Avon Science Fiction Reader 2
Page 20
And at the word arrangements, applied to geometry, Rowston snorted audibly.
“It had one of the sides produced,” Jorkens went on, “to a distance about equal to its original length, while the other side was produced to about four times its length, stretching North to South across the plains of Mars. How they made such an enormous design in a week puzzled everybody who knew of it. Another thing that puzzled them was that there seemed no exact proportion in length of the lines produced.”
“You say that the length of one of the sides was doubled and the other quadrupled,” said Rowston judicially.
“Yes,” said Jorkens, “but not exactly. The right-angled triangle was exact, but not the proportion of the produced sides. That inexactitude, as it seemed to these men, puzzled them. They realized that the sign must have enormous significance, and that it had been made by a people of vast ability, as the speed with which they had answered clearly showed, and yet they. could find no mathematical formula for one exact length of the lines. Of course they were mostly mathematical men themselves, and expected the people of Mars to be the same, which was only reasonable when they saw those people using a mathematical diagram.
“They worried over it for weeks, a little group of men working out geometric formulae, knowing that they had received a message from folk who relied on them to understand it, and yet not being able to make head or tail of the message. And in the end it turned out to be an extremely simple one. Perhaps they overestimated the intricacy of the diagram, and were looking for something deeper than the message they actually got. One man worked it out, or rather it came, to him in a flash, an old fellow called Priteau. It was a great shock to him: it was a great shock to them all. And in the end they hushed the whole matter up. What Priteau hoped, and what they all hoped, was that the people of Mars have no hatred of us but only of our civilization, the civilization that is based so much on machinery, which in its turn owes all to mathematics; they believed that Mars had been through it all and had cast it away in disgust. And it is Priteau’s theory that the sight of a geometrical figure had infuriated them, so that they had hastily sent that message.”
“But what was the message?” asked Rowston. Which was what we all wanted to know.
“Well,” said Jorkens, “they all say now that that wasn’t the message at all; but it obviously was, or they wouldn’t have taken the trouble they did to hush it up; and, besides that, you can see it for yourselves by drawing figure on paper: it is very easily done, a long straight line, as I told you, going from North to South, and a shorter line at the top going away at right angles, and then—”
“Like a signpost,” said an ordinary member with no taste for science. “Wait a minute,” said Jorkens. “You’ve forgotten the base of the triangle. Signposts don’t usually have cross-bars.”
“Why no,” said another of us. “More like a gallows, you mean.”
“The message,” said Jorkens, “simply meant ‘Go and hang yourselves.’”
The End
The Thrill of “Something Different”
FANTASY AND SCIENCE-FICTION
Selected from Avon’s hundreds of better-selling books
AN EARTH MAN ON VENUS……………Ralph Milne Farley
Suddenly hurled to the sun’s second world, a young Bostonian fights to save a kewpie-doll race from a monstrous tyranny.
INTO PLUTONIAN DEPTHS…………….Stanton A. Coblentz
Love is a crime on that far-off world … as two daring explorers discover when they incur the wrath of Pluto’s Third Sex!
THE GREEN GIRL………………………..Jack Williamson
When the sun vanished, a young scientist’s dream girl becomes the key to the world’s fight for existence!
PRINCESS OF THE ATOM…………………..Ray Cummings
Giants invade America, and a beautiful girl comes from a meteor world to warn her friends of the coming of an atomic tyrant.
CREEP, SHADOW, CREEP!……………………….A. Merritt
A drowned city’s ancient magic and a modern gangster’s harsh plans combine to make a world-shaking threat.
GLADIATOR…………………. Philip Wylie
A powerful tale of a superman’s struggle for world mastery.
THE SHIP OF ISHTAR……………………………A. Merritt
Trapped by a magic statuette, an American explorer finds himself the slave of a witch-goddess’ priestess.
SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN…………………..A. Merritt
The exciting adventures of a man kidnapped in the heart of New York by the world’s most satanic criminal!
THE FOX WOMAN……………………………..A. Merritt
The complete novelettes and short stories of this great fantasy author, including The Women of the Wood, The White Road, etc.
THE METAL MONSTER…………………………..A. Merritt
The masterpiece of fantasy about the witch-woman who ruled a lost land of living metal beings.
At your local newsdealer—25c per copy. Or you can order direct from Avon
Book Sales Corp., 575 Madison Ave., New York 22, N. Y., at 5c extra per copy
to cover cost of wrapping and forwarding.
(SFP2)
PARTIAL LIST OF BEST-SELLING TITLES
231 John O’Hara………….Butterfield 8
232 D. H. Clarke…………….Alabam’
233 Robin Maugham………The Servant
234 Tiffany Thayer………The Old Goat
133 Meyers…….Naughty 90’s Joke Book
139 W. S. Maugham…..Liza ot Lambeth
167 Emile Zola…………….Piping Hot
168 Maxwell Bodenheim…. Virtuous Girl
169 Irving Shulman… .The Amboy Dukes
174 James M. Cain……..Sinful Woman
178 Paul Cain………………Fast One
179 Edgar Lustgarten…..Blondie Iscariot
180 Guy Gilpatrick…………French Summer
183 David Dortort……Burial of the Fruit
185 Nelson Algren.. Never Come Morning
186 William L. Stuart……….Night Cry
187 Vina Delmar…………..Love Trap
188 Maugham……Fools and Their Folly
191 M. Bodenheim.. .Replenishing Jessica
192 K. Brush… Young Man of Manhattan
193 Donald H. Clarke----Impatient Virgin
200 Gould..Your Most Intimate Problems
203 W. Somerset Maugham……Quartet
205 Howard Fast……The Last Frontier
207 Nathan Rothman…..Virgie Goodbye
208 Du Soe……The Devil Thumbs a Ride
212 W. R. Burnett……………Iron Man
213 Donald Henderson Clarke…….Nina
214 A. Merritt … The Fox Woman and Other Stories
216 Philip Wylie……………Gladiator
220 W. Irish…….I Married a Dead Man
221 Ludwig Lewisohn………..Don Juan
222 Nelson Algren……Neon Wilderness
224 Dryer……………….Port Alrique
225 J. L. Stephenson……..Anyone Can Have a Great Vocabulary
226 Jerome Weidman …..I Can Get It tor You Wholesale!
235 Merritt…..Seven Footprints to Satan
236 Emile Zola……..Venus of the Counting House
237 Donald Henderson Clarke----Tawny
238 D. H. Lawrence………..The First Lady Chatterley
239 K. Brush……..Bad Girl from Maine
240 Colder Willingham…..End as a Man
241 Weidman…….Whafs In It tor Me?
242 Lockridge………….Untidy Murder
243 Paxil………Mysterious Mickey Finn
244 Shulman……………..Cry Tough!
245 Agatha Christie………The Big Four
246 Hoxisman………..A Shropshire Lad
247 Aswell………….Midsummer Fires
249 V. Davies.. .It Happens Every Spring
250 Robert Briffau
lt…………..Carlotta
252 J. T. Farrell……A Hell of a Good Time
253 Donald H. Clarke……..Confidential
254 Helen T. Miller………..Flame Vine
255 Anthology……….Tropical Passions
256 Rex Stout…………..Black Orchids
257 Pierre Louys……………Aphrodite
258 John O’Hara……….Hope of Heaven
259 Anthology…….For a Night of Love
260 James Farrell…….Yesterday’s Love
263 Herbert Asbury………….The Gangs of New York
264 F. Nebel……….Six Deadly Dames
265 Vicki Baum………Mortgage on Life
266 Ward Greene…. Death in the Deep South
267 N. Nye……A Bullet for Billy the Kid
268 Paul Cain…………Seven Slayers
269 I. S. Young………Jadie Greenway
270 Donald H. Clarke………The Chastity of Gloria Boyd
271 Emile Zola……….Nana’s Mother
272 Robert Briffault……………Europa
273 Elmer Rice………….Imperial City
274 Treat…………….T as in Trapped
275 Theodore Pratt………My Bride of the Storm
278 R. Terrall……. A Killer Is Loose Among us
280 J. Woodford……….Dangerous Love
281 S. Coblents… . Into Plutonian Depths
284 Robert Terrall……..Madam Is Dead
285 R. M. Farley……An Earthman on Venus
286 Vina Delmar…………Kept Woman
288 Guy Emery……….Front for Murder
289 Lawrence Lariar____Friday tor Death
290 Farrell………..Gas-House McGinty
291 Thayer…………..Call Her Savage
292 Willard Wiener……..Four Boys, a Girl and a Gun
293 John O’Hara……………..Hellbox
295 Avon Book of Puzzles tor Everybody
296 Lawrence………..A Modern Lover
297 Woodford………..Untamed Darling
298 Swados……………House of Fury
299 O. J. Friend………..The Round-Up
302 Francis Carco………….Perversity
303 Sylvester……………Dream Street
306 J. W. Thomason. Jr…..Gone to Texas
307 Anthology…….Big League Baseball
310 Charles Louis-Philippe…………..Bubu of Montparnasse
312 Agatha Christie…….The Mysterious Affair at Styles
313 Feuchtwanger…..The Ugly Duchess
314 Carl Van Vechten…. Nigger Heaven
315 A. Merritt………The Metal Monster
316 Christie……..Murder in Three Acts
320 Dwight V. Babcock……..Gorgeous Ghoul Murder Case
321 Charteris……The Saint in New York
329 W. R. Burnett……….Little Caesar
330 James Horan……….Desperate Men
331 W. Somerset Maugham……….Trio
332 Babcock……..Homicide for Hannah
341 Charteris…..The Saint Sees It Through
343 MacDonald……….Six Gun Melody
344 Earl D. Biggers……The Chinese Parrot
345 Allen….I Lost My Girlish Laughter
346 Nichols…………..Possess Me Not
347 Charteris…………..Thieves Picnic
349 Cheyney………….Mistress Murder
AFN 1 R. Cummings…….Princess of the Atom
AFN 2 Williamson……..The Green Girl
E 103 Millard S. Everett …………..Hygiene of Marriage
MANY MORE IN PREPARATION
On sale at your newsdealer or direct from Avon Book Sales Corp., 575 Madison Ave.,
New York 22, N. Y. Enclose 25c per title plus 5c each for wrapping and forwarding.