tornado. The Z-509 surged downriver, past the first pair of lights. The nose came up and the water spray almost disappeared.

  The colonel charged along just ahead of the central propeller, clearly visible to Johnny. As the third and fourth troopers flashed by, Johnny caught a brief glimpse of automobile headlights pulling up to the dock.

  All of a sudden, the vib
ration of the pontoons on the river fell off to almost nothing and the aircraft’s nose came down. The seaplane was skimming along on top of the water. More pairs of lights zipped by in quick succession.

  “Here we go everyone,” Danny shouted, easing the yoke back. The Gianelli bulled its way off the water.

  “The colonel’s pointing up,” Johnny yelled. “We’ve got to climb!”

  Danny responded. The nose tilted higher. The aeroboat zoomed by the last two flashlights. Rain still pounded the windshield.

  Johnny saw the colonel tip Buck up almost onto his hindquarters, as if to charge up a precipitous hill.

  “Steeper yet!” Mel screamed.

  “He sees something!” hollered Johnny.

  Danny jammed the throttles forward, drew the yoke back as far as he could, and yelled, “Don’t stall, old girl!”

  A murky wall of firs and pines suddenly emerged through the drizzle, branches dancing in the aeroboat’s headlamps. The forest rushed at them, columns of ancient green.

  A loud WHUMP-THUD erupted beneath them, as brief as a heartbeat. The sickening percussion shuddered through the whole airframe—as if some giant had rung it like a gong.

  The Z-509 wobbled but kept climbing.

  Without warning the steep tilt of the deck sent Mel staggering. She stumbled back and fell past Johnny onto the cabin floor. He managed to deflect her a bit, so she only knocked her head a glancing blow against the navigator’s seat.

  “Mel, what’s the colonel doing?” Danny shouted. “Mel? Johnny?”

  “Mel’s down, Danny!” yelled Johnny, scrambling to get to his sister. “Knocked out!”

  Chapter 21

  Monday, October 21, 1935

  Airborne Northwest of Zenith

  “Miz Graphic! Miz Graphic! You okay?”

  Jock squatted down as Johnny cradled Mel’s head in his lap. The co-pilot gently slapped the young woman’s cheeks. Johnny was worried sick. He’d never seen his sister look so queasy and pale.

  Then he realized the aeroboat wasn’t climbing so steeply. It seemed as if they were out of the woods. Literally and figuratively. They hadn’t crashed. There were no more loud thumps, so that was good.

  With any luck, the treetops had not smashed their pontoons. It was the middle of the night and they had no way to see any damage from their perches in the cockpit. They’d only know they were okay for sure when they set this bird down. Or if Johnny could alert the colonel and have him make a mid-air inspection.

  First things first, though, thought Johnny. Get Mel upright.

  “Come on, girlie,” Jock said. “I ain’t never had a passenger croak on me and I ain’t about to start now. Thought you were a tough ol’ gal, from what Danny told me.”

  “Come on, Mel,” said Johnny. “You’re okay. Wake up now.

  In the dim amber cockpit light Johnny saw Mel’s eyelids flutter and open. She muttered a few words, but he couldn’t make them out. The engine noise was still too loud. It took Mel’s eyes a few seconds to focus, but she clearly recognized him.

  “Hi, Johnny,” she mumbled as he leaned in closely. “I seem to have misstepped somehow. And I’m not an ‘old gal.’”

  Jock grinned. “You took a tumble, that’s for sure.”

  “So we made it up off the river?” Mel asked.

  “You betcha, Mel,” said Johnny, quite relieved. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t be yakking, now would we?”

  Mel’s eyelids fluttered a bit more. “I think I’d like to rest for a while, if you don’t mind.”

  “Just let me look at your eyes,” Johnny said. He knew from adventure books that the eyes could tell you if someone had a concussion. He examined Mel’s and they looked fine—the pupils were not too large and were both the same size.

  “Do you feel dizzy or confused? Have a headache?” he asked.

  Mel shook her head.

  “Ringin’ in the ears? Nausea?” chimed in Jock.

  Mel said no.

  “Then let’s get you back to your seat,” Jock said, as he hoisted her up.

  After they buckled Mel in, Johnny and Uncle Louie settled back in their seats—pillows behind their heads and blankets across their laps. But Johnny had a hard time falling asleep, unlike Uncle Louie. He tried and tried, and just couldn’t. He was quite wide-awake when the ranks of snow-capped mountaintops began passing by the floatplane, a bit after dawn. The view from twenty thousand feet was absolutely spectacular.

  Mel woke up about that time and seemed to be perfectly fine, except for a little headache and a cranky mood. She took charge of distributing orange juice, coffee, and sandwiches—which tasted surprisingly good, especially for food wrapped in cellophane.

  The Gianelli tri-motor arrived safely at the dock at Zephyr Lines’ Silver City base later that afternoon. Everyone piled out to look for any damage done by the tall pine trees of the Treport River.

  Just as the colonel had reported to Johnny while they were still airborne, there were scratches and dents on the pontoons, and bits of greenery stuck in seams and joints and corners of trusses. That’s when they realized how close they had come to disaster. A takeoff climb only a few feet lower would have ended in a cartwheeling maelstrom of crushed metal and flame.

  “The colonel saved our bacon,” Johnny pointed out. “If he hadn’t shown us where to go, we’d all be dead.”

  “I promise,” Danny proclaimed after his inspection of the Gianelli, “that I will never ever take an aeroboat up in the middle of the night on an uncharted river! Ever! Again!”

  “But you did it, you and Jock,” Mel said, grabbing and waggling Danny’s forearm. “You’re the best pilots in the whole world!”

  * * *

  Johnny was agog at the huge Zephyr Lines base on Silver City Bay. There were scores of flying boats in wet docks and dry docks. They had flown all over the world, these aircraft. To destinations westward, such as the Orchid Isles, Majuro, Port Marlowe, Tor Chan. Back east across the fractured continent that had once been a country called the Free States—back before the First Border War. Beyond Freedonia’s great metropolis of Neuport, Zephyr Lines aeroboats flew east across the Lesser Ocean, to the Royal Kingdom, La Belle Republique, and points beyond. Johnny wanted to visit every single one of those places. And the way he figured it, his Zoom 4x5 press camera would take him there.

  Uncle Louie, Nina, and the Graphics said goodbye to Danny and Jock, and took a taxicab into the city, through the gathering dusk and heavy rush hour traffic. Some kind of a blockage up ahead stopped them for a time in the middle of the three-mile-long Silver Gate Bridge. It gave Johnny a chance to view the city’s magnificent skyline. Silver City was the capital of the Coastal Federation, so Johnny wasn’t surprised that the downtown had even taller skyscrapers than Zenith—and lots more of them.

  The weary travelers checked into the Paragon Hotel and had a quick supper in the cafe in the lobby. From their tenth-floor suite they could look out at the night vista of nearby Jadetown—where Mongke Eng had died. It was a little universe of colorful, flashing neon and ornate, exotic architecture. Somewhere out there were Monkge Eng’s daughters. And Johnny and Mel had to get an interview with at least one of them.

  Mel and Nina went to bed at eight-thirty. Johnny hit the sack about nine, figuring that he would conk out immediately. But here he was, in this incredibly comfortable hotel bed, with his head spinning, his mind racing. There was just too much to think about, too much to worry about.

  A while later he heard Uncle Louie answer a rap on the hotel room door. There was a muffled exchange of words. Johnny had no idea what it was about, but it didn’t matter for now. His brain and his body suddenly decided: enough of this nonsense, off to sleep with you.

  Chapter 22

  Tuesday, October 22, 1935

  Silver City

  Johnny put on his suit and hat, then his socks and shoes. He tiptoed through the sitting room and was about to sneak out the hotel room door, camera pack slung over his shoulder. Someone cleared her throat be
hind him.

  He spun around. There stood Nina, dressed in her travel clothes, grinning and looking very pleased with herself. He was tempted to groan, but he knew that would be a bad idea. Nina did not like being groaned at.

  Johnny started to say something, but Nina put an index finger up to her lips and pointed at Uncle Louie, snoring away on the sofa. She came over and nudged Johnny out the door. She gently closed it behind them.

  “I was just going to shoot some local color,” Johnny sputtered in the hallway. “You don’t have to come.”

  “You’re always going off now and having adventures by yourself, Johnny,” said Nina, hands on hips. “Every once in a while you ought to share them with your friends! I mean, I’m practically your cousin. Anyway, if you leave without me, I’ll go back in there and wake up Mel and Louie.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  “I would.”

  Johnny opened his mouth, intending to say a few choice words, but thought the better of it. “Well, okay, Sparks,” he yielded. “Come on.”

  “Let me leave them a note,” said Nina, slipping back into the suite.

  It was still dark outside. They walked through a public park across from the hotel and came upon Silver City’s grand MacDougall Fountain, lights still burning, with its statue of President MacDougall. He had been a tall, thin man with a haggard face and a beard. Cast in bronze, he was standing, looking somberly down, his hands clasped in front of him, the very picture of despair. Chiseled in the granite beneath his lanky figure were the words:

  Back in school, Johnny had read about the capture of President MacDougall and the Free States’ capital by forces of the Old Dominion during the First Border War. This event led to a peace treaty and, ultimately, the division of the Free States into four countries. The triumphant Old Dominion. The Plains Republic, where Johnny and Nina lived. The Coastal Federation. And a remnant of the Free States that survived in the northeast, now called Freedonia—of which Neuport was the capital.

  Johnny and Nina emerged out of the park onto a broad avenue that bordered Jadetown. Streetlamps threw down little puddles of light, illuminating a few ghosts who were standing around—bored, listless, depressed. Johnny said “Hi” to some of them, which prompted the specters to tag along behind the two kids.